Vernonia's voice., February 16, 2017, Image 1

February16 2017
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VERNONIA’S
volume11 issue4
www.vernoniasvoice.com
reflecting the spirit of our community
Vernonia Robotics Programs The Ku Klux Klan and My
Take Up the Challenge Again Grandmother’s House in Vernonia
Vernonia’s two FIRST pro-
grams are designing, building
and competing with robots,
while earning valuable tech-
nical and social skills
FIRST programs are designed
to, “inspire innovation... and foster
self-confi dence, communication, and
leadership in students” from around the
world. Students can compete in local,
regional, and then worldwide competi-
tions, depending on their success.
The longest running program
The Vernonia School District
is offering several
science, technol-
ogy, engineering,
and mathematics
(STEM) programs
for students this
year, including a
new science club
for grade school
students.
T h e s e
STEM after-school
programs are for
grade school, mid-
dle school, and high
school
students
and teach them to
work together and
learn valuable life
skills while having
fun and compet- Members of Vernonia’s FTC robotics team (l-r) Devon Bergren,
Megan Ely, and Nolan Grant, practice before their big meet.
ing against other
students. Students participating in the in Vernonia is the FRC program which
programs learn teamwork as they fun- presents a challenge to teams who are
draise, manage a budget, and build a given six weeks to design and build a
brand, all while learning technical skills robot to meet the challenge. They then
that include computer programing and team up with other schools and organi-
construction skills. It’s a way for stu- zations of varying sizes to compete in
dents to experience real-world engi- an arena roughly the size of a basketball
neering problem solving while gaining court.
benefi cial knowledge.
“These events are very much
For several years the Vernonia like a team sporting event, meets comic
Schools has offered two competitive convention, meets dance party, all in
robotics programs for high school and one,” says FRC volunteer mentor Cam-
middle school students, the FIRST rin Eyrrick. “These events are very
Robotics Competition (FRT) and the high energy and very challenging, with
FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC). Both a lot of critical thinking to work through
programs have been offered through the repairs, programming, strategy, team-
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recogni- work and more, but also a lot of fun.”
tion of Science and Technology) pro-
Vernonia also had two FIRST
gram.
Robotics FTC teams this year, open to
continued on page 11
inside
5
tall wood buildings
in the northwest
9
vhs winter
sports report
10
boys to men
19
eleanor turns 100
A writer reminisces about his
childhood in Vernonia and
examines the rise and fall
of the Klan in Oregon
By Bob Royer
It’s unclear why my grand-
mother, then in her late seventies, bought
the little house in Vernonia and moved
there from Medford in 1950. She prob-
ably would have said the reason was to
be closer to her boys and grandchildren,
though when she moved to Vernonia one
of her sons lived 70 miles away and the
other about 45.
To one side of the house was a
fi ne strawberry fi eld, perhaps 50 yards
long and 40 yards wide. To the other side
was a somewhat larger fi eld, about half
of which contained potatoes and the rest
corn and a variety of other vegetables.
Behind and to the strawberry side of the
house was a garage and small workshop,
a heavily insulated shed where she kept
canned foods, and a chicken coop where
the chickens roosted after roaming the
property during the day. Further down
was an electric, barbed wire fence which
I now assume was a property boundary
but then, just an obstacle to be carefully
crossed.
Beyond the fence was a ravine
with a mill pond at the bottom where
a shingle mill once sat, its metal wood
waste burner tilted a bit and badly rusted
out, but its bed of ash still intact with a
few charred pieces of cedar log scraps
sticking out. It was dark there and the
monster dragonfl ies whose territory this
was fl ew right up to your face, some-
times provoking a panicky dash up the
hill, across the fence and to the safety of
the garage or strawberries.
Vernonia then was at the tail end
of the long and largely successful busi-
ness of the Oregon American Lumber
Company. Following the depletion of
the pine forests in the South and in the
Midwest, O and A moved into town dur-
ing the early twenties as the new owner
of two billion board feet of timber from
the remarkable Douglas fi r forests that
colonized the coastal Northwest as the
last ice age retreated.
The trees were mostly 300-600
years old with a few over a thousand
years. Southern and Midwest loggers
preferred pine but would soon be se-
duced by these remarkable trees that
made up 85% of the forest around Verno-
nia, located near the center of the tree’s
natural range. Often they would rise 100
feet before the crown of the tree would
emerge. Their stands were dense, 1,000
trees/acre, and their wood was fl exible
but strong. Normal yields of Douglas fi r
in the region were 55,000 board feet to
an acre. Oregon American owned many
stands near Vernonia producing twice
that.
Before Oregon American, most
timber companies used rivers for trans-
porting their logs downstream or they
built great timber fl umes that led to a
mill on a river or bay where they could
be cut into timber and shipped, usually
by boat, to customers. Oregon American
was unique in the logging business then
because it wanted to ship its logs mostly
by rail to a mill in the interior, closer to
the trees. Also, Oregon American want-
ed to dry the processed logs in a kiln on
site and then ship them to customers by
rail, the lighter, dried timber meaning
lower freight costs. Most of O and A’s
customers were in the Midwest.
Just after World War One, Ver-
nonia was a primitive community in
which a handful of pioneer families hung
on as best they could, clearing trees to
grow food and hunting and fi shing for
the rest. In 1919, perhaps a hundred and
fi fty people were living around a clus-
ter of crudely built structures in the Ne-
halem Valley.
Oregon American was an excel-
lent operation. Its mill was powered by
continued on page 3
Where Are They Now? Kristina Halverson
Following a dream
and fi nding a job
By Scott Laird
When Kristina Halverson was
in high school in Vernonia, her grand-
mother was diagnosed with breast can-
cer. Halverson and her grandmother
were very close, in fact they joke that
they are twins because they are so
alike. That scare has led to a dream for
Halverson, a dream she is beginning to
fulfi ll this month.
Halverson’s grandmother sur-
vived her battle with cancer but Halv-
erson decided then that she would like
to do something about helping those
with this menacing disease.
“I couldn’t understand it at
the time - what caused it or why it was
happening,” says Halverson about her
grandmother’s disease. “That’s kind
of when my fascination started.”
A recent graduate of Oregon
State University (OSU) with a Bach-
elor’s Degree in Chemistry with an
emphasis on Bio Chemistry, Halver-
son just accepted a job at the Knight
Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health
& Science University (OHSU). Her
road to this job was slightly meander-
ing, and it is not her fi nal destination
but instead a big fi rst step on her way
to her fi nal goals, but she is now on her
way and working in the fi eld where she
dreamed she could make a difference.
Halverson is a 2011 graduate
of Vernonia High School (VHS) where
she was a salutatorian, vice president of
her class, and a member of the National
Honor Society in her sophomore year.
A freshman in 2007 when the school
campus was fl ooded and destroyed, she
spent almost her entire high school days
continued on page 14