Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Page 15
Excellence
par for I.V.
golf duo
Two Lorna Byrne Middle School students competed successfully
in the Three Rivers School District Spelling Bee Wednesday,
April 14. Brelyn Dhenin (left) earned third place, and Liam
Dwyer earned first place. Dwyer’s top placing marks his fifth
year for that distinction. ( Illinois Valley News photo)
Cougar softball coach
aids team challenges
By SCOTT JORGENSEN
IVN Staff Writer
It’s been a rough season
thus far for the Illinois Valley
High School varsity softball
squad, but new team coach
Ray Yarbrough is determined
to turn around that situation.
The Cougar squad has
yet to win, and a lack of par-
ticipation forced the combi-
nation of the junior varsity
and varsity teams.
“That was really hard on
them, but I’m proud of them
for stepping in and doing it,”
Yarbrough said.
Yarbrough, who typi-
cally coaches football, as-
sumed coaching duties for
the softball team in early
April. He is being aided by
friends who also have previ-
ous coaching experience.
“This is really new to
me,” Yarbrough said. “I have
to thank the parents and the
kids on the team for working
with me as I’m learning and
getting better.”
Since Yarbrough started,
the squad suffered losses at
South Umpqua on Saturday,
April 3 and dropped four at
McKinleyville High School
in Northern California Satur-
day, April 10.
The team hosted North
Valley Tuesday, April 13 and
lost. It then headed to North
Medford High School on
Remodeling
Concrete
New Construction
Thursday, April 15 and lost
28-3. The following day,
the team hosted Phoenix
High School and lost a dou-
ble-header.
“We looked a lot better
on the field,” Yarbrough
observed.
He added that his main
mission as coach is improv-
ing the team’s consistency.
“The story so far for us
is that we play great for the
first few innings. For what-
ever reason, we’ve dropped
off on the later innings,” he
said. “The focus here is
playing seven great in-
nings.”
It’s easier said than
done, but that’s what our
focus is.”
Despite the challenges,
Yarbrough said that he is
determined to turn around
the team of eager girls.
“It’s certainly been a
tough year on everyone
involved,” he stated. “But
with as much turmoil as
there’s been, the girls have
been awesome. The ones
that are still there are a
great group of kids.
“In some ways, it’s
really gotten the team to-
gether.”
The team is scheduled
to face Hidden Valley
Tuesday, April 27 on the
Mustang field in Murphy.
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(541) 862-9355
By SCOTT JORGENSEN
IVN Staff Writer
The Illinois Valley High
School boys varsity golf
team is looking to improve
its game as the spring sports
season rolls on.
On Thursday, April 8,
the squad went to Centennial
Golf Course in Medford for a
tournament and placed fifth
among five teams.
A Monday, April 12
tournament at Reames Golf
Course in Klamath Falls
went better for the Cougars,
who earned fourth place.
Two IVHS golfers earned
personal tournament records.
*Sophomore Travis
Robbins shot 87 on the 72-
par course.
*Junior Roger Hults
carded 79.
Unpredictable spring
weather has complicated the
squad’s practices, said coach
Matt Knight.
“We never know what
kind of shape the I.V. Golf
Course is going to be in to be
able to practice on,” he said.
“We’re also getting used to
the greens at other courses.
The greens out here on the
I.V. course are pretty long, so
you have to hit pretty hard to
get it in the hole.
“The other courses are
pretty mowed down, and that
takes some getting used to.”
Up next for the team is a
Tuesday, April 27 tourna-
ment at Stone Ridge Golf
Course in Eagle Point.
The soccer locker was full on Saturday, April 17 as I.V. Youth Soccer Club teams took to the
field at Evergreen Elementary School. More than 155 youth are playing this year. The events
the 17th were the first home games of the spring season; home games also will be played
Saturday, April 24: Kindergarteners 8 a.m., Pee Wee 9:15, 3rd-5th graders 10:30; middle
school boys 2 p.m., middle school girls 5. Coach Annette Skidmore notes that the boys team
has 18 members; the girls team 17. (Photo by Illinois Valley News )
IVHS drops double-header to Pirates
By SCOTT JORGENSEN
IVN Staff Writer
A double-header at
Phoenix High School on
Saturday, April 17 resulted
in a pair of losses for the
Illinois Valley High School
varsity baseball team.
I.V. lost the first game
13-3. Senior Ben Kendall
got a hit. Senior Brandon
Foraker and junior Andrew
McLaughlin went 2-2.
“We didn’t play real
good defense,” said Cougar
coach Bob Johnson. “If we
don’t play defense, we get
into trouble.”
In the second game,
I.V. scored 2 runs at the top
of the first inning. But the
Pirates rallied in the bottom
of the first, scoring 8.
“It was all downhill
from there,” Johnson said.
“If we played defense,
there’s a chance we would
have stayed in the game
until the end. But we didn’t,
and we got thumped.”
The final score of the
second game was 25-3.
Kendall and Foraker
each got 1 hit, and McLaugh-
lin got 2. Johnson credits the
Pirates’ pitchers for their
winning efforts.
“They both threw pretty
hard. They both had pretty
good control,” Johnson said.
“For the most part, they were
throwing strikes and getting
ahead of our hitters. That’s
the key to success for pitch-
ing.”
The Cougars will host
Hidden Valley on Tuesday,
April 27.
Business groups seek stories regarding tax effects
By SCOTT JORGENSEN
IVN Staff Writer
Ron Fields launched his
Fields Home Improvement
store in Murphy in 1977,
completely from scratch.
“I literally started my
business with a $100 bill,”
Fields said. “It was my $100
bill. I didn’t borrow it.”
Fields’ business is regis-
tered with the state as a “C”
corporation. As such, he said
he has been adversely affected
by the passage earlier this year
of measures 66 and 67, which
raised taxes on some busi-
nesses and individuals.
During the campaign on
the measures, Fields was
quite vocal in stating his op-
position. In fact, he had signs
posted in the store’s entrance
stating as much.
But since the measures
passed, Fields has had to lay
off two employees to pay for
the retroactive tax increase.
This was despite the fact that
last winter was the worst he’s
had in his more than 30 years
of being in business.
“We still had to pay a
sizeable amount due to our
gross sales,” Fields said. “It
really makes you look at your
business, figure out where to
cut and where to save.”
Fields’ story is exactly
the kind that J.L. Wilson is
looking to share. He is the
vice president of Salem-
based Associated Oregon
Industries (AOI), which
helped lead the campaign to
defeat the tax measures.
AOI is among many
similar groups that comprise
the Alliance of Oregon’s
Business Associations. Its
Website, oregontaxre-
sponse.com, is soliciting tales
from business owners about
how the tax measures have
hampered their operations.
“The issue is not that the
stories are out there, it’s try-
ing to get them into our col-
lection point and cast the net
out wide enough that people
know about it. That’s our
challenge,” Wilson said.
“But we want to do it in
a way that does not deter
people from coming into the
state and investing.”
Fields noted that his
company currently has 25
employees, down from 32 in
2007. Sales were off 30 per-
cent last year, he said, and
the company lost money.
Despite that, Fields said
that he still had to pay
“substantial” retroactive
taxes. He said that the com-
pany always has been debt-
free, but would really be
hurting if he had to borrow
money to keep it running.
“It’s an insult to busi-
nesses for the hard work that
we put in,” Fields said. “The
more we do, the more we get
hammered.”
Wilson said that the tax
increases are prompting
many “C” corporations to
examining reorganizing into
“S” corporations.
“There are law firms
advising their clients not to
be ‘C’ corps in Oregon,” he
said. “That’s the biggest
thing that’s happening.”
Advertisements also are
being run in the Portland
media market urging compa-
nies to take advantage of
Washington state, Wilson
said, as that state has no capi-
tal gains tax. Oregon’s rate is
11 percent, among the high-
est in the nation.
“There is a lot of Oregon
versus Washington compari-
sons going on in this part of
the state,” Wilson said.
He continued that a
“common theme” these days
is that business owners are
making decisions about po-
tentially selling their assets.
“We’ve gotten a steady
drumbeat of stories of people
relocating, and more impor-
tantly, we have businesses
wanting to sell and relocating
to other states, which is ex-
actly what we said the out-
come would be,” he said.
“People are choosing to
grow their businesses else-
where. They will keep a pres-
ence in Oregon, but the growth
that was going to occur here
will occur somewhere else.”
Fields said that aside from
the two layoffs, he’s tried to
find other ways of cutting
costs. Having fewer employees
means that the company’s re-
maining workers have much
more to do, he added.
An expansion project at
the store could result in some
additional hiring, Fields said,
but all that “depends on how
the economy’s going.”
Although it may be pre-
mature to say that there is any
kind of economic recovery
occurring, Fields said that he
remains cautiously optimistic.
“I have a better feeling about
this year,” he said.
