Image provided by: The Willamina Museum; Willamina, OR
About The times of Willamina. (Willamina, Oregon) 1972-1974 | View Entire Issue (April 11, 1973)
FUN NITE EDITION 10’ WILLAMINA TIMES, Willamina, Oregon, Wednesday, April 11, 1973 of W illamina-Sheridan « $ :£ £ £ £ S £ £ £ £ £ VOLUME 64 NUMBER 38 This weekend is the biggest event of the year at Willamina High, with the possible exception of graduation. Fun Nite returns in its 14th annual production. This year’s edition, entitled “ The Sounds of the Great White Way,” is a salute to the best broadway musicals past and present. Included are numbers from “ Fiddler on the Roof,” “ Oklahoma,” “ South Pacific,” “ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and many others. Students have been rehearsing frantically all week to get that “ finished” polish on the show. Inside this paper is a sneak preview of this year’s show, with pictures of several of the many highlights from “ The Sound of the Great White Way.” Advance reservations can be obtained from the district office, and tickets will be sold at the door as long as they last. ’ Fun Nite will be presented Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 12, 13 and 14. We at The Willamina Times wish to express our appreciation to Mr. Gerald Paine and the students at Willamina High for their help in preparing this special edition. And a special thanks to the local merchants and businessmen for making this edition possible. £ % S $ £ $ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ Elections, egg hunt highlight chamber meet Tevye (Jerry Hargitt) and the villagers of Anatevka bemoan their fate in this scene from “ Fiddler on the Roof” just one of the many broadway musica’s, past and current, presented in the 1973 Fun Nite production . The Sounds of the Great White Way” - See page five for other pictures, W illam ina School Board to have reading program eyed by Bernieice Soules Willamina School Board decided Wednesday night to have the Dis trict’s reading program surveyed by a team of outsiders. The sug gestion was made by Dist. Supt. Don Mitchell after Board mem bers expressed dissatisfaction with reading testing recently con ducted in the schools, and with the results. The three Board members pres ent and some of the 20 persons in the audience felt the tests indicated inadequacies in the reading teaching program, at least in some classrooms. Mit chell agreed that the test results in some rooms were markedly below the national average. The Yamhill County Intermedi ate Education District will be asked to appoint the survey com mittee. It is to consist of a recognized successful reading teacher, a supervisor in reading from a large school district, and someone from a college reading staff. It was suggested that no body from Oregon College of Ed ucation be appointed as many Wil lamina District teachers are from there. The study is to be completed in the next month. “ This is the only way w£ can come up with answers that are not shrouded by partisan feeling,” Mitchell said. School Board Chairman Elsie Werth has been a longtime lead er in efforts to improve the Dis trict’s reading program. “ If these people are going to tell us our students cannot read be cause of the area where they are from they can forget it,” she said Wednesday night. “ I am tired of hearing that.” The other two board members present expressed sim ilar senti ments. Wesley Shenk said, “ I am tired of all these tests. If a teacher cannot listen to a stu dent read and tell if he can or cannot read, then it is time to get rid of the teacher.” Bud Jensen said, “We definite ly have some improvements to make. We must change the sys tem somewhere. I believe we can do this peacefully, quietly and efficiently and not exceed this current year.” Mrs. Dorothy Paul, Willamina Grade School principal, asked if the Board would abide by the decision of the committee, and “ if they do not find anything wrong we can continue to teach the same way we are.” Mrs. Werth said, “ Right now I would not agree to anything.” Shenk said, “ And neither would I.” Mrs. Werth added, “ I don’t care what kind of a program we have as long as it is based on phon ics and teaches the children to read.” Sears named "Boss of Y ear" Mr. David Sears, Sheridan high school principal, was awarded a plaque as “ Boss of the Year” by the Chemeketa chapter of Am erican Business Women at a din ner meeting at the Prime-Rib in Salem on Tuesday night. Mrs. Margaret Vandewater, school li brarian, nominated Mr. Sears fox the honor, and he was sel ected by a secret panel of judges. Publisher Phil Bladirie was guest speaker at the dinner and nlusic was provided by Vickie Smith, accompanied by Mrs. Nina Adanson. The next meeting of the chapter will be on May 1 in Sheridan. Husbands will be guests at a paid pot-luck dinner to raise scholarship funds. An Easter egg hunt, a July draw ing and elections highlighted the April 3 meeting of the Willamina area Chamber of Commerce. In order to make it easier for more members to attend, it was decided that in addition to even ing meetings on the first Tues day of every month, there would also be a luncheon meeting at noon on the third Tuesday of each month. Randy Payne will be guest speaker at the Tuesday, April 17 meeting at Hal and Thelma’s Cafe. He will outline plans and objectives of the newly formed Willamina Police Reserve. During the April 3 meeting, Vancy Welty of THE TIMES was elected president of the Chamber; Keff Mohlman of Willamina De partment Store was elected Vice- President and Jim Boyer of Boyer Bookkeeping was elected Sec retary - T reasurer. Chamber members will again sponsor an Easter egg hunt. This year the hunt will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 21. F irst through fourth graders will search for eggs at the Garden Sport next to the bridge. P re schoolers will look for goodies in a special roped-off grassy sec tion of the IGA parking lot. Some of the eggs will be wrapped in little plastic bags containing slips of paper redeemable at participating businesses for free prizes. The Chamber also voted to hold a drawing on July 21. Beginning on June 15, customers at partici pating businesses will receive a drawing ticket with each dollar purchase. Still undecided in just what the grand prize will be. Suggested were: a boat, (a used pickup truck, his & hers bicycles and a four-man rubber life raft, a- mong other items. Whatever the choice, there will also be a large number of lesser prizes for those noTain^m^ra^* y tickets. Still under duscussion are pro posals for a flea market, a side walk sale and a coupon sale. Appointm ents announced Norman Agee, chairman of Phil Sheridan Days announced his committee appointments at the meeting of the Chamber of Com merce on April 2nd. Don Stuck and Wayne Potter head the Sat urday parade, Nadine Stuck, the Jr. parade on Friday, Joe Chris man has charge of the timber carnival, and Dr. B. J. Miller the appreciation party. The Phil Sheridan Days are on June 15, 16 and 17. Mrs. Olive Haugen announced the hot meals program for the elderly has been postponed due to lack of funds. She will con tinue to seek more funds from other sources. Liberty m obile home plant opens in Sheridan The largest single mobile home plant in the Pacific Northwest, Liberty Homes, Inc., was open to the public Friday, April 6 from 3 to 6:30 p.m. During the opening ceremonies, Sheridan Mayor Jordan praised the new plant as “ The kind of industry, any community would be proud to have.” He said that A large crowd turned out for grand opening ceremonies at Liberty Mobile Homes Friday afternoon. The Sheridan plant is the largest under one roof in the Northwest. S a facility such as the mobile home plant adds no pollution while helping the Sheridan-Willamina area to grow. Mayor Jordan added that at traction of such industries as Liberty Mobile Homes helps to fulfill his dream of “ Someday seeing Sheridan grow to about 3500 or so, in spite of those who would like to see it stay the way it is.” The first unit produced at the Sheridan plant was rolled out and the keys to it were ceremon iously presented to Lotus and Steve Gaskill, dealers from. Rainier, Oregon. Following the ceremony, the public was given guided tours of the plant and of several com pleted mobile homes which had been shipped from Yoder, Kansas for the event. Inside the giant ’facility, em ployees and managers demon strated the steps involved in mobile home construction. The plant had the capacity to produce up to twelve and even fourteen units per day. There is slightly over 100,000 square feet under one roof at the plant. The maximum payroll is from 140 to 150 employees. Liberty Homes builds homes in the low to medium price range in sizes from 12 feet in width and 44 feet long to 24 feet in width and 64 feet long. The nor mal Liberty Home is delivered complete with appliances, furni ture, carpet, drapes and in some cases even pictures and bed spreads. The initial production will be sold in the states of Oregon and Washington with plans to sell in Idaho, Montana and British Columbia at a later date. All homes are sold through a Dealer Organization. The mobile home industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in the American Econ omy with an increase in the num ber of homes sold of about 20 per cent annually. While conducting a tour through various sized mobile homes ship ped from Kansas, Peter Feher, District Sales Manager, pointed out the difficulties they had had back east assembling units for display in Oregon. “ In the east,” he said, “ most mobile homes are fitted with gas appliances and use plastic mould ing around the fixtures. Since westerners use mostly electric appliances and Formica linings, they were hard put to make the changes in time to get these units shipped to us.” The plant produces two brand names, Liberty and Peerless. The main discernable difference between the two brands is minor exterior trim details. Peter Feher, district sales manager for Liberty Mobile Homes hands over the keys of the very first unit to Lotus and Steve Gaskill, distributors from Rainier, Oregon.
