Image provided by: The Willamina Museum; Willamina, OR
About The times of Willamina. (Willamina, Oregon) 1972-1974 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 19, 1973)
D. W.F W » Yocom Box 38 Willamina, Oregon 97396$' WILLAMINA TIMES, WILLAMINA, OREGON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1973 Subscriptions $2.00 per year 1OT per copy 12 PAGES Boise-Cascade buys local companies The name will be changed to Boise-Cascade . . . U.S Bank wins bid for city water bonds Thursday night at the regular meet ing, the city council accepted the bid from United States National Bank of Oregon at 5.1474 per cent interest rate on fifteen year $250,000 gen eral obligation bonds. The bank was one of three bidding for the bonds that will finance the new water distribution system. The council passed an ordinance, adopting the new water rates, which had been approved at an earlier meeting. Permission was granted for Don Larson and Don Hopkins to have a circus on the Anderson property by Ellingsworth’s store, Sept. 24 and 25. This is the Wallace and Rog ers circus and is sponsored by the V.F.W. Boxing committee. There will be a Public Utility Com mission hearing October 8 at 10 a.m. in City Hall on Southern Pacific Transportation company’s proposed closing down of the loeal depot, Carol Heckadon, city reçorder, will represent the city at the meeting. The council authorized the pur chase of aluminum screening for protection of windows at City Hall on the playground side< at a total cost of $100, including installation. Authorized the purchase of plastic bags to’be used by the Cub Scouts in cleaning debris from the streets. The council set the date of Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall for a public hearing on the new zoning ordinance. According to correspondence from Portland State University, thé popu lation of Willamina is now 1,280. Wayne Grippen requests a zone change of all property on the north side of West Main from industrial zone to residential zone. The next meeting of City Council will be Sept. 20. West Oregon Veneer Co. of Wil lamina and Oregon Alder Maple, just west of Sheridan, are under new ownership. Boise Cascade an nounced last week that it had pur chased the two companies from William Hurl, McMinnville. During a brief interview this week, spokesmen for Boise Cascade said that there are no immediate plans for any changes in either opera tion. “It will be business as usual,” said a company repre sentative. “ The only change we plan to make is the name.” As for any changes in manage ment, the company siaid that all terms of the sale had not been finalized yet, and that it was too early to make any announcements. No purchase price was announced. The Willamina plant, a pole and piling manufacturing operation, has an annual production capacity of six million board feet, while thé Sheridan plant has an annual pro duction capacity of 70 million board feet of three-eights inch veneer, VOLUME 65 NUMBER 9 Circus coming The Circus is coming to town! Sponsored by the V. F. W. Boxing Club, the Wallace and Rogers Cir cus will be in Willamina Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 24 and 25 just behind the Ellingsworth IGA parking lot. Showtimes for the circus will be 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. A spokesman for the circus said: “Usually, when a person thinks of at a tent-type circus, one thinks in terms of the old-fashioned show of a bygone era. Wallace and Rogers is a brand-new 1973 edition of the big top show.” Among the acts featured will be acrobats,: animal acts, clowns, "Astron, the Human Yo-yo,” and Diana and her tropical pets. All performers are from the world- famous “ Circus Circus” casino in Las Vegas. Proceeds from the two-day show will go toward helping the V. F. W. Boxing Club. . . . But business will go on as usual Kiwnnis New Grand Ronde grade school up for bond issue vote Nov. 6 kickoff By Berneiece Soules A district field official will visit the Willamina - Grand Ronde Ki- wanis club Thursday, Sept. 27 to officially give the newly for med group authorization to carry on. The meeting is tentatively plan ned to be held in the Immanuel Lutheran church and catered by the Rocket cafe. Organizational meetings were formerly held in the cafe itself, but growing membership forced the club to seek larger quar ters. Last Thursday’s meeting of the Willamina - Grand Ronde club saw nine turn out for the luncheon meet ing. On the program was Jim Loc kett, principal of Memorial school in McMinnville and an amateur Oregon historian. He told stories of the Columbia and Yamhill In dian tribes. A bond issue of $918,880 tobuilda new elementary school at Grand Ronde will be the subject of an elec tion set for Nov. 6 by the Willamina School Board at their meeting Sept. 10 in Grand Ronde. > Architect John Henslee, Portland, recommended and the school board approved that the high school re modeling be split from a recently rejected bond issue of $1,950,000 for both projects. During the board meeting, Gordon Hobbs, of a Portland building mortgage and real estate firm, Judco Co., announced plans by the firm to develop 600 acres on the north east edge of Willamina. Hobbs said the first phase, of 49 homes in the city, will be constructed af ter the city completes improve ments to the water system. (continued on page 2) If I I 18 IN The Grand Ronde grade school, long considered unsafe, will be on the ballot for replacement. On Nov. 6, voters will be presented with a bond issue to build a new school. School survey in: variety of ideas shown Three hundred twenty three people responded to the survey taken dur ing the last month in the Willamina- Grand Ronde area concerning the proposed bond issue and other school-related matters. Joyce Zimbrick and an army of volunteers finished tabulating the results Sunday night. The results are as follows: a unified Willamina-Sheridan school system would be educationally bene ficial to the needs of students in the area. 36 per cent felt that it would not be beneficial while 19 per cent remained undecided. Among the non-registered voters, 40 per cent were in favor of the proposed Grand Ronde Grade School, 16 per cent were opposed and 44 per cent were undecided. Of those responding, 266 were registered voters. 57 were not registered. 32 per cent favored the proposed remodeling of the high school, 26 per cent did not favor it and 42 per cent were undecided. Among the registered voters, 49 per cent had children in school and 57 per cent voted on the bond issue the last time it came before the public. 46 per cent favored the proposed new Grand Ronde grade school, 30 per cent were not in favor and 24 per cent were unde cided. 28 per cent felt that the grade school curriculum was good, 56 per cent rated it fair, 11 per cent con sidered it poor and five per cent rated it bad. 14 per cent considered the high school curriculum good, 58 percent 44 per cent favored the proposed considered it fair, 16 per cent rated remodeling of the high school, 43 it poor with 12 per cent rating it per cent were not in favor and 13 as bad. per cent were undecided. 23 per cent felt that the curriculum at the Among the unregistered, the idea of grade school was good, 43 per cent considered it fair, 28 per cent rated combining the school systems was it poor and six percent gave it a not so popular. 24 per cent favored bad rating. 14 per cent felt that such a combination, 55 per cent the high school curriculum was good, were against it and 21 per cent 34 per cent considered it fair, 38 were undecided. In both cases, reasons for basing per cent rated it poor and 14 per opinions (word-of-mouth, exper cent rated it bad. ience, newspaper or other) were too varied to be assigned percen Surprisingly, 45 per cent felt that tages. Perhaps the most enlightening aspect of the survey was the mass of suggestions offered to help meet the educational needs of the young people in the area. Some of the suggestions were as follows: “We need more vocational training.” “Students need the technical skills necessary to hold down jobs that actually exist in this area -- not jobs that exist only in the minds of some educators or jobs that exist on the east coast.” "We need more courses that really interest the student.” “ I say listen to the kids. They have some good ideas if the parents and the teachers will just listen.” “ The kids need to learri how to make a living.” “ I say hire more qualified teach ers and fewer P. E. jocks.” “ Quit worrying about what the kids wear and start worrying about what they learn instead.” “We need students on the school; board to help ' the adults under stand what they need to keep the kids interested in school.” “ More discipline.” ‘ ‘From what I have observed, both here and elsewhere, school author ities seem totally unconcerned about a community’s ability to pay for the bigger and better facilities that ad ministrators like to think up.” “We need better teachers, abetter principal and a better superinten dent.” B “ For grade school, we need more basic education. . For high school, we need more career-oriented clas ses.” “Provide more trade courses such as forest products.” “The schools took a good teacher and made her a principal. Then they took a good councellor and made HIM a principal. I am a good cook, but that doesn’t qualify me to run a restaurant.” “We need more drug education, sex education and phonetic reading classes.” “All students should be given col lege prep, courses.” “Students should be able to attend Chemeketa Community College or some other campus for the last two years in order to prepare for a vocation that MEANS something.” “ It is not a good idea to hire teachers who attended school in Willamina.” “ More classes along the lines of trade schools. -- Not all kids plan to go to college.” “ The kids not only need more discipline, but need to be taught reading, writing and arithmatic. -- and I mean TAUGHT it.” “I think that the principals and teachers should spend more time trying to teach the kids instead of thinking of ways to kick them out of school.” “We need more work-study pro grams to give the kids a taste of real life.” Students should be taught on a pre college level. I can speak from experience because I graduated from Willamina schools and can truth fully say that they did not offer me anything worthwhile.” “More emphasis on basics. If necessary, elminiate languages, P. E. and other non-essential sub jects.” “Fire the superintendent. ” “ Run the school for the full year.” “Smaller, not bigger schools. If you can’t teach well in a small school, why do you think a big one will solve anything?” “They need more good teachers and a hell of a lot fewer athletic coaches. And especially, a lot better school board made up of qualified people.” “ Students need more basic courses and less work studies (which is wasted time for goofing off).” “ Kids from small schools are handicapped when they go to college. That’s why We need to consolidate Willamina nd Sheridan schools.” “ Consolidation is a good idea, but we’re 25 years too late.” ‘ ‘We need the best curriculum we carl get, but curriculum is decided at the state level, so we can’t real ly do much about it locally. ’ ’ “ Make the students better citizens. Put back the dress code and make them stick to it.” “ Better teaching and vocational training. -- Slow down on sports.” “We need better communications between the administrators, the teachers, the students and the com munity.” “ Before we can educate our chil dren, we have to educate the par ents. Is it too late?” “ I think the schools are O. K. the way they are.” "You’ve asked the parents and the voters. Wouldn’t it be fair to also get the opinions of the students and the teachers?” “ Shut the schools down. Kids don’t learn anything anyway. ’ ’ ‘ ‘Start at the top. Fire everybody from the superintendent to the jan itor and start all over.” “We need more field trips to ex pose the kids to the outside world, and special classes for gifted stu dents.” “ Less sports and more study.” “ More emphasis on basic reading and math.” “Teach them to read and spell. Too many children in mÿ church school class can’t read well enough to understand what they’ve read.” “ More individualised teaching. How about older students tutoring younger ones?” “ The administration is arrogant and unsympathetic to both students and parents. -- Take advantage of Chemeketa.” These are only a sampling of the more than 200 suggestions offered. Many duplicated each other in ideas and several were far too long to print but contained good ideas. Those areas where there was the largest area of agreement were: The need for more vocational pro grams; The need for a better reading pro gram; More stress on basic education; Change of administration. The completed surveys will be pre sented to the school board for their consideration. They will be avail able for the public Wednesday after noon at the library.
