SINCE 1979 • VOLUME 39, NO. 15
SECTION A
JANUARY 12, 2018
$1.00
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
When he was 3 years old,
Keaton Weimer had a simple
request: he wanted to be a pi-
rate for Halloween.
Keaton’s dad, Ryan,
doesn’t seem to do any-
thing in moderation.
Keaton
and
two of his siblings
were born with spi-
nal muscular atrophy,
a condition that will re-
quire the use of a wheel-
chair for the
rest of their
lives. Ryan
didn’t see the
wheelchair as a problem when
Keaton asked to be a pirate, he
used it as a canvas.
“A pirate needs a ship,”
Ryan said. “So we drew
out some ideas, took some
measurements and, luckily, the
ideas and measurements all
lined up,” Ryan said.
The resulting pirate costume
included a wooden ship with
black sails that appeared to
be fl oating as Keaton drove
his motorized wheelchair
around the neighborhood
on Halloween night in La
Grande, Ore. An idea was born
Magic
ON
WHEELS
as Keaton made the rounds
because of what Ryan saw
happening.
“There’s this awkwardness
around disability or difference.
People don’t want to stare or
they end up staring and they
don’t know whether to come
up and say, 'Hi' or not. It’s not
malicious, but it’s society,” said
Ryan, who now lives in Keizer
with his family. “That night, the
awkwardness disappeared – the
wheelchair disappeared – kids
came right up to him. I thought
about the many, many other
families out there like ours. Any
time we experience something
that beautiful our response
should be: how do we share it?”
Sophomore
makes
championship
wrestling run
PAGE A13
Please see MAGIC, Page A7
LEFT: Keaton Wiemer rides Indominus Rex. BELOW: The
Wiemer family: Bryce, 6, Lana, Thatcher, 3, Ryan, and Keaton, 12.
KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
Man dies
by own
hand after
accident
PAGE A2
Field fees on council agenda again Jan. 16
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
The Keizer City Council is expect-
ed to take a new look
at fees charged for fi eld
usage at Keizer Little
League Park during its
next meeting Tuesday,
Jan. 16.
The meeting is tak-
ing place one day later than normal
because of the Martin Luther King Jr.
holiday.
Town hall
this weekend
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) and
Rep. Kurt Schrader (D) will
host a joint town hall meet-
ing in Keizer Saturday, Jan.
13.
The meet-
ing is slated
for 9:30 a.m.
in the com-
mons
area
of Claggett
Creek Mid-
dle School, Sen. Merkley
1810 Alder
Drive N.E. There is no cost
to attend.
Merkley and Schrader
will talk about recent leg-
islative de-
velopments
in the U.S.
Congress and
take
ques-
tions
from
constituents.
“In
our
Rep. Schrader ‘We the Peo-
ple’ democ-
racy, town hall meetings are
an essential tool for me to
hear from Oregonians and
represent their interests back
in D.C.,” Merkley said.
Since joining the Senate
in 2009, Merkley has held a
town hall in each of Oregon’s
36 counties every year.
In December, the council consid-
ered a request by Keizer Little League
(KLL) to raise fi eld fees by $10 across
the board. KLL man-
ages the park under a
contract with the city.
The city council
agreed to table the
issue just as the ex-
change between repre-
sentatives of KLL and McNary Youth
Baseball (MYB), formerly KYSA,
started to become heated.
The two organizations split in 2006
over disagreements regarding how to
balance programming available to all
Keizer youth and
those seeking a more
competitive environ-
ment. Since that time,
relations between the
splintered
factions
have remained some-
what tense. After KLL
managing the fi elds for more than 30
years, KYSA took over the park man-
agement contract for several years. The
situation came to a head again in 2013
and 2014 with KYSA leadership ask-
ing for more invest-
ment for repairs from
the city and then tak-
ing some of the prop-
erty that predated the
organization's man-
agement of the facility
just before KLL was
restored as the facility manager.
One Acts
at MHS
PAGE A4
Please see FEES, Page A8
Orchard gets axe
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
A 20-acre hazelnut or-
chard along the west side
of Keizer Rapids Parks has
seen its last harvest.
Volunteers were expect-
ed to begin knocking down
the trees with donated
equipment as soon as Satur-
day, Jan. 13.
“It’s reached the end of
it’s useful life,” said Bill Law-
yer, Keizer Public Works
director. “The lease on the
property ended in Novem-
ber and the yield was so low
that it was going to be, at
best, a break-even deal for
the farmer in the future.”
The orchard has had a
turbulent few years leading
up to its demise. The farmer
who leased the property
from the city for fi ve years
in 2012 asked for release
from it in 2015 as plans for
The Big Toy came to frui-
tion. He cited the potential
health and legal pitfalls of
using pesticides next to a
children’s play area as the
primary reason for pulling
out of the deal.
That same year, another
Celtic boys,
girls top
Titans on
court
PAGE A13
farmer, Kevin Schurter ap-
proached the city with a pro-
posal to take over the care
and harvesting using only
glyphosphate (Roundup) on
the ground. Schurter’s lease
ended in November 2017 and
he opted not to renew it.
Lawyer said the reduced use
of pesticides probably hastened
the aging of the trees.
KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
A nearly 90-year-old orchard in Keizer Rapids Park will be tak-
en down starting Saturday, Jan. 13.
Longtime Keizer volunteers
Mark Caillier, Jerry Nuttbrock
and Randy Miller are leading
the effort to remove the trees
and make way for a different
crop. The ground will also be
raked to remove as many of the
roots as possible.
Caillier said estimates on
the number of trees has varied,
but it’s somewhere between
1,800 and 2,000.
“It only takes about 30 sec-
onds to knock one over. Many
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