LETTERS TO SANTA
INSIDE
WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2016
144TH YEAR, NO. 126
ONE DOLLAR
HOLIDAY LIGHTS, SOUNDS & ACTION
WEEKEND BREAK • 1C, 2C & 3C
BAREFOOT BANDIT’S
DREAM ‘CRUSHED’
Investing
in free
preschool
County one of few
to snag national grant
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
The North Coast is one of eight places
chosen by the U.S. Department of Education
to investigate the viability of free preschool
funded by investors.
Clatsop County will administer the
$350,000 Preschool Pay for Success feasi-
bility grant. Researchers with groups like the
Way to Wellville and the P-3 Early Learning
Council will start in April
looking at the preschool
needs in Clatsop and Tilla-
mook counties.
“Our dream would be to
add 600 high-quality pre-
school spots” in the two
Dan Gaffney counties, said Dan Gaffney,
a retired educator and an
author of the county’s grant.
Gaffney is the chairman of Way to Well-
ville’s strategic advisory council and heads
the P-3 group, which has focused on improv-
ing education preschool through third grade.
He said the study, which will last six to
nine months, will look at providing subsi-
dized preschool for families within 300 per-
cent of the federal poverty level, whether to
provide transportation and how to adequately
compensate and train preschool teachers.
Above: Harris-Moore’s tweet after being denied.
Right: Screenshot of Colton Harris-Moore’s
now-defunct GoFundMe page.
See GRANT, Page 8A
Train’s on time
at the Capitol
Colton Harris-Moore
Feds shut down fl ight-school fundraiser
By EVAN BUSH
Seattle Times
T
he idea was shot down, at least for now,
before it could really take fl ight.
“Barefoot Bandit” Colton Har-
ris-Moore, who eluded police for two
years while committing a string of break-
ins and thefts, started a GoFundMe page to raise
more than $125,000 for private and commercial
pilot-license training and helicopter certifi cation.
As a folk-celebrity fugitive, Harris-Moore stole
a 34-foot boat from Ilwaco, Washington, that turned
up in the Warrenton Marina in 2010.
He also stole and crashed three planes during his
well-documented exploits.
“Now I am 25 years old, free, and ready to do it
(fl y) LEGALLY!,” he wrote on his GoFundMe page.
“I love airplanes, but I will never steal one or break
Colton Harris-Moore,
also known as the
“Barefoot Bandit,”
stands , in Island County
Superior Court in 2011,
in Coupeville, Wash.
the law again. I broke the law big league when I was
younger, but now it’s time to focus on my career and
life in the free world.”
Flight plan stalled
But the effort hardly got off the ground before the
federal probation offi ce told Harris-Moore to stop
fundraising.
Harris-Moore still owes victims of his crimes
about $129,000 in restitution.
Colton Harris-
Moore, from
his office in the
Seattle law firm
where he works.
“I love airplanes,
but I will never
steal one or
break the law
again. I broke
the law big
league when I
was younger,
but now it’s time
to focus on my
career and life in
the free world.,”
Harris-Moore
said.
See BANDIT, Page 8A
Layout started as
prisoners’ handiwork
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — The model railroad layout
under the main Christmas trees in the Ore-
gon Capitol rotunda every year is the brain-
child of the late former Gov. Vic Atiyeh and,
in part, is the handiwork of prisoners.
Don Curtis, who taught vocational train-
ing, woodworking and cabinetry at Oregon
State Correctional Institution from 1969 to
1999, was fi rst asked to set up trains and a
miniature scene to go under the tree in 1984.
“We had some very talented men at the
institution that really got into the project and
did a great job,” Curtis said in a phone inter-
view this week.
Many of the miniatures — such as a scale
version of the Bush House in Salem — were
built by prisoners in the woodworking shop.
That, too, was a request from the gover-
nor, Curtis said.
See TRAIN, Page 8A
From poinsettias to holly, the other Christmas crops
Unique plants provide
niche market for growers
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
EO Media Group
Ten years ago, the market for the Northwest’s
signature Christmas tree crop was depressed by
an oversupply, sending prices into the gutter.
The Hupp family, which farms near Silver-
ton, had an abundance of fully grown trees that
nobody had bought, so they decided to get rid
of them.
But not all of them.
After removing roughly every other tree
in some of their fi elds, the Hupps allowed the
remaining Noble fi rs to develop longer, wider
and thicker branches, which were then cut and
sold for boughs used in Christmas decorations.
“A lot of it is spacing,” said Jason Hupp,
whose family owns Hupp Farms.
These days, wreaths, garlands and boughs
are a steady business line for the Hupps, who
also continue to grow Christmas trees and nurs-
ery seedlings.
A major advantage of the bough market is
that large buyers send their own crews to har-
vest the crop.
“We don’t have the manpower to cut every-
thing people want,” Hupp said. “The nice thing
is we don’t have to harvest it.”
Boughs also play a useful role given the
varying conditions across the Hupps’ property.
Their best fi elds with access to irrigation
water are devoted to nursery conifers. Mar-
ginal land without water is planted to Christmas
trees. Steep and less accessible parcels are ded-
icated to boughs. Rocky fi elds are committed to
timber.
See PLANTS, Page 11A
Mateusz Perkowski/ EO Media Group
Kyle Peterson, production manager at Fessler Nursery
near Woodburn, shows off a large poinsettia. The company
produces a variety of nursery stock grown in greenhouses.