Quilts on
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DAWGS MEET BUCKS
IN QUARTERFINALS
61/46
GIRLS BASKETBALL/1B
REGION/3A
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2015
139th Year, No. 104
WINNER OF THE 2013 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
PENDLETON
One dollar
BOARDMAN
Round-Up ends property tax challenge Port offers
which currently has an assessed
value of $5.2 million and tax
burden of $82,122.
George Murdock, chairman
The Pendleton Round-Up
Association will no longer chal- of the Umatilla County Board
lenge its 2014-2015 property tax of Commissioners and board of
property tax appeals, said the
assessment.
The Round-Up Association withdrawal means the Round-
¿OHG DSSHDOV WR 8PDWLOOD Up Association’s tax burden for
County in late December, ask- 2014-15 “is what it is.”
That’s about $107,000 in all,
ing the county to list its property
as having no value. That would according to county property
include the Round-Up Grounds, tax records. Jolene Meadows,
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
clerk for the tax appeals board,
DOVR FRQ¿UPHG WKH 5RXQG8S¶V
withdrawal from the tax board’s
March 12 hearing.
Murdock said the Round-Up
discussed its property tax val-
ue with the county “for a year
or better.” Round-Up President
Bill Quesenberry said the asso-
ciation pulled back in order to
reassess the situation.
He said the Round-Up plans to
bring in an independent and unbi-
ased assessor, preferably someone
with knowledge of event sites, to
value the properties. That will take
a while, he said, and the Round-
Up board wants the assessment
complete before it moves forward.
Quesenberry also said the
Round-Up is considering how
more organizations and events
could use its facilities to gener-
ate revenue.
See ROUND-UP/8A
PENDLETON
The Port of Morrow has offered to buy
a chunk of land on the Umatilla Chemical
Depot in order to convince the Army to
transfer more than 9,000-plus of the for-
mer weapons base to a local development
group.
$UP\RI¿FLDOVKDGLQWHQGHGWRJLYHWKH
property to the Columbia Development
Authority free of charge, but began back-
tracking in January. Now, the port says it
will pay $1 million for approximately 640
acres to keep the deal on track.
The authority — which consists of the
ports of Morrow and Umatilla, Umatilla
and Morrow counties and the Confederat-
ed Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reserva-
tion — plans to use different areas of the
depot to lure industry and agriculture, with
5,600 acres set aside for a wildlife pre-
serve. Another 7,500 acres would go to the
71 seniors didn’t
graduate from
PHS in 4 years
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
See GRADUATION/8A
Port of Morrow would pay
$1 million for 640 acres
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
District
delves into
grad rate
After promising to “put
faces” to the 77 seniors that
failed to graduate from the
Pendleton School District last
year, the resulting report de-
livered by Superintendent Jon
Peterson revealed a mixed
message.
On one hand, a reporting
error on the numbers deliv-
ered to the Oregon Depart-
ment of Education meant that
only 71 seniors didn’t grad-
uate, boosting the district’s
overall graduation rate from
72 percent to 73 percent.
On the other hand, roughly
half of those 71 seniors were
dropouts and are no longer
continuing their education.
The district superintendent
shared the report at a Pend-
leton School Board meeting
Monday.
Peterson said district staff
worked hard to try to keep the
36 dropouts in the school sys-
tem, to no avail. Many times,
outside factors led to their
dropped enrollment.
“Some of them don’t nec-
essarily have the best sup-
port system,” he said. “It’s
hard to get them to go to
school. Some of them are in
a different place — working a
full-time job, have kids, sup-
porting a family, providing
daycare opportunities. The
things that make you kind of
scratch your head. They’re
infuriating, but that’s the re-
ality.”
In other instances, aca-
demically struggling students
come from smaller districts to
to purchase
portion of
depot land
See PORT/8A
Head Start
program gets
$780K grant
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Horseshoes and shamrocks
The Jackson Sundown dress-up artists have struck again, casting the historical bronze in a
Saint Patrick’s Day motif on Tuesday in Pendleton.
Traditional textbooks
becoming old school
Electronic texts easier,
cheaper for students
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Kevin Hawman’s backpack
is a little lighter these days.
Hawman, a Blue Mountain
Community College student,
discovered he wouldn’t need to
drop $200 on a textbook for his
business marketing class. His
instructor, Velda Arnaud, had
informed her students that read-
ings were available free online.
That was a relief for the soph-
omore.
Open-source
textbooks
are free or low-cost electronic
texts that have been placed in
the public domain. Instructors
may rearrange materials to best
suit their courses, mixing and
matching and attaching videos.
Students download required
readings to their laptops. They
can use a virtual highlighter to
mark text.
Not all of his instructors
use open-source textbooks, but
Hawman can envision the day
when students won’t need to
lug heavy books. Even better,
they won’t have to empty their
bank accounts to buy them.
“Some textbooks are pretty
See BOOKS/7A
An extra 50 children in Eastern Ore-
gon will receive Early Head Start services
thanks to a $780,000 annual grant from the
federal government
The grant, awarded to Umatilla Mor-
row Head Start by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, will also help
increase the quality of care available for all
children in the region.
“This is a really exciting venture,”
UMHS executive director Maureen Mc-
Grath said. “There was so much competi-
tion. This is quite a coup to receive a grant
of this size and merit.”
The grant will pay to forge new partner-
ships between Head Start and local child-
care providers. Instead of adding new slots
to its own classrooms, UMHS will train
and certify daycare providers as Early Head
Start teachers. It will then pay them to take
on children in poverty who qualify for Early
Head Start services but haven’t been able to
get a spot in a UMHS classroom. Children
served under that contract will also have
See HEAD START/8A
BMCC student
Kevin Hawman
studies busi-
ness marketing
from his open-
source text-
book which he
downloaded
to his laptop
for free. As
the cost of
traditional
textbooks and
tuition esca-
lates, open
education re-
sources (OERs)
help keep the
cost of educa-
tion down.
Staff photo
by Kathy Aney