REGION
Thursday, July 11, 2019
East Oregonian
A3
IMESD receives grant for
Outdoor School improvements
Grant from Gray
Family Foundation
to help with
improvements
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — The
InterMountain
Educa-
tion Service District will
make improvements val-
ued at $30,000 at its Out-
door School location, Buck
Creek, this summer.
The agency received
a $20,000 grant from the
Gray Family Foundation.
The IMESD will contrib-
ute $10,000 worth of labor
to accomplish several
projects.
The biggest project is
abatement of asbestos-con-
taining materials in the
cookhouse,
including
fl ooring and countertops.
The cookhouse will also
be painted, and new appli-
ances will be installed.
Other summer improve-
ment projects are con-
struction of new campfi re
benches and picnic tables,
a new water heater in the
shower house, grounds/
brush cleanup and new
signage.
“Everybody loves the
historic Outdoor School
buildings, but there comes
a time when deferred main-
tenance really needs to be
Photo contributed by Katherine Stickroth
Pilot Lucas Stangel will display his grandfather’s Bird at the 2019 Wallowa County Fly-In.
Fly-in slated this weekend
in Wallowa County
By SABRINA
THOMPSON
EO Media Group
JOSEPH — The tarmac at
the Joseph State Airport will
be unusually busy July 12-13
for the 2019 Wallowa County
Fly-In. What started as an
unoffi cial gathering of pilots
is now a weekend that raises
money for the Joseph Charter
School’s aviation programs.
This year there will be a
special display and demon-
stration of Wallowa County’s
Bud Stengel’s restored 1931
Bird CK model bi-plane that
has been restored since its
purchase in the 1970s. Bud’s
grandson, Lucas Stengel, will
provide fl ight demonstrations
at the event. Lucas began fl y-
ing because it was in his fam-
ily, taking after his father,
Dick Stengel, and his grandfa-
ther Bud Stengel.
“You can go wherever
you want,” Stengel said when
asked about his interest in fl y-
ing. “You can get to places
you can’t necessarily get to
with other methods of trans-
portation in a shorter amount
of time. You get to see stuff
from a different perspective.”
The event is hosted by
MORE INFORMATION
The 2019 Wallowa County Fly-In kicks off Friday at the airport.
The gates open at 5 p.m. and a banquet open to the public
is served at 6 p.m. Tickets are $25 online at www.neoafoun-
dation.org/events/wallowa-county-fl y-in, and at the gate
if not sold out. The meal of tri-tip, bacon-wrapped shrimp
or chicken is sponsored by the Enterprise and Joseph Lions
Club, and the evening also includes live music, short take off
and landing demonstrations and a silent auction.
On Saturday, the gates open at 7 a.m. Admission is $5,
and children age 10 and younger are free. A $10 pancake
breakfast is served from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. The day’s activities
include additional STOL demonstrations and unmoving dis-
plays of planes for people to see up close, the conclusion of
the silent auction from Friday night and educational activities
that if completed will qualify children 18 and younger for a
free airplane fl ight Sunday. The event concludes at 2 p.m.
North East Oregon Aviation
Federation, a nonprofi t that
was established to support
aeronautical and aviation sci-
ences at the high school level
in Northeast Oregon.
“Aviation
education
and the aviation industry is
being depleted by retiring
employees, so they are look-
ing for younger pilots to get
involved,” Wallowa County
Fly-In’s public relations direc-
tor, Katherine Stickroth, said.
A program at the Joseph
Charter School, led by Toby
LONG CREEK — A new area of
wolf activity has been designated for
the Northside group of wolves in Grant
County.
Two wolves were confi rmed to be using
the area in the Northside Wildlife Man-
agement Unit near Long Creek in June,
according to Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife. Monitoring is ongoing to
learn more about these wolves.
ODFW designates these areas when it
has evidence of resident wolves, not just
dispersing wolves.
Livestock producers in the area are
encouraged to be aware of this wolf activ-
ity and take certain preventative measures.
Though not required, nonlethal measures
are important to reduce depredation. If dep-
redation becomes chronic and lethal con-
trol becomes necessary, ODFW’s ability to
lethally remove depredating wolves will be
dependent on the extent that nonlethal mea-
sures have been used and documented.
Wolves are on the federal Endangered
Species List west of highways 395, 78 and
95 with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
as the lead management agency. While the
newly designated area includes areas west
of this boundary, so far all of the docu-
mented locations for these wolves are east
of Highway 395 in state-managed areas.
Umatilla County among the
six under disaster declaration
PENDLETON — Umatilla County is
among the six Oregon counties to qualify for
federal disaster aid in recovering from the
April fl ooding. Federal offi cials also deter-
mined Curry, Douglas, Grant, Linn and
Wheeler counties qualifi ed as major disasters.
The Offi ce of the Governor reported local,
Koehn, has become the pri-
mary source of aviation edu-
cation in Wallowa County.
The funding for this program
comes from grants and funds
raised from the fl y-in. Money
also goes toward funding
scholarships for graduating
seniors who are looking for a
career in aviation.
“It is just always fun to get
together with people inter-
ested in aviation and get to
know what they’re fl ying
and what they do,” Lucas
Stengel said.
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Some
skepticism over the Pendle-
ton Development Commis-
sion’s advisory commit-
tee blighted housing loan
proposal will send the idea
back to the drawing board.
At a commission work-
shop Tuesday, Charles
Denight, the commis-
sion’s associate director,
explained the proposal.
A homeowner in the
urban renewal district
could be given a no-inter-
est loan of up to $16,000 to
fi x up the exterior of their
blighted house.
To incentivize house
maintenance after the
repairs are fi nished, the
city would forgive 20%
of the loan each year the
homeowner successfully
passes an annual inspec-
tion, up to 100%.
The loan program would
also be available to rental
housing owners, but they
could only get up to 50% of
their loans forgiven.
Assuming the com-
mission issued 30 loans,
Denight estimated it would
cost the urban renewal dis-
trict $353,850 to do the loan
program over two years.
The committee’s pro-
posal comes in the wake of
a downtown blight study
that showed 25 residential
properties in the downtown
area demonstrated symp-
toms of blight like peel-
ing paint or a lack of yard
maintenance.
But some city council
members, who comprise
the membership of the
commission, argued that
the loan program wouldn’t
address the base issue of
blighted homes: owners
who were either unable
or unwilling to fi x their
properties.
Mayor John Turner sug-
gested the city take it a step
further, buying blighted
houses at low prices and
then teaming up with one
of the “half-dozen” or more
state and federal agencies documented more
than $8 million in damages from the severe
storms, fl ooding, landslides and mudslides
April 6-21. A contingent of Oregon’s federal
lawmakers reported the public damage in
Wheeler County alone comes to more than
$700 per person.
According to the governor’s offi ce, the
disaster declaration makes federal funding
available to the state and eligible local and
tribal governments and certain private non-
profi t organizations on a cost-sharing basis
for emergency work and the repair or replace-
ment of facilities that sustained damage
during the storms and fl oods.
Last original Oregon Air
National Guardsman dies
PORTLAND — The last remaining orig-
inal member of the Oregon Air National
Guard has passed away.
Fred Parish, who would have celebrated
his 99th birthday in September, died Sunday
in La Grande.
Parish enlisted into the newly formed
123rd Observation Squadron in April 1941,
along with 117 other Oregonians, to form
Oregon’s fi rst military aviation unit. The
123rd Observation Squadron later became
the 123rd Fighter Squadron, which now
operates Portland’s F-15 Eagle fi ghter jets.
“The Oregon Air National Guard has been
an integral part of the nation’s air defense
since 1941, and Fred was at the cutting edge
of that success,” said Brig. Gen. Donna Prig-
more, commander, Oregon Air National
Guard. “He was a brave and motivated man
who helped pave the way for our future, and
for that, we will always be grateful.”
During World War II, Parish served in
Oregon and Washington before deploying
to the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater as
a medic. He was in the military until 1945
when he separated at the rank of technical
sergeant after the war had ended.
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addressed,” said Larry
Glaze, IMESD’s director of
operations and facilities.
“Accomplishing these
projects will really update
and improve the facility.”
School
districts
throughout the region have
been taking part in Out-
door School at Buck Creek
since the early 1970s. The
IMESD has leased the 654-
acre Outdoor School prop-
erty from the U.S. Forest
Service since 2001.
Pendleton’s
Kiwanis
Club held the property
lease for the fi rst few
decades. The location can
accommodate up to 120
students at a time and is
used by several Eastern
Oregon school districts. In
spring 2019, almost 500
students participated in
Outdoor School there.
The Gray Family Foun-
dation is located in Port-
land and “is founded on
the belief that fostering an
understanding and appre-
ciation of our natural
world is a crucial part of a
Atchild’s education.”
Council talks more ambitious
housing anti-blight program
BRIEFLY
Two resident wolves
confi rmed near Long Creek
IMESD Photo, File
Students from the Milton-Freewater Unifi ed School Dis-
trict explore river habitat at Outdoor School in May 2019.
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locals who make money
fl ipping houses, and then
putting the renewed house
back on the market.
“This would be a per-
fect thing for us to buy, for
probably peanuts,” he said.
“(We) go into cahoots with
one of these guys that’s
a professional at fi xing
these things up. They make
money. We get an attractive
piece of property and we
get our money back.”
City Attorney Nancy
Kerns suggested many
blighted houses need much
more than a coat of paint.
“I’ve been in a number
of the houses that were on
(the presentation’s) slide-
show, and lipstick on a pig
doesn’t even quite go far
enough,” she said. “They
are not ever going to be
fi xable — I think some of
them need to go.”
Kerns said the commis-
sion already had a demo-
lition grant program that
contributes toward the cost
of a demolition if a prop-
erty owner is willing to
replace it with something
three times the value.
She said that can be a
tough standard to meet,
and the commission should
consider
relaxing
its
standards.
Houses in disrepair
aren’t just restricted to
downtown Pendleton, and
although the urban renewal
district extends past the
area, it covers little south of
the train tracks or north of
the Umatilla River.
City Manager Robb
Corbett said the city could
tap into revenue generated
by liens to possible expand
an anti-blight housing pro-
gram outside of the urban
renewal district.
In the meantime, the
council instructed Denight
and the committee to
consider its suggestions
and come back with a
revised proposal.
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Spider-Man: Far From Home
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3:40p*, 6:40p, 9:40p
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Men in Black: International
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