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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 20, 2017)
Wallowa County Chieftain wallowa.com THREE minutes with ... Cameron RAY CAMERON Business owner Community December 20, 2017 Ray Cameron, 66, of Lostine, has lived in Wallowa County since he was seven. He is the son of Keith and Geor- gia Cameron, who ranched cattle and trained horses in Wal- lowa and near Adrian, in Malheur County. Ray graduated from Wallowa High school, married his high school sweetheart, third-generation Wallowa Countian Patricia Johnson, daughter of Evelyn and Art Johnson. Ray went to work in Pendleton at the Prowler trailer factory and irrigated for the John Smith and Beamer ranch before returning to his dad’s ranch. He bought 260 irrigated acres of his dad’s Lostine ranch and developed his own ranch in 1972. The couple had three children and Ray made his two sons, Travis and Nick, partners when he purchased the Ace Hardware Store in Enterprise in 2000. After the untimely death of Travis in 2008, Nick took over management of the store. Ray and Patricia’s daughter Cindy Shirley lives in Maupin, Ore. Ray and Patricia have six grandchildren. Ray does not have a charity he gives to “formally” but can be counted on to support “all kids activities in the county” and says “anytime anybody asks me for help, I’ll do it. I don’t care what it is.” Q. Why do you live in Wallowa County? A. I like it here. It’s one of the nicest places to live I’ve ever been in. The people are nice, the scenery is nice ... I like to hunt and fish and handle cattle and horses, and that’s all here. A7 Q. What has Wallowa County taught you? A. I like to treat other people how I would like to be treated and I’ve learned that here. I’ve seen people treated otherwise, badly, and I don’t like that. And, Wallowa County has helped teach me to enjoy the outdoors because the opportunity is right out my backdoor. Q. Can you recall the first book you checked out of the library and can you recommend a book you’ve read recently? A. The first book was “Trap Lines North: A True Story of the Canadian Woods” by Stephen W. Meader about a trapper in Canada and how he survived. I was in the fifth grade, about 10 years old, and in public school then. I’d been homeschooled until then. And I remember the second book: “Grass Beyond the Mountains” by Richmond P. Hobson, a true story about three cowboys from Wyoming who went to Canada and carved out a cattle empire during the Great Depression (first book of a three-part saga). The latest book I’ve read that I can recommend is “7003 Days: 21 Years in the Frank Church River of No Return Wil- derness” written by local folks Jim and Holly Akenson. It’s about their time in the wilderness in Idaho. They were on the Salmon River managing Taylor Ranch, the University of Idaho’s wilderness research station. You can get that at “The Bookloft” in Enterprise. Joseph aviation program flying high with grant, glider project By Kathleen Ellyn Wallowa County Chieftain Joseph Charter School’s aviation instructor Toby Koehn has a winner on his hands. Less than two years after he introduced the idea of an avi- ation program to administra- tors at Joseph Charter School, he has brought in a half-mil- lion dollars in funding for the program — most recently win- ning a $431,162 grant from the Career and Technical Edu- cation Revitalization Grant program. There are a lot of ways he can spend that money. “We plan to spend some of it on more technology from flight simulator company Red- bird Landing,” Koehn said. “We’ve been working with them and they are a great company.” The aviation class used Redbird technology to recon- figure a flight simulator donated by U.S. Air-Force Flight Engineer Brett Hays of Enterprise last year. The partnership with Red- bird continues, with students in the class supplying content for the Redbird website by posting blogs about their class experiences. Students with an interest in communications and market- ing are able to turn their tal- ents to writing and creating visual media about aviation as they learn, Koehn said. It’s another way they prepare for a career in the field. A group of students are already develop- ing posts for Facebook, web- sites and promotion material for grants. First-year students are learning from the Purdue Uni- versity/Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association “You Can Fly” pilot curriculum. Joseph Charter School is one of only 30 schools nationwide testing the program. “In that program, they learn the basics of flight science, build wind tunnels and mod- els of jet engines and test the results of wind experiments,” said Koehn. “Most of those projects are fairly basic to get the concepts.” Year-two students have been designing and build- ing gliders out of foam in preparation for building a Schweizer 2-32 glider with Joseph aviation professional Michael Fleming. Fleming is an airframe and power plant mechanic, has a commer- cial rating for flying and has flown in Alaska. He and wife René, who is a flight instruc- tor and commercial pilot, ear- lier hosted the class for a day of learning how to build a kit airplane. Participants in the glider project will also have the opportunity to log 10 hours of glider training. That yearlong project begins in January and is pos- sible through another grant and partnership with Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario. The college has benefited from recognition of the impor- tance of developing trained workers for the aviation indus- try and has received more than $5.83 million to expand its CTE facilities. The college has long been affiliated with Silverhawk Aviation in Cald- well, Idaho, where helicopters and planes are located. Now, thanks to the growing interest in aviation training, the college is putting together a flight pro- gram in Ontario. The college has been a big supporter of the Joseph avia- tion program from the begin- ning and has entered a dual credit agreement –– aviation students can transfer credits earned in their high school avi- ation program. The Joseph Aviation Class has also received a Zenith Aircraft Co. full-sized flight- approved kit plane from attor- ney Michael Valentine, for- merly of La Grande. Valentine and his wife had come to the conclusion that they weren’t going to have time to put the kit together after having pur- chased it. A chance meeting with members of the North East Oregon Aviation Foundation on a ski slope led to a conver- sation about what was going on in Wallowa County, and the Valentines decided the donation made sense, Koehn reported. The plane is in pieces, and putting it together has been put off temporarily while the Joseph Aviation class works on the glider project. “Our 8th graders will prob- ably build Valentine’s plane in their sophomore year,” said Koehn. WALLOWA COUNTY Health Line 519 W. North Street, Enterprise 541.426.3413 Mon-Thurs 9 to Noon/1-5pm; Fri. 9-1 Keycode Entry Weight Room • Cardio Women’s Circuit • Tanning 202 W. 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