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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (April 15, 2015)
WWW.THESIUSLAWNEWS.COM WEDNESDAY SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF FLORENCE • DUNES CITY • WESTLAKE • MAPLETON • SWISSHOME • DEADWOOD • YACHATS AND ALL POINTS BETWEEN 125 T H Y E A R • I S S U E N O . 30 APRIL 15 • 2015 $1.00 Dunes City preps for triathlon, tsunami W ORKING H ARD Volunteers, sponsors needed as triathlon participation expands B Y J ACK D AVIS PHOTO BY CHANTELLE MEYER/SIUSLAW NEWS Kiwanis Club of Florence members and their families tend to the planting strip at the intersection of Highways 126 and 101 on April 11. Rhododendron Senior Court, far right, princesses Natalie Madden, Kennedy Roylance, Bailey Wells and Trista Lane and princes Trey Cornish and Keoni Castro and their advisor Cindy Wobbe helped Kiwanians clean up the area. ALL FOR ONE Rhody Senior Court joins Florence Kiwanis Club for day of service S TAFF R EPORT Siuslaw News M embers of the Kiwanis Club of Florence, along with their friends and family, spent their Saturday sprucing up the planting strip in front of Dunes Village Shopping Center on the corner of Highways 126 and 101. More than 25 volunteers, including students from the Rhododendron Festival Senior Court, helped with the April 11 cleanup project. Volunteers spent the afternoon picking up trash, spreading fresh bark and rock, trimming back bushes and pulling weeds. With a quick lesson from Wilbur Ternyik on how to properly prune the pines, the team had the area looking pristine in no time. Ternyik and his wife Joyce founded and maintained the park for many years. “Thank you to all of the amazing volunteers who came out and made this day a raving suc- cess,” said Kiwanian Lori Wangerin. She also expressed thanks to Sand Ranch, which donated the delivery fee of the bark and rock, and to John and Jean Murphy, who pro- vided lunch for all the volunteers. Community radio station celebrates first anniversary KXCR hosts open house April 19 B Y C HANTELLE M EYER Siuslaw News Florence community radio station KXCR’s one-year anniversary of playing on air is Sunday, April 19. The sta- tion will celebrate with an open house from 12 to 7 p.m. at its Ninth Street location. “We’re primarily support- ed by the people willing to be creative with us,” said station manager Richard Koehler. “There has to first be a pas- sion. Passion leads to plan- ning, then planning leads to perseverance.” Perseverance is what got the station going when the possibility for a community nonprofit radio station became a reality. The process took eight years. Originally sponsored by a federal grant and then through $50,000 in commu- nity donations, KXCR began playing such programs as “Democracy Now!” with Your INSIDE W E D N E S D AY Classifieds B7 Library Tidings A5 Opinion A4 Police A2 Scoreboard Sports Tides Weather B4 B B1 A2 Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez and programs pro- duced by members of the community. Maggie Bagon, from “Montana Maggie’s Blue- grass Hour,” said, “It covers the gamut. We have health, fitness, relaxation, blues, See RADIO 9A KXCR station volunteer Kevin “The Ghoat” Liebel practices at the programming controls in the on-air studio. DUNES CITY — Dunes City Council worked to finalize loose ends last week dur- ing its final meeting before the third annual Oregon Dunes Triathlon and Duathlon set for Saturday, May 9. During the April 9 meeting, the council discussed ways to round up more volun- teers, attract last-minute sponsors and launch a road litter clean-up effort before the event. Dunes City resident Liz Breon recom- mended the council institute a road clean-up project before the triathlon. In response, Mayor Rebecca Ruede proposed that the inaugural clean-up takes place Sunday, April 26, from 2 to 5 p.m. The council requested City Administrator Fred Hilden to contact Camp Florence to see if they would be willing to participate as part of their community service requirements. Hilden reported to the council that as of April 8, 115 applicants were registered for the triathlon and that new applications were being received at an average of five per day. “We could be up to our objective of 200- plus for the event,” he said. This would be a 25 percent increase in participation over last year. Hilden said Dunes City continues to seek volunteers to help with the triathlon and that any legitimate non-profit group that brings the most volunteers to the event will receive a check for $250 from Dunes City. He also said all volunteers will receive a complimen- tary triathlon T-shirt. Sponsorships for the triathlon are up three-fold over last year, according to Hilden. In other business, Dunes City has recently received a grant from the Ford Family Foundation to buy and install a generator for emergency situations, such as a tsunami and or earthquake. “I am reluctant to spend $20,000 on a backup generator for a building that may or may not withstand a 9.0 earthquake,” Hilden said. “This building needs to survive the earthquake in order to function as any kind of assembly area or provide for people’s needs in conjunction with that.” Hilden has contacted a structural engineer from Nehalem that will do a lateral assess- ment of the Dunes City hall building for $1,000. “We have budgeted funds in the motel fund that would be a legitimate use of this money,” he said. “I am asking the council to authorize spending $1,000 on a seismic eval- uation of the building.” Councilor Ed Scarberry asked, “So, we spend $1,000 and the study comes back say- ing this building won’t stand up to a 5.0 or 6.0 earthquake. Then what do we do?” Hilden explained that the evaluation would also include an upgrade recommenda- tion and estimate. The board approved spending $1,000 to fund the evaluation. Hilden also reported the successful resolu- tion of a concern raised by the recent audit done for the city. PHOTO BY CHANTELLE MEYER/SIUSLAW NEWS Weather T ODAY T HURSDAY F RIDAY S ATURDAY Mostly Sunny 57 42 Sunny Partly Sunny 61 46 Mostly Sunny 61 46 60 46 Sports—B See COUNCIL 9A CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK Siuslaw News