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❘ JUNE 13, 2015 ❘ $1.00
COOK-OFF
RESULTS
Softball summer
season begins
SPORTS — B
INSIDE — A3
SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890
FLORENCE, OREGON
Proceeds to benefit
LCC Florence Center
scholarships
B Y J ACK D AVIS
Siuslaw News
Lane
Community
College’s
Siltcoos Station Retreat and Learning
Center has been put on the market fol-
lowing a decline in usage at the histor-
ical property south of Florence.
Built along the Willamette Pacific
Railway in 1913 on Siltcoos Lake, the
half-acre piece of property and set of
buildings were donated to the col-
lege’s Florence Center in 1972 by the
Christensen family.
“The only restriction on it was that
when and if the college sold the prop-
erty, the proceeds would go to benefit
student scholarships here at the LCC
Florence Center,” Interim Director
Russ Pierson said.
A major upgrade was done to the
property between 2006 and 2007.
“Once the restoration was done, it
was used as a retreat center,” Pierson
said. “Often people from the main
(LCC) campus would come over and
use it for various purposes, meeting in
the boathouse and staying in the cab-
ins.”
In 2008, Siltcoos Station was fea-
tured in Sunset Magazine.
“That generated a lot of interest.
Business groups would come out for
meetings. People even started having
weddings there,” he said.
Then, Siltcoos Station’s popularity
began to wane along with the econo-
my.
The facility was too far off the beat-
en track — about a 20-minute drive
south of Florence on Siltcoos Station
Road — and the repeat business nec-
essary to sustain a retreat facility was
not happening.
The college also felt it was not
being fair to the other motels around
the Florence area because it was not
subject to the transient room tax.
“It’s a wonderful property,” Pierson
said, “but it is not central to our mis-
sion as a college. We have a local advi-
sory board and they voted unanimous-
ly to see if we couldn’t sell the proper-
ty and put those funds into the college
to benefit our students.”
The proceeds from the sale of the
property will go toward scholarships
for students attending LCC Florence
Center.
The college recently listed the prop-
erty with Coldwell Banker for
$325,000.
See
SILTCOOS 8A
School
board
approves
memorials
U NDER C ONSTRUCTION
Siuslaw High to rename
gym, mall in honor of
Butler, Whitmore
B Y J ACK D AVIS
Siuslaw News
PHOTO BY JACK DAVIS/SIUSLAW NEWS
Patients and visitors are asked to use the hospital’s south entrance during construction on its emergency room expansion.
Hospital’s main entrance temporarily relocated
Construction has begun on
PeaceHealth
Peace
Harbor
Medical Center’s emergency
department expansion project,
with parts of the front hospital
parking lot being blocked off with
construction equipment.
Patient parking signs have been
put up to direct patient and visitors
to available parking.
Beginning Monday, June 15,
the hospital’s main entrance will
be relocated to the south side,
directly in front of the 390 Family
Medicine Clinic building. This
entrance is for all patients and vis-
itors for the next six months.
This will be the drop-off point
for patients going to the emer-
gency department and for general
registration for outpatient servic-
es, such as imaging.
For more information, call
PeaceHealth at 541-997-8412.
LIVING
MEMORY
Siuslaw second-graders visit Veteran’s Memorial Park,
write thank-you letters for their service
B Y C HANTELLE M EYER
Siuslaw News
S
INSIDE
tudents from Siuslaw
Elementary School are seeing
what it really means to be a
hero in tours to the Veteran’s Memorial
Park wall on the Siuslaw River.
The project, arranged by second-
Ambulance . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A7
A5
B7
A2
grade teacher Shannon Graham and
veteran coordinator Steve Olienyk,
began last year when second-grade
teacher Chris Cambpell organized an
Old Town history tour.
Graham recommended that they
visit the memorial.
See
Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A6
Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4
Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B
Weather Data . . . . . . . . . . . A2
VETERAN 8A
THIS WEEK ’ S
PHOTO BY CHANTELLE MEYER/SIUSLAW NEWS
Siuslaw Elementary School students search for names on
the Veteran’s Memorial Park wall in Old Town to learn
about the men and women who served our country.
TODAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
61 47
63 50
61 51
63 49
WEATHER
Full Forecast, A3
Siuslaw School Board voted this week in
support of renaming the Siuslaw High
School gymnasium as Glenn Butler Court
and the school mall as Richard Whitmore
Mall in memory of both men who served the
district for many years.
The Siuslaw Athletic Boosters Club first
proposed the idea of renaming the gym and
the mall in February. The club raised the
money to fund two projects, gathered citizen
input and proposed the projects to the board
at its May meeting.
The board requested additional communi-
ty input and scheduled a special meeting on
June 4. At that meeting, current and former
teachers and community members spoke for
almost an hour in support of the project.
Only one letter was received opposing the
idea.
The board approved the two projects at
the June 10 meeting.
The gym floor is resurfaced every two
years, in July. There was not time to sched-
ule the project this year. As part of the resur-
facing project for 2017, the phrase Glenn
Butler Court will be painted on both sides of
the gym, facing the bleachers.
Butler was a Siuslaw High School princi-
pal from 1968 to 1974. He served as district
superintendent from 1974 to 1994. He died
in 2014.
Two 12-inch-by-15-inch bronze plaques
will be mounted in the mall area of the high
school, and will include an etched photo of
Whitmore.
Whitmore was a Siuslaw High School
biology teacher, administrator, vice princi-
pal and principal. He worked for the district
from 1961 to 1993. He died in 2012.
In other business, the school board adopt-
ed the 2015-16 district budget of
$19,717,096.
The new budget will go into effect July 1,
2015.
In addition, the board approved a supple-
mental budget, which must be voted on
when the district receives additional dollars
in excess of 10 percent of the original budg-
et funds by any category after that budget
has been adopted.
S IUSLAW N EWS
125 TH Y EAR ❘ I SSUE N O . 47
C OPYRIGHT 2015
CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK
LCC TO SELL SILTCOOS STATION PROPERTY