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WEDNESDAY EDITION
❘ SEPTEMBER 16, 2015 ❘ $1.00
Celebrating 125 years
of Florence news
VIKINGS WIN
‘PLEASANT’
GAME SPORTS — B
SPECIAL SECTION FOR SUBSCRIBERS INSIDE
SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890
FLORENCE, OREGON
‘You could smell the ink’
B Y C HANTELLE M EYER
Siuslaw News
F
or Corinne “Corky” Grimm,
newspapers are a way of life.
Her grandfather M.D. Morgan
founded The Siuslaw Oar in 1928. He
first started working in newspapers when
he was 13 years old in Iowa. Then he
bought The Harrisburg Bulletin in 1908
before coming to Florence.
“He was the longterm newspaper gen-
tleman,” Grimm said.
M.D. Morgan passed away before
Grimm was born, and his children took
over the business, continuing to operate
Florence’s main newspaper as a family
business until 1960.
“I was born in 1944, and some of my
first memories are of being at the old
newspaper building,” Grimm said.
She and her brother Jim spent many
long hours in the newsroom of The Oar.
At that time, the newspaper still occupied
the building where The West began in
1890.
“We actually would sleep some nights
on the stacks of blank newsprint. We
would sleep until our folks were ready to
go home,” Grimm said.
Her mother, Genevieve Morgan, was
the main reporter for The Oar.
“My mom, who was the one who was
out and about, was always seen with a
camera around her neck — one of the old
cameras,” Grimm said. “She didn’t need
an ID or anything, because everyone
knew her and that she was with the paper.
This was when the town was 900-1,200
people.”
Grimm remembers Genevieve carrying
pen and paper with her on assignments.
“My mom was one of the only
reporters. She would go to all the meet-
ings and was quite involved with the pol-
itics there,” Grimm said.
Genevieve would then return to the
paper to type her stories.
“Oh, there was a typewriter. I think I
learned to type before I learned to write
by hand,” Grimm said.
Siuslaw receives
PTA honors
See
OAR 8A
COURTESY PHOTOS
Carroll and Leland Morgan, sons of The Siuslaw Oar
founder M.D. Morgan, stand in front of the new
Oar building in 1953. Previous to this, the newspa-
per was based in the same building as The West,
Florence’s premier paper from 1890 to the 1920s.
The Oar thrived as a family-operated business from
1928 to 1960.
Rods ’N’ Rhodies 2015
Dancing
Siuslaw Elementary one of
top 125 schools in nation
B Y J ACK D AVIS
Siuslaw News
INSIDE
National Parent Teacher Association
(PTA) has recognized Siuslaw
Elementary School and Florence com-
munity PTA as a 2015-17 National PTA
School of Excellence for their achieve-
ment in building effective family-school
partnerships.
The award was presented to only 125
PTA associations nationwide. The only
other Oregon PTA to be recognized was
Creston PTA in Portland.
“Our PTA is proud to have been
named a School of Excellence by the
national PTA,” said Diane McCalmont,
president of Florence community PTA.
“We took seriously our role in support-
ing school and family partnerships at
Siuslaw Elementary School.”
Otha Thornton, president of National
PTA said it launched the School of
Excellence program to help strengthen
family-school partnerships across the
country and to make measurable
progress in the areas of education,
health and safety, and arts and cultural
exploration.
“Siuslaw Elementary School and
Florence community PTA have put
strong practices into place that involve
families in the life of the school, and we
are pleased to recognize them as a
National PTA School of Excellence,”
Thornton said.
Florence Community PTA began the
School of Excellence process in fall
2014. According to McCalmont, the
objective was to increase family engage-
ment and support student success in lit-
eracy, math and science.
“The PTA focused on providing infor-
mation to parents and students making
the transition into elementary and mid-
dle schools,” McCalmont said. “PTA
volunteers worked with school principal
Mike Harklerode to come up with
appropriate written information to give
parents of these grade level students.
“As our School of Excellence team
researched and worked through this
project, we found that there are many
positive things going on in our elemen-
tary school. We also became aware that
many of the weak areas were driven by
the lack of consistent and far-reaching
communication. We are pleased with the
strengthened relationship we gained
with our school administration,”
Thornton added.
Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B5
Library Tidings . . . . . . . . . . . A5
Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4
Police . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A2
Scoreboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . B4
Weather Data . . . . . . . . . . . A2
in the
streets
PHOTOS BY CHANTELLE MEYER/SIUSLAW NEWS
The Florence Area Chamber host-
ed classic vehicles at the Rods ‘N’
Rhodies eighth annual invitational
car show in Historic Old Town.
Area and out-of-town visitors
flooded Bay Street to view classic
cars, hot rods and cruisers during
the Friday through Sunday Show
‘N’ Shine. Some people even took
to the streets to dance to classic
tunes. At the corner of Bay and
Nopal streets, Boy Scout Troop
721 held its fourth
annual Pinewood
Derby.
THIS WEEK ’ S
TODAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
62 56
64 51
68 51
68 54
WEATHER
Full Forecast, A3
S IUSLAW N EWS
125 TH Y EAR ❘ I SSUE N O . 74
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CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK
Granddaughter of Siuslaw Oar founder reflects on newspaper life in Florence