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LADY VIKS
❘ JANUARY 14, 2017 ❘ $1.00
SCRATCH TIGERS
DR. KING
RETROSPECTIVES
SPORTS — B
OPINION — A4 & A5
Tonight
Saturday, January 14th
Headliner
Danny O’Keefe
Tickets available online or at the door
www.wintermusicfestival.org
127TH YEAR ❘ ISSUE NO. 4
SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890
FLORENCE, OREGON
Construction
accident takes life
of Florence man
Asa Hammon dies in freak
construction site mishap
B Y J ACK D AVIS
Asa Hammon, a Florence native and former
Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue (SVFR) battal-
ion chief, died Wednesday, Jan. 11, in a con-
struction site acci-
dent at 43rd Street
and Nandina Drive.
According to
SVFR Fire Marshall
Sean Barrett, the 52
year-old Hammon
died when a
hydraulic line to an
excavator broke,
causing the bucket
of the excavator to
careen and strike
Hammon.
Barrett said, “They
Asa Hammon
were putting in a de-
watering well. The midsized excavator was not
in operation at the time.”
Emergency medical services personnel
arrived and immediately began CPR. They
transported Hammon to Peace Harbor Medical
Center where he was pronounce deceased.
Hammon served as a volunteer for SVFR
from 1981 until his retirement in 2010. At the
time he retired he held the position of battalion
chief.
See
HAMMON 7A
Weese to help
make ‘Vision’ plan
a Florence reality
Siuslaw Vision Keepers hire
Tim Weese as coordinator
B Y C HANTELLE M EYER
Siuslaw News
The Siuslaw Region Vision is entering a new
phase in its 10-year plan: the hiring of Tim
Weese as vision coordinator.
According to Vision Keeper co-chairs Susy
Lacer and Jo Beaudreau, a grant from the Ford
Family Foundation provided funding for the
part-time position.
Lacer said, “We’re calling Tim’s position the
vision coordinator — I see that as a huge part not
only of his job, but of the vision as a whole.
We’re trying to coordinate all the great efforts
that are happening throughout our region and
support them to keep moving forward.”
See
Monday, Jan. 16
Eighty-eight years ago tomorrow, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Ga., a middle child with an older sister
and younger brother, and the son of a Baptist minister. King’s father was a fearless protester of segregation whose
example had a profound impact on his son. The result led to one of our nation’s greatest orators and most influential
figures in the Civil Rights and social justice movements. In 1963, King delivered his now famous “I Have a Dream”
speech, galvanizing an audience of more than 250,000 people blanketing the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Though his
assassination four years later on April 4, 1968, silenced his voice, his dream’s message of acceptance and social unity
continues to echo through the decades some 51 years later...
W
hen the architects
of our republic
wrote the magnif-
icent words of the
Constitution and
the Declaration of Independence, they
were signing a promissory note to
which every American was to fall
heir.
This note was a promise that all
men would be guaranteed the unalien-
able rights of life, liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness.
We have also come to this hallowed
spot to remind America of the fierce
urgency of now. This is no time to
engage in the luxury of cooling off or
to take the tranquilizing drug of grad-
ualism.
Now is the time to make real the
promises of democracy.
Now is the time to lift our nation
from the quick sands of racial injus-
tice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
Now is the time to make justice a
reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to
overlook the urgency of the moment...
But there is something that I must
say to my people who stand on the
warm threshold which leads into the
palace of justice.
We must forever conduct our strug-
gle on the high plane of dignity and
discipline.
We must not allow our creative
protest to degenerate into physical
violence.
We must understand that our free-
dom is inextricably bound to the free-
dom of others.
We cannot walk alone.
I say to you today, my friends, that
even though we face the difficulties
of today and tomorrow, I still have a
dream.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the
American dream.
I have a dream that one day this
nation will rise up and live out the
true meaning of its creed: “We hold
these truths to be self-evident: that all
men are created equal.”
I have a dream that my four little
children will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by the
color of their skin but by the content
of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every
valley shall be exalted, every hill and
mountain shall be made low, the
rough places will be made plain, and
the crooked places will be made
straight, and the glory of the Lord
shall be revealed, and all flesh shall
see it together.
This is the faith that I go back to
the South with. With this faith we will
be able to transform the jangling dis-
cords of our nation into a beautiful
symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to
work together, to pray together, to
struggle together, to go to jail togeth-
er, to stand up for freedom together,
knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of
God’s children will be able to sing
with a new meaning, “My country,
‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of
thee I sing. Land where my fathers
died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from
every mountainside, let freedom
ring.”
If America is to be a great nation,
this must become true.
And when this happens, when we
allow freedom to ring, when we let it
ring from every village and every
hamlet, from every state and every
city, we will be able to speed up that
day when all of God’s children, black
men and white men, Jews and
Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics,
will be able to join hands and sing in
the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at
last.
MORE SPECIAL COVERAGE
Pages A4 and A5
VISION 7A
New Dune City Council members get to work
Council members,marijuana tax and dog licenses top agenda
B Y M ARK B RENNAN
Siuslaw News
MARK BRENNAN/SIUSLAW NEWS
INSIDE
Dunes City Council members are sworn in Thursday.
Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B7
Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . B4
MLK retrospectives . . . . . . . . A5
Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4
Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A2
Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B
Dunes City held its first City
Council meeting of the year on
Thursday, Jan. 12, with a full
agenda of items to consider.
The first item taken up was the
swearing-in of the council with
THIS WEEK ’ S
two new members taking the
oath of office.
The council accepted the
resignation of Ken Platt, due to
family issues, entered into the
record a letter from Mayor
Rebecca Ruede and then
swore in
new councilors
Robert
Orr
and
Alan
TODAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
48 31
51 35
55 47
53 49
WEATHER
Full Forecast, A3
Montgomery.
There were three other sig-
nificant issues discussed and
voted on by the new council.
The first was the approval of
the installation of a radio sys-
tem by the Florence Amateur
Radio Emergency Services
(ARES) to facilitate communi-
cation by Dune City officials in
the event of a natural disaster.
Bob
Pine,
Emergency
Coordinator for ARES, made a
presentation that outlined the
group’s plan to donate the
equipment necessary to allow
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COUNCIL 7A
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