COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL September 16, 2015
3A
Future winery making strides
Industrial Park building now storing King Estate wines
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
P
reparations to bring a popular
area winery to Cottage Grove are
continuing in earnest, according to its
owner.
Ed King, owner/founder of Lorane-
based King Estate Winery, said last
week that “things are going great” for
the company in the Cottage Grove In-
dustrial Park, where a former distillery
is being transformed into the headquar-
ters of King Estate’s Acrobat label of
wines.
King Estate announced the purchase
of the former Side Pocket Foods build-
ing, which has been shuttered since
its previous owner was convicted on
charges of tax evasion, in late June. The
building is slated to house the Acrobat
label, a less costly version of King Es-
tate’s signature varietals that has been
called the “fastest growing brand in Or-
egon history.”
on Monday, and King said the ware-
house should be “more or less full”
of wine in six months. He added that
King Estate has enlisted the services of
California-based Summit Engineering
to design and build a new tasting room
in Cottage Grove, potentially on the
same Industrial Park property. He said
the company hopes to have that new fa-
cility in use by the crush/harvest of the
fall of 2017.
“There are a lot of vendors and con-
tractors working hard there right now,”
King said. “We hope to host a ribbon
cutting before too long, and we’re very
happy to be a part of the community.”
King Estate’s Northwest Area Man-
ager, Justin King, stated that the Indus-
trial Park is “logistically a fantastic lo-
cation” for the winery’s new operation
that will make shipping and trucking
much easier than before due to its loca-
tion near Interstate 5.
On Monday, Mark Dorman, who’s in
charge of construction at the site, said
Shortly after the announcement of
the purchase of the Side Pocket build-
ing, King Estate also purchased Lot
13 in the Industrial Park, a lot situ-
ated across R Street from the 3.9-acre
facility. Its plans for that lot are as yet
unknown. City Manager Richard Mey-
ers noted that the purchases will take
care of three years of debt payments
on the Industrial Park; they also helped
ease concerns the City Council shared
about the need to make payments on
the park.
Currently, King said, crews are work-
ing on the loading docks at the former
Side Pocket facility, in addition to land-
scaping.
“We’re drastically increasing the
amount of insulation in the building and
putting on a new roof and skylights,”
he said. “We’re excited to start loading
wine into the building, likely this week;
it’s a very exciting time for us.”
Pallets of King Estate wine were
stacked into a cooled storage facility
Schools haven't been able
to fund P.E. instruction
since before economic
downturn
BY JON STINNETT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
Downtown trick-or-treating will take place
Friday, Oct. 30 from 3-5 p.m.
C
ottage Grove’s annual trick-
or-treating and Halloween
celebration will take place on Fri-
day, Oct. 30 from 3-5 p.m. down-
town, according to plans a commit-
tee decided on last week.
The occurrence of Halloween on
a Saturday this year led to ques-
tions regarding when the downtown
celebration would take place, and
a committee formed of representa-
tives of the Chamber of Commerce,
City of Cottage Grove, the Cottage
Grove Sentinel and the Main Street
Program has been meeting to out-
line plans for the event.
Main Street will be closed down-
town during the event, according
to Sentinel Publisher Gary Manly,
who said that sentiment was report-
edly split between those wishing to
have the event on Friday or on Hal-
loween proper. The Downtown Art
Walk will follow at 6 p.m.
The Severed Armory, a haunted
attraction that drew large crowds to
the Cottage Grove Armory the past
two years, announced that it has
outgrown its space there and will
move to the Eugene Fairgrounds.
the facility should be able to store about
260-80 cases of wine to make room at
the main winery for its 2015 vintage.
The new roof and insulation are costly
but will make the new building much
more energy effi cient, he said, adding
that King Estate will save money uti-
lizing the Cottage Grove storage facil-
ity as opposed to shipping its wine to a
California distributor.
Grant will fund P.E. at area schools
Main Street will once
again be closed
downtown for trick-
or-treating on Friday,
Oct. 30 from 3-5 p.m.
Halloween plans coming together
photo by Jon Stinnett
Mark Dorman of King Estate Winery displays cases of wine at the
new Cottage Grove facility.
T
he 2015-16 school year has al-
ready been a more active one for
many students in South Lane School
District, due to grant funding meant to
place a physical education teacher in
several area schools.
A grant from the state of Oregon has
funded the addition of P.E. teachers at
Latham, London, Dorena, Bohemia and
Harrison schools. According to SLSD
Human Resources Director Brian Mc-
Casline, the grant will give students at
the District’s smaller schools a P.E. pe-
riod every day, while the larger schools
— such as Harrison and Bohemia El-
ementary — will have a credentialed
teacher capable of offering instruction
several times per week. The grant also
funded curriculum and materials for the
new teachers.
It’s been about seven years since the
E
R
O
T
S
E
R
District’s elementary schools offered
P.E. with the use of previous grant fund-
ing.
“We had offered P.E. before, but there
were big budget cuts in 2008,” said Har-
rison Elementary Principal Ali Nice.
“All of the elementary programs ended
up being cut. The classroom teachers
love to teach it now, but it’s diffi cult
with one class at a time to have to set up
an activity each time.”
“The purpose of the most recent grant
is the same as before,” McCasline said.
“The grantors want to offer P.E. every
day for every child, particularly since
there’s a state law coming that regulates
a certain number of hours of physical
education for each student. This District
also really values physical activity and
the role it plays in education.”
At Harrison, Nice said the grant will
allow a full-time P.E. teacher to instruct
students for an hour a week; a second
time slot for P.E. will be overseen by
classroom teachers. The schedule there
will also include a “daily brain break,”
Nice said, a six-minute break from
learning meant to “get the blood fl ow-
ing.”
At Latham School, Principal Anne
Fisk said the grant will allow the school
to hire a credentialed P.E. teacher and
redirect fundraising efforts previously
dedicated to P.E. to other causes.
“Most of our fundraising has typi-
cally gone toward P.E. and music,” Fisk
said. “The grant has allowed us to free
up some dollars and offer P.E. more than
twice a week. The goal is to offer P.E.
instruction every day.”
Harrison and Latham will also be
utilizing new C.A.T.C.H. curriculum,
a program from Lane County’s Public
Health Department that comes prepack-
aged with nutrition and physical educa-
tion instruction that can be taught from
cards by any teacher. The County has
funded $5000 for the C.A.T.C.H. in-
struction materials, in addition to pro-
fessional development to bring teachers
up to speed on the new program. Nice
said this will fund one hour of teacher
time at Harrison.
Both Nice and Fisk said the funding
is particularly welcome at their schools,
where gym space and time are an issue
with providing P.E. instruction.
“Sometimes space can be an issue,
but we’re going to work all that out,”
Fisk said.
“We know that the more kids move,
the healthier they’ll be,” Nice said.
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