COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL MARCH 7, 2018 3A
Opal Center stages new play
The king oversees his moat during a dress rehearsal for Opal's latest play.
By Caitlyn May
cmay@cgsentinel.com
They built a boat, will it fl oat?
That’s a question audiences
will have to answer after seeing
Opal Center’s latest show, “The
King Who Wanted a Boat.”
The question, the main line
of chorus in the “Whale Boat
Launch Song” strikes at the
heart of the musical written
by Cottage Grove resident Hal
Holbrook.
In a fantastical suspension
of reality that falls somewhere
between a folk tale and a Pixar
fi lm gone awry, Holbrook lays
a story of friendship and loyal-
ty over a fairly simple premise:
There’s this king, see, and he
wants a boat.
The play premiered last Fri-
day night.
Guns
Continued from A1
at Cottage Grove High School (CGHS). His
classroom is decorated with student work, family
photos and camera tripods. It also has a box near
the door that cannot be mistaken for anything oth-
er than an in-case-of-emergency tool. It’s a night
lock—paid for as a part of a $35 million bond
aimed at improving safety and security around the
district—and in the case of an active shooter, will
hold the door in place, giving Bridgens time to
draw on the training he and 70 other teachers and
staff at CGHS received from local law enforce-
ment.
It’s called ALICE (Alert Locate Inform Counter
Evacuate) training. Teachers and administrators
learn how to secure their doors, create barricades
and fi ght back if necessary. They learn that the in-
juries sustained from jumping from a window are
less severe than the dangers of being in a class-
room with an armed individual. They learn how
to look around their classrooms and assess what
objects could be used as weapons if confronted
by a shooter.
South Lane School District held its last training
on Jan. 2.
“It’s been fantastic (the training) it’s not an
easy topic.” Bridgens said. “You are working
with Lane County Sheriff’s Department, Eugene
Police Department, Cottage Grove Police Depart-
ment, Springfi eld Police Department. They’re all
there. And they’re in your classrooms with you as
you’re going through this training. There’s a cou-
“We opened and it was great,”
said director Earl Ruttencutter.
“We had pretty good crowd all
weekend and it came off better
than I thought it would.” The
company, made up of Opal reg-
ulars like Paul Von-Rotz and
newcomers between the ages of
11 and 13, was struck by a stub-
born illness days before open-
ing night. During the show’s
last dress rehearsal, at least one
lead actor was sick and another
down for the count.
“To say we’re all recovered,
to use that word would be a lot,”
Ruttencutter said. “As best as
can be, let’s say that. That bug
was a tough one.”
Illness aside, the company
planted its feet (and danced
around a bit) and carried on
through this kid-friendly pro-
duction.
The show begins with the
discovery of bundle of old pa-
pers and drawings that present
a mystery to Paul Von-Rotz and
ple offi cers with you and they’re working through
and talking through these scenarios with you.”
Cottage Grove Police Offi cer Matthew Walker
is a certifi ed ALICE trainer and has led sessions
at Cottage Grove High School. He has purposely
stayed away from coverage of the Parkland shoot-
ing.
“But you can liken it to Virginia Tech,” he said.
“When he went into the main building, he barri-
caded the doors with chains and padlocks which
was a deterrent to stop anyone from being able to
respond and he set up boobie traps so the response
rate was slow because they couldn’t get into the
building.”
Cottage Grove High School is located approx-
imately one mile from the police station on Main
St. Police Chief Scott Shepherd said the response
time to an active shooting would be less than fi ve
minutes. Cruz was reported as actively shooting
for an estimated fi ve minutes.
“Teachers and students can have a tremendous
impact,” he said of those fi rst few minutes of an
incident. ALICE, provides training to make those
minutes count.
“The old method of a lockdown means calmly
get up, move to the corner of the room, turn off
the lights, pull down the blinds and wait,” Walk-
er said. “That doesn’t work. That has been cata-
strophic. That’s when you end up with outcomes
like Sandy Hook.”
When he teaches ALICE, Walker goes through
Maya Wilhauer who immedi-
ately launch into song to deal
with their confusion.
For the next hour and 40 min-
utes, an array of animals (sub-
jects?) fi dget and fuss over how
to get their beloved king (goat?)
a whale to place in his moat.
Wilhauer delivers a stand-out
performance as the king’s mes-
senger boy and ultimate solver
of the royal gang’s big problem:
They can’t catch a whale and if
they could, they can’t drag it to
the castle and if they could, the
moat wouldn’t hold a whale and
if it could, the water in the moat
isn’t salt water and if it was, the
idea of a live whale in a moat is
ridiculous.
To see how the animal king-
dom satisfi es its king’s de-
mands, check out “The King
Who Wanted a Boat” at Opal
Theatre Friday at 7 p.m. and
Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.
School board
rundown
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
Interim Titles Removed
At Monday’s schoolboard meeting, director of human resourc-
es Brian McCasline announced that the interim titles for Cottage
Grove’s principal Mike Ingman and Kennedy’s principal Haile
Ketcher were removed as they both become permanent fi xtures in
their positions.
London Update
London School’s principal Bill Bechen presented about his school at
Monday night’s meeting. Bechen discussed the variety of activities the
school offers ranging from playing ukulele to the artist in residence that
will teach students about cartooning later this spring. Bechen attributed
the success of the 98-student school to the parent’s club that helps sup-
port it and urged the board to support small schools.
Pool Update
The fi nal cost of the renovation to Warren H. Daugherty Aquatic
Center is still being worked out. The estimate is currently at $5.7 mil-
lion while the board has $5.1 million for the project. The pool com-
mittee wants to assure the community that while the same building is
being used for the project, the interior will be new.
Construction for the pool is set to begin in September and the pool
will be closed for a year, according to South Lane Communications
Coordinator Garrett Bridgens. The district will be working on trans-
portation to another pool for students who participate in swimming
and water polo.
several scenarios from blockading the door to
create a time barrier before the shooter’s potential
entrance, to what happens when CGPD arrives.
“You’re going to get guns pointed at you, you’re
going to be manhandled. Everyone is treated the
same,” he said. “Unfortunately, if you’re wound-
ed or in need of medical attention, I’m going right
past you after I assess you’re not a threat because
I’m going to where the threat is.”
“You can’t take the chance that the active
shooter is working alone and not with someone
else. There could be fi res, explosions, they could
pull the fi re alarm and you have that noise going
on or sprinklers are activated,” Shepherd added.
“I mean, it’d be like a catastrophic movie scene.”
On May 20, 1998, the scene outside Thurston
High School in Springfi eld, Oregon could be de-
scribed as catastrophic. Teenagers emerged from
the school, blood on their skin.
“There are details from that day that I can pick
out,” Cottage Grove High School Principal Mike
Ingman said. At the time, he was in graduate
school, studying to become a teacher.
“I remember (local reporter) Rick Dancer cry-
ing but honestly, it didn’t deter me from wanting
to be a teacher, from wanting to make a difference
in young people’s lives,” he said. “As an adminis-
trator, I see these school shootings happening and
I just believe that we’re vigilant, we follow-up on
every rumor. The bottom line is, we’re doing ev-
erything possible to make sure kids are safe.”
In Elkton, the conversations are similar. Being
a town of just 200 people with a charter school
that has around 100 students, they, like every
other school, are working to make sure they are
prepared as best they could be for the worst to
happen.
“I don’t think we can ever be enough prepared
for an event like that. If it would happen, the af-
termath is always really worrisome,” said Elkton
High School Principal Andy Boe.
“We’ve thought about it but I don’t think anyone
can ever prepare for how it would be,” he said.
When trainees in Walker’s ALICE training tell
him they’re not “violent people” and don’t wish to
engage, he offers them other options because, he
says, having a plan saves lives.
“I tell them do the right thing, do the wrong thing,
at least you’re doing something because more often
than not, the one who does nothing, doesn’t make
it. The thing about ALICE is, it works.”
Part of ALICE’s effectiveness may be in its au-
thenticity. Trainers act as shooters, teachers barri-
cade doors and law enforcement storms the halls
as if in pursuit of a shooter in an effort to prepare
faculty for the real possibility of facing a school
shooting.
“It’s unfortunate that we have to do this and talk
about this,” Shepherd said, “but unless a big fl uffy
cloud goes over the entire country, I think this is,
unfortunately, our reality for the time being.”
Magnolia Gardens
Assisted Living & Memory Care
You’re invited to our upcoming events:
R ECYCLE ! R EUSE !
Luck of the Irish
Celebration
Friday March 16th
at 2:30pm
featuring a bagpipe player
and lots more fun!
Wine tasting,
Chocolate
and Paris art class!
Friday March 30th
at 2:30pm
(21 and over only)
E
R
O
T
S
R E
R E S TORE H OURS
T HURSDAY , F RIDAY & S ATURDAY
10 AM -4 PM
Drop off your old paint
for recycling
at our ReStore location
during business hours
Preserve our earth
Keep items out of the landfi lls
Donate to the ReStore
Habitat Offi ce and ReStore
2155 Getty Circle ~ Unit #1
in the Cottage Grove Industrial Park
South on Hwy 99 past the High School
1425 Daugherty Avenue
Cottage Grove, Oregon 97424
541.942.0054 | magnoliacampus.com
Call 541.767.0358
for more information
Email
info@habitatcg.org