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SPORTS
A winning weekend for Cottage Grove
track team. B1
SOUTH LANE AND DOUGLAS COUNTY'S MOST AWARD-WINNING NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1889
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018
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CGSENTINEL.COM
Guns and our Schools
Part III
By Caitlyn May and Zach Silva
cmay@cgsentinel.com•zsilva@cgsentinel.com
O
n March 24, they took to the streets.
Offi cials estimated 5,000 people in Eugene. They
joined the thousands of others in Salem and Portland.
D.C. and New York. They marched with signs that read “Protect
kids, not guns,” “If you need a machine gun to hunt, you suck at
it,” and “Enough is enough.” They marched with their kids, they
marched across the country. On March 24, they marched for their
lives.
On March 25, two journalists and a radio station owner followed
a mayor and two of his friends into the woods carrying more than
a dozen guns.
“If you’re going to be a journalist and give your opinion, it
should be informed. You should be educated.” Cottage Grove
Mayor Jeff Gowing had never been to the place he was going other
than to scope it out to ensure it would make a good shooting range.
Lumber giant Weyerhaeuser owns most of the empty land in the
area and has banned open shooting. Gowing says it’s because of
the trash left behind by target practice—washing machines, televi-
sions, old furniture. The only option now is Bureau of Land Man-
agement land—or the empty spaces that butt against it— a patch
of which sits approximately 700 feet above Cottage Grove where
Gowing eased his vehicle onto a dirt road, snow still on the ground.
*
There is no shooting range inside Cottage Grove’s city limits.
The school district does not currently have a sponsored program
that utilizes fi rearms such as JROTC or hunter safety classes
though the latter existed at some point in the community’s history
Please see GUNS PG. A9
What to be:
CGHS holds
career day
By Caitlyn May
cmay@cgsentinel.com
Nate Farrell talks to all the staff at Cottage Grove
High School. So when the senior approached
principal Mike Ingman last week, it wasn’t out of
the ordinary but Ingman thought it extraordinary.
“I was just telling him that I think it’s (the fair)
really cool because freshman can focus, not tunnel
vision, but focus more on what they want because
I think it’s a heavy thing on seniors’ minds right
now and they have four years to think about it,
four more years to ask questions,” Farrell said.
“He’s one of our superstar students,” Ingman
nodded to the senior as the two stood just outside
of the hubbub circling in the school’s gymnasium
as students made their way from booth-to-booth
at the fi rst career fair Cottage Grove High School
has held in six years.
“You know,” Ingman said, “I’m going to cliche
you really quick but the cliche is that I get to live
out my dreams every day and a lot of our kids
may not even know what their dreams may be so
we wanted to give them the opportunity to see
where they’re going.”
On Wednesday, March 21 they were going
to the gym where dozens of booths provided
information on post-graduation opportunities
from the University of Oregon to Yogi Tea to
Chambers Construction. Students fi led in and
were set free to explore and ask questions after
spending the morning hearing from four different
SPORTS
Winning kick
Drying out
ATA students from Cottage
Grove compete against
600. PAGE A10
Area baseball teams
squeeze in a game be-
tween rain, snow. PAGE B1
INDEX
COMMUNITY
presenters.
“Some of the students have said they would have
preferred being able to pick which presentation
they attended but that’s something we will look
into for next time,” said Nick Finley, who signed
on as Cottage Grove High School’s career and
college specialist this year. He also serves as the
boys’ basketball coach.
“I think from my understanding, things are
changing a little from, when I was in school
everyone was pushing us to go to college,”
Finley said. “Not that it’s changing but I think
the trades are becoming more and more popular
because college isn’t for every kid and so having
opportunities to go out and look at careers that
don’t need a degree is valuable. The fair opens the
door to the kids to see what’s out there.”
Cottage Grove High School has seen a
push towards its Career Technical Education
(CTE) program, funded in part by Measure 98,
which allows students to learn outside of the
classroom through internships and opportunities
with community businesses. The program also
provides students with career-relevant curriculum,
aided this year by new equipment funded by the
Woodard Foundation.
In December of this year, the foundation
donated $45,000 to the school’s CTE program
in the form of a top-off grant that paid for a new
motor for the jet milling machine for the drafting
classes as well as a laser engraver and new
electrical outlet installations. A new front load
COFFEE WITH THE EDITOR
Have a news tips? Want to talk about
community events? Have a question?
Stop by Backstage Bakery.
The LAST THURSDAY of every
month from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
PHOTO BY CAITLYN MAY/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Students from 9th and 12th grade classes mill around the Cottage Grove High School's gym during the school's
fi rst career fair in six years held on Wednesday, March 21.
washer and dryer for the culinary classes was also
funded as well as a microwave and pots and pans.
The woodworking department welcomed two saw
stops at an estimated value of $3,899 each and a
10” sliding miter saw.
The program is crafted to create opportunities
for students who may not pursue higher education
or students like Farrell who prefer a different path.
“In freshman year I thought, ‘oh man how am
I going to go through a college opportunity if I
can’t do hands-on learning’ because that’s what
I’m good at,” he said. The senior ultimately
found himself weighing the options of a Lane
Community College Technology Program and a
Chambers Construction apprenticeship.
“It was a lot to think about,” he said.
There was a lot to think about in the gym on
Wednesday as well with companies like Walmart,
Peace Health, Les Schwab, State Farm, Cottage
Calendar ...................................... B11
Channel Guide ............................... B5
Classifieds ...................................... B7
Obituaries ...................................... A2
Opinion ......................................... A4
Sports ............................................ B1
Grove Police, Coast Fork Nursery, Kimwood and
several others handing out information. Jasmine
Ward was one of the students manning a booth
on Wednesday, excited to tell her peers about her
experience in the teacher cadet program--part of
the education track at CGHS that gives students
classroom experience and college credit towards
a degree in education. It was just part of what
Ingman called, planting seeds.
“What we’re doing here is, some seeds grow
the next year and when they went into the
pyramid they found these seeds that had three
different pods. One would grow the next year, one
would grow two years later and one would grow
as soon as it got the moisture that it needed so it
could grow at anytime and so that is what we’re
doing. There are seeds being planted, some may
germinate and grow right now and some may be a
few years from now and that’s ok too.”
cgnews@cgsentinel.com
(541) 942-3325 ph • (541) 942-3328 fax
P.O. Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424
Corner of Sixth and Whiteaker, Cottage Grove
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