COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • JANUARY 2, 2019 •
REVIEW
from A1
stretched into 2018 from the
previous year aft er she was
accused of having a personal
relationship with a district em-
ployee. Th e school board deter-
mined, through a third-party
investigation, that there was no
district policy barring the rela-
tionship.
In January of 2018, aft er nine
months of back-and-forth over
the personal relationship, the
school board and Parent agreed
to the terms of her retirement
aft er 33 years in the district.
Th e agreement came aft er a
handwritten note that was de-
livered to the school board but
which the board took no action
on, was given to a handwriting
expert by a local resident who
funded the analysis.
According to the expert, it
was possible Parent wrote the
letter. More than 100 South
Lane School District employees
signed a letter that asked the
school board to investigate the
issue further.
In April, the Teacher Stan-
dards and Practices Commis-
sion (the state licensing agency
for educators) reviewed a pre-
liminary investigation report
regarding the allegations and
dismissed the complaint fi led
against Parent clearing her of
misconduct.
Th e retirement was eff ective
June 30 and the board installed
Dr. Larry Sullivan as an inter-
im superintendent, informing
the community it would begin
looking for a long-term super-
intendent. Earlier this year, the
board extended Sullivan’s con-
tract by an additional year.
Parent has since taken a posi-
tion with the Confederation of
Oregon School Administrators
(COSA) as the director of lead-
ing and licensure.
Bad Kids
Th e Sentinel embarked on
a partnership with the South
Lane School District to tell
the story of its alternative high
school. Kennedy had recent-
ly undergone a name change
— dropping ‘alternative’ from
its moniker — and was under
new leadership with fi rst-time
principal Halie Ketcher. Th e
school had a diff erent approach
to teaching at-risk students
and students who learned well
in smaller classrooms and had
seen success in the past.
Together with Ketcher and
her staff , Th e Sentinel told 10
stories overall ranging from the
school’s approach to learning,
class confi guration, teen preg-
nancy and parenthood, equali-
ty and mental health. Th e series
followed students throughout
the school year up until and in-
cluding graduation.
Kennedy students earned
$122,000 in scholarships and
earned 20 GED certifi cates and
22 diplomas.
“Some of us struggled at oth-
er schools. Th at doesn’t make
us bad kids,” said student Star
Posthumus as she addressed the
crowd gathered at the gradua-
tion. Posthumus, who contend-
ed with homelessness nearly
her entire high school career,
thanked her teachers and said
Kennedy gave her the second
chance she needed. She said she
learned to check her facts, the
importance of patience and to
work for what she wanted. “For
all the people who thought we
couldn’t do it, look at us now,”
she said.
Th e fi nal installment of the
series ran under the headline
“Good Kids” noting that the
students at Kennedy had always
been “good” but were aware of
the way residents had labeled
them as “bad kids.”
Mildred Whipple Library
Th e library in Drain was one
of 11 shut down aft er the Doug-
las County Commission vot-
ed to close the entire county’s
library system due to a lack of
funding. Th e decision came af-
ter a Nov. 2016 ballot measure
that asked county residents
to tax themselves 44 cents per
$1,000 of assessed value in or-
der to fund the library. Th at
vote failed in all of the com-
munities in Douglas except
three— including Drain.
Th e Friends of the Mildred
Whipple Library group started
a grassroots eff ort to place an-
other measure on the ballot in
2018 to fund the community’s
library.
Th e same 44 cents per $1,000
of assessed value was over-
whelmingly approved by more
than 70 percent of voters. Vol-
unteers logged hundreds of
hours to clean and catalog the
books they had been granted
ownership of by the county
and on Oct. 10, the doors re-
opened.
Th e library joins Roseburg
and Reedsport in having a sus-
tainable, secure funding source
while the remaining Douglas
County libraries are currently
operating on volunteer hours.
Changes to Bohemia
Mining Days
“For the fi rst time in its 58-
year history, Cottage Grove’s
Bohemia Mining Festival will
end on Saturday night and not
Sunday aft ernoon,” a press re-
lease issued Friday, Feb. 9 from
the Bohemia Mining Days
(BMD) board read.
Th e four-day festival that
runs every summer and is
billed as Cottage Grove’s big-
gest tourist draw, cited carni-
val and vendor schedules, as
well as operational costs for the
change.
“BMD is all about tradition,”
said board president Cathy
Simmons. “Yet as we go for-
ward, circumstances force us to
make changes like this one with
an eye on our bottom line.”
Simmons previously not-
ed that it cost approximate-
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ly $50,000 to host BMD each
year. Last month, the board
approved its 2018 budget of
$55,450.
Th e changed marked the fi rst
major alteration to the festival
in decades and was attribut-
ed to a decrease in volunteer
hours, the work load of volun-
teers and revenue.
Zombie houses
On Feb. 12, there was a house
fi re. Just off Adams Ave., an
empty house’s garage caught fi re
and sent neighbors running on
evacuation orders from South
Lane County Fire and Rescue.
Th e house, was a zombie house
— a home abandoned or fore-
closed on and left to sit empty
and fall into disrepair.
Just weeks before the fi re,
the Cottage Grove City Coun-
cil had voted to allow the city
to begin addressing zombie
houses in a tangled, out-of-the
box approach that allowed city
offi cials to take possession of a
zombie house on 6th Street.
Aft er the February house fi re,
City Manager Richard Meyers
informed the board that the
city was continuing to explore
options for dealing with zom-
bie houses including leasing
the houses from the owners of
record.
ly $250,000 but had since out-
grown its student population.
Plans for the old Harrison
building have not yet been ad-
dressed by the school board but
the building did get a proper
goodbye with a celebration that
saw old students and teachers
return in addition to a book
brigade that garnered 300 vol-
unteers to move thousands
of books by hand from the
school’s old library to the new
facility.
Whitsell Mill
Th e Whitsell Mill burned
to the ground on May 27. Th e
fi re that destroyed more than
180,000 square feet was ruled
accidental. “While the exact
cause of the fi re remains unde-
termined and may likely never
be known, fi re investigators
located an area inside the mill
where they believe the fi re be-
gan,” a press release on the fi re
read. Th e mill employed ap-
proximately 100 workers, some
of whom turned to mill jobs
around the state.
Th e local chamber of com-
merce, however, helped Whit-
sell owners secure offi ce space
in Cottage Grove while they
worked on rebuilding the busi-
ness.
Harrison Elementary
Reader’s choice:
The search for Anna
Th e old gave way to the new
this year as Harrison Elemen-
tary School closed its doors
and moved up the road to its
new location — a $23+ million
school built with funds from
a $35 million bond passed by
voters in 2016.
Th e new Harrison Elemen-
tary School opened its doors in
September to welcome a new
class that would benefi t from
a new library, cafeteria and
grade pods that were decorated
with unique Pacifi c Northwest
themes.
Th e original Harrison was
built in 1949 for approximate-
In the fi nal weeks of 2018,
the community became enam-
ored — if not obsessed — with
a dog named “Anna.”
Anna had been visiting Cot-
tage Grove over the Th anksgiv-
ing holiday when she became
separated from her new owner
— Cassie Asleson — and an 18-
day search was launched.
Asleson had recently rescued
Anna aft er her eight-year-old
dog Roxy had to be put to sleep.
She said she had found Anna —
a white pit bull just like Roxy —
aft er weeks of looking and just
hours aft er she made the call to
euthanize Roxy.
But aft er six weeks, Anna
didn’t know her name and was
still skittish so when she went
missing near the Village Green
in Cottage Grove, it could have
been for good.
Enter Cottage Grove.
Asleson credits the commu-
nity with helping to fi nd the
dog — who emerged from a
tangle of blackberry bushes less
than a mile from where she had
disappeared.
Posters plastered the city and
residents took time out of their
day to drive the streets looking
for Anna. Th e dog’s Facebook
page garnered hundreds of
followers and thousands of en-
gagements until she was fi nally
found by accident.
A clerk at the Chevron sta-
tion on Gateway Blvd. saw a
fl ash of white on an embank-
ment in the blackberries just
below the highway. He made a
phone call to Asleson and with-
in an hour dozens of volunteers
showed up at the station to lure
the dog from the bushes and
eventually return the dog to its
owner who drove from Wash-
ington for the reunion.
Honorable mentions
• Cottage Grove turned 131
years old in 2018
• Habitat for Humanity ded-
icated its 13th and 14th houses
in Cottage Grove
• Th e Warren H. Daughtery
Aquatic Center closed to begin
renovations utilizing the $35
million bond approved by vot-
ers in 2016. Th e pool is expect-
ed to re-open in 2019.
• Th e weekly dinner for
homeless and low-income in-
dividuals dubbed “Soup’s On”
changed hands aft er longtime
resident and volunteer Sharon
Jean left Cottage Grove to retire
in Hawaii. Jean had manned
Bohemia Mining Days and var-
ious other projects around the
community for decades and ul-
timately turned over Soup’s On
to resident Kris Allen.
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