WEDNESDAY EDITION | MAY 1, 2019 | $1.00
CGSENTINEL.COM
3
Est. 1889
S entinel
C ottage G rove
VOL. 131, NO. 18
S ERVING
THE COMMUNITIES OF
C OTTAGE G ROVE ,
D ORENA , D RAIN , E LKTON
AND Y ONCALLA
Your Local News Delivered Your Way: In Print. Online. On the Go!
Airport Welcome
Center propels tourism
PERSONAL | COMMERCIAL
BENEFITS | SURETY
By Damien Sherwood
dsherwood@cgsentinel.com
(541) 942-0555
PayneWest.com/Cottage-Grove
N
WEATHER
DAMIEN SHERWOOD/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Sunshine with a
high of 70 and a low
tonight of 38.
Full forecast on A5
The $100,000 welcome center project was
years in the making and has turned the city
into a popular pit stop for fly-by visitors.
adine and Shawn Kelley have found a way to pull
tourists out of thin air.
In its short life of a little more than a year and a
half, the Cottage Grove Airport Welcome Center has been
generating exactly the kind of attention the Kelleys were
hoping it would, pulling in a manifold increase in visitors.
“During a week in the summer, before this building came
up, we would have two or three [visitors],” Shawn said.
“Now we’re getting more like a dozen to almost 20.”
See CENTER 9A
COMMUNITY
Community waves
goodbye to local
icon
A3
SPORTS — B
DAMIEN SHERWOOD/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Community members raised the first wall of the tiny house project into position last Wednesday.
Lions pick up a pair
of ‘must-win’ games
B1
Walls raised on first tiny house
By Damien Sherwood
dsherwood@cgsentinel.com
• RECORDS
Obituaries
A2
• LORANE NEWS
A5
• CLASSIFIEDS
Listings and public
notices
B7-B9
FOLLOW US FOR THE
LATEST NEWS :
Members of Presbyterian Women
helped hoist the first wall in Cottage
Village last week, marking a new
milestone in the tiny house project
at 1430 E. Madison Ave.
“This isn’t the answer to our hous-
ing crisis, but it’s definitely a start,”
said Mayor Jeff Gowing to a crowd
of community members and project
volunteers who turned out for the
April 25 event.
general and we’re of course no iso-
lated incident here,” she said. “I want
to commend SquareOne Villag-
es for identifying a gap in housing
and actually moving as fast as they
can to find solutions in small rural
locations as well as all over Lane
County. What they do is unique and
your help in this effort is really com-
mendable.”
SquareOne Village’s executive di-
rector Dan Bryant emphasized the
need for projects like this.
See TINY 10A
Students create public
service announcements
to inform and offer
support to others
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
Brandi Baker-Rudicel did not
want to have this conversation
with her students; she did not
want to talk about suicide.
“I hated this. If I don’t like
subjects, I avoid them. I’m an
avoider... I avoided it like the
plague,” Baker-Rudicel said last
week during a particularly noisy
health class at Al Kennedy High
School. “And then I realized that
I needed this.”
She realized she no longer had
the luxury of avoiding this sub-
ject when, 10 years ago, a Ken-
nedy student committed suicide.
“It affected Kennedy so grave-
ly that it was like, ‘Oh my gosh,
we have to do things different.’
So we got the whole staff trained
up, I started training students,”
she explained to her class.
For Baker-Rudicel’s part, she
was going to make sure students
were able to learn about the
subject while also being able to
share this knowledge. This re-
sulted in creating a unit in which
students create public service
announcements on this topic to
share with their class, peers and,
ultimately, community.
The lesson is taught about
every three years to ensure that
each student experiences it in
their time at Kennedy. In the
fi rst year, with a grant from the
county, a group of students cre-
ated a shirt which had the phrase
“Mental Health Life Guard” that
students wore regularly each
Tuesday. Down the line another
class created a Facebook group
that was a place for individuals
to share positive messages. It
remained active far past the end
of the school year while others
have created bumper stickers
that show up around town.
On this particular Thursday,
students were sharing what they
had done for their project. While
there were interruptions and loud
outbursts of noise around the
See KENNEDY 7A
Public Health Fair connects community services
/CGS ENTINEL
By Damien Sherwood
dsherwood@cgsentinel.com
@CGS ENTINEL
CGS ENTINEL . COM
After more than three years of
planning and volunteering, the first
of 13 tiny homes has begun to take
shape as a new phase has begun in
the collaborative affordable housing
project run by the Cottage Village
Coalition (CVC) and SquareOne
Villages.
With momentum gathering in the
project, Lane County Commissioner
Heather Buch stopped by to speak at
last Wednesday’s event.
“We all know that housing is a
huge issue along the West Coast in
Kennedy program
inspires honest
discussion about
teen suicide
541- 942-3325 ph • 541-942-3328 fax
P.O. Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424
More than 30 organizations packed
the Cottage Grove Armory on Satur-
day for this year’s Public Health Fair.
Booths were set up by organizations
providing services ranging from
mental health counseling to nutri-
tional programs.
Because many of the groups in
attendance Saturday operate out of
Eugene offices, their services to the
Cottage Grove area may be relatively
unknown; Family Relief Nursery in-
take specialist Crystal Morrison saw
the event as a great opportunity for
exposure and education.
“It’s really just letting families
know that we’re here for them and
what we offer,” she said. “It’s also a
great time to network and have oth-
er agencies get together that we don’t
usually get to see.”
The fair was started four years ago
by members of Family Relief Nurs-
ery and an intern in the Family and
Human Services program out of the
University of Oregon.
“It’s actually run by interns every
Great Selection
year,” said Morrison, “Usually, this is
their senior project.”
As part of the project, interns con-
tact agencies they think would be ap-
propriate to be in attendance.
Donations also come in from all
over the community for a raffle event
held at the end of the day. This year,
the Armory stage showcased a large
selection of donations that included
toys, gift baskets and several child-
sized bicycles.
Fair attendees included well-
known groups such as the Cub
Scouts and 90by30, but also provided
See HEALTH 7A
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a platform for lesser known groups
like Bikers Against Child Abuse
(BACA), whose parked Harley Da-
vidsons outside the building and full
biker regalia at the booth generated
some interest.
“We’re here to help children not be
fearful in their world,” said Dreamer,
BACA vice president and agency liai-
son for Emerald Valley Charter. “The
way we accomplish it is we actually
bring them in to our family,”
BACA members only go by “road
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