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Est. 1889
WEDNESDAY EDITION | OCTOBER 23, 2019 | $1.00
S entinel
C ottage G rove
VOL. 131, NO. 41
S ERVING
THE COMMUNITIES OF
C OTTAGE G ROVE ,
C RESWELL ,
D ORENA , D RAIN ,
E LKTON , L ORANE AND
Y ONCALLA
Your Local News Delivered Your Way: In Print. Online. On the Go!
PakTech fi ts
into local
‘mold’
PERSONAL | BUSINESS
BENEFIT PLANNING | SURETY
(541) 942-0555
The Eugene-based
company aims to be
a plastics-reprocess-
ing success story
PayneWest.com /Cottage-Grove
WEATHER
By Damien Sherwood
dsherwood@cgsentinel.com
Partly cloudy with a
high of 63 and a low
tonight of 44.
Full forecast on A5
COMMUNITY
Swinging Bridge
gets official name
A3
DAMIEN SHERWOOD/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
SPORTS — B
The house at 850 E Quincy Ave. serves as a sober living environment for women recovering from
addiction to transition back into a healthy lifestyle.
At-risk residents find ‘Safe Haven’
By Damien Sherwood
dsherwood@cgsentinel.com
T
Lions take loss on
Homecoming
B1
• RECORDS
Obituaries
Police
A2
his May, Cottage Grove Safe
Haven opened the city’s
first transitional home for
women recovering from addic-
tion. Five months in, the nonprofit
is still looking for more residents.
The ‘Booher House’ — named
after Darrell Booher, the former
owner of the house who was also
in addiction recovery — came to
the nonprofit amid a challenging
search for property in the Cottage
Grove area. After Booher passed
away, his surviving family, aware
of the group’s mission, happily
agreed to let Safe Haven use his
property.
Safe Haven board member Billie
Bird is the current ‘house mother’
at the Booher House.
“There’s nothing else like it in
Cottage Grove,” she said of the
program.
Though the project has gar-
nered a degree of local populari-
ty and support, only two women
in recovery currently reside in a
space which can house up to six.
Resident Heather Thompson is
the first to use Safe Haven’s ser-
vices.
Earlier this year, Thompson had
her own business and was engaged
to be married in Tacoma, Wash.,
when her brother’s sudden death
at age 29 brought her back to her
hometown of Cottage Grove. After
attending the funeral, she felt com-
pelled to stay in town.
“I couldn’t find it in my heart to
leave my family because they were
so devastated,” Thompson said.
The strain of her brother’s death
had taken a heavy toll on the en-
tire family and self-medicating be-
came the prevalent healing mech-
anism among them.
“It was getting to the point
where everyone was fighting and
See SAFE 6A
For better or worse, plas-
tics are an enormous part
of our lives. The versatility
and relative light density
of the material has made
it a ubiquitous element of
the modern world, but its
durability also makes its a
semi-permanent fi xture of
our accumulated waste.
The last couple years
have seen a sea change in
the way we deal with our
plastic waste. China’s Janu-
ary 2018 ban on the import
of plastics threw the recy-
cling programs of countries
worldwide into disarray.
Government bodies, local
organizations and private
businesses have since been
coming up with solutions
in a touch-and-go approach
that has seen both successes
and failures.
Local company PakTech
aims to be one of the suc-
cess stories.
“Being a creator of the
demand for reprocessed
plastic is one of our big
things right now,” said Pa-
kTech Vice President Zak
Borg. “We’re championing
that effort.”
PakTech
fabricates
100-percent-recycled plas-
tic handles for the beverage
and consumer goods in-
dustries from high-density
polyethylene (HDPE), oth-
erwise known as #2, which
is used to make milk jugs,
detergent bottles, toys and
some plastic bags.
The reprocessed HDPE
comes in from Californian
and Canadian sources.
See PAKTECH 8A
• LORANE NEWS
A5
• CLASSIFIEDS
Listings and public
notices
B6-B7
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Lane, Douglas counties outpace state in bullying rates
By Joshua Leach
Intern for The Sentinel
jleach@cgsentinel.com
541- 942-3325 ph • 541-942-3328 fax
P.O. Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424
Pushing. Shoving. Name-call-
ing. Online malfeasance. It’s a tale
as old as time: kids can be jerks to
one another. October is National
Bullying Prevention Month and
unfortunately, bullying has nearly
always been a part of the school
experience.
It’s worse for LGBT youth, who
reported higher bullying rates,
according to a 2017 report by the
nonprofit Oregon Safe Schools and
Communities Coalition (OSSCC).
There have been some glimmers
of hope — the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services
(HHS) has said that the number
of kids reporting being bullied has
decreased by 11 percent in the last
decade.
Jim Goodling - Mike Grant
330 OR-99 Suite C • Cottage Grove, OR 97424
541-942-0165
Sometimes viewed as a rite of
“Every bullying situation has eighth-graders reported being bul-
passage through life, bullying can two victims, both the bullied and lied. Closer to home in Lane and
have real health consequenc-
Douglas counties, that num-
es for children and teens.
ber was higher, at 34.2 percent
HHS says that bullied kids
and 42.2 percent, respectively.
are more likely to go through
For eleventh-graders, the
depression, anxiety and may
numbers were lower, but still
even see changes in their
alarming: 1-in-5 across the
diet and sleep patterns. This
state, including Lane and
could continue into adult-
Douglas counties, report be-
hood.
ing bullied. That number
Bullying has the added ef-
matches up with 2017 data
fect of hurting kids academi-
on eleventh-graders from the
— Oregon Health Authority 2017 Healthy National Center for Educa-
cally, too. Victims of bullying
Teens Survey
are “more likely to miss, skip
tion Statistics.
or drop out of school” and
Nationally among eighth
can feel the effect on their
graders, the number is high-
report cards.
the bully,” said Terry Bennett, su- er, with 1-4 reporting being bul-
The bullies, on the other hand, perintendent of North Douglas lied, which is still a lower rate than
are more likely to get into fights, School District (NDSD).
those reported in Oregon.
abuse alcohol, be sexually promis-
The Oregon Health Authority’s
And it’s not just that the rate is
cuous in their youth, be domestic (OHA) 2017 Healthy Teens Survey
See BULLY 7A
abusers and have criminal records. revealed that 3-in-10 Oregonian
Nationally among eighth
graders, 1-in-4 students report
being bullied, which is still a
lower rate than those reported
in Oregon.