HOPS AND HERITAGE
FESTIVAL
DALLAS GIRLS SOCCER
Page 7A
Volume 141, Issue 38
STANDS TALL
Page 11A
www.Polkio.com
September 21, 2016
$1.00
Myrold to appear
in court Tuesday
IN
YOUR
TOWN
By Jolene Guzman
The Itemizer-Observer
DALLAS — The Dallas High School teacher and coach
charged with sex abuse involving a 17-year-old student
will appear in Polk County Circuit Court on Tuesday at 9
a.m. for arraignment.
Kirk Myrold, 36, a Spanish teacher and coach of the
girls’ soccer team, was arrested on one count each of lur-
ing a minor, a felony, and second-degree sexual abuse,
also a felony, on Sept. 12 following a brief investigation,
according to Dallas Police.
Polk County Chief Deputy District Attorney Jayme Kim-
berly said the District Attorney’s Office is
awaiting all police reports and evidence
in the case. The office will review the
case to determine what charges Myrold
will be arraigned on during the hearing.
“I don’t know what the charges will be
yet,” she said Tuesday morning. “We are
waiting for the completion of all the
supplemental reports.”
Dallas officers received a report from
Myrold
the Dallas School District on Sept. 12
that a male teacher employed by the district was alleged
to have been involved in an inappropriate relationship
with a 17-year-old female student.
Dallas Detective Darren Buchholz found evidence sup-
porting those allegations and arrested Myrold that day. He
was taken to Polk County Jail and assessed $30,000 bail.
He was released on the night of Sept. 12.
Myrold was hired to coach the soccer team in 2015, and
had worked at Corvallis High School previously. Longtime
youth soccer coach Ron Brooks replaced him as the head
coach of the soccer team (see related story on Page 11A).
Dallas Superintendent Michelle Johnstone sent a letter
to parents last week informing them of Myrold’s arrest.
“He has been placed on administrative leave and will
not be at the school at this time,” Johnstone wrote in the
letter. “This is still in the hands of law enforcement and
we have very little information.”
She noted that the district is “prohibited from releasing
information about students or ongoing employee issues.”
“We remain dedicated to the mission of providing a
quality education for your children,” she wrote.
Anyone with information regarding this is asked to
contact Buchholz at 503-831-3516.
Fatal accident at
Clow Corner Road
By Emily Mentzer
The Itemizer-Observer
POLK COUNTY — An Aloha woman died in an acci-
dent Thursday morning at Clow Corner and Highway
99W.
The incident happened at 8:05 a.m. when Nathina
Rose Montgomery, 20, of Aloha, turned northbound onto
Highway 99W from Clow Corner Road. Her car was
struck in the driver-side door by a dually pickup truck
driven by William Claude McDonald, 41, of Toutle, Wash.
Montgomery was transported by Reach air ambulance to
Salem Hospital with serious injuries. Oregon State Police
was notified that she had died Monday from her injuries.
Four occupants from the pickup were transported by
ambulance to Salem Hospital with minor injuries. Both
vehicles were towed from the scene.
Safety restraints were worn, and airbags deployed in
Montgomery’s car.
Traffic was re-routed for about two hours while Ore-
gon State Police troopers, Polk County Fire District No. 1,
Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Polk County Road Depart-
ment and the Oregon Department of Transportation
worked on scene.
The intersection of Clow Corner Road and Highway
99W has been the spot for 32 crashes in the last 10 years,
said Lou Torres, spokesman for ODOT. Of those, five
were very serious crashes, with one fatality.
The intersection’s history of serious crashes puts it in
ODOT’s top 10 percent of similar roads, making it a pri-
ority, Torres said.
“It certainly has our attention,” he said. “You have a
high-speed rural roadway there. Typically, those are
some of the toughest places to deal with traffic safety be-
cause vehicles are going to go fairly fast through there.”
A busy intersection with a lot of cross traffic at 55 mph
or faster presents a challenge when it comes to safety, Tor-
res said.
See CRASH, Page 5A
THE NEXT
7
DAYS
PLANNING
FOR YOUR
WEEK
DALLAS
Oakdale Elementary
School receives a visit
from George Fox pro-
fessors.
»Page 13A
FALLS CITY
City council to send
letter to county to pave
road.
»Page 3A
EmIly mENTzER/ Itemizer-Observer
Toni Bordadora, center, helps Elaina Myrick, 6, of Monmouth, practice using her hands
during a hippotherapy session on Friday.
Happy HART
INDEPENDENCE
Council considers
changes to city codes
regarding marijuana
grows.
»Page 6A
Center provides horse adaptive riding
therapy for people with special needs
MONMOUTH
Western Oregon the-
ater students form Can-
dlestick Productions.
»Page 3A
By Emily Mentzer
The Itemizer-Observer
RICKREALL — Elaina
Myrick, 6, doesn’t say much.
She has special needs that
prevent her from speaking
much or walking. At Horses
Adaptive Riding and Thera-
py, it doesn’t really matter.
The horse knows what
Elaina needs.
Father, Dan Myrick, helps
get Elaina out of her wheel-
chair, tightening her glasses
around her head, and onto a
horse in the arena at HART,
located in Independence off
Highway 22.
“She’s done this before,
but it’s nice to have one clos-
er to us,” Myrick said. “Once
she’s riding, she has more
m u s c l e t o n e a n d c o re
strength.”
Elaina likely doesn’t even
realize she’s getting a work-
out — or a therapy ses-
sion — as she’s led around
the arena, giving the horse a
tap with her hand to go, and
practicing her grip.
HART is a nonprofit organ-
ization that puts people with
special needs — physical,
emotional, developmental, or
social — together with horses
and therapists. Currently, the
nonprofit serves 70 clients.
“It’s great to work with the
horses,” said LeeAnn Nail,
certified equine assistance
psychotherapist. “They’re
big and grounded and in the
moment, and often, the
client will be, too.”
Physically, horseback rid-
ing gives clients more core
strength and other benefits
such as use of their hands in
new ways and building mus-
cle memory.
“The gait of a horse is the
only animal that replicates a
human’s gait,” said equine
therapist and HART office
manager Megan Newell.
“When clients can’t walk, or
if they’re working on that
skill, having them ride on
wed
thu
fri
A new lecture series
discussing God and
three religions be-
gins tonight at St.
Thomas Episcopal
Church in Dallas.
7 p.m. Free.
Want to know more
about measure 97?
Attend a public forum
at the monmouth li-
brary for both sides of
the issue.
7-8:30 p.m. Free.
Tour the new
Richard Woodcock
Building of Educa-
tion at Western Ore-
gon University in
monmouth.
4 p.m. Free.
Mostly sunny
Hi: 70
Lo: 46
Mostly sunny
Hi: 69
Lo: 48
Cloudy
Hi: 66
Lo: 50
ELECTION
Jim Thompson and
mike Nearman are run-
ning for House District
23.
»Page 2A
SPORTS
Central’s Tony Rincon
scored six goals in two
matches.
»Page 11A
EmIly mENTzER/Itemizer-Observer
Elaina Myrick, 6, readies to ride with her therapist.
the back of a horse trains
their muscles for the move-
ment they’ll have to do for
walking.”
Newell saw the results of
this firsthand when her
daughter, who has Angel-
man Syndrome, a genetic
disorder, still wasn’t walking
at age 3.
“People kept pushing it,”
she said. “After three months
of adaptive riding, she was
walking.”
Emotionally, horses are
good at reading people,
Newell said.
“They’re very empathic,”
she said. “They can take
your mood and personality
and are really good at under-
standing what somebody
needs.”
Myrna Gulick, member of
the HART board of directors,
said the organization at-
tracts horse people.
“When you know that
connection, and you under-
stand how magical that can
be, and how healing that can
be, you discover a program
that helps anyone who has
more to deal with than you
do on your feet,” she said.
“when you work with a per-
son and they’re on a horse
and their faces light up and
they become stronger — it’s
amazing. You go home and
sat
Catch ’em all at the
community Poke-
mon Go event in
downtown mon-
mouth and Inde-
pendence.
1-4 p.m. Free.
Cloudy
Hi: 73
Lo: 54
Check it out
What: HART Family
Fall Fair.
Where: HART, 6665
Rickreall Road, Inde-
pendence.
When: Sunday, 1 to 4
p.m.
Admission: $15 gen-
eral; $7.50 children
younger than 12; $40 for
family of four — two
adults and two children;
those 2 and younger are
free. Includes lunch.
Of note: HART is seek-
ing volunteers for a vari-
ety of tasks, from filing to
fixing fences to changing
light bulbs. No experi-
ence with horses is nec-
essary.
For more information:
horsesadaptiveriding.org
you feel like, ‘I did some-
thing worthwhile today.’”
Often the time a client
spends at HART is the high-
light of their week, Gulick
added.
“It’s just extraordinary,”
she said. “When we work
with someone, and there’s
just a tiny improvement. A
child who will touch nothing
holds on (to the saddle) here,
and then goes home and will
work with their hands.”
See HART, Page 5A
sun
listen to your fa-
vorite guilty pleas-
ure on National
One-Hit Wonder
Day.
Sunny
Hi: 82
Lo: 51
Firefighters
put on
fundraiser
Itemizer-Observer staff report
mONmOUTH — mem-
bers of Polk County and
Dallas International Asso-
ciation of Firefighters
local 4196 will be hitting
the streets for the muscu-
lar Dystrophy Association
Fill the Boot Fundraiser
Friday from 2 p.m. to 6
p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m.
to 1 p.m.
Firefighters will be at
th corner of main Street
and Pacific Highway in
monmouth.
Contributions go to-
ward mDA summer
camps for children, pro-
fessional and public edu-
cation and research.
The fundraiser began
on Tuesday.
The IAFF has more
than 280,000 members in
the United States and
Canada.
For more information
about the IAFF, visit
www.client.prod.iaff.org/.
For more information
on the Fill the Boot
fundraiser, visit
www.iaff.org/mDA/histo-
ry.asp and for more infor-
mation on the mDA, visit
www.mda.org.
mon
tue
Do something posi-
tive for the commu-
nity — and
yourself — by sign-
ing up for the inau-
gural Glow Run, to
be held Oct. 15.
James2 Community
Kitchen serves
meals to all who are
hungry each Tues-
day at St. Philip
Catholic Church.
4:30 p.m. Free.
Sunny
Hi: 81
Lo: 52
Sunny
Hi: 75
Lo: 49