Polk County Education
14A Polk County Itemizer-Observer • August 30, 2017
Dallas teachers ready for first day
SCHOOL NOTES
Two students spell their way to the top
SALEM — Madelyn Baker, of Dallas, and Ryann Miller, of
Monmouth, will represent Polk County this year at the Oregon
Statewide Spelling Championship from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on
Saturday at the Oregon State Fair.
The championship will have 63 spellers from 27 counties in
Oregon.
KOIN 6’s Andrew Dymburt will be the master of ceremonies.
Students competing at the championship have won their
school, district and county written spelling contests. This is the
ninth year Oregon Spellers has sponsored the statewide cham-
pionship.
Oregon Spellers is an all-volunteer group paid for through
donations and sponsored by the Oregon Association for Talent-
ed and Gifted.
Oregon Spellers was formed after the Oregon Department of
Education ended its support for the spelling contest in 2009.
Local and regional coordinators are sought to expand the pro-
gram to areas not participating.
For more information: oregonspellers.org.
Dallas awards engineer contract at WW
JOLENE GUZMAN/Itemizer-Observer
Dallas School District has 17 new teachers starting in the 2017-18 school year. The group includes: Allie
McWilliams, districtwide, school psychologist intern; Kelleigh Ratzlaff, Dallas High School, family and consumer
studies; Austin Markee, DHS, science; Bethany Givens, Whitworth Elementary School, special education; Lana
Mabry, Lyle Elementary School, special education; Sam Arrant, LaCreole Middle School, math/science; Annee
Blevins, DHS, media specialist; Keeton Luther, Whitworth, fifth grade; Devin Hammill, DHS, Spanish; Robert Harri-
man, Lyle, second grade; Drew Reinhardt, LaCreole, sixth grade math; Jackson Darling, Polk Adolescent Day Treat-
ment Center, classroom teacher; Aaron James, Oakdale Heights Elementary School, special education; Regina
Bliven, Oakdale, second grade; Kyle Hormann, Whitworth, fourth grade; Ann Ludwig (not pictured), Oakdale,
kindergarten; Katt Korpela, Lyle, primary teacher.
Field projects at DHS to span two years
By Jolene Guzman
The Itemizer-Observer
DALLAS — The project to
update Dallas High School’s
football field and track — if
field fundraising is success-
ful — will be completed over
two years instead of one.
Once the Dallas Booster
Club, which is raising money
for the field part of the proj-
ect, and Dallas School Dis-
trict officials looked at the
timing of the upgrades, they
decided it would be too dif-
ficult to get them both done
in one summer.
The district agreed to pay
for the track replacement,
but only if the field is paid
for through private dona-
tions.
“Everyone thought it
would be best from a timing
perspective to have the arti-
ficial field done first before
the district started the re-
placement of the track,” said
Kevin Montague, the dis-
trict’s facilities director. “If
we wanted to do the track
project, let’s say next sum-
mer, we would want to go
out to bid in February or
March to get our contractor
on line and geared up.”
The problem is, the
booster club won’t know if it
has the money in hand for
the field until April.
If it doesn’t, the campaign
will have to continue into
the next year.
Montague said contrac-
tors might not like that un-
certainty.
The proposal now is to
have the turf done in one
year — next summer at the
earliest — and the track the
following summer.
Athletic Director Tim Lar-
son said the district has a
contingency plan if the field
installation damages the
track, making it unusable for
one season.
“When the field gets put
in, it (could) mess up the
track. We won’t be able to
use the track for practice,
won’t be able to use it that
season for track meets,” he
said. “We will have the abili-
ty to use LaCreole’s track for
practices, and then the two
or three track meets that we
would usually host will be
picked up by the other
schools in our conference.”
Larson said he would
need to get permission from
the Oregon School Athletics
Association to have the mid-
dle school and high school
teams share facilities.
Montague said the district
should be prepared to adjust
entrances to the stadium
when the track is replaced.
One side of the track will
be raised for proper
drainage, so those entrances
that touch the track need to
be changed.
“ T h e s t a d i u m w o n’t
change, except the interface
with the track,” he said.
Thinking ahead, however,
those changes would have to
comply with any new design
for a replacement stadium in
the future, Montague said.
That prevents the district
from digging up and new
track surface when it up-
grades the bleachers.
Greg Locke, the engineer
on the field project, said
completing the projects to-
gether would have saved
money, but that shouldn’t
affect the track project cost.
The field drainage will be
designed to have the track
drainage tie into it once
completed.
“It doesn’t cost the district
more money to postpone
the project,” Locke said.
“The boosters end up pay-
ing that cost, which is what
we planned on originally. It’s
no additional cost to do it
(separately).”
DALLAS — The Dallas School Board awarded the engineer-
ing contract for next summer’s seismic upgrade for Whitworth
Elementary School’s gym.
The board approved the $96,700 contract for design and en-
gineering to ZCS Engineering, which has already done work on
the main part of the building during this summer’s seismic
retrofit.
Whitworth’s gym project will be paid for with a $700,000
grant from the state that was awarded to the district in April.
The main building seismic improvements were also paid for
with a state grant.
The upgrade will strap the roof to the walls and upgrade the
heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system.
“It’s going to look pretty much like it does now. It’s just tying
the roof down,” said Kevin Montague, the district’s facilities di-
rector. “In addition to strengthening the roof, it will give us a
brand new one.”
ACADEMIC HONORS
EOU includes locals on honor roll
LaGRANDE — Crystal Good and Raylene McGuire, both of In-
dependence, and Cody Manzi, of Monmouth, made the honor
roll at Eastern Oregon University during the spring 2017 term.
To be named to the honor roll, students must maintain a
grade-point average of 3.5 or higher while completing 12 hours
of graded coursework.
George Fox lists graduates, honor roll
NEWBERG — Local students were among those who earned
dean’s list recognition at George Fox University for the spring
2017 semester. Traditional undergraduate students must earn a
3.5 grade-point average or above on 12 or more hours of grad-
ed work to earn a spot on the dean’s list.
Following is the list of local students who earned recogni-
tion:
Dallas — Asheley Crabtree, senior, accounting; Mon-
mouth — Caitlin Fettig, junior, social work; and Ben Griner, sen-
ior, computer science.
The following students earned degrees from George Fox in
spring, 2017:
Emily Thiessen, of Dallas, bachelor of arts in organizational
communication; Kori Chancellor, of Dallas, master of arts in clin-
ical mental health counseling; Kendra Sambuceto, of Dallas,
master of arts in teaching; Ruth Wilke, of Dallas, bachelor of sci-
ence in elementary education; and Sarah Gallup, of Dallas, mas-
ter of arts in clinical psychology.