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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 27, 2019)
HUTCHISON WINS GIRLS WRESTLING TITLE The PAGE A10 Blue Mountain EAGLE Grant County’s newspaper since 1868 Wednesday, February 27, 2019 151st Year • No. 9 • 18 Pages • $1.00 BlueMountainEagle.com Former Monument resident nominated for an Oscar Fitzgerald’s parents traveled from Grant County to award show By Angel Carpenter Blue Mountain Eagle Former Monument resident Skye Fitzgerald was nominated for an Academy Award for his short fi lm documentary “Lifeboat.” Although it didn’t win the Oscar, the 34 1/2 minute movie, fi lmed in 2016 as part of a trilogy, provides a glimpse into rescue missions on the Mediterranean Sea as volun- teers with the nonprofi t Sea-Watch group seek out migrants fl eeing areas such as Libya and Tunisia via wooden and infl atable boats. Monument residents Mitch and Jenny Mund know Fitzgerald and remember when he was a young man. Fitzgerald’s parents, Fred and Fanny Fitzgerald, still live in Mon- ument, and Jenny said they trav- eled to be with their son at the award ceremony in Los Angeles. When Mitch and Jenny moved to Monument from John Day in 1986, the Fitzgeralds were living in Monument. Jenny said she remembers Skye, 48, as a hard-working young man. She said the family lived in a truck trailer in the early days that she knew them and later built a beautiful home. She added that Fred, now retired, was an air-traffi c con- troller in Tri-Cities, Washington, and Fanny played string instru- ments with the Inland Northwest Orchestra. Mitch worked in fi re control for the Oregon Department of For- estry back then, and Skye worked for him during the summer months as a seasonal fi refi ghter. “He was always willing to learn and was always interested in fi nd- ing out things that he didn’t know,” Mitch said. Skye interviewed Mitch for a part of his 2018 documentary fi lm “101 Seconds,” which was about the Clackamas Towne Center shooting in December 2012. “I gave my views on the Sec- ond Amendment and gun control,” Mitch said. “That’s what I admire in his documentaries. He tried to give both sides of the issue, and then let the person who views it decide — not try to push any of his thoughts or beliefs on people, but let people make that choice.” See Oscar, Page A18 Racial slur highlights need for sportsmanship The Eagle/Richard Hanners Josh Walker, chairman of the Grant County Digital Network Coalition board, addresses a town hall meeting in the John Day Fire Hall on Dec. 18. Broadband coalition to seek grants Director says chances are better this year By Richard Hanners Blue Mountain Eagle New federal grant appli- cations, plans to run a fi ber line to the northwest part of Grant County and the establishment of a state- wide fi ber network partner- ship are generating opti- mism by the local agency organized to improve inter- net access in Grant County. Second try The Grant County Digi- tal Network Coalition will update last year’s applica- tion for grant funding to run a main fi ber line from John Day to Seneca and try again, the board decided at its Feb. 19 meeting. The coalition learned in December they were not a recipient of a $2.9 million U.S. Department of Agri- culture Community Con- nect grant. A total of 124 project applications were submitted, and 19 projects were awarded. The coalition had spent $93,000 developing the grant application and planned to come up with the $450,000 match using the $1.8 million appropri- ation the city of John Day had received from the leg- islature in 2017. The goal was to leverage the appro- priation into larger grant- based funding. The Community Con- nect grant program this year is expected to attract hundreds of applicants during the 60-day submis- sion window, but the Agri- culture Department will only be able to fi nance a small fraction of those applicants, said Nick Green, the coalition’s exec- utive director. Green said the coali- tion’s chances for approval are better this year because the coalition is organized and operating, the co-lo- cation facility in the John Day Fire Hall has been constructed, T-Mobile has proposed cell towers in the project area and the coali- tion has anticipated service provider agreements with Oregon Telephone Corpo- ration and CenturyLink. See Broadband, Page A18 The Eagle/Angel Carpenter Referee Tim Boethin at the Feb. 16 High Desert League boys basketball championship game gathers Crane and Prairie City players around him, warning that further negative comments would not be tolerated. Prairie City rebounds from unsportsmanlike incident By Angel Carpenter Blue Mountain Eagle The Prairie City Pan- thers overcame adversity with a 66-49 win over Dufur Friday to move on to the 1A boys bas- ketball championship tournament. An unsportsmanlike incident almost over- shadowed the Panthers’ last-second victory over the Crane Mustangs in their previous game, the district championship Feb. 16. A Crane player was suspended from play- ing in the team’s next game after what Prai- rie City athletic director Billy Colson described as “serious trash talking” during the game. At one point, referee Tim Boethin gathered players from both teams and said he wouldn’t tol- erate any more negative comments. Prairie City’s Syd Hol- man said he and a Crane player were both in the The Eagle/Angel Carpenter Prairie City Panther starters Levi Burke, left, and Syd Holman show their excitement after their team’s 46-45 win over the Crane Mustangs at the District 8 tournament in John Day. air and landed on man said, but each other. When added he had no they hit the fl oor, respect for the the Crane player comment. “used the ‘hard Panther head R’ (the N-word),” coach Sam Work- H o l m a n man said Crane said. had played “rough “ E m o t i o n s Syd Holman basketball” in pre- were running vious games. high. I’m not going to “Every time we played hold it against him,” Hol- Crane, their kids would say stuff to try to intimi- date with words,” Work- man said. “There’s no defense or offense that has to do with running your mouth on a basket- ball court.” Workman said sports- manship leads to bet- ter outcomes. He said, See Slur, Page A18
