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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 2019)
A18 NEWS Blue Mountain Eagle Deputy uty Mobley,” the employee wrote. “Because it is an open investigation, the records are exempt from disclosure.” Mobley remains a county employee and has been payed seven month’s worth of wages and benefits during her absence. At $21.83 per Continued from Page A1 the Eagle seeking clarifi- cation, the DOJ employee admitted Oct. 18 there was an investigation. “We do have a pend- ing investigation for Dep- hour, she earns about $3,785 per month. Wright said all bene- fits remain active when an employee is on administra- tive leave, including PERS retirement, paid holidays, life insurance, long-term disability insurance and health insurance. Wednesday, October 23, 2019 PERS retirement contri- butions cost 11% of wages for law enforcement offi- cers, about $416 per month. Accruing 10 hours of vacation and eight hours of sick leave each month costs another $393. Dividing the 80 paid hol- iday hours equally through- Students Hemp Continued from Page A1 Continued from Page A1 He’s one of Bowling’s four employees. “We need more kids going into this line of work,” Bowl- ing said, adding it’s been a challenge to find quality help. Bowling said, although Hendrix-Mills didn’t have a background in auto body, “he can be taught the right way, and he doesn’t have any bad habits.” Sasser said she’s impressed with Hendrix-Mills’ progress. “Paul is a resilient young man, who is willing and able to work and needed the pos- itive outlet to find his path,” she said. “This is exactly what this program is designed to be.” She said he’s one of three students who gained perma- nent employment from their internship during the summer program. “I am very proud of the strength and direction that he gained in just the few months that I have worked with him,” Sasser said. During the summers of 2018 and 2019, Sasser worked with groups of youths, assess- ing their interests and abili- ties, and contacted area busi- ness owners to place them for internships. The students were paid, through the program grant awarded to the ESD, to work as interns at local businesses, including Mercedes Locke, now a junior at Grant Union, who wants to be a beautician. She interned with hairstylist Laura Saul, who owns Cloud 9 beauty salon in John Day, last summer. Others worked at Bright Beginnings, Grant-Harney County CASA, Grant County Regional Airport, John Day River Veterinary Clinic, Java Jungle’s coffee shop and Grant Union and Prairie City schools for landscaping. They also rolled up their sleeves at the John Day Com- munity Garden where they helped tend a pumpkin patch among other duties. “The Summer Program added 28 paid positions to the county for the nine weeks,” Sasser said. The youth created portfo- lios with information gathered on career research as well as college costs and financial aid. “My part is to be a job developer, to help find them the position, then monitor and job coach,” Sasser said, adding she checks in with the students to make sure they’re doing what is expected of them. Sasser said, because of the success they’re having with the summer program, their format is being used as a model for fields with mold. In Central Oregon, a dev- astating hail storm has already caused an estimated $25 mil- lion in hemp crop losses. Yet farmers remain optimistic. “With all of the research we’ve done, the payback on this crop is fairly significant,” McGill said. “We were will- ing to take the risk this year to see if that’s true.” Contributed photo Mercedes Locke, now a junior at Grant Union, shampoos a client’s hair with instruction from hairstylist Laura Saul at her John Day business, Cloud 9, last summer. Locke, who is interested in a career in the cosmetology field, was part of the Summer Youth Work Experience Program, coordinated by Tami Sasser. The Eagle/Angel Carpenter Tami Sasser, Grant Union Youth Transition Program coordinator, helps a student with his task of placing library books back in order Sept. 26 at the school. other areas. This year, students from Monument, Long Creek, Day- ville and Prairie City schools can now be part of the pro- gram, with help from YTP spe- cialist Christi DeHaven. DeHaven was a teacher’s aide for 17 years through Grant School District 3 before begin- ning her work for the ESD this school year, currently helping a total of 10 students. For students who haven’t discovered what field of work they’d like to pursue, she starts by filtering out the jobs that don’t interest them. “Working with the kids, they get excited when someone is helping them and is inter- ested in them and is proud of them,” she said. Wendy Burril, who is the special education direc- tor for the ESD, teaches stu- dents in Long Creek, Monu- ment and Dayville. She also provides assessments to deter- mine whether students or other young adults are eligible for the summer program. “We build from that in the community,” Sasser said. Burril said she’s been impressed with the way local business owners have allowed Lake Creek Youth Camp Fundraiser the program to evolve through the internships. “We appreciate the support of the businesses,” DeHaven said. “Without their support, this program wouldn’t be able to flourish.” Other students currently work around town, includ- ing Grant Union senior Jessie Stubbs at Pioneer Feed in John Day who helps customers load up everything from bird seed to cattle panels. Jonathan DesJardin, also a Grant Union senior, has been working at Chester’s Thiftway and Figaro’s in John Day. Recently, he and Sky- lar Watson-Vogel were sort- ing books at the Grant Union library and placing them back in order on the shelves. Sasser hopes to build a rela- tionship with the Grant County Library to allow work experi- ences for the YTP students. YTP is “giving a face to these kids and showing they are capable, willing and able,” she said. “It is giving them skills they can take forward into their adult life.” Besides giving the youth work experience, the pro- grams can also help stu- dents pursue post-secondary education. One Grant Union student, who was involved with the pro- gram for two years, graduated last school year and received funding for tuition fees though Vocational Rehabilitation to attend Central Oregon Com- munity College in Bend. Sasser plans to continue building the program. Next year, she hopes to take youths to tour a college or busi- ness outside of the county. They’ll learn this fall if they’ve been awarded funding to incorporate the new idea. “Now that YTP is county- wide, I’m excited to see how it evolves in the next two years,” Sasser said. “The Youth Transition Pro- gram allows students to build a relationship and face with the business owners and that really broadens their horizons,” she said. “There are so many dif- ferent careers and opportuni- ties that the students can dis- cover through this program.” New crop Like marijuana, hemp is a member of the cannabis fam- ily, though under law it can contain no more than 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive com- ponent that gets users high. In 1970, President Rich- ard Nixon signed the Con- trolled Substances Act that banned the cultivation of all cannabis, including hemp. The ban remained in place for over four decades, until the 2014 Farm Bill allowed state legislatures to decide if they wanted to allow and regulate production. Oregon issued its first hemp grower’s license in 2015. By last year, the state had 584 registered growers and 11,754 acres. The 2018 Farm Bill and the Hemp Farming Act of 2018 finally legalized hemp nationwide. Since then the number of growers and acres in Oregon has skyrocketed. As of Oct. 7, the Oregon Department of Agriculture had licensed 1,940 growers and just over 63,000 acres — a 473% increase over last year. Beau Whitney, vice pres- ident and senior economist at New Frontier Data, which tracks the industry, said the 2019 Oregon hemp crop could be worth more than $1 billion. “It would quickly ascend to the number one agricul- tural commodity in Oregon in one year,” Whitney said. Whether that actu- ally happens is still a ques- tion mark. Whitney said it remains to be seen how many acres of hemp in Ore- gon will actually be har- vested and sold. “Where there’s great economic potential in Ore- gon for hemp, the question is will (growers) be able to realize that?” Whitney said. “Will they be able to bring the product to market successfully?” Harvest hazards Jay Noller, director of Oregon State University’s Global Hemp Innovation Center, hit the road to visit with about two dozen hemp farmers across the state, from the Willamette Valley to the Klamath Basin. Driving along Inter- out the year gives a monthly cost of about $145. Wright said life insur- ance and long-term disabil- ity costs vary by age and monthly wages but range from about $20-30 per month. The county pays between $840 and $2,335 per month state 5 past fields of ver- dant hemp, Noller said he likes what he sees so far overall. “The colors look good,” Noller said. “I’m not seeing any brown spots, which is a clear indicator of disease.” This year’s cooler, wetter harvest season caught many growers by surprise, Noller said. He acknowledged that mold is a greater concern for farms in 2019 than it was a year ago, especially in rainy Western Oregon up to the foothills of the Coast Range. Elizabeth Gale felt the pressure as she and her partner, Justin Rotter, and his brother, Jeremy, raced against the rain to harvest 2.5 acres of hemp at Living Harvest Farm near Dallas. To make matters worse, the company Gale planned to use to dry their hemp was running several weeks behind installing new equip- ment. Dryer space is already at a premium as farms try to avoid having mold turn their buds into mush. “It really took over my whole life, to be honest with you,” Gale said. “The weather is basically that ticking time bomb for the crop.” Gale’s predicament illus- trates a tricky balancing act for hemp farmers — harvest too soon, and the plants won’t fully mature and reach their peak CBD content, losing value at processing. Harvest too late, and Mother Nature can wreck an entire year of work. Matt Cyrus, a hemp farmer in Central Oregon and board member of the Oregon Indus- trial Hemp Farmers Associ- ation, said hemp is living up to its reputation as a high-risk, high-reward venture. “If you raise a good crop, it’s worth a lot of money. But it’s also an expensive crop to raise,” Cyrus said. “Espe- cially this year with the wet fall, it’s cost a lot of farmers a lot of money.” Cyrus, who is also presi- dent of the Deschutes County Farm Bureau, is entering his fourth season of growing hemp with his father near Sis- ters. He went from 30 acres the last three years to 100 acres this year, in addition to growing hay and raising a few cattle. Cyrus said this year’s crop is the best he’s ever grown. Others in the region were not so lucky. Some hemp farmers in Central Oregon were blind- sided by heavy hail in August. Cyrus estimated 400 to 500 acres were significantly damaged. “Some of them lost their whole crops,” he said. Big business Gale said that for her and many other farmers, relying on hemp is still too risky as the industry continues to find its footing. ... brought to you by the Canyon City Volunteer Fire Department Food for 1 Year Drawing! 1st Prize - $400 per month (no cash back) 2nd Prize - $250 Chester’s Giftcard 3rd Prize - $100 Chester’s Giftcard s t icke T ACH $50 E 00 2 r 5 fo $ RoseAnn Palmer - 503-476-7726 or Aimee Rude - 541-206-2421 “My mortgage can’t rely on this crop, or I will lose my mind,” she said. Other companies, how- ever, have come into Oregon and are betting big on hemp. Hemptown USA, founded in January, is now growing hemp in three states, includ- ing Oregon, Colorado and Kentucky. The Southern Ore- gon farm, near Central Point, is a sprawling 511-acre opera- tion in the heart of the Rogue Valley — part of a fertile growing region known as the Emerald Triangle. Several hundred field workers paced rows of waist- high plants on a late Septem- ber morning, picking hearty hemp flowers and loading them into plastic bins for dry- ing. Later, a combine will come through to harvest the remaining stalks and biomass. The farm, formerly Ore- gon Sol, is run by Rod Wolter- man and his business partner, Dave Singery. They began in 2016 with just under 2 acres of marijuana, before a glut of pot on the market tanked prices. Singery said it was a no-brainer to switch to hemp. They grew 50 acres in 2018, which proved to be a success. Then Wolterman met with investors from Vancouver, Canada, at a marijuana busi- ness conference in Las Vegas, and they joined forces to cre- ate Hemptown USA. Michael Townsend, the company’s president, said they were able to raise close to $23 million to scale up the operation to 500 acres. The company spent $5.5 million on hemp seed alone. Townsend said the focus of Hemptown USA is not on CBD, but rather another hemp extract known as cannabig- gerol, or CBG, which is prov- ing beneficial to treat skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis. “It’s as hot as a pistol,” Townsend said. “We’re very excited to be in that space.” In July, the company bought Kirkman Group, based in Lake Oswego, to manufacture CBG and CBD products such as tinctures and creams. Hemptown USA has also announced the launch of a new chewing gum with 15 milligrams of CBD and 5 mil- ligrams of CBG. “From our perspective, we have to start formulat- ing and creating intellectual property,” Townsend said. “We’ll patent-protect these formulations.” Singery said he believes the farm can scale up even more, aiming for 2,000 acres of hemp by next year. The biggest challenge, he said, is finding enough labor for har- vest while continuing to build storage capacity. “We already have plenty of property if we want it,” Singery said. “We have a very good reputation around here with our vendors, with our farmers.” Ready for a spooky night?? Date Oct. 31 Drawing at Chester’s Thriftway November 14, 2019 at 3p.m. – For more Information – for health insurance, depend- ing on other family members on the plan, Wright said. Seven months of admin- istrative leave has cost county taxpayers between $39,200 and $49,700. Each month of additional leave will cost between $5,600 and $7,100. Time Only 25 0 tickets will be sold ! 6 p.m. Place Over $5,000 in prizes! Canyon City Pick up tickets at State Farm, or GC Planning Department Community Hall – Donated By – Lake Creek Youth Camp Thriftway Canyon City Fire Department & Grant County Search and Rescue will be handing out candy Events Haunted House sure to make your heart jump to your throat!
