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
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“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!