NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Uptmor to
continue
as Grant
superintendent
Kam Wah Chung opens for season
Virtual guided
tours available
By Rudy Diaz
Blue Mountain Eagle
The Kam Wah Chung State Her-
itage Site visitor center is open with
limited services.
The 2021 season will go through
Oct. 31, and the center will be open
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will be open
Tuesdays through Saturdays in May
to start the season, and will expand
to seven days a week as staffi ng
becomes available.
Museum curator Don Merritt said
only virtual guided tours of the Kam
Wah Chung building will be available
onsite, outside the interpretive center.
The Kam Wah Chung building will
be closed to visitors for 2021.
Virtual tours are contingent on
weather and safety and are 45 min-
utes long. The tours start at the top
of the hour and are closed at noon for
lunch.
“Kam Wah Chung SHS will fol-
low all COVID-19 protocols set
forth by Oregon Parks and Recre-
ation, including sanitizing proce-
dures, social distancing and wearing
of proper face masks,” Merritt said in
a press release.
The Kam Wah Chung building
and interpretive site were closed last
year due to COVID-19, but work
continued behind doors with studies
and designs in the works.
Merritt said no one was on site in
2020 until November, which was a
good thing for the Kam Wah Chung
building.
“It gave the building some time
to breath,” Merritt said. “With all the
visitors that were coming through,
our biggest concern was the building
being loved to death.”
Merritt said, during the shutdown,
the team was able to get informa-
tion and data that showed how the
temperature and humidity would be
in the building without visitors. The
A7
By Rudy Diaz
Blue Mountain Eagle
The Eagle/Rudy Diaz
The Kam Wah Chung Interpretive
Center homes an abundance of his-
torical artifacts for visitors to enjoy.
The Eagle/Rudy Diaz
Museum curator Don Merritt talks about his design for the future Kam Wah
Chung Interpretive Center.
extended break helped provide con-
sistent data.
“It turned out to be a silver lining
for us and future management and
preservation of the resources here,”
Merritt said.
In spring this year, Oregon State
Parks provided $20,000 to start a fea-
sibility study on a new visitor center
with Pinnacle Architecture helping
with the preliminary design.
“At this point we’re still laying
out the design for the building for
sometime in the future,” Merritt said.
“There are no hard set dates for any
completion. This is something that
has been in the works for a while, and
this year, we’ve been authorized to go
ahead and start the feasibility study.”
The idea is to provide a big-
ger building than the current inter-
pretive center, which can provide a
larger exhibit space, extra space for
researchers, a virtual reality room and
a mock-up of the main room in the
Kam Wah Chung building.
The plan is to also have the larger
building house both the interpretive
center and the collections as they are
currently in separate buildings.
“It’s likely going to be where the
pool is right now, but that is yet to be
decided,” Merritt said.
Merritt created his own prelim-
inary idea of how he would like the
Kam Wah Chung visitor facility to
be: have the building’s exterior match
the historic feel of a Chinatown in
John Day and have a particular Asian
architectural style.
The layout map is also designed to
incorporate the existing interpretive
center to be complemented with the
extra space provided in new building.
“We’re thinking ahead, but it’ll
probably be a few years before we get
to the point of construction,” Merritt
said. “It all depends on the purchase of
the city park and if that goes through
whenever that does, so there’s a lot of
contingencies on this, but we’re start-
ing to think ahead now.”
Archives at the historic facility,
which have been worked on since
2005, took center stage in 2020 as
accessibility was improved on.
Merritt said most of the archives at
Kam Wah Chung were scanned elec-
tronically, and the team continues to
develop a searchable database so the
public can easily research the histor-
ical artifacts.
“Our archive database, we want to
make it searchable because it hasn’t
been done before, and no one has
access to all the 20,000 documents,”
Merritt said. “Hopefully by making
the searchable database, we’ll be able
to open up for a lot more research,
and we’ve been fi nding all kinds of
information.”
Most of the documents are in tra-
ditional Cantonese and Chinese, and
about 10% of the archives have been
translated, according to Merritt.
Last year, Merritt produced a
360-degree video that tours the Kam
Wah Chung building, which is avail-
able on friendsofkamwahchung.com
and stateparks.oregon.gov. Merritt
said a professionally produced virtual
reality experience is in the works to
be completed sometime this year.
Merritt said, even with the year of
closure, many people are still inter-
ested and continue to wait for open-
ing day.
“We’re still getting lots of visi-
tors calling about when things are
open,” Merritt said. “We’ve already
had several visitors stop that are
wanting to visit and so we’re anx-
ious to get back open as long as it’s
done safely.”
Grant School District 3 Superin-
tendent Bret Uptmor submitted a let-
ter of resignation in April, but is
working on a new con-
tract to continue as
superintendent.
Uptmor said during
a board meeting last
year in November
that he was eligible to
retire, but he was not
ready to do that. He Bret Uptmor
asked and proposed to
the board that they would rehire him.
“In January, I brought materials for
the board to review regarding hiring
back, and either February or March,
they approved my hire back,” Uptmor
said.
Uptmor said, in order for them to
hire him back, he had to resign his cur-
rent position. Uptmor submitted his
resignation in April so the board can
move forward with working on a new
contract.
His last day under the current con-
tract is June 30, but his request for hire
back is for July 2.
“I have a one day gap, and then I
would come back to work on July 2,”
Uptmor said.
The board and vice chair are going
to meet with Uptmor this week to work
on the new contract.
“I don’t think either of us has any set
numbers of years that we would put into
the contract, but that’s why we’re going
to get together to talk and make a good
plan,” Uptmor said.
Uptmor said his goal is that, when
does offi cially leave the district at the
end of his new tenure, he and the school
board can have a good succession in the
transition to a new superintendent so
the work can continue without a gap.
Shop Local
Something for Every Mom
“The Best Antiques Are Old Friends”
Have Mom Styling
in the Garden
The Dark
Horse
Rentals LLC
80 Vendors
600 S. Canyon Blvd.,
John Day, OR
541-620-5808
call or text 541-575-2112
S172668-1
Digital
Frames
&
Tablets
BAR WB
Women’s jeans,
dresses tops,
shoes & gift cards.
Limited Supply
234 NW Front. St.
Prairie City
541-820-3675
Heritage Hill Farm
Floral & Gifts
137 E. Main Street, John Day
Beautiful flowers
for all occasions
&
Tablets
Cindy Wimer,
Professional Florist
Phone: 541-820-3600
Mon-Fri 10-6 pm/Sat by appt.
www.heritagehillfarmflowers.com
S241552-1