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MyEagleNews.com
Ketchum: $2M grant at risk if bond fails
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — The city of John
Day will likely lose the $2 million
in lottery grant funding that would
go toward the construction of a new
community pool if the $4 million
bond on the Nov. 8 ballot doesn’t
pass.
Interim John Day City Manager
Corum Ketchum provided an update
on the grant’s status during a meet-
ing of the John Day City Council on
Tuesday, Oct. 25. The update had
been requested by members of the
council.
The city received a $2 million state
lottery grant to go toward the cost of
building a pool, but that money came
with an expiration date. If the city
Opsis Architecture/Contributed Photo
This revised conceptual drawing shows an updated image of what the pro-
posed aquatic center in John Day might look like.
does not sign the fi nal grant agree-
ment by Jan. 15, 2023, the funds will
be withdrawn, Ketchum said.
The bond failed once already after
voters deadlocked in an 802-802
tie in the May election. If the mea-
sure fails again this time, Ketchum
said, the city may have to return the
money.
“We need to have a project
selected that we can viably spend
money on,” Ketchum said in an
interview after the meeting. “In this
case, it’s the pool project that we
have been working on for the last
fi ve years.”
Ketchum added that if the bond
passes, the city and the John Day/
Canyon City Parks and Recreation
District will be able to use some of
the grant money to pay back expenses
that have already been incurred for
preliminary design work on the pool
project.
Ketchum also cleared up confu-
sion about an additional $1 million in
funding that has been characterized
I ain’t afraid of no ghosts
as a recent loan to cover cost over-
runs, stating that it is part of the same
fi nancing package that was previ-
ously approved for the project.
“Back in February of this year,
council approved $3 million in
interim fi nancing, with $2 million
that would be the lottery money and
an additional $1 million to be the
last dollars spent on the project,”
Ketchum said.
Ketchum added that the $1 million
line of credit was taken out in hopes
that the money would not be needed
to construct the pool but would be
available in case of overruns.
“I think it was wise of council at
the time to say, ‘Well, construction
costs might be going up,’ Ketchum
See Bond, Page A16
Tyler Smith trial
gets underway
By TONY CHIOTTI
Blue Mountain Eagle
Tony Chiotti/Blue Mountain Eagle
Venkman and Stanz battle to save the Prairie City home of Shawna and Jamey Clark on Halloween night, 2022.
By TONY CHIOTTI
Blue Mountain Eagle
I
f you mention “the Halloween house”
in Prairie City, locals will know which
one you mean. Up Main Street, just
off Front, Shawna and Jamey Clark
have gone all out for the past 20 years,
the last 10 of which have involved full-scale
themes such as The Giant Pumpkin, Beetle-
FOR MORE PHOTOS, SEE THE
ONLINE VERSION OF THIS STORY
AT MYEAGLENEWS.COM.
juice, Ichabod Crane and a pirate ship. This
year they went with “Ghostbusters,” includ-
ing a custom-built Slimer and life-size Venk-
man and Stanz fi ring proton blasters into an
animated ectoplasm portal.
Spengler and Zeddmore were less cooper-
ative, their mannequins refusing to stand up.
So they ended up on the porch, one seated
and one prone, covered in “marshmallow
goo,” which on inspection proved to be a
mixture of spray foam insulation and shav-
ing cream. Shawna Clark says they usually
start on the next year’s plan right after Hal-
loween. “It’s all her ideas,” said Jamey Clark.
“I just do it.”
CANYON CITY — Opening argu-
ments in the Tyler Smith trial were made
on Wednesday, Oct. 26, at the Grant
County Courthouse, with Judge Dan
Bunch of Klamath Falls presiding.
Smith stands accused of three felony
counts: attempted rape, attempted sex
abuse and fourth-degree assault, all per-
taining to events alleged to have occurred
on Aug. 31, 2018. He has pleaded not
guilty to the charges.
The trial began in
earnest following a
lengthy jury selection
that involved the court
sending the sheriff out
into the community to
hand out summonses to
residents. After the 12
Smith
jurors and two alternates
had been seated and pre-
pared via instructions and clarifi cations
on their role from Judge Bunch, opening
arguments began.
Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney
General Jayme Kimberly made opening
statements for the prosecution. She was
joined in court by Wheeler County Dis-
trict Attorney Gretchen Ladd. Andrea
Coit, joined in court by co-counsel and
husband Andrew Coit, made the opening
statement for the defense.
Both attorneys outlined the roadmap
See Smith, Page A16
Giant pumpkin breeding makes enormous progress
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Despite their grotesquely
bloated appearance — or per-
haps because of it — giant
pumpkins are known to evoke
a curious reaction: love at fi rst
sight.
Growers of the oversize
gourds commonly recall feel-
ing a relentless, magnetic fasci-
nation upon discovering them at
an autumn fair or festival.
“I was just captivated by
these giant pumpkins. I made
a note that if I ever had a prop-
erty with enough space, I’d try
to grow them,” said Brian Wil-
liams, treasurer of the Pacifi c
Giant Vegetable Growers
nonprofi t.
“It was just the enormity of
them,” he explained.
A decade ago, Williams
tore out a paved sports court
at his home in Lake Oswego
to make room for the garden
where he now grows enormous
vegetables.
He’s since been amending
the “terrible” soil with organic
matter, and while he still culti-
vates giant pumpkins, Williams
now specializes in long gourds
that top 10 feet in length.
Competition is stiff among
the 120 members of the orga-
nization, who strive to produce
the heaviest or longest speci-
men in eight crop categories,
but it’s surpassed by the spirit of
camaraderie.
“We’re all a bit dorky and I
think we take comfort that we
can dork out with other dorks
of the same variety,” said Wil-
liams, who works as a consul-
tant on occupational safety and
health regulations.
The ‘obsession’
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Kendall Spielman, president of the Pacifi c Giant Vegetable
Growers nonprofi t, examines one of the giant pumpkins grow-
ing on his property near Brooks.
Though giant pumpkin
growers tend not to take them-
selves too seriously, they’ve
nonetheless performed astound-
ing feats of agronomic and
genetic improvement in recent
decades.
Good breeding
At more than 2,500 pounds,
the world’s heaviest pumpkin
weighs twice as much as the
record-holder 20 years ago and
three times as much as the stan-
dard-bearer 30 years ago.
“As a group, we understand
so much more about the science
and what you need to let them
grow big,” said Russ Pugh,
chair of PGVG’s seed commit-
tee in Eugene, and an events
promoter.
Selective breeding has pro-
pelled this massive progress,
with enthusiasts planting seeds
from past champions and fertil-
izing the fl owers of those plants
with pollen from other promis-
ing off spring.
These lineages are tracked
as earnestly by giant pump-
kin breeders as those of thor-
oughbred horses or champion
livestock.
Gary Kristensen of Happy
Valley doesn’t have enough
room to compete at the high-
est level in giant pumpkin
growing weigh-off s, so he in-
stead breeds with an eye for
optimal color.
“There are family trees that
go back for generations,” Pugh
said. “Serious growers won’t
grow them unless the genetics
are known.”
What makes these accom-
plishments all the more impres-
sive is that most giant pump-
kin growers aren’t professional
farmers, but come from a
variety of professional back-
grounds, said Brett Cooper, a
founding member of PGVG
who grew giant pumpkin seeds
commercially for about two
decades.
Since the 1980s, the mar-
ket for giant pumpkin seeds
has grown from several hun-
dred people to tens of thou-
sands around the world, said
Cooper, who lives near For-
est Grove.
For growers, the “obses-
sion” is driven partly by the
plant’s unbelievable growth
during the height of summer
— in the time it takes to eat a
sandwich, it’s possible to mea-
sure minute changes in size,
he said.
“When I started growing,
you wanted a pumpkin that
grows 15-20 pounds a day,”
he said. “Now they can grow
50-60 pounds every single day.”
From the perspective of
breeding, however, it’s not
enough to select for pumpkins
that rapidly get heavy.
In the past, pumpkins that
simply packed on pounds with-
out greater durability were eas-
ily damaged, often disqualify-
ing them from competition.
“They’d collapse under their
own weight,” Pugh said.
Traits that confer thick walls
and fl exibility are critical, so the
fruit — yes, a pumpkin is a fruit
— can withstand its own weight
and environmental stressors.
See Pumpkins, Page A16