Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 18, 1979)
i ..,,..'" .v j - t i .; I ' J BESSIE WETZELL -V'VV.;; .' . ' U ' OF ORE ! - ''NEWSPAPER LIB :Hlfg!, .j.;-. j EUGENE OR ',0MM I The Heppner . GAZEWE-liMES I Morrow County's Home-Owned Weekly Newspaper I VOL. 97 NO. 37 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1979 20 cents 12 pages Don Gilliam Weather Hi Low Pre. Tues.,Oct.9 68 37 Wed., Oct. 10 75 39 Thurs., Oct. 11 79 46 FrL.Oct. 12 76 42 Sat., Oct. 13 76 43 Sun., Oct. 14 70 50 .32 Mon.,Oct.l5 66 51 .06 California trip for lone band approved by Morrow County School Board The Morrow County School Board approved a field trip to California for the lone March ing Band Monday at the board meeting in lone. The board had some prob lems with approving the trip because it is out of state and more than 200 miles away but this was offset by the fact the band members were going to raise all the money for the trip with money-making projects and therefore it would cost the district nothing except sup plying the bus. Music director Gene Sartain of lone was behind the drive and according to Principal Chuck Starr, the entire lone community is behind the project. "The community is excited about music," Starr said, "and they support his re quest." The trip is tentatively sche duled to take place April 9. It is not guaranteed. The band first must send a tape some time in December to the producers of the contest-type event. Only if they are Heppner may get P.O. boxes Heppner's mail problem of not having enough post office boxes for the number of residents who want one may soon be solved. But then again, maybe it won't. Fifteen residents are on a waiting list to get a post office box if one becomes available. There are also 75 people in the general delivery who have not even bothered to get on the waiting list. Add to this the countless number of people who share boxes because they cannot get one of their own and there definitely is a problem. Postmaster H.C. Wilson put in an order to the United States Postal Service two years ago for some hew P.O. boxes. The new ones have arrived but now Wilson and the rest of the Heppner community will have to wait until the U.S. Postal Service sends out someone to install the new boxes. "Within a year, the boxes will either be installed here or possibly somewhere else," Wilson said. Wilson said the U.S. Postal Service could decide to install boxes in another location if there were a determined need. Wilson said he could not use local volunteers to put in the boxes even if an organization did volunteer its services. The U.S. Postal Service would not allow it because it has its own installers. "I can't have them installed because they have their own installing crews," he said. "I guess that does make good sense because they know what they are doing. We could possibly be in the process of remodeling soon." Wilson said the Heppner Post Office will have to be remodeld completely if the new boxes are installed. There are 733 post office boxes in the Heppner office now and there are 1,200 new boxes so the only way the new boxes will fit is if the building is remodeled. The post office boxes pre sently rent for $5 for small ones, $8 for middle sized ones and $10 a year for large ones. selected will the band be able to go. The trip will be to Great America, Calif, which is near Santa Clara, south of San Francisco. Bands from all over will be putting on a show in the amusement park in the town. The 25 students who are selected to go will get on rides at the part for free, according to Sartain. "This trip is the ultimate for a marching band," Sartain said. "Hundreds of people will see the band but it is not guaranteed because the tape must be complex music." Students will only miss one day of school for the trip. They will leave on a Thursday night and arrive in Great America Friday morning. After a rest they will practice and spend some time in the park. Saturday is performance day and after they perform, they will head back home. Sartain will choose which students will go and they must meet his criteria for marching and playing the music. The band will pay the fuel, the bus driver and motels and meals with money received from money-making projects. One such project is the lone Band Carnival this Saturday. Some members said Sar tain's ambition was a bit beyond what should be al lowed and they asked if a different type of trip could be planned. But Sartain said another trip would not be of the same caliber and would not unify the band like this trip would. "To make this trip, we cannot tolerate poor caliber workers so this will make our band strong," Sartain said. Sartain said it might not cost the students anything to take the trip to California depending on how much money they can raise. Even if they do have to pay some of their own way, the trip is planned out now so they can start saving, Sartain said. He added the hotel rooms would cost only about $325 so they, the kids, would probably only have to pay for meals. Matt Doherty, superinten dent said, "He (Sartain) has a parent's group behind him 100 percent. Projects are going to raise the money for it. He (Sartain) has raised $5,000 in each of the last two years (for other bands he has directed to go to Great America.) He has the fourth through the high school stu dents and parents working together for what he hopes to be year after year objective." Jim Wishart added, "Since it is a community effort, with no expense to the district and they only are going to miss one day of school and since they are going to foot the bill, I can't see what we are worried about." Harold Snider seconded Wishart 's motion and after the half hour debate, it passed unanimously. The board also approved a field trip for Riverside seniors who are college bound. . Seniors at the high school will be able to go to the Shakespearean Festival in Ashland Oct. 27. They will see the play "MacBeth". The district will supply the bus and driver and fuel at a cost of about $215. The students will pay for their own tickets. The board also approved the contracts of Pam Ausman, junior high cheerleader super visor in Heppner for $222; Barbara Fairchild, Heppner Junior High dance team advisor for $222; Chris Garcia, the Riverside Jr. High dance team instructor for $222; and Charles Wyatt, a new langu age arts teacher at Heppner High School for $9,786. The school board held an executive session to discuss the problem of discipline with a juvenile. The board decided to go after the money "no matter what." The former student owes the district for damaging some buses last spring. They decided to go after the full amount of $1,800. A problem of grounds main tenance equipment was dis cussed by the board. They decided to look into the possibility of contracting the grounds work to be done by a company. They also left open the possibility of leasing with continued on page 12 County judgeship still up for grabs "It's anybody's guess right now (who is going to be the new Morrow County Judge)," Assistant to the Governor Shirley Woodrow said Mon day. Woodrow said Governor Victor Atiyeh was briefed Monday On the possible candi dates for the job and she said he probably will fill the position sometime this week. Judge D.O. Nelson's last day was officially Monday. "We are very aware Mon day was the last day and we realize the difficulty in timing and we will try to have a new judge as soon as possible," Woodrow said. Woodrow said five names being considered for are Morrow County Judge inclu ding John Mollahan, the Morrow County Central De mocratic Committee's choice. Daniel Creamer of Irrigon, who competed with Mollahan for the Central Democratic Committee's nomination but was not selected, is being considered by the governor. Woodrow said three other names are being looked at but two of the three nomina.tir.ns have not really been explored. She said they will be looked into if the governor wants to pursue information on those candidates. Former Judge Paul Jones is being considered for the job and also two women's names have been mentioned. sNIIIIIIIIIIItlllllllllllllHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIII it iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii mi minimi n ' iiiiimiiinmimi llll IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll I immiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiimimiimimiimi mmiiiiimiiiimmiimmiiimimim iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiini iiiimi iiiiiiiiiiiiiiim i miiHiiiimiiimit Opening in 1980 n lyvu Boardman coal-fired plant-a remarkable industrial operation ,j . . n . mnrp than 3'i. vears ago. The however, because of the proximity of the nwr tVw sacp brush- The Boardman Dlant's output would tors and sub-contractors at tsoaraman c . . . , :i umkiM rn V 1 In the distance over the sage brush covered landscape the Boardman coal-fired plant with its tall smoke stack appears in block silhouette form. At higher elevations in Morrow County, it can be seen from 20 miles away. Last week, by invitation, the Heppner Gazette-Times in the person of two staff members visited the Boardman plant, arriving at the gate after traveling over Tower Road, a two-lane highway stretching over the desert. A signboard cautions that it is a private road. As the highway alternately dips or rises with the topography, the silhouette of the power plant appears to grow larger as the visitors approach. Soon there are clusters of mobile houses, a railway track alongside the road and chain-link fencing. A sign directs visitors to a special parking area. Across the main road is a gate and guard shack. Before anyone may enter, the very courteous and helpful security guard requests the visitors to sign the register. He issues plastic badges to be clipped to pocket or lapel, safety helmets (for the entire plant is a "hard hat" area), and a magnetic sign to attach to a door of the car. The guard points out the turns to take to reach a long, two-story office building where the visitors are to meet Dave Eagon, public relations officer of the Portland General Electirc Co. (PGE). The Boardman plant, under construction since 1976, represents a total investment of up to $525 million, 80 percent of it owned by PGE, 10 percent by the Idaho Power Co., and the remaining 10 percent, by the Pacific Northwest Generating Co., a consortium of electric-power cooperatives. The plant is expected to be in service in August of 1980, adding 530,000 kilowatts in generating capacity to the Pacific Northwest power grid. PGE's territory lies mainly in the Willamette Valley. It covers 3,350 square miles, includes 54 incorporated cities and serves a million people. The Boardman plant's output would represent 25 percent of PGE's load factor. The electricity would enter the Bonneville Power Administration's transmission lines near Arlington and be metered out at - substations near Portland. The Boardman plant's administration building lies in the shadow of the towering generating plant. Glass doors provide entrance to a utilitarian foyer. Steel stairways lead to a second-floor reception office. There, the visitors are given coffee while they wait for Dave Eagon to return from an initial plant tour with a Portland radio news reporter. Soon he appears. With him are Tom Meyers, a shift supervisor who acts as tour guide, and Neal Penland, who is with radio station KYXI in Portland. Penland tells the visitors that he grew up in Heppner, when his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robet Penland, owned and published the Gazette-Times. He was graduated from Heppner High School in 1961, and from there went on to the University of Oregon at Eugene and a career in radio broadcasting. Penland has a tape recorder hanging by a strap over his shoulder and a hand-held microphone extension. From the reception office the group goes first to the machine shop. The corridor they follow is suggestive of prison architecture, with its bare concrete walls and steel-railed second-level walkway. The machine shop will be equipped for complete mechanical maintenance of the power plant. The tour then goes into the power plant proper, which is a remarkable industrial operation, a hive of workmen in hard hats, some in welders' masks, and the sight and sound of construction underway. Visitors have to step warily over electric cables, scraps of pipe and lumber, and climb steel-mesh stairways to higher levels to see the turbines and master control room. Right now, in construction, the contrac- employ 1,260 people. When it goes on line, PGE's permanent force will total 126. Tom Meyers, who joined the operation last year, will be among those permanently employed. He lives in Boardman. The control-room, designed for one-man operation, includes a 20-foot wall covered with dials, switches, lights.and other indica tors, and a desk with video display terminal and keyboard. Meyers has explained it all, reeling off statistics by rote, as Penland holds the microphone to his face. After the plant tour, Eagon and Penland say goodbye. They have to catch the return flight to Portland on PGE's company plane. Meanwhile, Meyers takes the, Heppner visitors on an outside-plant tour to see the rail handling facilities. These are the statistics: Every two or three days, trains of up to 100 cars in length will arrive over the Burlington Northern and Union Pacific systems from the AMAX mines in Wyoming. An 11-mile spur track will bring the trains to the power plant. An automatic rotary unloading device can turn the cars over by 178 degrees, spilling the coal into a conveyor system. An entire train load can be emptied in under four hours. One concern of PGE, Meyers said, is the railroad has allowed four hours' demurrage for the trains. PGE wants a longer time without a tariff penalty, should unloading emergencies arise. This is a problem to be worked out. Within the plant, the fuel consumption is designed to produce a very low ash. The so-called fly ash may be taken to a disposal site or could be used in concrete aggregate. Instead of cooling towers, a familiar sight for nuclear power plants, the Boardman plant will utilize for recirculated water the Carty reservoir, a man-made lake that also provides irrigation for nearby agricultural lands. Construction started at the Boardman site more than 32 years ago. ine architect-engineers for the project are the Bechtel Power Corp. The rail yard coal handling system was designed by Swan Wooster, Inc., and other structures by Campbell-Yost-Grubbe. Originally, PGE had planned to build a nuclear power plant. This was ruled out, however, because of the proximity of the U.S. Navy's aerial bombing range. It was feared that a bombing plane could veer out of control and seriously damage the power plant. If the Navy should ever give up the bombing range, PGE could build both coal and nuclear-fired plants in the future. The smoke stack at the Boardman coal-fired plant can be seen from as far away as 20 miles. The plant itself is expected to be in service in 1980. it. i ii . I , , , , ,,. , ,,,,,,,,, "," "" ' ' ' "" m,m "
