Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (May 12, 1983)
L 1" S 3 I V,' IZZ n I I U C F .ORE N K '.7 CPAFTR T J !? r 4 "f W t ' w VOL. 11 NO. IS THURSDAY. MAY 12. I0 Cause of The cause of a fire that destroyed a half -block of busi ness buildings in downtown Heppner early last Wednes day morning is still not known. Heppner Fire Chief Forrie Burkrnbine said Monday. Richard McFarland of the State Fire Marshal Division' Pendleton field office began his Investigation of the fire last Thursday and Friday, and returned Tuesday to continue. The fire which seemed to break out in the Bottom Drawer, was reported at 2: 12 a m. The Heppner Fire De partment responded and al most had the blaze contained at one point when water from a pump truck ran out and fire .hoses had to te connecUd to hydrants, allowing enough lime for the flames to spread rapidly. Members of the . Hermtston Fire Department Joined Heppner firefighters at about 4:30 a m. With the aidof the Hermiston men and their pump truck the blaze was finally knocked down, how ever. Heppner firemen con tinued to douse t.'ie rubble and stayed on the scene until 9 30 that evening St J Market. The Bottom Drawer, the Post Office and the old Post Office building were completely destroyed. The Shoe Box received exten sive damage, while The l,eRush Shoppe and Peter son's Jewelers both received minor damag. Many Heppner residents turned out to help evacuate stores tnd businesses, and then helped the more fortu nate store owners move merchandise back in the next day. Nothing was salvaged from S & J Market, the Post Office, or the building that housed Curt and Jana Lee's Bottom Drawer and a custom meat cutting shop, Jerry and Joyce Hollomon of Shoe Box were able to save a partial amount of" their stock. A temporary Post Office was set up by noon Wednesday at the old city library, next to city hall. Postmaster Ken Nairns announced Tuesday that the office would be moved to the union office next to Western Heritage Federal Savings and Loan Assoc. on Main St.. "hopefully this weekend." The union office will be located in the old welfare office behind Coast to Coast. School board to meet, consider policies The next regular meeting of the Morrow County School board will be held May 16 at Riverside High School in Boardman. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Items the board is expected to consider include board pro cedures in matters related to school closure, school advi sory committee responsibili iflA C.ixs!3 fire still undetermined Jerry ond-ioyce HoHomort opened the burhesies in the West of Willow building th week ofter fire heovily domoged their building lost Wednesday morning Trie two Post Office build ings were owned by the Hep pner Investors, and the newer building had been leased from them bv the government. The postmaster said if the investment group rebuilds, the space will be leased again for a permanent Post Office. "We plan to stay in the down town area hopefully in the same place we were." tie said. One of (he investors. Jack Van Winkle, said the group does plan to rebuild in the same location tor a Post Office. The Shoe Box and Talk-n-Ts are open lor business in the West of Willow building, across the street from the Hollornon's burned out store building Jerry's Barber Shop will open at a later date, Although all of the burned-out business owners are waiting for their insurance companies to settle. Hollomons want to reopen in the same location. "That's whal we're shooting for." said Joyce. Scott Adkisson. who with his wife. Jeannie. own S & J Market, said he guessed their loss to be about $170,000. "We'd like to rebuild, but we'll have, to wait and see what happens with the insurance." he said. Buz Lynch, whose wife. Kathleen, owns the building that housed the Bottom Drawer and the custom meat cutting shop, gave a similar statement. "We're waiting for the insurance and then we will decide." Lynch said they had no loss estimate yet. Jim Hayes, president of the Heppner Economic Develop ment Corp. said. "At this point ties, needed adjustments in current expenditures and sev eral matters related to per sonnel, said a district spokes person. The board will also hear a report on the district's advisor -advisee program as ' operated at Riverside High School. The report will be presented by Mike Wetherell. counselor at Riverside High. Tlie Meppiier Morrow County's ! PACES t A ; thre are too many unan swered questions" to deter mine what will take place in the war future. He said the Heppner corp. Is checking into a grant from the state for IV) (Mi (o $100,000. and, has been in contact with the state ecorwuntc devekiprwnt corp. J- Morrow County Court has been in contact with Governor Ativeh's office, and Senator Eugene Timms has reported that he is checking to see if the city qualifies for emergency assistance. For those post office box Spring music concert presented by Heppner primary students . n i Cr If Donna Weed's second grade class at Heppner Friday. The program, which featured students in Elementary performs "On Top of Spaghetti," at kindergarten through fourth grade, was directed the school's Primary Spring Music Program last by Kitty Coon. Governor's office says fire relief funds available RyMAKY ANNC KM'I.LO An early morning phone call from Governor Vic Ativeh's office was made to Morrow County Court last Wednesday to let the people of Heppner know that there are relief funds available for victims of the recent fire on Main Street. Bob Montgomery, aide to the governor, told Judge Don McKlligott that funds have been found in the Imminent Threat Fund under a block grant. Fully insured busines ses and federal buildings are not eligible, Montgomery said. wwwnjj L-i " . ' I Home-Owned Weekly Newspaper 25 - Yr-i" . a- v ; i holders who lost Social Secur ity checks in last Tuesday's mail a Social Security repre sentative will again be avail able at the Heppner Neigh borhood Center in Heppner this Friday from 10 a.m. to 12 noon to take reports. Heppner Mayor Cliff (Green pointed out that because the Willow Creek Dam has been built, store owners will be able to rebuild if they choose to, whereas before the dam was constructed, the flood plain wouldn't have allowed it. "There isn't a lot of money involved but at least it's some thing." McKlligott said later. "The Heppner mayor, the governor's office, the county planner and I will be getting together this week over it." McKlligott estimated that the fund would be around $50,000 to $100,000. In other business the court: discussed the installation of the new county computer with Greg Sweek. county as sessor. heard a request from County Tax Collector Margo "T " "" " ' 1 A ill V c-3 i HEPPNER. OREGON Voters to tax levies Next Tuesday, voters in Morrow County will consider 1983-84 school district and countv tax levies for a second time. Both were defeated in a March 29 election by narrow margins. The amount to be levied for the county. $2,304,197 outside the six percent limitation, is left unchanged from the March ballot. (Up to a six percent increase is allowed each year by law without voter approval.) The 1983-84 ax base is $438,281, which brings the total levy to $2,742,478. The same levy amount failed in the March election by only 48 votes. The tax rate for county operations will be approxi mately $3.92 per $1,000 valua tion. If the measure passes. S2.376.290 of the taxes levied will be eligible for some state funding: however. $366,188 will be totally financed by county taxpayers. The proposed budget in- etudes a 3.:Tpercent cost of living increase for county employees, funding for all county operations, plus opera tion of Pioneer Memorial Hos pital, of the North Morrow Medical Clinic and ambu lance, the County Fair and Sherer. to form a policy on returned checks. The court appointed Sherer, Mike Oths. Barbara Bloodsworth, Greg Sweek and LoRayne Bowman to look into forming a county policy on fees and to report back to the Court on May 18. appointed Dan McBride, Heppner. as emergency co ordinator to fill Jini Launer's position with the county Search and Rescue Posse. ' received a resignation from Merle Carlson of Board man, from the Vector Control Commission. ... f " Weather by the City of consider school district & county for 2nd time Rodeo. Mental Health Servi ces, the Juvenile Services Commission and State Reve nue Sharing. State statutes and federal laws require the county gov ernment to provide certain services at county expense, including tax collection and property assessment for the county, the school district. Blue Mountain Community College, the incorporated ci ties and special districts with in the county. Other required services in clude public health, waste disposal, judicial systems, police protection and main tenance of county roads. County Judge Don McEIli gott said the budget was left unchanged because. "There was nothing left to cut without cutting county programs." Unlike the county budget, the school budget was cut by $111,509. The district seeks to levy $4,291,705 outside the six percent limitation. If passed, $3,721,565 is eligible for partial "stale funding; however," tax payers will totally finance $570,140. The cuts originally included dropping one full time and one parttime classified employee (non-teacher) and one full time teacher from lone High School, one teacher from lone Grade School and a parttime and full time classified em ployee at Heppner. The ad ministration said the lone teaching positions were drop ped because enrollment there had recently declined. Presen tly about 30 students attend lone High School with approx imately 90 enrolled at the grade school. However, a large number of lone residents protested the cuts in teaching staff. They said they felt the cuts were unfair, would reduce the quality of education at lone schools, and were the first step to closing lone High School The administration has re ported that the cost of edu cating students at lone is the Girls have record-breakins season HHS tracksters on to r - if. , HI 1 aFti ff n Mii " 7 t A 4 , .,-4 These Heppner High School tracksters will be on their way to the Class A State Track Meet this weekend at Lewis and Clark College in Portland. Pictured in the back row are John Moyer (left) and John Martin. In the front row from left to right, with trophies the team has won this year, are: Jodi Padberg with a girls' first place trophy from the Condon Invitational; Pam Orr with the High Low Preclp Tues.. May 3 . 38 Wed.. May 4 70 43 95 Thur.. May 5 56 42 .37 Fri May 6 69 44 11 Sat.. May 7 58 M 28 Sun , May 8 50 38 12 Mon.. May 9 54 36 01 Heppner highest in the district. The cost to educate one student for one year at lone is $4,800. the administration said. The dis trict average is $3,600 per student per year. The lone people reminded the hoard that education costs in the north end of the county were also high before recent population growth. At a special meeting last Monday night, more argu ments were heard from con cerned lone citizens. After much discussion and debate, one teacher's position was restored. lone residents threatened to vote against the budget if both positions were not restored. After more discussion was heard, a motion was made to restore the second position. It was passed by the board with Smoke causes patient evacuation at PJM.H. A large amount of smoke from a heating system at i" Pioneer Memorial Hospital caused over 20 patients and nursing home residents to be evacuated from the building last Sunday afternoon. Heppner Fire Cheif Forrie Burkenbine said the smoke was caused by a buildup of waste product in the boiler, which backed up through an auger that feeds fuel to the boiler. Hospital Administrator A.K. "Lucky" Felt said. "It's happened before and it'll probably happen again," al though it had never caused this much of a problem before, he added. The smoke caused no dam age he said, but it was felt that patients in the immediate area should be moved. Felt said. Firemen and the County Search and Rescue Posse moved most of the patients outside the building, however some were taken to the Don Cole home nearby. The fire chief said the amount of smoke made it difficult to find what was causing the problem. Once it V m t h rf - l r ; LmA MO' .i .4 a vote of three in favor, two against. School District Superinten dent Matt Doherty said the money to pay the two teach ers' salaries would come from the district's contingency end ing fund balance, but he stres sed that if the budget passes the district will have to borrow money by next August. The district's proposed bud get on the March ballot went down by 40 votes. Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the following places: the Heppner Neigh borhood Center for Heppner and Hardman voters; at Greenfield Grange. Board man; lone City Hall; North Morrow annex. Irrigon; and the Morrow County School District office. Lexington. was located. Bob Lowe, a . former maintenance man at . the hospital, was called and he was able to make the neces sary adjustments. New fair sec named J' Ruby Munkera Ruby Munkers of Heppner has been named the new Mor row County Fair secretary. She replaced Dorothy Est berg, Heppner, who recently resigned. A Heppner resident for 81 years, Mrs. Munkers worked in the arts and crafts division of the fair last year, and has six years of secretarial ex perience. state , J I ,id w. ( AIM p girls' first place trophy from the . Wasco Co. Invitational; Sherry Clement, holding the girls' first place District 7-A trophy; Janelle McElhany , the Columbia Basin Conference girls' championship trophy; and Stephi Payne, the combined boys' and girls' second place trophy from the Sherman Co. Invitational, (More sports inside. )
