Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (April 19, 1984)
VOL. 102 NO. U School board hears of special problems at Irrigon & Boardman schools Elementary schools in Irrigon and Boardman are having special problems ed ucating the children of mi grant workers in the area, the Morrow County School Board was told Monday night. Teachers from the two grade schools attending the board meeting said a large portion of students in the lower grades do not speak English well, have emotional problems and do not attend school regularly. "This is producing an un desirable situation for educa tion," said Steve Brownfleld a science teacher at Heppner High School, and spokes person for the Morrow County Education Association. Brownfleld said first and second grade classes, where most of the problems occur, are crowded, adding to the problem. In or second grade class at Sam Boardman elementary, there are 28 students. Of the 28 one half have been held back a grade ; for 30 percent Spanish is their primary language; 60 percent of the class has turned over during the year, and there are emotional problems. "Dealing with 28 students who are average, it would be O K." the second grade teach er told the board "But with this makeup it can be a problem." She said 62 percent of the class is made up of Spanish speaking students, many of Burden begins as Public Works director :y jwaut Uiifyr:''; ": 1 Otto L. Burden Otto L. Burden began work as Morrow County Public Works Director Monday, April 9. He, his wife, Melody and two sons Kevin, 3, and Dale, 5, Farmers consider costs of Representatives from the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Army Corps of Engineers and the district water master from Pendleton, met with approximately 30 farmers living along Willow Creek below the dam Tuesday, April 10 at 8 p.m. at the Morrow County Courthouse in Hep pner. The purpose of the meeting was for irrigators, to find out how much it would cost them if they decided to use water stored behond the dam for irrigation. Dick Wilkinson, chairman of DESSIE WET2ELL U OF ORE I.' E .V S P A P E It LIB EUGENE OR 974C3 Morrow Thursday, april it. m who speak English well and do not have problems. "It's the others that are difficult to teach," she said. "They can speak it (English) and under stand it, but vocabulary is the problem. As an example they know what an airplane is, but not a jet." Mick Tolar, principal at A C. Houghton in Irrigon, said his school is experiencing the same sort of problems. "The makeup (of student) is similar to Sam Boardman," he said. Both schools have migrant specialists to help the stu dents. Sam Boardman has one full time and one half time migrant aid, and A C. Hough ton has one half time migrant aid, which, according to the teachers, is not enough. "The teachers are concern ed about the quality of educa tion; it's very frustrating for a teacher," said Brownfield. 'This is something we have to keep looking at." School Board Chairman Jerry McEl ligott told the teachers. "We have to look at the makeup of it (the school). We havetolook at it as it comes; we can't program for it." The district does not know how many migrant students it will have from year to year, and McElligott indicated this makes it hard to plan. "Of 27 students, in one year 13 came and went," said one first grade teacher at Sam Boardman. "One workbook I had, had four persons names on it." are living at lone. For the past year, Burden has been working construction and he and family have been moving with the job. Prior to that, he worked in Vancouver, Washington, for the Willow Creek District Improvement Co. explains that irrigation water drained from the regular flow level of the creek would be available as before, without charge, but if irrigators wanted to reserve a certain number of acre-feet of water behind the dam be yond the average 2,000 acre foot level for later irrigation uses, that the estimated cha rge would be $8 per acre-foot. He explains that irrigators are still considering all the factors and no decision has been made, but if they should Th County's Home - PACES In other business, the board: heard a report from board member Pauline Winter who said the district and classified employees union had reached agreement on a contract. Winter said the major changes were: 1) one year instead of multi-year contract, 2) Three precent cost of living increase for all employees, 3) added Presidents day to the list of paid holidays. 4) gave the day after Thanksgiving, and the days after Christmas and New Year as unpaid holidays, 5) clarified the bereavment leave policy. The board ap proved the contract unan imously. The union was to vole on the contract Monday night. gave formal approval to hiring new Superintendent Doyle McCaslin (see story April 12 Gazette-Times) for a salary of 143,000 per year with medical plan and annuity worth $200 per month. I think he'll do a good job. I think he's a good man," said board member Jean Bennett. The board was told McCaslin will be on the job in July, after he finishes up some business at his present position as super intendent of the Glide school district. voted to deny a grievance filed by Heppner Jr. High math teacher Mike Warren. Warren had requested a hear ing with the board, which was held in closed-door executive session. - heard a report from Board- tour years where he was the assistant office engineer working primarily in land development for Clark County- Burden has also worked out of Ritzville in Adams County, Washington, where he says the terrain is very similar to what we have here in Morrow County. He grew up in eastern Wash ington near Moses Lake and graduated from Washington State University with a Bach elor of Science degree in Agri cultural Engineering. "I received a warm wel come moving in; all the ingre dients are here in the public works department," said Burden who considers his new position a "challenge." He says that he is "still learn ing," but is "looking forward to working out the bugs on the new computer system." irrigation decide that they want to make use of the water reserve at the dam, they would probably need to form an irrigation district which would make the water charges to the indivi dual users and assume the costs involved with reserving the water. Another meeting is tenta tively planned for next week after the water master has had time to investigate the costs of the ditchheads which would be placed in the creek so the irrigators could pump the water. HygpipM,, Heppraeir wi I 1 Q JM Owned Weekly Newspaper 25 Heppner, Oregon man attorney Ed Glenn, who was part of a Morrow-Umatilla vocational education training council. Glenn said the council had been compil ing information from area businesses about "getting a job." Glenn told the board that employers want students with good work habits and good attitudes who are well school ed in the basics of reading, writing and arithmatic. Glenn said 15,000 of the reports were being printed up and would be distributed to every student and parent in the county. "Employers in a sense said give us a student with good work habits and the basics of reading, writing and comput ing and we'll take it from there and teach them a par ticular job." Glenn said of the council's findings. - gave superintendent Matt Doherty the go-ahead to talk with several lone Tridents 1 about possible joint icit tank drain field construction. Doherty said the Ione's scho ols field is having problems, as are about eight residents of lone. agreed to participate in a joint newsletter with the city of Irrigon to disseminate information in that city. The newsletter would be published monthly and coordinated through the city of Irrigon. It would cost the district $40 per month. - heard a report and saw models of solar homes built as a science project by lone elementary students. Lexington 'fly-in' helps pesticide spray performance ; r 1 III 1 1 Gary Thomason (left) and Mel Boyer evaluate the computer the spray pattern of one o Boyer's spray planes. Aerial applicators of pest icides were invited to a "fly-in" at the Lexington air port which was sponsored by cooperative extension and PBI Gordon Corporation. Gary L. Thomuson, pest icide education specialist with Washington State University has perfected a program to help aerial applicators of pesticides help themselves. The idea of the program is to provide equipment and the technology necessary to analyze what the aircraft's spray performance is. He emphasizes that there are several factors which can influence the spray pattern from an aircraft even if the chemical, the dilution and the nozzel settings are identical. The new computerized equip ment can describe what the . At Extension workshop Farmers learn computer basics "Remember, the computer doesn't do what you want it to do; it does what you tell it to do," Oregon State University Extension Agent Gary Pro thero told farmers at an ex tension workshop last Friday, April 13. Vendors provided 14 dif ferent types of computers for the two-day workshop which began Thursday, April 12 and was attended by approximate ly 15 farmers and ranchers from the area. Prothero stated that all of the computers were running the same program so that the farmers could see how the different computers differed doing the same thing. The purpose of the workshop was to let farmers who did not have computer experience try the different brands and the make a decision about wether -4 computer could do them any (good, , The demonstrations and in struction included general programs: a spread sheet program which is intended partially for future analysis, spray calibration and bud gets; and a data base ma nagement program which is basically, a record keeping system. Rick Peterson, a Valby area rancher, said that this was his second workshop. He attended a computer workshop in Hermiston last December and found it beneficial. He has since purchased a computer, ' 1 aircraft did do at a particular time under a given set of conditions. The process he uses to analyze the performance of the aircraft is accomplished by putting a chemical tracer in the spray tank. The aircraft then flies across a test track where a line of collection dishes 100' wide have been placed. The dishes are collect ed and each dish is measured for the amount of chemical tracer. Knowing how much should be in the dish, it is possible to tell how much of the chemical tracer has fallen. The results of this analysis read out from the computer in a graph which shows the pattern in which the tracer has fallen. The applicators can then re-position nozzles or P- , Weather by the City of Heppner and he and his wife Anita attended this workshop so that she could also learn to use the computer. Peterson intends to use his computer not only to keep fuel records of diesel and gasoline but also to help figure costs for tillage including estimates of the total hours expended, and the amount of water and chemical needed for the spec ified rate of the chemical per acre. Marlene Currin, another participant at the workshop said that it has been an "eye opener." She said that she and her husband have been think ing for some time about buy ing a computer, but felt that they needed some basic know-t ledge about computers before they made a decision to buy a certain one. She said that a real plus of the workshop is that there were so many different kinds of computers and participants could try any one they wanted. She said that she had worked on one computer on Thursday and was doing the same sort of thing on a different computer on Friday. Peterson commented that he was surprised at the rela tively small turnout at the workshop because he thought that more people could benefit from learning about the use of computer programs and not necessarily have to own a computer themselves. I printout of make other necessary ad justments to their aircraft to achieve more evenness of pat tern and the amount of deposi tion which they wanted to apply. Thomason says that his method using the computer is an improvement over the previous method used in which chemical dye was put in the spray tank of the aircraft and released in a flight over a 100' strip of adding machine tape. Spray patterns were determined by the depth and pattern of the colored dye. This new computer analysis method was designed as a result of the damage to grape harvest allegedly caused by drifting of the chemical 2-4D. Thomason describes aerail applicators as conscientious businessmen who Drovide a 1 I Ah, I .w.... -r i.,n gm-h " f . If. ' i - III i 1 -" '" J U i 1 r.r- , - y, , w f ' Sk 1 vj ffll,"""J'-'TT""" '" fit 1 tt" ! J j v Alberta Johnston, associate director for the OSU Extension joins area farmers in learning to use computers for farm rebted situations at extension workshop lost Friday. 1 iMmnmrt , Gory Protheo, OSU extension I f - .(.: AAel Boyer, one of the pilots who attended the airport last Thursday pictured with some of the service at an acceptable cost to farmers. He also commends all chemical companies who help sponsor programs which provide this cost-free analysis to help the aerial applicators and ultimately the farmers. Puppet show slated for story hour Walter Cafton-Minkel, child ren's consultant from the Ore gon State Library, will be in Heppner Thursday, April 26, 10:30 a.m., to perform a spec ial puppet show during the morning story hour at the library. "Silly Stories by the New Rag Bag Theatre" is the title of this puppet performance. v The weather report was not available at presstime Tuesday. agent instructs computer workshop. 1 J "fly-in" at the Lexington aircraft he tested. Thomason said that the northwest is far in the lead of the rest of the country and he will be accompanying the representatives of PBI Gor don at "fly - ins" across Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas. Following the Heppner story hour, Cafton-Minkel will travel to Boardman where he will present an afternoon performance at the Boardman City library. Ann Sipe, Board man city librarian, says that "he does a really neat show," and encourages everyone to come and bring their pre school children. . f
