Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 1993)
Exchange student calls two countries home u By Anne Morter B E S S I E WE T Z F L L 0 F 0 R E E V* S F A P E UGi E Nt R OK E l B & 7 4 - -i HEPPNER 350 azette imes VOL. 112 NO. 8 8 Pages Wednesday. February 24, 1993 Morrow County Heppner, Oregon Cardinal team s sweep district tourney lone Cardinals with their first place bracket Photo by Wayne Hams \ 1 Lady Cardinals with their first place bracket By Anne Morter determined Dufur The lone Cardinals swept both the boys and girls district cham pionship last weekend in Umatilla and now advance to the state basketball tournament in Baker City, March 3-6. The boys repeat as district champions by powering past a team in the nament play on Wednesday. final quarter. The girls won their March 3 at 3 p.m. against St. first Big Sky League champion Paul. First round action for the ship since 1990 by blowing out girls will pit them against Alsea Wasco County in the champion on Thursday, March 4 at 7 p.m. ship game. The boys will open state tour- Cards win sportsmanship award By Anne Morter lone High School was once again awarded the Pat Gillette Sportsm anship Award last weekend at the District 1A basketball tournam ent in Umatilla. The award is voted on annually by the Blue Mountain Officials Association and is presented to one of the 14 schools that the Blue Mountain officials cover. The Lady Cardinals brought home the tournament sportsman ship award for the third time in four years. The officials and three tournament directors decisions are based on the crowds conduct and participation as well as players' and coach’s conduct. Heppner man dies of self- inflicted gunshot wound Don Lott, 29. Heppner, died of a self-inflicted gun shot wound at his home around 4 p.m. on Fri day. Feb. 19, according to Mor- Photo by Wayne Hams row County District Attorney Earl R. Woods. Woods said that the weapon in volved was a .22 caliber rifle. Heppner teams head to district The Heppner Fillies and Mustang basketball teams are into the district playoffs and will com pete this Friday for a chance to advance to the Regionals. The boys will play Friday, Feb. 26 against Umatilla at 7:30 p.m. The girls will play Weston- McEwen at 1:30. If they win they will play the winner of the even ing game on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 1 p.m. If the boys win they will play on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 3 p.m. These games will determine the time they will play at Regionals in LaGrande. Should the boys lose they will have a se cond chance and play at home on Monday. All games will be held at the convention center in Pendleton. The games will be broadcast over KUMA 1290 a.m. radio. When exchange student Fatma Juma arrived in lone, she brought with her a double dose of foreign culture for the locals. She comes from Germany but spends a por tion of each year with family in Kenya. “ I have two homes,” remarked Fatma. The majority of her year is spent with her mother in Col ogne, a city of about one million people, but a 14 year old brother, M ajid, and her fath er’s family draws her to Kenya’s capitol Nairobi, and a coastal ci ty Mombasa, for at least a month each year. Fatma, 17, is a senior at lone High School and is staying with the Reverened Lea Mathieu of lone’s United Church of Christ. Since Lea is herself a recently transported city girl, the match has been good for the both of them, says Lea. She noted that they have helped each other deal with the slower pace of small town life. ‘‘We get along well,” says Lea. ‘‘Because of our age, we’re more like sisters.” Back in Cologne, Fauna’s mother is a college teacher, teaching politics and economics. Fauna’s father was a very promi nent radio journalist in Germany before he passed away three years ago. Her father provided inspira tion for Fatma, who also aspires to be a journalist. ‘‘She told me that she has known that since she was five,” says Lea. Fatma’s mother was very sup portive of her exchange venture. Although Fatma has traveled quite extensively with her fami ly, even visiting the East Coast of the U.S., she hadn’t con sidered an exchange program un til she heard a classmate discuss ing the idea. Mother and daughter talked it over but immediately hit a stumbling block. Both found the other’s choice of preferred coun try distasteful for one reason-the accent. Since Fatma had studied English as a second language since the fifth grade, they both took for granted that she would visit an English speaking country. ♦But Fatma discovered that her mother disliked the American ac cent and wanted her to visit Britain. Fatma must have been more convincing in her argument that she couldn’t take a year of English accents because she ar rived in lone on August 18 for a 10 month stay. Fatma hadn’t really expected to land in such a rural area. Last March, she received a long let ter from Lea, telling her she was coming to Oregon. This letter ar rived before any official notifica tion from ASSE, the exchange organization. This was good news since she had seen Oregon in nature movies and it looked like a fine place to spend the bet ter part of a year. Later in the let ter, Lea gently broke the news that lone was a town of 275 in rural eastern Oregon, and quite possibly might not be what she was expecting. This development prompted a call to mom at work and some soul searching. Her mother asked her if she was sure this was something she wanted to do. After weighing the pros and cons, Fatma decided that a small town might provide experiences she would miss in a bigger city. After the initial shock of her new surroundings wore off, Fat ma has come to enjoy the town and her time in the United States. At school, she played volleyball and is looking forward to tennis in the spring. She just became a teacher’s assistant for Betty Riet- mann’s first grade class, a task that she finds truly enjoyable. She has made some trips around the area, and recently toured Califor nia for a week with a group of 130 exchange students from around the world. In Oregon, she has traveled to the coast with her biology class last fall and just before Christmas, she traveled to Portland to feed the homeless with the lone Youth Group. Also, qabk or =— D ¿ a stern Oregon 4000 1234 5676 Fatma Juma Lea treated her to a trip to the Shakespearean Festival in Ashland in October. Fatma hasn’t noticed great dif ferences between life in the U.S. and in Germany. They have four seasons like we do, although the winters are milder. She says they have many of the American-based fast food outlets like McDonalds, Burger King and Pizza Hut but they don’t eat as much fast food as Americans do. A new culinary treat for her was Mexican food. The school system is different in Germany, with students enter ing ‘‘grammar” school in the fifth grade. Grammar school is similar to our high school except that it lasts nine years. Students speak and study German, of course, but starting in the fifth grade they choose between English and Latin as their second language. Fatma, who is quite fluent in English, also speaks ‘‘a little” French and Swahili for her trips to Kenya. Fatma has two years left to complete in grammar school, since she will end up repeating this year upon her return. She then plans to pursue university studies in journalism, a course of study that will take another two to four years. She at tends a medium-sized public school with about 800 students. Fatma has about a year to go before she hits the legal age to drive in Germany 18, and she is getting slightly anxious to learn. In Germany, it costs about $1000 to take driving classes and get a license but Fatma doesn’t plan to let that stop her. She didn’t ap pear to be too crazy to access the autobahn, a freeway that links major cities where drivers don’t flinch at driving over 150 mph. ‘‘People are crazy on the autobahn,” she said. The most common brands of cars on the roads are BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Volvo and Opal. She says that Ford is the most com mon American car in Germany but, unlike here, pickups are never seen. Fatma says that life hasn’t changed much for her since the wall came down between East and West Germany. She has noticed more people seeking asylum and an increase in the number of Neo-Nazis. Because of her dark skin, Fatma has felt their effects personally. She was chas ed off the underground (like a subway) by a group but manag ed to escape by hiding in a near by restaurant until her mother could pick her up She was par ticularly distressed to read recent ly reports of Neo-Nazis attack ing Turkish women and people in wheelchairs in Cologne. For the rest of her year in lone, Fatma looks forward to the senior class trip, to a yet undisclosed location, and to her mother’s visit in April. While her mother is here, they will travel to New York together for some sight seeing. When she returns to Col- gone, she looks forward to see ing her friends, and sleeping in her own bed. at least for two weeks before she leaves for Kenya. Fatma says she has enjoyed lone. ‘‘I’ve made lots of friends. All the people are very nice,” she says. Fauna’s jrip was arranged through ASSE, American Swedish Scandanavian Exchange. Kathy Halvorsen is the area representative. Find The Hidden Shamrock Win Silver Medallions This week a new St. Patrick’s Day activity begins. Each week until March 10 a clue for the St. Patrick's Day treasure hunt will be printed in the Gazette-Times. If followed these clues will guide treasure hunters to a green plastic shamrock, hidden somewhere in the city limits of Heppner. The first person to find the hidden shamrock will win a set of pure silver Oregon Trail commemorative medallions, worth near ly $90. The coins are donated by the Bank of Eastern Oregon and are on display at the bank. Find this Shamrock... and win These Silver Coins RULES: 1. A new set of clues to guide you to the hidden shamrock will ap pear in each edition of the Heppner Gazette-times. 2. A total of five clues will be given up to March 10. 3. The hidden shamrock is not on private property, and no digging or moving of objects, dirt or other material is necessary to find the shamrock. 4. The first person to find the shamrock should bring it to the Hepp ner Gazette-Times office to claim the commemorative silver medallions. Clue Number Three Past an alley take a turn Left or right you’ll have to learn Disregarding two’s admonition Governs your trip to destination You’ll be right if you turn and say A legal path will guide my way Follow the clues and may the luck of the Irish be with you. This contest is sponsored by the Bank of Eastern Oregon and the Heppner Gazette-Times. The Bank of Eastern Oregon VISA CARD « • « /» cr J DUCHOLO« •Low Annual Fee •Low Rate «ATM Access BA stern ö r ^ Arlington • Heppner • lone )i'Hi bhhl*t H, >t"i (h\ rtrtl Htifii Member F D IC
