Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1993)
District cuts over $379,000 from budget HEPPNER imes VOL. 112 NO. 16 8 Pages Wednesday, April 21, 1993 Morrow County Heppner, Oregon G rieb w ins 1993 conservation farm The Morrow County School Board at its regular meeting Mon day night, April 19, elminated $379,000 from the 1993-94 school year and further directed building principals to come up with another $50,000 in cuts to cope with measure 5 funding reductions. The board eliminated all ex tended duty contracts for the teaching staff district-wide. Ex tended days are extra work days before or after the school year outside the regular number of contract days the teachers are re quired to work. Also eliminated from the budget were two teaching posi tions, one from lone and one either from Heppner Elemen tary/Middle School or Heppner High School and two certified librarian positions, one from lone and one from Columbia Junior High. The food service piogram was reduced by 25.8 hours a day. Confidential employees at the district office were reduced by 4.5 hours a day (1.5 hours a day for three employees) and a con fidential maintenance position was eliminated. Proposed staff reductions include: Heppner Elementary/Middle school-up to one fulltime teacher, one computer coordinator, 33 ex tended contract days; Heppner High School-up to one fulltime teacher, one com puter coordinator, one rally ad visor, one dance/drill team ad visor, one journalism advisor and 93 extended contract days; lone schools-one fulltime teacher, one certified librarian, one computer coordinator, one assistant baseball coach, one ral ly advisor, 27 extended contract days; Sam Boardman Elementary- one computer coordinator, 23 ex tended contract days; Riverside High School-one computer coordinator, one rally advisor, one dance/drill team ad visor, one newspaper advisor, 93 extended contract days, five assistant coaches, boys and girls basketball, girls volleyball, golf and tennis; Columbia Junior High-one cer tified librarian, one computer coordinator, 30 extended contract days; A.C. Houghton Elementary- one computer coordinator, ^ e x tended contract days. The food service program cuts are as follows: Heppner Elemen tary/Middle School-5.3 hours. Heppner High School 5.5 hours; lone schools 7 hours: Riverside High School 3.5 hours and Col umbia Junior High 4.5 hours. The board also approved addi tion of staff, mainly in the North county schools to cope with in creased enrollm ent. A.C. Houghton, Columbia Junior High, Riverside High and Sam Boardman Elementary will each add one teacher. Columbia and lone will hire library technicians instead of filling positions previously held by certified librarians. The district office will add eight addition special educa tion assistants. In other business the board: -approved a request from the citizens of Lexington to upgrade and blacktop the district office tennis court. The county court will donate the materials and equipment for a three inch overlay for the courts and all work to upgrade the courts was volunteered. The district is being asked only to remove the fence so that the work may be com pleted and to put the fence back up when the work is done; -voted to accept the title to the Lexington baseball field if the Lexington city council approves. The council asked the board to either turn the title over to the city of Lexington or take the proper ty back. The property was own ed by the district but held by the city. The city, however, could not make improvements on the pro perty because it was owned by the district; -approved a Riverside High School request for bus transpor tation for a drug/alcohol free graduation party in the Tri-Cities; -rescinded board policy which authorized extended contracts; -reviewed election results from the March 23 election. Board member Scott Bauska was elected to Boardman-Irrigon Zone 7 and Gary Frederickson to Zone 1. Patrick McNamee was elected to Boardm an-Irrigon Advisory Committee position 6. Write in candidates for the Boardman- Irrigon Advisory Committee were: Robert Byrd, position 2; David Hirai and Robert Byrd, position three. Heppner- Lexington Advisory Committee members elected were Chloe Pearson, position 1, John Boyer, position 7 and Virginia Nairns, write-in for position 2. Valerie Doherty was elected Ione- Lexington Advisory Committee position no. 4; -approved a $35,000 architec- tural/engineering agreement with SCM Consulting, Inc., for plans for proposed construction of ad ditional classrooms in the north end of the county to cope with growth. The proposed construc tion will go before voters in a bond levy; -heard the first reading of board policy to establish or contract with another agency to review all public contracts made by local public agencies within the county; -did not approve a request from Bill Adams, former confidential employee for early retirement benefits. Adams, 62 and a half, worked for the district 12 years; continued page 7 Christman receives no jail time for death Ken, Virginia and Geri (front) Grieb The 1993 Morrow County Wheat League Conservation Farm of the Year was awarded to Grieb Farms, Inc. of Lexington according to Doug Drake, Mor row County Wheat League presi dent. The announcement was made at the spring meeting held Tuesday night, April 20 in lone. A tour to honor the Grieb Farm is planned for June. Grieb Farms, Inc. consists of owners Virginia. Ken, Geri Grieb and Julie Grieb Weimar. The Griebs farm 3,550 acres with 1,280 acres supplemental ir rigated, 320 acres dryland, 1.610 acres in fallow, and 340 acres in perennial grass cover. The ma jority o f the farm is in wheat/fallow rotation with 100 percent in winter wheat (Stephens and Madsen). The Griebs property was ac quired in the north Lexington area in 1947 by Bert and Gertie Grieb. Today the land is farmed by Grieb Land Co., a partnership of Ken and Geri. the third genera tion on the farm. The Griebs have one employee. Audomaro Vic- torio, who has been with them for 11 years. Although the farm is not deem ed "highly erodible", the Griebs are conservation minded and believe in keeping the soil in its most productive state. The prin cipal conservation concern for the farm is wind erosion. For this reason the Griebs maintain an ex cess of 1,500 pounds of straw mulch cover. They also planted 340 acres in perennial grass cover (crested wheat) that are not in the Conservation Reserve Program. The Natural Gas Pipeline Co. has just recently completed going across 38 acres of the Grieb Farm. Despite replacement of the topsoil by pipeline contractors, the Griebs will have to stabilize the disturbed soil. They will spring seed wheat on 31 acres and utilize Soil Conservation Service technology of "hydro seeding" on the perennial grass acreage. The farming operation starts with a spring application of "RoundUp" to 1,600 acres of fallow ground to reduce tillage operations and to conserve moisture in the ground. Next a disk tillage is used for heavy straw incorporation. The ground is then chisel plowed, and follow ed by successive rod-weeding to control weeds and to maintain surface straw cover. Fertilizer is applied just before planting each fall. After harvest the stubble is disked lightly to manage heavy straw. Virginia Grieb says that conservation practices used on the farm since 1947 have been in strumental in maintaining high crop yield and good control of soil erosion. Supplemental crop irrigation has been a practice on the farm since 1968. Griebs use an 80 foot wheel-move water distribution system. The farm is in a critical groundwater area and water distribution is regulated by state laws. The wheat crop is irrigated in the spring, receiving 2.5 inches of water. Five inches of water are used to pre-irrigate summer fallow ground in preparation for fall seeding. The Grieb Farm is able to maintain average crop yields despite the drought. Photo by Joyce Hughes Soil samples are taken each year to avoid over fertilization and to coordinate fertility with available water. The predominate soil on the property is a Warden silt loam. The Griebs are members of the Oregon Wheat League, Morrow County Farm Bureau, and the Lexington Grange. Virginia is chairperson of the ASCS Com mittee, a director of the Morrow County G rain G row ers, a member of the County Farm Review Board, and a member of the Morrow County Wheat Marketing Club. Geri is secretary of the Morrow County Extension Advisory Council and an Oregon 4-H Foundation Assistant. Ken has auctioneered the Morrow County Fair 4-H and FFA Fat Stock Sale for the past five years and donates his time to auction local FFA Slave Sales. The Grieb philosophy on con servation farming is to utilize maximum resources for water conservation, maintain a pnxluc- tive unit, protect the soil from wind erosion, and to manage the land for future generations using minimum tillage and good farm ing management. This philosophy has resulted in being selected as 1993 Conservation Farm win ners. based on excellent conser vation practices, management and a sound economic base, said a press release. The Grieb's farm is a prime example of a successful eastern Oregon wheat enterprise that is competitive with other areas of the world, continued the release. Carl Christman, lone, was placed on parole and received three years’ probation on charges stemming from a May 11, 1990 incident in which one man was killed. Christman was convicted of se cond degree m anslaughter, failure to perform the duties of a driver involved in an automobile accident, reckless driving and three counts o f reckless endangering. Christman, 35, was under the influence of intoxicants and driv ing at a high rate of speed when he struck and killed Steven Leroy Burland, 26, who had been lying on the road following an earlier automobile accident. Three other people were endangered as they gave Burland aid and attempted to get Christman to stop before he struck Burland. Morrow County District At torney Earl Woods, Jr., said that he asked that Christman receive 20 months in the state peniten tiary. Woods said that local judges were either unable or un willing to preside over the senten cing. Judge Milo Pope of Baker County was presiding judge. Christman was convicted of two previous charges of driving under the influence. A third drunk driving charge, in connec tion with the manslaughter charge is still pending and set for trial on June 11. BREAK IN - John Bristow, owner of Bristow's Market in lone, checks damage thieves did to store's safe during break-in Friday night. Thieves gained entrance to the market by smashing open a back delivery door. "It must have been somebody who knew the store pretty good, because they knew right where to hit," Bristow said about the broken door. John's brother Don discovered the break-in when he opened the market Saturday morning. From there Bristow said the thieves went to the front of the store, disabled a surveilance camera, drank some beer and set about trying to open a big safe in the back room. The combination dial on the safe was knocked off, and sheet metal was peeled off the front of the safe. "They must have worked on it for a couple of hours," Bristow said. They never did get into the safe, however, and so went to the front of the store and stole liquor, cigarettes, some cash and other grocery items. Bristow did not have a dollar amount for the loss, but did say there was four to five thousand dollars in damage to the safe. " I think they got around 60 bottles of liquor, and they took 14 cartons of cigarettes." he said He added that he was going to have an elaborate security system installed soon. LOW RATES ON AUTO LOANS New Loans - fto /o Used Ix>ans v f 9 xk R ^ K ° F ----- ... % DM asie™ .°ref on
