Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 1994)
U OF ORF n e w s p a p e r P U 5 F N F OR Three retire from First Interstate Bank I ! B 0 7 4 0 1 the bank and worked with Harley until he left the bank in April of 1973 for a job at C & B Livestock in Hermiston. Harley worked as comptroller at C & B for nine years. In May of 1982, Harley came back to the bank for the third time. Mary Eleanor Gilman was manager then. She had been a loan officer previously when Harley was manager. When Mary Eleanor retired in Dec. of 1983, Harley took over again as manager and served in that position until April of 1991, when the bank split the com Jackie Allstott VOL. 113 NO. 39 8 Pages Wednesday, September 21, 1994 Morrow County Heppner, Oregon Couple from Ireland visits Heppner Father Gerry Condon, Hepp ner, wasn't able to get away to help some good friends, Bertie and Carmel Boland, celebrate their 40th wedding anniver sary, so they decided to extend the celebration a little bit and visit him. The Bolands, however, came all the way from Dublin, Ireland. As young men, Bertie Boland and Father Condon attended technical school together. They went their separate ways, however, and eventually lost touch. One day, Father Con don invited Bertie over and told him that he was going away and that he was going to be a priest. “ I laughed," said Ber tie. "I just couldn't believe it." From then on they correspond ed. "H e's one of the family, now ," added Carmel. The Bolands visited Father Gerry in 1971 when he had a parish at Merrill and spent Christmas with him in 1983 at his Lakeview parish. Father Gerry has also been back to Ireland several times. His sister, Fred die, lives in the Bolands' neighborhood and they report that she is quite spry and stays active. Carmel and Bertie lived right around the corner from one another as kids, but only "knew o f" each other. Carmel went to school with Bertie's younger sister and thought of him as a big brother, so they didn't get together romantically until later. Bertie, 69, was with the Irish airlines, Aer Lingus, for 44 years until he retired eight years ago. Carmel, 59, was a homemaker, raising their five children, and also worked in " d r a p e r ie s ", or what Americans would call women's clothing, as a shop assistant. The Bolands say that their children, four girls and a boy, ranging from 22 to 39 years, are still very close and, says Carmel, sometimes seem to have a kind of telepathy. "They all get along well together, even the grandchildren," she added. They have 10 grandchildren, with another on the way. Since Bertie's retirement, the Bolands have kept extremely busy. So much so, says Carmel, that their children joke that they have to make an ap pointment to see them. Besides travelfthe couple has been to, Oregon three times, several times to Florida, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hawaii, Boston, Cape Cod and Toronto). They belong to and hold positions in a retirees' club that organizes lawn bowling, travel excursions and other activities. They L-R: Father Gerry Condon, Carmel and Bertie Boland. sometimes call themselves w ere amazed at the friendliness "recycled teenagers," laughs of the people here and loved Carmel. the weather, which would have During their current visit to been considered a heat wave in Oregon, Bertie and Carmel Ireland. Ireland, which normal went with Father Condon to ly has a mild climate, is begin the Pendleton Round-Up ning to get very cold, they said. Parade, Rodeo and Happy Ca The Bolands had left for the nyon, all of which they say they U.S. Aug. 31 just as the new enjoyed tremendously. They Irish peace agreement went in also had lunch at St. Mary's to affect and so don't yet know Parish in Pendleton, toured the what the accord will bring. Willow Creek Dam and the However, they said that Dublin Oregon Trail, golfed at Willow is much farther south and not Creek Country Club and plann so much affected. The Bolands ed a trip to Lehman Hot plan to return to their Springs. The Bolands said they homeland next Tuesday. School bond levy defeated The Morrow County School District bond construction levy was defeated by 59 votes, 1,339 no to 1,280 yes on Sept. 20 for the second time. The bond issue failed March 22 by 164 votes. The bond levy would have funded the construction of ad ditional classroom s and remodeling of existing classrooms to cope with over crowding in north county schools. The levy passed in Board- man, Lexington, lone and one Heppner district, but failed in Irrigon and several Heppner precincts. The same school bond levy put up before fhe voters March 22 was defeated 1,331 no, to 1167 yes. Following are those results: Boardman, 319 yes to 229 no; Irrigon, 215 yes to 396 no; lone, 132 yes to 125 no; Lexington, 102 yes to 119 no; Heppner/Hardman, 399 yes to 462 no. S p e c i a l E le c t io n R e s u l t s Tuesday, Sept. 2 0 , 1 9 9 4 Measure 257 School Bond Boardman Hardman/Heppner Ione Irrigon Lexington Total YES NO 348 J ? 18 420 H 437 145 129 " 245 ' 439 122 116 1280 1339 Pre-school slates open house Heppner Day Care Pre- School will hold their open house on Tuesday, Sept. 27, from 7-8 p.m. at the Elks Lodge. Moms, dads, grandparents and friends are invited to come to the program and see what fun things the students are do ing this year. Harley Sager Three people who have been key players of the local First In terstate Bank for many years have decided to play in dif ferent arenas. Jackie Allstott, Harley Sager and Darlene Lovgren have all opted for early retirement from the bank- Jackie, Sept. 30 and Harley and Darlene, Oct. 31. Although none of the three received college educations, they all learned the banking business inside and out, cap tured opportunities and rose through the ranks in their profession. Jackie Schmidt came to Heppner as a teenager from Hayden Lake, Idaho. The Schmidts left a close-knit family in Idaho when Jackie's father, Edward, got a job working for Rosewall Motor as a body and fender man. Her mother, Christine, eventually returned to Idaho where she still lives. Her father has since passed away. Jackie married in 1953 at a young age, but that union has lasted 41 years. Jackie says that her husband, Clyde, is still her "best friend". Although they didn't have much money when they were first married, they considered family important, and before long three children arrived, Barbara Towne, now Juneau, Alaska in 1954, Cyde /Estes, Heppner) in 1956 and David (Heppner) in 1959. Jackie and her husband now have nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. When her children were lit tle, Jackie babysat at home and after they started school she worked at Hager's Dairy. On Sept. 8, 1969, she started work at the bank as a bookkeeper. She says that the bank provid ed insurance benefits that her young family needed. She then worked as a secretary for the bank and within the year, became the secretary for the bank managers. She worked in that position until the early 1980s when she went into operations, which is the inside work of the bank. After that she went into lending and in 1991 she was named the retail manager of the Heppner Branch. Jackie says that over the years she had taken various banking classes. "The bank's been good to m e," said Jackie, "but I've worked hard. I've had to wait for my opportunities. It's how you apply yourself at the job. I think I've been under the gun since I started working here, but 1 love it." She says that the thing she likes most about her job is the people. "I'm a peo- pie person," she says. "I'v e met a lot of wonderful people over the years. It's the people I've been able to serve, the peo ple that trust you that have made it all worth it." What is the hardest thing about her job? Jackie says that besides "not being able to open the windows" at the bank, the hardest things were trying to balance a home and a career and "being the boss. I expect a lot out of people. I never wanted to be the boss. It's easier to work with people than oversee them ." Jackie says that her husband plans to retire in about a year. But for now Jackie says, "I'm going to be content to be a housewife, a mother and a grandmother." But she doesn't discount going back to work, even at the bank. After a year she can return to the bank as a part time employee. She says she has no fears about leaving her employees in charge. "I'm a firm believer in cross-training. I feel very con fident in leaving them behind and know that they'll still be able to do the job," she added. All three of the retirees say that the biggest change in bank ing is due to computers. At first they were required to do all calculations by hand; then came automation; and finally computerization which freed the employees to work more with people. The bank is also more efficient and consolidated now, they say, and is w'orking toward elminating duplication of services. Harley Sager also worked his way up through the ranks. His first job with the bank was in 1956 when he began working as a teller in Nyssa. By the time he left Nyssa he had become operations officer. When he came to Heppner in 1962 he was hired as operations officer, but then became consumer loan officer, working with the several car dealerships in the area. He was then promoted to assistant manager, doing com mercial loans. He worked in that position until June 1967 when he went to Merrill, also as a commercial loan officer. He was hired in that capacity in Ontario in Feb. of '68. He re mained in Ontario until Aug. of 1969 when he returned to Heppner. Upon his return, he bought the Hager house. At that time Johnny Venard was bank manager. When he passed away, Harley took over as manager in Oct. of 69. Johnny's wife, Clista, came to work at Kyle Robinson receives awards Kyle Robinson, Heppner, received the grand champion bull award at the Oregon State Fair open show recently. His bull was KDR K&R Polled Black Jack, a 11-18-92 son of YHR Polled Franie 300Z, sired by WMM Polled Eclipse 100Z. JVR Polled Commander, a 2-11-93 son of JVR Polled Hi Choice, sired by Majestic and exhibited by Robert and Marilyn Schiller, Echo, took reserve grand champion. Zane Martin, also of Echo, took the grand champion female at both the open show and the junior sales show with ZW Miss Charisma 02C, a 2-20-93 daughter of Target Denver X-Tra Special, sired by Target Mile MVP. Fall CMkiug Logger Jeans 1695 Flannel Shirts 1495 mercial and retail departments. Harley then transferred to the Hermiston Eastern Oregon Commercial Banking Center, where he is team leader. Harley says what he misses most and the biggest change in the banking business is the movement away from full- phase banking. Now commer cial and retail departments are separate. "Banking has really changed," said Harley. "It's more specialized." Another thing about banking has also changed-the salary. Harley said that when he first started in the banking business he made $210 a month. "In those days, the banking pay was real ly bad," he added. Harley and his wife of 36 years, Bertha, have four children, Kelly, Lexington, Kirk, Klamath Falls, Cheri Ross, Escondido, CA., and Kimela, Hermiston, and six grandchildren. Harley is already thinking about another career and says he may get more involved in Bertha's janitorial services business with branches in Heppner, Condon, Moro and Fossil. Darlene Lovgren attended high school in Pendleton. After her marriage she and her hus band moved to The Dalles and then to John Day. Like Jackie, Darlene also started her bank ing career as a bookkeeper. In Feb. of 1971 she transferred from the John Day offtCPYo the Pendleton branch where she performed various jobs such as teller and secretary. In June of 1977 she came to Heppner and took a leave of absence. Her absence was short lived, and she only lasted two weeks before returning to work around July 1. She worked at the Heppner Branch until May of 1991 when the commercial and retail parts of the bank split. She then transferred to Hermiston where all commercial lending is done for Condon, Fossil, Heppner, Pilot Rock, Pendleton and Hermiston. Although banking has pro vided a lot of challenges, Lovgren says that the last three years, she has "really en joyed her jo b." "The guvs in the office are really great," she added. "I told my husband (Stacey) that I've finally found my spot." Darlene echoes Jackie and Harley concerning the changes in the banking industry. "When I first started my job, I did all the posting of checks by hand and the statements were done by hand," she said. "O n statement night, once a month everyone stayed until the statements were done. Darlene says that retirement will free her up to accompany her husband, who is in heavy equipment and travels around on construction jobs. They also plan to spend the winter, his slack time, in Arizona. Darlene has three children, Connie Aragon, Heppner; Ronda Helfrecht, Pendleton, and LeAnne Wickman, Forest Grove, and six grandchildren. An open house was held for the three at the Heppner branch of First Interstate on Fri day, Sept. 9. Sale Coats 4495 Coveralls 2295 Morrow County Grain Growers Lexington 989-8221 1-800-824-7185________
