Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (June 12, 2002)
Twister hits Lexington airport Be 3 à i e « e t i e 11 U o f J W e»*pap3r L i b r a r y E u g e n e , OR 9 7 4 J i Where the six-stall hangar used to be. Where (what is left of) the hangar is now. Kelly Boyer had quite a day Sunday. Something that the people of Lexington are calling a tornado destroyed the hangar at the airport and damaged many of managers John and Kelly Boyer’s property. “I was mopping and it banged my doors open, then shut, then open again,” said Kelly who VOL. 121 NO. 24 10 Pages Wednesday, June 12, 2002 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon County Sheriff Department patrolling Heppner I t’s official. The M orrow C ounty S h eriff Department is now patrolling the streets of Heppner. In a cost saving move, the city disbanded its police department at the end o f this month in favor of contracting with the sheriff department. The city QV/fJUt council made the agreem ent official by approving the contract Monday night. Briefly, the agreement calls for three sheriff deputies to patrol not only the city proper, but also an area outside the city from just past the old Kinzua mill site City crewmember Brian Harman shows new city dump truck south to the Willow Creek Lake Street from Gale to Minor Streets. area. everyone,” Sheriff Denton told the The project would include storm Under the contract, the council. drains, sidewalks and overlays. deputies assigned to patrol Breazeale said the city at the Heppner will be required to live In other business, the same time wanted to do “water in the city limits. The sheriff is council agreed to raise the lines and anything else that might currently going through a selection monthly sewer rate by $3.10 from need to be done underground” process to pick the three deputies, $ 18 to $21.10. According to city before the street work was to but so far Randy Rayburn, Rory officials the increase is necessary begin. Breazeale estimated that Bolter and Karen Zeiler have been because of the large amount of the whole project would cost patrolling in Heppner under a expensive work that was done on between $60,000 and $80,000 but previous temporary agreement the sewer treatment plant this past that having the public works with the city. Phil Morris of the year. The repairs depleted the department handle a lot o f the sheriff department will be the sewer reserve fund. work could contain costs. He also supervisor o f the H eppner The council also got said it would be necessary to form deputies. Sheriff Verlin Denton a look at a new dump truck a local improvement district so told the council Monday. recently purchased by the city. that property owners will pay their The agreem ent Public works director, Craig share. B reazeale noted that between the city and the sheriff C anham , recently w ent to because the city did not have is a one year renewable contract Portland and purchased the 1991 enough money, if property owners which calls for the city to pay the Chevrolet Kodiak 34000 GVW are not willing to come up with sheriff department $150,840 for with cat diesel for $5,000 under their portion of the project, it the com ing year for police the city o f Portland’s surplus probably would not happen. services. AH city equipment and property sale. Canham said an At Monday's council vehicles will be turned over to the additional $1,000 was used to meeting, councilmember Tom sheriff, however, if the contract paint the city logo on the door and Wolff passed on what he said is not renewed the city will get do other work. He said overall it w ere general “co n cern s” everything back. was a good purchase for the city. expressed to him by citizens about The contract will save At a May 16 utility the city. “The people want to see the city approximately $29,000 commission meeting, Breazeale pipe going in the street instead of next year. Under the agreement announced that the city has people mowing lawns. They want the city will also purchase a police received a $25,000 grant from the to see money going into vehicle, but will retain the title. O regon D epartm ent o f in frastru ctu re not into The arrangement insures that the Transportation to rebuild Water m aintenance and w atering city will still have police vehicles flowers," Wolff told the council. in the event the agreement is not renewed. The city council Friday, until 7 a.m., Saturday. A generally agreed the new An extended Singspiration will be held on Friday potluck breakfast will follow. arrangement was good for the and Saturday, June 21-22, at the This is a family, multi-church city, approving the contract Heppner City Park. The evening event and the community is invited unanimously. “It’s not something activities will begin at 6 p.m. with to bring their lawn chairs and we are going to get free, but we events geared toward children. At com e share in the food and are going to get good coverage,” 7:30, the Singspiration begins and fellowship. City M anager Jerry Breazeale will include a time for sharing In case of rain, the event said. testimonies. will be held at Lynda Crane’s The Singspiration will be house behind the motel. Call “I think it will be a followed by an all-night prayer great relationship. I’m looking Pastor C raig Strobel, 676-9224 or vigil in the park from 9 p.m.. Pastor Tim Van Cleave, 676- forw ard to w orking with 5581. ' Singspiration to be held ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. lone gears up for another Fourth of July Blues Festival lone’s Fourth of July Blues Festival will be held on Sunday, June 30, Wednesday, July 3 and Thursday, July 4. The festival will kick off, Sun day, at the lone Park with a per formance of the Inland Northwest Musicians - Patriotic Pops, start ing at 2:15 p.m. There will also be a children’s art fair and an es say contest. Participants may bring picnic baskets, beverages and lawn chairs. On Wednesday, July 3, the annual Fourth of July Golf Tour nament will be held at the Willow Creek Country Club in Heppner starting at 10 a.m. Cost is $35 per golfer. For more information, con tact Craig Holland at 422-7455. Continuing the day’s festivities, food vendors and the beer gar den will open at the lone park at 6 p.m. Heppner native, Lindy Gravelle, will perform music at the park starting at 7 p.m. On Thursday, July 4, the Dawn’s Early Light Fun Run will begin at 7 a.m. For more infor mation. contact Jim Raible at 422- 7141. All day events will include a frog jumping contest (frogs pro vided), bingo at the Legion Hall, hoop shoot, straw money pile for ages three to eight, dunk tank and more. At 11 a.m., the Red. White and Blue - Banding Together Pa rade and Blues Cruise Classic Car Show will start. Grand marshals are the Willow Creek Valley Po lice Dept., Fire Dept., and EMTs. For more information on the car show, contact Chuck Nelson at 989-8148. Food vendors and the beer garden will open at 12 noon. Pie and coffee, sponsored by the Catholic ladies, will be served in the fire hall. The pool will open at 2 p.m. for swimming. From 2 p.m. until dusk. Mu sic in the Park will be held; and at dusk the fireworks show will begin. Everyone is reminded that no dogs or fireworks will be al lowed in the park. Gambler's Anonymous will hold meetings A Gambler’s Anonymous meeting w ill be held every M onday evening at 7 p.m. at the Umatilla Electric Co-Op building. 203 E. Boardman Ave, Boardman. For more information, call (541) 922- 2437. SW was home alone when the twister hit her property. “It lifted the hangar’s roof about 60 feet off the ground,” said a Lexington resident. Three planes and a boat were in the six- stalled hangar at the time of the disaster, but only one plane was dam aged. Trusses from the hangar flew all over the airport property, dam aging some o f Boyer’s tanks and mixers. “I personally probably have around $6,000 worth of damage.” said John. Many local residents helped get the mess under control and Boyer figures he will be up and running again shortly. “Hopefully w e’ll be running tom orrow ,” said Boyer on Monday. HCC works on the Heppner strategic plan Heppner citizens will have an opportunity on Tuesday, June 25, to help shape the community’s plan for the future. The H eppner C oordinating Com m ittee continues to work on revision of H eppner’s strategic plan and invites input from community members. “We need information from as many sources as possible because we are trying to identify every strength and need our community has and to form a truly common vision for Heppner. Our local organizations, especially, can become the main beneficiaries, and for the work to be completely representative, we have to have help from the rest o f the community.” A “strategic plan” is the compilation of a community’s vision for today and tomorrow, its mission as it moves into the future, the principles on which the writers of the plan base goals and action plans for the community, and those goals and plans. The strategic plan has become a necessary addendum to every application for state or federal ftmdmg for projects that any organization or agency in that com m unity or the local government might make. The agencies with funds to award require that projects support a com m unity’s vision, mission, principles, goals, and action plans. The HCC encourages all community members with a stake in H eppner’s future to attend public meetings on Tuesday, June 25, at the St. Patrick’s Senior Center. A brown bag lunch will be held from 11:30 to 1:00. and an evening meeting will be held from 7:00 to 8:30. At Monday school board meeting Delegations oppose teacher cuts Despite objections from a large delegation of parents and teachers from lone, the Morrow County School Board was not moved to go against a recom m endation from Superintendent Bruce Anderson to transfer an lone Junior High math teacher from lone to Heppner. At the district’s regular board meeting Monday night, Anderson said the transfer was made simply because a junior high math teacher is needed at Heppner Junior High School since long-time HJH math teacher Karen Beck retired at the end of this school year. According to Anderson, lone has two additional math teachers who can pick up the math classes taught by Steve Schaber, and staff who can teach other classes he taught. The district plans the reduction o f five teachers by attrition in order to balance the budget. The reductions include (salary and benefits) a teacher at Heppner Elementary School- $69,538; a business teacher at Heppner High School-$69,535; a teacher at Colum bia M iddle School-$69,538; two half-time positions at Riverside High School-$24,298 and $21,591 ; and math teacher at Ione-$56,580. The district will also save an additional $12,960, resulting from the retirement of teachers earning higher salaries. The board has said that they will further reduce costs by offering teachers a two percent salary increase, rather than the six percent increase they had offered. The district is anticipating less money from the state because o f a state budget crisis. M embers o f the lone delegation said that they understand that cuts must be made, but commented that lone values its core classes, especially in math and science, and asked that the board elim inate the business and music programs in lone instead of a math teacher. Many also com m ented that because of previous cuts, lone teachers are already stretched to the limit and are required to teach many classes outside their area of expertise. Anderson said that cutting the business-music teacher at lone would set off a series of “bumps” continued page two 125 T-POST8 on SALE n o w fo r $ 1 .9 5 p e r p o s t (pallet quantity only » 250/pallet) S a le g o o d th rough June 2 2 Morrow County Grain Growers Lexington 989-8221 • 1-800-452-7396 utt at wmimc|| net
