Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 2004)
Heppner girl experiences life in a Caribbean paradise Bc s 3 i a etzall U o.' J tie 3 p a j j r I E li c a n e , OR 9 74J3 VOL. 123 NO. 1 6 Pages Wednesday, January 7,2004 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Photo by Lee Jeffries Gary Wight uses his four wheeler to plow the sidewalks of Heppner and keep them safe for walking. While the Bank of Eastern Oregon temperature sign registers a minus 6 degrees early Monday morning. The weather was the topic o f conversation all over the state as temperatures took dramatic dips and many areas in the region, including P en d leto n , H erm iston, Meacham and Heppner saw record lows. H eppner saw -7 degrees as o f 3:18 a.m . Monday, January 5, with the thermometer at the Bank o f Eastern Oregon registering 1 degree around 9 a.m. Schools were closed throughout the M orrow C ounty School District and lone Monday. Schools opened as usual Tuesday. Condon saw a -1 at 8:30 a.m. with the road closed to oversize movement due to packed and drifting snow, according to the Oregon Department ofTransportation online (www.tripcheck.com) Slob Sisters to return to Town and Country event The ‘"Slob Sisters” will be the featured entertainment at Heppner’s annual Town and Country Banquet, “2004. . .Heppner for All Seasons", on Thursday, January 15 at the H eppner Elks Club. The evening will get underway with a no-host social hour at 6 p.m. with a baron of beef dinner to begin at 7 p.m. The evening will also include the coronation o f the Morrow County Fair and O regon Trail Pro Rodeo Court, the Morrow County Extension aw ard, annual ch am ber o f com m erce aw ard s-m an , w om an, business, educator, youth and lifetime achievement awards, and door prizes, compliments of Peterson’s Jewelers. Tickets are available for $20 each at the Bank of Eastern Oregon, M urray’s Drug and Morrow County Grain Growers. For more information and reservations contact the H eppner C ham ber o f Commerce, 676-5536. Everyone is welcome to attend a variety of meetings hosted by the Morrow County Livestock Growers and the Soil and Water Conservation District upstairs at the Elks Club during the afternoon of January 15. Contact Janet Greenup. SWCD, 676-9011, or Bill Broderick, Extension Service, 676-9642. Pendleton was -15 degrees at 6:31 a.m., with an official low of-20, and Hermiston was - 6 at 6:34 a.m. with an official low o f - 12, Arl ington was -2 degrees at 8:34 a.m., but no place could beat Meacham with a -2 7 at 6:33 a.m., and an official low o f -31, also clo sed to o v ersized movement. The forecast is for warmer temperatures as the week progresses. City hired public works director A new public works director has been hired by the City of Heppner. Bruce Nelson, 41, com es to H e p p n er f r o m J u n c tio n City where he grew up and worked 10 years for the city public H eppner native Janelle Healy at first thought o f a trip to The Dominican Republic as an adventure, but once there found that she had d isco v ered not only an extended family, but also a love o f the country, people and culture (not to mention dancing!). H ealy, a 1999 H eppner H igh School graduate who had just turned Janelle at Playa Punta Rucia on the North Beach on 21 y ears old, was at a the Atlantic Ocean crossroads in her life. She had recently finished a two-year program at Mount Hood C om m unity C ollege and pondered her next move. Her m other, C arm en Healy, Heppner, who was bom and raised in The Dominican Republic, suggested that she travel to The Dominican Republic to hone her Spanish speaking skills. Janelle at first th o u g h t no, but then reconsidered, and called her mother back, saying, “Were you serious?” “1 thought if I didn’t like it I could always come home,” said Janelle. “It Janelle Healy (left) and her cousin, Vudelka Cruz, from was pretty scary at first, but The Dominican Republic, at the Healy home in Heppner once 1 got there it was pretty smooth sailing. Once she decided to give it a try, the adventure began. At first Janelle stayed with Carmen’s brother, Paco Tineo, in Santiago, a city of around 1.8 million people, but Jan e lle , used to her independence after living on her own for the past year, chafed at her uncle’s very strict and “old-fashioned” rules. Another factor was that she had not learned much Spanish during the time she lived with Janelle's home in The Dominican her uncle because she didn't have much contact with other people. She attended Spanish courses in school, and found that the classes helped, but discovered that interaction with other Spanish speakers was the key. She had befriended a woman from Thailand, Vimol Anderson, who arrived in The Dominican the same day she did. They were both new to the country and helped each other. The woman, who had come to The Dominican with her Swedish h usband, who w as an engineer, lived nearby and Janelle soon moved in with her. Janelle lived with Vimol for Janelle with her former roommate, Vimol Anderson, on two months until she returned the North Beach to Thailand. Janelle then moved in w ith a distant relative (C arm en’s sister-in-law 's uncle), only around five houses down from where her uncle Paco lives, and where she plans to return after her visit to Heppner. Janelle’s dad, Jerry Healy, says that only a short distance from where Janelle lives in a neighborhood of wealthy homes, families live in extreme poverty. “This (the slu m s) is a good n eig h b o rh o o d , though Janelle relaxes at a neighborhood shop compared to one in Haiti,” adds Jerry, who met his wife, Carmen, when he served with the Peace C orps in The Dominican in the mid-70s. Jan elle says that Dominicans eat more or less the same thing almost every day-called “la bandera” (the flag), a combination o f rice, beans and m eat, m ainly chicken. Carmen Healy says that Dominican meals consist o f basically the same dry ingredients as Mexican food, Dilapidated slums only a short distance from Janelle's continued page six home in The Dominican works department He also worked three years for the city of Harrisburg. Nelson is single. ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. / P ic k U p G r e a t B a r g a in s F r o m O u r 50% OFF TABLE ! 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