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Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, January 7, 2004 - THREE
lone Booster Club recognizes businesses
From the Morrow County Road Department
Road department responds
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Business people honored at recent lone ball game
By Debbie Kadie
The lone Cardinal
Booster Club recognizes
businesses at each of its home
games for their support for the
academ ic and ath letic
programs funded through the
club.
On January 3 the
following businesses were
recognized: D obyn’s Pest
C o n tro l, re p re se n te d by
Arlynda Gates, Wheatland
Insurance
A gency,
represented by Jim Swanson,
and The Bank o f Eastern
Oregon, represented by Linda
County snow plow works the roads
as one or as many as four or
Over the past several days five on any given day. When
LaRue. Lyndee Ramos, the the Morrow County Road you consider this, the real
C ard in al B ooster C lub Department has had either full number of the road crew is
President, accompanied by or partial crew s working seven closer to 14. We work four 10
Eva C h itty and A lyssa days a week, including New hours days in the w inter, with
R ietm ann,
the
lone Year’s Day, to try and keep half o f the crew working
cheerleaders, presented each the roads open for the citizens Monday through Thursday
business with a certification of o f M orrow County. Our and half of the crew working
appreciation during halftime of ability to keeps roads open in Tuesday through Friday. This
the face of the kind of storms gives us the ability, under
the boys’ varsity game.
we have been experiencing is normal conditions, to take care
limited. We realize that the o f winter road needs. We
need to do this is very have a total overtime budget
necessary to the well being of of $30,000, of which we had
the citizens of Morrow County used a third when this recent
people as possible during who depend on our County storm began.
severe weather conditions,’’ road system.
We have a winter
Morrow County has plow route which we maintain
said Galen McGill, ODOT
Intelligent Transportation over 1200 miles o f road, 400 seven days a week during the
miles of which are paved. O f w inter, as needed. This route
Systems manager.
511
and that, we have 900 miles of road includes Patterson Ferry,
T rip C h eck .co m provide which we plow and sand. We Tower Road, Bombing Range
highway adv isory information have eight trucks with plows Road, Base Line from 207 to
for state and federal highways and seven o f those with 74, Rhea Creek from Morter
in Oregon. The same crews sanders. We also have four Lane to 74, Willow Creek to
who perform maintenance and road g rad ers w hich are the topofCoal Mine Hill and
respond to incidents in the field ro u tin ely used for snow Fuller Canyon {Spruce Lane}.
are the ones who provide this removal. All of this equipment This is over 90 miles o f road
information. As the most has to serve double duty that for several different
adverse weather conditions because when we are not reasons are priority winter
hit, these field personnel often having a snow event we are routes. Tower Road has over
are directed to locations where working on some part o f our 2,500 cars per day, a dairy
the weather is most severe or road system.
and the Coal Fire plant which
Our total road crew is depend on it. Bombing Range
where emergency situations
18 people. O f this, two are Road has the Finley Butte
exist.
“ When our crews on mechanics and one is the Landfill as well as all o f the
the highw ay are helping county weed manager. We do North-South traffic. Patterson
motorists or clearing snow, have people take vacation and Ferry has truck traffic from 1-
there can be an impact on their call in sick. This can be as few 84 and Hwy 730 on a daily
ability to update information,”
basis. Baseline has over 400
McGill said. ODOT advises
cars per day from the lone
reviewing the TripCheck.com
area. Rhea Creek has a dairy
incident maps to get an overall
which needs feed and milk
picture of travel conditions. By
trucks to be able to get in and
The annual Heppner out on a daily basis. This year
clicking on a variety of icons,
displayed as snow flakes, C ham ber o f C om m erce th ere are tw o logging
cameras, weather stations and L uncheon for cham ber operations hauling off of Coal
general information, potential members and their guests will Mine Hill and down Willow
travelers can get a good idea be held on Tuesday, January C reek as w ell as the
13, at 11:30 a.m. at All Saints
o f what to expect.
“ Even w ith the Episcopal Church.
During the luncheon,
increased usage o f late,
TripCheck.com is carrying the the annual Hat’s Off Award will
load very well,” McGill said. be presented and officers will
A H eppner High
be installed. New officers are
School
Class
of2004 service
V ictor Vander D oes,
president, Brenda Sherrell, auction has been planned for
first v ice-p resid en t, and this Saturday, January 10,
directors, Nancy Gochnauer, during halflime of the girls’ and
Kim Scalf was the L arry L utcher, B arbara boys’ basketball games.
The boys will be sold
winner o f the M erchants’ Hayes, Bert Houweling, John
Reindeer Scavenger Hunt. She Murray, Nancy Snider and during halftime of the girls’
used her gift certificate at David Sykes. Darrell Raver is game, approximately 4:30
Central Red Apple.
ex-officio and Claudia Hughes p.m. The girls will be sold
during halftime of the boys’
The
hunt
was is executive director.
sponsored by participating
The luncheon menu game, approximately 6 p.m.
merchants.
will include baked chicken
S now m obile folks on
W eekends. Spruce Lane
accesses the high school as
well as the Morrow County
Sheriff.
On a routine basis we
have school bus Routes and
mail routes as well as those
folks with emergency medical
needs to consider. We also
have those farm ers and
ranchers with livestock that
they need to be able to reach
in order to feed and water
them.
During our recent
storm event all of these factors
were involved in decisions we
had to make involving plowing.
To add to that, we had two
trucks broke down and one
stuck for a day, as well as
Monday with only six people
working. Since then we have
had crews working every day,
including New Year’s Day,
with the exception of Saturday
when we only ran two trucks.
Sunday we started again with
our graders and most o f our
trucks.
We have all o f our
trucks currently back on line
and enlisted the aid of some
local contractors to help break
open drifts so we can plow
them out with our graders.
We do ap p reciate
ev eryone’s patience and help
during this past w eek. Please
feel free to call our office at
989-9500 w ith any questions
or concerns.
TripCheck.com and ODOT travel info
line break usage records
In a record-breaking,
nine-day holiday period, the
O regon D epartm ent o f
T ran sp o rta tio n ’s travel
information Web site and new
phone line -TripCheck.com
and 511 - surpassed all
previous usage num bers
accumulated over any monthly
period.
From Christmas Eve
through New Year’s Day,
TripCheck.com logged more
than 1.2 mi 11 ion visits. A partial
tally for D ecem ber 2003
indicates more than 2.3 million
site v isits. The p rio r
TripCheck record was 1.5
million visits for the month of
December 2001. The biggest
day ever for T ripC heck
occurred Dec. 29,2003, with
278,000 visits.
The ODOT travel
information phone system -
511 and (800) 977-ODOT -
also set a record for the
number of calls over the same
nine-day period. Between
Dec. 24 and Jan. 1, the system
received 308,000 calls. Last
year, 187,000 calls came in for
the entire month of December.
The previous monthly record
was 250,0 0 0 c alls in
December 2001.
With the addition of
511, the number of available
phone lines doubled, from 108
to 216 lines. Still, the lines
continue to be busy at times
during extrem e w eather
events.
“ We urge citizens to
use the TripCheck.com Web
site whenever possible, so that
travelers who do not have
access to the Internet can still
get through on the phone. This
way, we can get critical travel
information out to as many
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SMALL BUSINESS
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Dental and Life Insurance also Available**
Individuals and Families
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Scotty Scott
1 - 8 0 0 - 593-1836
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"P rem ium s will vary with plan selected
M /C O M B 918
Annual chamber
luncheon Jan. 13
Class of 2004
service auction
set
Scavenger hunt
winner
announced
CUSTOM
BANNERS
Tivo
Three Stone
Anniversary
Ring
4
Any Size
Lots off Colors
Logos & Graphics
Heppner Gazette
676-9228
Weather Report
from the city of Heppner
For the month of December
12/1
12/2
12/3
12/4
12/5
12/6
12/7
12/8
12/9
12/10
12/11
12/12
12/13
12/14
12/15
12/16
12/17
12/18
12/19
12/20
12/21
12/22
i: 23
i: 24
12/25
12/26
12/27
12/28
12 29
12/30
12/31
High
54
40
53
45
36
57
47
46
46
33
33
47
51
53
42
45
49
50
36
36
48
45
34
51
51
51
39
42
35
26
36
r^j jeweiers/
Heppner
676-9200
Precip.
.28
.01
.08
.00
.07
.13
.03
.06
.00
.10
.08
.28
.14
.62
T
.00
.00
.00
.00
.07
T
T
.00
.03
.01
.05
.02
.09
.32
.05
.02
Snow on D ec 1 0 ( 5 " ) ; D ec 11
<■25"); D ec 2 9 (S '); Dec. 30
( 1 5 " ) ; D ec 31 (.2 5 ")
ESTATE P L A N N I N G
Wills, Trusts, Powers of Attorney,
Advance Directives, Elder Law Planning,
Real Property, Business Succession Planning,
Guardianships and Conservatorships.
Jt w l f t of Amorte«, Inc.
. Peterson's
Low
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D A N IEL J. HILL
ATTORNEY AT LAW
285 E. H u rlburt Ave. Herm iston
541 567-5400
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