Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 16, 2006)
From princess to queen, reading, riding and M orrow C ounty blend together Bessie Wetzell Newspaper Library University of Oregon Eugene. OR 97403 V ........ _ _ a Queen Heather Yocom Last year's princess, this year’s queen, Heather Yocom c o n tin u e s to represent Morrow County. The 18-year-old daughter of Jack and Renee Yocom of Heppner has been involved with the fair and rodeo and 4-H most of her life. This year will be her third year showing steers. Her steer this year is 1-1/2 year old Joey. He is a replacement as her original steer. Butterscotch, was “too wild and too mean.” Joey, a Hereford, is “totally calm.” Besides switching steers. Queen Heather also had to do a horse switch this year. She had originally been riding “Red,” but he had to be put down after getting his leg cut o ff on a fence Memorial Day weekend at Spray. She has switched to “ Rowdy,” a four-year-old quarter horse. Even though his name is "Row dy,” Queen Heather says he is totally calm. “He just goes with the flow,” said Heather, "kind of like me. Our temperaments are the same.” "Rowdy” came from the Mitch and Tag Ashbeck Ranch and was trained by her boyfriend, Ryan "Hoss” Geer, this spring for 30 days and Heather finished the horse. “ H e ’s ab so lu tely gorgeous," says Heather, of his brown, with chestnut color. Q ueen H e a th e r's fam ily has long been involved with the fair, rodeo and community activities. Her mom, Renee, is the M orrow C o u n ty Fair secretary and has always been active at the fair. Her dad. Jack, works the bucking chutes for the rodeo. Grandpa, "Papa Joe” Yocom has been involved with the Rodeo Committee, the Fair Board and numerous other activ itie s and her grandmother, Hilda, who passed away, was “active with everything.” Heather also has two brothers. Justin, 14. and Zachary, 12, who, she gets along with very well. "They have been a lot of help,” said Heather. " W e ’re really focusing on the next g e n eratio n ,” said Queen Heather. The court this year has been in v o lv ed with various reading programs th ro u g h o u t the county. “We’ve read in every town in the county at least once,” added Heather. Last year the court had w anted to get involved in the SM ART reading program, but were unable to, so this year "we got our foot in the door,” said Heather. The court also got together with Oregon Trail L ibrary D istrict and participated in their summer reading program. “The kids are great, it was so cool. They all look up to you," expressed Heather. Jo in in g Q ueen Heather on the court this year are Princess Josie Miller and Pennant Bearers Jessica Hamilton and Jarreid Miller, Princess Josie's brother. The co u rt has already participated at Spray, Athena. Elgin, The Dalles and Umatilla Landing Days, as well as other places. Q ueen H e a th e r ’s favorite event so far this year has been the Elgin ...continued on page 2 School board passes tough, but compassionate drug, Preparations underway for M orrow County Fair alcohol policies, testing procedures VOL. 125 NO. 33 8 Pages Wednesday, August 16,2006 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon M o rro w C o u n ty V * Stato |2 year c o m p a r is o n ) 100* n I O2coa.cs ■ State 34-05 *** SO . • . [aices-c* r • late :>t OS t ec* ■ ÏW M* i S eo* sem ao* ■ i<f\ :v;J VMt- M R e t r irij Siti Vw t fitti R a t i n g 0th Mart 8»h R o a d n g 10th M a r lCth H e a i r g O r tt l« * arid T etta Percentage of students passing the benchmarks in Morrow County as compared to those through- out the state. Morrow County Judge Terry Tallman, Boardman and Sue Gibbs, Heppner, discuss a flower as they ready floral entries for the Morrow County Fair to be held Aug. 16-20. L exington C ouncil m em b er scolds audience L ex in g to n Town C ouncil m em ber Bev Steagall ended the Aug. 8 council meeting by scolding members of the audience for attacking council members, bickering, nitpicking and “hassling over every little thing." “That's why none of us want to be on the c o u n c il,” * a d m o n ish ed Steagall. Steagall, who was appointed to fill a position left vacant following a recall of previous council member Luella Taylor, said that she w ould not run for her position when it comes up for election this fall, as did council m em bers Jean Brazell and Jim Nelson. Brazell had earlier survived a recall. N elson was ap p o in te d a fter the resig n atio n o f council member Kirk Looslie. The remaining council position is held by Jay Papineau, who filled the position held by Mike Orwick who recently resigned. Mayor Val Doherty, who was appointed mayor after the recall of previous mayor John Edwards, had e a rlie r severely lim ited audience participation to a portion o f the m eeting d e sig n a te d for public comment said, “We're not going to have this crap.” D oherty had opposed audience members entering into a dialogue with council members during meetings. Also at the meeting, the council discussed the to w n ’s resp o n se to the recent well crisis. The re s e rv o ir had been discovered only half full, due to a pum p m alfunction. Overall, the response and solution to the situation was d eem ed speedy and a p p ro p ria te and to w n sp eo p le were commended for rising to the occasion, limiting their water use and “pitching in" to help. The council plans to discuss in stallatio n o f an alarm system to alert town officials of such an emergency and also plans to d iscuss developing a back up well. In other business, the council: -voted to implement a $37 deposit for basic water service to avoid problems in collecting overdue water bills from renters. -decided to put off plans for a harvest festival until next year. -plans to review various employee policies at the next council meeting and adapt a policy for the town. -plans to d iscuss amending the town’s charter at the next meeting and determine which charter is currently in effect. -rev iew ed a cost estimate for paving C Street/ Black Horse Canyon, with a total project cost of $63,271, of which $29,370 would be city’s portion, which they hope to fund through a grant. ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. The Morrow County School Board approved the first reading o f revised alcohol, drug and tobacco and drug testing procedures policies at its regular board meeting in Irrigon Monday night. The change comes on the heels of a Morrow C ounty S h e r if f ’s D epartm ent drug in v estig atio n involving numerous Heppner High School students and recent graduates and adults in the com m unity. MCSD Assistant Superintendent Wade Smith stressed that "to our knowledge, these things are not happening on school grounds.” D r u g s /a lc o h o l: According to the new district policy, if a student voluntarily admits the use of alcohol or drugs he will be given the option of a short suspension (10 days or one contest/event. whichever is greater from the date of admission) and “good faith" p artic ip a tio n in a state certified drug and alcohol assistance program at the student’s/parent’s expense. *lf the student elects to participate in the drug/ alcohol assistance program he w ill continue to practice or participate with the team or group, hut will not participate in any game or event during the suspension. The suspension will carry over into the next season if the schedule ends before the time has elapsed. If the first session of the drug assistance program has not occurred hy the end of the pu n ish m en t period, the student will be suspended from practice or involvement and participation in games or events until he has attended at least one session. Continued participation will be contingent on the student missing no sessions of the drug or alcohol program. *lf the student elects not to participate in the program , he will be suspended from the team or non-athletic program for the remainder of the current season and the next sport season/academic quarter the student participates in. *For the second voluntary a d m issio n , discipline will be handled according to the first offense. *For the first o ffen se, a stu d en t determined to be in violation o f the policy by use, p o ssessio n or active involvement with unlawful drugs or alco h o l, as d eterm in ed by s e lf ad m issio n . c ita tio n / conviction, schcxil personnel affidavit or positive drug test, will be subject to an immediate suspension of at least three weeks and or two contest days or e v en ts, whichever is greater. The suspension will begin as soon as the school becomes aware of the violation. *From there, the student has two choices He can choose option A, which ...continued on page 3 HAC K TO O I K R E G U L A R H O U R S > lon«lay - F r i d a y 7 a .in . lo .» |>.m. S a t u r d a y • 7 a .in . to 12 n o o n WE WILL BE CLOSED THIS SATURDAY Join us at the Oregon Trail Pro Rodeo! Morrow County Grain Growers Lexington 989-8221 • 1-800-452-7396 F w farm equipm ent, visit our w eb t it e at WWW me I K net
