Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (June 18, 2008)
Lexington man not silent about political beliefs lliliiliiililiilllim illilinll Bessie Wetzell Newspaper Library University o f Oregon Eugene, OR 97403 VOL. 127 NO. 25 10 Pages Wednesday, June 18, 2008 By David Sykes After a few minutes with Jim Nelson one knows he is not a man who sub scribes to the theory “never talk about politics or reli gion.” Nelson likes to talk about both, and is not afraid to say what he thinks. He’s the guy with the big sign on the side o f the road in Lexington: “If you like com munism, Socialist, Fascist Then Vote Republican or Democrat”. A retired truck driv- Jim Nelson of Lexington lets his political beliefs be known with a large sign on his pickup. -Photo by David Sykes Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Vial takes on CED job at Farm Service Agency By Autumn Morgan At the end o f May D arcy Vial stepped into the job o f county executive director for the USDA Mor row County Farm Service Agency in Heppner. Vial, who graduated in 2006 from Oregon State University, holds degrees in animal science and gen eral agriculture. Her parents, w ho have a background in production agriculture, moved the family to the Wil lamette Valley from Iowa in 1985. Being raised around agriculture, Vial has a spe- cific background o f dairy and beef cattle. The FSA handles o f pro grams including c o n s e r v a tio n , farm p ro g ra m p a y m e n ts and h a n d le s so m e crop insurance, as w ell as a d ministers USDA farm p ro g ram s out of the office. Vial w an ts to re mind the community that the Farm Bill just came out on May 22. County meeting schedules will soon be an nounced so that discussions can be held about the Farm Bill and its pro grams. Vial is enjoy ing settling into Hep pner. “ 1 am excited to live and work in M orrow C o u n ty ," said Vial. “My door is always open. 1 look forward to meeting people.” Vial can be reached at the USDA Farm Service Agency office in Heppner at 676-9011. Boardman speedway moving forward By David Sykes T he B o ard m an Speedw ay (officially the Pacific Northwest Motor- sports Park) is moving along at break neck speed. Direc tor o f Marketing Billie Jean M orris told the H eppner Chamber o f Commerce last week. M o rris s a id th e speedway’s big project right now is getting the waste treatment plant constructed and operating so that other construction w orkers can begin moving in, which is when construction will re ally take off. She expected 500 to 1,000 construction w orkers to be on the job when the project gets go ing later this year. There is expected to be about 250 full time service type jobs when the speedway is up and running. The park is sched uled to open in the summer of 2009. The six-plus mile road course m ade up o f three individual courses ap proximating two miles each, will handle all types o f rac ing, including formula cars, sports racers, production racers, vintage cars, stock cars, street cars and motor “Best” man wins hot- dog eating contest Matt Best from California wax crowned the hot dog eating champion during the contest that was held on Friday, June 13. The contest was part of the Celebrate Heppner events that were scheduled for the weekend. -Photo by Sandy Mat thews cycles. Morris said she has even been contacted by a law nm ow er racing group that is interested in holding races there. Two o f the courses and the facilities will be available to rent for cor porate team -building ac tivities, and to car clubs or individuals. Although the speed way does not as yet have a NASCAR event, developers say the current construc tion is the first phase o f the master planned motor- sports destination complex to be built over the next 10 years. When complete it will also include a one- plus mile kart track, quarter m ile drag strip, plus o ff road course and ultimately a 1.2 mile high-banked oval super speedway designed to accommodate NASCAR events. “NASCAR is not out o f the picture,” Morris said. “ But we have not presented (a proposal) yet. We will be approaching NASCAR and our track will be NASCAR ready,” she said. M orris said since they will have bleacher at the speedway there was a requirement for seismic test, “which we passed with fly ing colors.” M o rris s a id th e speedway has already been -Continued on Page three er, ex-A rm y R anger and real estate investor. Nelson has strong feelings on the way the United States is headed. “The government is taking away our freedoms,” he says. “We are becoming a socialist nation,” and he doesn't see either the Demo crat or Republican parties as changing anything. “They are both the same to me,” he says. Born and raised in V ancouver, WA, N elson tells o f several instances in the 1970s that showed him the over reaching power of government, and how it can adversely effect people’s lives. In 1972 a political problem between his father and Clark County resulted in threats, jail and, he says, lessons learned. Nelson says Clark County paved over a portion o f his father's land illegally. He and his brother went to the property “and w ith pick axes tore up the blacktop, stacked it off our land, and fenced our prop erty.” He said threats were exchanged with the sheriff deputies and “at one time or another me, my brother and my father were all hand cuffed and taken to ja il.” He says his brother was even beaten in an elevator by deputies. “The incident was on three TV channels in Portland and even got as far back as Chicago,” Nelson says of the incident. It all ended up in court and the county lost, Nelson says. “ The court room was packed w ith peo ple, all on our side.” He adds that as a consequence a county commissioner was not reelected and a deputy that had threatened to “pistol whip my brother” was re-assigned to the county road crew over the incident. In throwing out the case “the judge said the whole thing should never have h ap p en ed ,” Nelson said. “These kinds o f things have happened to many, many people,” Nelson adds, “and most o f them just lie down and take it. A n o th e r in stan ce which added to N elson's experience o f abusive gov ernment power, was when OSH A (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) shut down the trucking and distribution company he had purchased. OSHA ordered him to put in a new ware house freight elevator, and he could not afford to. “A company that was founded in 1918 ju st went out o f business.” he says. Although he did not graduate. Nelson attended college for two years and is also a voracious reader. “ Lots on history and eco nomics,” he says pointing to the stacks o f books on his dining room table. He is also a member o f the H eritage fo u n d a tion and supports Ron Paul in the current presidential race. “As far as I know he has never taken a raise in congress and did not vote to raise taxes on A m eri cans. He wants to get rid of our rip-off income tax, and -Continued on Page two Eight juveniles suspected of being involved in multiple crimes The break-in at the H eppner sw im m ing pool last week was just another o ccu rren ce in the string o f crimes alleged to have been committed by multiple ju v en iles in the Heppner area over the past year and a half. D e te c tiv e K aren Carter and Sgt. Randy Ray- bum spent several days per forming multiple interviews in and around Heppner. In a press release, the Morrow County Sheriff’s Office an nounced that eight separate ju v en iles ranging in age from 13-17 years old arc be- lieved to have been involved in the crimes. The press re lease further went on to state that some o f these juveniles are believed to have broken into several snack shacks at various ball fields as well as the Red Apple Market and the Heppner Shell Station. Four o f the juveniles have been lodged at NOR- COR in The Dalles. Accord ing to the sheriff's office, these juveniles may face charges of burglary, criminal mischief, theft, possession o f stolen property, as well as other charges. The investigation is still ongoing. School district adopts $29 million budget By April Sykes M o rro w C o u n ty S chool D istric t D eputy Clerk Rhonda Lorenz re ported at the June 9 meet ing at the district office in Lexington that the district will require $100,000 less in resources for the next fiscal year. Lorenz said that the reduction was a result o f a change in debt ser vice. The board adopted the 2008-09 amended budget at $29,193,569 and passed re so lu tio n s to a p p ro p ri ate the budget and impose taxes at the rate o f $4.0342 per $1,000 assessed value for operations and in the amount o f $1,493,721 for bonds. Also at the meeting Superintendent Mark Bur rows reported that the 2007 legislature mandated that all school employees be given the option to join the state wide insurance pool. He said that plans were somewhat New principal/superinten- dent named at lone School lone School Board tendent, has spent the past has announced that they have two years as principal and appointed Karl Ostheller, as superintendent-intern in the Oaksdale School the new p rin c ip a l/ superintendent of the District in Wash ington. He holds lone School District. a B.A. in busi He will replace Bryn ness administra B row ning who has tion from West accepted a position ern Washington with the Hermiston U n iv e r s ity , a school district as as c e r sistant su p erin ten tificate from St. dent for educational Karl Ostheller Martin's college services. in Lacey, WA, Os t h e l l e r , who finished his course- and a masters in education work at Washington State leadership at WSU. University to be a superin mm* lAit « I« _ 1 cheaper than the district’s current plans. Burrows announced that Craig Benson has been named new principal at Irri- gon High School, replacing Chris Davis, and the new 1HS assistant principal is Matthew Matz. Also in his report Burrows: -re c o g n iz e d Sam Boardman Elementary Prin cipal Jacque Johnson, one year after the Sam Board- man Elementary School fire, for her work in the wake o f the fire. She was new to her positions at the time o f the fire. -said that he joined other su p erin ten d en ts in p etitioning OSAA to re duce the number o f athletic competitions from 24-22 for basketball and from nine to eight for football. He said the reasoning is to allow stu dents a break between sports and allow them less time away from the classroom. He said the change would also save time and money for the district. -said that d istrict wide graduations went very well w ith over 180 students -Continued on Page three McGregor Slip Tank sprayer $2,856.25 5 ’/ j hp Honda • 100' hose *1 1 5 gallon tank • D30 hydro pum p • 9 gpm ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. M o r r o w C o u n ty G r a in G r o w e r s L e x in g to n 9 8 9 -8 2 2 1 * 1 -8 0 0 -4 5 2 -7 3 9 6 For farm equipment. visit our w«b site at www mctg net
