Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (June 3, 2009)
Health district to interview CEO candidates By April Sykes The Morrow Coun ty Health District Board, after reopening its call for a new administrator, said M onday night that the board members planned to interview additional candi dates Tuesday, June 2. T he b o ard had formulated questions for phone interviews and then in-person interviews. Cur- '"llllllfllll i i i i n j • ■■ni Be: Bessie Wetzell Newspaper Libran, University of Oregon ^ Eugene. OR 97403 HEPPNER lines VOL. 128 NO. 22 12 Pages Wednesday, June 3,2009 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Armato heading east to Harvard By Autumn Morgan official letter and certificate This A u of acceptance from gust a dream will the university. com e tru e for A fter fi ingoing college n an cial endow freshman Maggie m ents from the Armato. She will u n iv e rs ity and be traveling to several scholar Cambridge, MA, ships, Armato will to attend Harvard be able to attend University where the university at she plans to study Maggie Armato little to no per economics. sonal cost. It has been a whirl Armato, who will wind ride for Armato who be graduating from Hep has subsequently been ac pner High School as co cepted to six out of the eight valedictorian along with schools she applied to. Har Sherlyn Peck, had SAT vard accepts approximately scores o f 800 in critical 1,600 new students each reading, 690 in math, and year and Armato “never 710 in writing. A perfect thought of the possibility.” SAT score is 2,400 and she But that possibility scored a 2,200. became reality when, at the School will begin end of March, Armato re around September 6 for ceived an e-mail from Har Armato w ho, as a freshman, vard congratulating her on will live in a residential hall her acceptance. That e-mail on campus. After complet- was later followed up by an rent administrator, Victor Vander Does, said he w ould extend the deadline for his retirement, since the dis trict’s first results in finding his replacement were not fruitful. T he b o a rd a p proved putting $75,000 into an Irrigon Clinic building reserve fund for expanding and remodeling the Irrigon Clinic. The board also ap proved $15,000 in the up coming budget to commit to an outreach program to initially begin in Irrigon at a date to be determined later. The emphasis of the program would be deter mined by Irrigon residents. The state program, called the Com m unity H ealth Improvement Partnership (CHIP) through the Of fice of Rural Health, has previously funded a vari ety of wellness programs throughout the state, which range from childhood anti obesity program s, drug and alcohol prevention, diabetes education, mental health, provider recruitment and retention and other health-related concerns. The first step would be to hire a coordinator to con duct town hall meetings to determine the emphasis the community would like to take. CHIP would nor mally kick in $15,000 for this process initially and the health district would match that, however the state has indicated it will not fund the program this upcoming fis cal year because of budget constraints. Also at the meet ing, the board: -heard a report from Vander Does concerning Sue Peeples’ resignation. Peeples, who was a nurse practitioner at the Irrigon Clinic, left to relocate to another area. Vander Does said that the district’s physi cian’s assistant and physi cians will fill in to cover in her absence and the district may hire a temp for a period of time. -learned that the long term care facility has six patients in the new rooms with one bed still available. -learned that the assisted living facility has two openings for residents, which will be selected from a list of prospective resi dents. Plans are to build two one-bedroom units and a solarium at the facility. The land for the addition has already been purchased and $100,000 has already been placed in a reserve account for the project, how ever the addition is still a ways off, said Vander Does. “We’re not even close,” he said. He said that signatures from a majority of landowners in the subdivision must be obtained before the project can move ahead. -received a profit loss statement for the month of April which showed the district in the black for the past two months with a $14,168 gain for the April and a $104,004 gain for March. C hief Financial Office Nicole Mahoney said that the district had an ing freshman year, the stu dents then move into houses on campus. The houses are divided into groups that have their own library and professor who is available for mentoring. Armato is “nervous and excited” to be moving Windwave prepares for switch from analog to digital cross-country to attend Har vard University. She plans to come home at Thanks giving and Christmas for a visit and then again at the 1 : end of the school year. h it Armato was also accepted to Seattle Pacific s University, Willamette Uni versity, Claremont McK enna College, Notre Dame, - and New York University. Armato’s mother, Kim, attended the U ni Windwave employees have been working in residential areas around Heppner lately, stringing versity of Oregon and her fiber optic cables to replace analog TV' cables. Pliolo bv Autumn Morgan late father, Mike, attended University of California at NOAA issues monthly climate summary for Heppner Berkeley. Her brother, Joe, According to pre lowest was 33 degrees, on inches, which is 2.06 inches is a student at HHS. below normal. liminary data received by May 13. The outlook for On two days, the NOAA’s National Weather Service in Pendleton, tem temperature exceeded 90 June from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center calls for peratures at Heppner aver degrees. Precipitation to near normal temperatures aged slightly warmer than normal during the month taled 0.93 inches during and near to above normal May, which was 0.74 inches precipitation. Normal highs of May. shelter at Heppner High The average tem below normal. Measurable for Heppner during June are School. The city crew will perature was 56.6 degrees precipitation -at least .01 77.0 degrees and normal be at the rally points on high which was 0.6 degrees inch- was received on 10 lows are 48.5 degrees. The ground and at the Emer above normal. High tem days with the heaviest, 0.30 30 year normal precipita gency Operations center at peratures averaged 69.9 inches reported on May 3. tion is 1.08 inches. the sheriff’s office. The N ational Precipitation this degrees, which was 0.8 degrees above normal. The year has reached 5.89 inch Weather Service is an office highest was 91 degrees on es, which is 1.47 inches be of the National Oceanic and May 30. Low tem pera low normal. Since October, Atmospheric Administra tures averaged 43.4 de the water year precipitation tion, an agency of the U.S. grees, which was 0.4 de at Heppner has been 9.51 Commerce Department. debate on HB 2533A that grees above normal. The this legislation would help, tv Rails, Riches, and Rejection” to be held June 13 “increase high school grad Many nam es in liam Penland. A Harshman and audience guests will uation rates and satisfaction with school, decrease the the June 13 play, “Rails, story is related. Lars Larson find a delicious, formal impact of poverty on aca Riches, and Rejection," w ill entertain, and the Frank repast served in the farm demic progress, and make will be familiar and some Parker family will also museum by Dino’s Delec table Catering Service. The shorter commute times to might even depict relatives make an appearance. of audience members. More recent histo menu will feature salad, school." Helping to carry ry will be seen through the roast beef, halibut over wild Often the state re quirem ents imposed on the story through the early telling of stories by Marian rice, roasted vegetables, school districts require history of the OR& N Rail Good Brosnan to three of rolls, and almond delight high schools to provide a road in the Willow Creek her great grandchildren, dessert. Dining will begin minimum amount of ser Valley will be Tom Ayers Thompsons and a McCarty. vices. However, small high as he visits with newcomer Other familiar contempo at 6 p.m. and “Rails, Riches, schools in remote areas Marian Good, and joining rary names that will play and Rejection” will begin frequently require more them will be Jerry Brosnan. in the story are Laughlin, at 7 p.m., on stage by the funding per student to meet Other early-day names that Gutierrez, Hughes. Har farm-museum murals. The $20 tickets are available at those mandates. Smith be will come alive on stage rison, and Osmin. S o me of t he s e the Bank of Eastern Oregon, lieves HB 2533A will be include Henry Blackman, extremely helpful for these Jackson Morrow, Colum characters might be seen Community Bank, Heppner rural schools to meet state bus Rhea, Frank Kellogg, at the dinner that precedes Chamber, Heppner TV, and Henry Heppner, and Wil- the stage production. They Murray’s. standards. If W u • Heppner city crews to practice flash flood emergency plan The Army Corps of Engineers will be sounding the flood alarms on June 15 and 16 in Heppner. The city crew will be rehearsing the plan that has been put into place in case Heppner was threatened by a flash flood. In a real emergen cy, the American Red Cross would set up a mass care New legislation may help Morrow County School District House Bill 2533A, a bill to help Morrow Coun ty Schools was adopted by the Oregon House of Representatives June 2 by a wide margin. Represen tative Greg Smith (R-Hep- pner) spoke in favor of the bill, saying “this bill does a tremendous job in assisting rural schools, our kids and our communities.” The m easure is specially designed to assist only four schools across the state that have lost enroll ment since 1999, allowing them to qualify for a unique status in the state school funding formula. Under the “small high school" cat egory, the Morrow County School District is eligible t state dollars. That means $5,733 in extra funding per student on top of what the district already gets from the state. “ S m a ll s c h o o l funding will make a posi tive difference for Riverside High students,” said Mark Burrows, Morrow County School District superin tendent. “Currently we are faced with a choice between offering a full curriculum with arts and technical classes or providing reme dial extension classes for our struggling low income and minority students. The weighted funding will al low us to provide both.” R e p r e s e n ta tiv e Smith noted during the floor average $22,716 monthly year-to-date loss. -learned that the district had 70.3 days in accounts receivable as of the April report, generally because of reimbursement issues out of their control, but Mahoney said the busi ness office hoped to get that down to around 60 days. -received the fol low ing report: P ioneer Memorial Clinic had 506 patient visits with 42 new patients, 46 patients seen by a nurse and 11 no-show s; Irrigon Clinic had 215 pa tient visits, 27 new patients, 56 seen by a nurse and 11 no-show s; Heppner Ambu lance had 28 page outs with 20 transports for $ 18,978 in revenue; Boardman Ambu lance had 23 page-outs w ith 13 transports for $14.892 in revenue; Irrigon Ambu lance had 24 page-outs w ith 15 transports for $14,570 in revenue; there were tw o flights; Pioneer M emo rial Hospital had eight ad missions, three swing-bed admissions, 14 admitted for observation, 486 total outpatients, 1604 lab tests, 91 x-ray procedures, 28 CT scans, 32 EKG tests, one treadmill procedure, five colonoscopy procedures, three endoscopy procedures and 73 respiratory therapy procedures; Home Health had 108 patient visits; Hos pice had one admission; Pharmacy had 1719 drug doses for $682,837 in drug revenue. -held an executive session concerning CEO candidates. \
