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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (July 28, 2010)
Trophy buck donated to Fish & Wildlife office II.I..I...I.I..III....ILL,Il Bessie Wetzell Newspaper Library University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403 B y D a v id S yke s HEPPNER imes VOL. 129 NO. 30 8 Pages Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Port of Morrow marches forward despite recession B y D a vid Sykes While business activity has slowed dur ing the recession, Port of Morrow General Manager Gary Neal says the Port of Morrow is moving ahead with major infrastructure projects that will position the port when business does pick up. that Neal has been working on for some time is a new agricultural information center to be built at the port. “People on the west side (of the state) do not have any idea what we do out here,” Neal said. He said the ag in formation cen ter would show people how food is processed by Neal told using virtual the Heppner tours. “ When Chamber of Tillamook Commerce Cheese opened luncheon up at the port meeting last I envisioned a Thursday nice tourist in about rail, formation center road and air like they have port improve in Tillamook,” ments that are Port of Morrow Gen Neal said. But all scheduled eral Manager Gary the company to be done at Neal gave update to said it did not the port. Heppner Chamber of want to set up Commerce last week. another tour Neal said ist center here, 20,000 feet of they ‘just wanted to make rail track is scheduled to be cheese’.” So Neal says the added at a cost of about $ 10 port came up with the idea million. He said railroad for an information center improvements will be paid where tourists and other for with an $8 million grant visitors could get off the from the state of Oregon freeway and take a “vir and $2 million in federal tual look around” at what funds. He also said the port is being done at the port. will receive $10.7 million "We have so many things from the state of Oregon going on in here,” Neal to be used for new roads says. “Food just doesn’t in the port’s East Beach just come from the gro area. A bridge will be built cery store. It is regions like over the Union Pacific rail ours that is providing all line and connect onto the this food and we want the freeway at Hwy. 730, which people to be educated about will provide another Hwy. this,” he said. 84 interchange to access Mark Patton of the port. lone is the project manager Also coming is on the information center a possible $1.3 million for and Neal says he hopes to dock improvements which have it up and running by will allow larger barges next year. The center is be to dock. In a related mat ing paid for with State of ter, Neal said the Colum Oregon funds secured by bia River shipping system Rep. Greg Smith of Hep will be shut down for four pner. months from December Neal says the through March for repairs port has seen some de to locks, and the port is crease in business because looking for ways to get of the recession. There is around the shutdown. less solid waste coming In other improve through the port’s docs to ments the port has received Findley Buttes Land Fill. about $500,000 from the He attributed this to the state for improvements to slow down in construction. the airport for new hangers Construction projects gen and fueling facilities. erate a large amount of solid A favorite project waste for the land fill, and n fewer trips to the land result in less money for Morrow County’s popular tippage fee funds. Neal says that wa ter usage, a good indicator of how business has been going, has held up pretty well over the past year, with the port providing 2.6 billion gallons of water for the industries located at the port, up from 2.5 billion gallons the previous year. He said contain ers at the port’s dock have dropped from 25,000 per year five years ago, to about 18,000 containers last year. He said the number of con tainers loaded and unloaded at Boardman had a lot to do with the activity at the Port of Portland. So when Portland traffic is down then it affects Boardman’s traffic. Neal said the Port of Portland has now leased out its facilities to be run by a Philippine company and he expects there to be increased traffic through Portland now. In other business at the port, Neal said they have had an “uptick” in the number of businesses they are talking to and that usu ally means things are going to pick up. He said he ex pects the big data center that is under construction at the port to be up and running by March of 2011, and that there may be a new lease to a $15 million bio-diesel plant coming along. Neal did not have encouraging news to give about the proposed raceway that has been in the works for many years at Board- man. “They need to bring a big check if they come and see me,” he said. He added that the raceway company does not have an office open in Boardman anymore. As for the South Morrow Industrial Park (former Kinzua saw mill site) Neal said the Port still has an open purchase op tion with a farmer-owner co-op that is considering operating the co-gen plant to produce electricity using sorghum. He did not say when that option expired. ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. I Local Fish and Wildlife Biologist Steve Cherry has a new trophy buck hanging on his wall, thanks to the family of a man who took the animal in 1937 in the Potamus Point area near Heppner. Joe Thurner was a long-time hunter in the area when he harv ested the animal. He passed away several years ago and Joe's wife, Pearl, who lives in a Portland assisted living center, and their son David of LaGrande, asked if they could donate the head to the local Fish & Wildlife office. Cherry agreed and accepted the gift to hang on his wall. “We had it scored and unofficially it scored 204 7*..Cherry said. In a note about the hunting trip. Pearl re lated the following story: “Four guys helped pack out the big buck. They cut two lodge poles and tied the deer on. They placed the poles on their shoulders and started out. However they didn’t make it very far when the poles broke. They then cut two bigger poles and started again, finally making it to camp.” She said that the horns started out black but have now bleached out over the years. Also given was an original hunting and fishing license from 1937. It was about the size of a business card and cost $5, which in today’s dollars would have been about $75. The license read “This certifies that Joe J. Thurner is entitled to hunt game birds and animals and to angle in conformity with law during the calendar year 1937.” Thurner was 23 years old at the time. The tag from the buck was made from wire at that time. The wire was wrapped around the horn, inserted into a small piece of lead and then the lead was crimped to complete the tagging process. Local wildlife biologist Steve Cherry shows the new trophy deer hanging on the wall in his office. The head was donated by the surviving family who harvested the big buck back in 1937 in the Potamus Point area. The buck scored an unofficial 204 7/* B iologist Steve Cherry shows the old type of tag used “back in the day”. It was a piece of wire inserted into a bit of lead which was then crimped down. Cherry said he wasn’t sure how long that type of tag was used, (right) This is the actual Oregon hunting and fishing license from 1937 issued to Joe Thurner. Cost of the tag was $5, which in today’s dollars adjusted for infla tion is about $75. F Combination ST A T E O F O REG O N ’s License Resident H( Thl» c ertifie s t h a t .. Is e n title d to hui in conformity wit a n im als a n d to angle aw du rin g th e c alen d a r y e a r 1937. A g o ^ 3 yre., height ...«S...ft color o f .' Sex: C v j . Dated this . . / ’¿ ' d a y of „ _ „ , _ ST A T E GAM 28847 8r n 1937-S5.00 / N<? r • ‘ , j m _____ _ ie» 7 . O.VLMISSION . *tith®rU*4 Deputy S»3 Mu*« of LtotniM Health district board pleased with administrator’s performance The Morrow Coun ty Health District Board gave administrator Michael Blauer a vote of confidence and a two-percent raise at their regular meeting held Monday night in lone. “ We think that Mike has done a great job overall and the board is extremely pleased with his performance over the past year,” said board Chair Larry Mills. The board opted to raise Blauer’s salary from $105,000 to $107,500. Blauer announced at the meeting that the district will receive over $40,000 in grants from Pacific Source, Regence and Providence for com munity outreach planning projects. Blauer also told the board that he had inter viewed one applicant for the Irrigon Clinic physi- cian’s assistant position and has arranged to interview another. He said that both candidates attended Idaho State University and have ties to Oregon. He reiterated that Dr. Kenneth Wenberg has been doing a good job as provider for the Irrigon Clinic in the interim. In other business, the board: -approved a “Com- munity Benefit Grant Guidelines for Columbia River Community Health Services” which will spec ify what CRCHS services and activities the district will approve funding for and how the application process will proceed. The district w ill require CRCHS to file quarterly progress reports and a final report after completion. The dis trict will also require that CRCHS publicly recognize MCHD for their support and interest in Boardman’s community health improve ment. MCHD had previ ously donated a substan tial amount, $100,000 in previous years, to CRCHS with the requirement that CRCHS provide its financial report to MCHD, however an official financial report had never been received, despite frequent requests from MCHD. Prior to the financial contributions to CRCHS, MCHD had pro vided Dr. Robert Boss, who formerly operated the clinic, with substantial yearly financial contribu tions, but had not received financial reports from him either, despite repeated requests. CRCHS had also not publicly acknowledged that MCHD had contributed to them financially. “We want to main- -Continued on page six Special Fair & Rodeo section included in this week’s paper A special 24-page Fair and Rodeo section is included in this week’s is sue of the Heppner Gazette-Times. The section has extensive information about the activities and events at this year's Fair & Rodeo starting next Wednesday at the Morrow County Fairgrounds in Heppner. AT MCGG GREEN FEED & SEED IN HEPPNER: FREE RODEO TICKETS w ith Wrangler PURCHASE OF $ 2 0 OR MORE OF Last week to save W r a n g le r p r o d u c ts T icket gooo for one entry for performance of your choice ! 30% OFF all Nursery Stock! O regon T rail P ro R odeo or M orrow C ounty R odeo Sale erufe August 7th Morrow County Grain Growers Green Feed & Seed 242 W. Linden Way, H«ppn«r » 676-9422 « 989-8221 (MCQG m«in offic») i
