EO publisher speaks to Tea Party group
By David Sykes
Tom Brown, pub
lisher o f the East Oregonian
new spaper in Pendleton,
was the featured speaker
at M onday’s Willow Creek
Tea Party meeting.
Tea Party members
q uestioned B row n, who
has been publisher since
April, about several issues
including the newspaper’s
VOL. 129
NO. 48
8 Pages
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon
Heppner Christmas event planned for Dec. 16
H eppner’s Christ
mas event for this year is
planned for December 16.
The evening will
kick o ff w ith the annual
parade of lights at 5:30 p.m.
Parade entrants will meet at
Green Feed at 5 p.m. to line
up. Anyone wishing to enter
the parade can pick up an
entry form at the Heppner
Chamber office.
A fter the parade
a spaghetti m eal will be
served from 6-7:15 p.m. at
the Elks Lodge. The cost
is $7 for adults and $5 for
children. A $10 rew ards
card will be given for every
meal purchased. M usical
entertainment will be pro
vided during dinner.
Pictures with Santa
will be taken on the stage at
the Elks Lodge. The cost is
$5 per picture.
A c t i v i t i e s w ill
move upstairs at the Elks
Lodge from 7:15-9:30 p.m.
where you can drop rewards
card in to sp ecific prize
containers. Find “Scrooge”
and see if you can get him
to hand over a reward card
or two. Cookies, coffee, and
punch will be served. Also
during this time will be the
introduction of the foreign
exchange students and their
host families.
The evening will
wrap up with drawing for
reward card items and the
announcement of the Christ
mas raffle item winners.
This year’s raffles include
an 8GB iPod Touch and
a 40” W estinghouse Flat
Screen TV (1080P LCD
HDTV). Raffle tickets are
one for $1 or six for $5.
Man arrested for Irrigon robbery
The Morrow Coun
ty Sheriffs Office on Thurs
day, December 2, arrested
Dillion Joseph Dilley, 21,
for Robbery I.
A t 1 2 :4 0 a .m .
MCSO received a report of
a robbery at Bakes Restau
rant and Lounge in Irrigon.
The caller stated that a male
in a plaid hoodie jacket,
black jea n s threatened a
bartender, brandishing a
broken beer bottle.
M C S O D e p u ty
Scott Carter was in the area
and located the suspect near
the restaurant. The deputy
interviewed the suspect and
subsequently took him into
custody for Robbery in the
First Degree. Deputy Carter
recovered $330 in the sus
pect’s pocket.
Dilley was trans
ported and lodged in the
Umatilla County Jail with
bail set at $50,000.
ZeaChem meets key financial milestones
in biorefinery construction
endorsement o f John Kit-
zhaber over Chris Dudley
for g overnor in the last
election.
Tea Party mem
bers felt D udley w ould
have represented Eastern
O regon better than K it-
zhaber, who had close ties
to the Portland metro area
and won election by taking
seven counties all in the
western part o f the state.
Dudley was a solid winner
in all eastern and southern
Oregon counties.
B ro w n s a id th e
paper made the endorse
m ent because K itzhaber
had m ore ex perience in
politics and that out of the
two candidates he was the
only one who a ccep ted
the paper’s invitation to be
interviewed by the editorial
writers. “We asked Dudley
several times but he never
did come in and talk to us,’
Brown said.
Brown also gave
a brief history o f his back
ground. He was born in
Boise and then went to high
school in M adras w here
he was editor o f the White
Buffalo school newspaper.
From there he atten d ed
O regon State U niversity
where he graduated in 1969
with a degree in journal
ism. He went on to get his
m aster’s degree before he
went to work at newspa
pers in Montana and New
H am p sh ire for over 20
years before coming out of
retirement to be publisher
and editor of the East Or
egonian.
He explained that
the East Oregonian is not
affiliated with the Orego
nian in Portland, but does
own several other papers
in Oregon, including ones
in John Day, Astoria, Wal
lowa and Hermiston. The
paper chain also owns the
a g ric u ltu ra l n e w sp a p e r
Capital Press, based in Sa
lem. He said it was good
that the new spaper was
independently ow ned by
the Forrester family. “It is
a great thing to have local
ownership o f newspapers,”
he said. He pointed out that
two thirds of the newspa
pers in America are publicly
owned companies.
O th e r q u e s tio n s
EO publisher Toni Brown, center, spoke at the Willow Creek
Tea Parts meeting Monday night. -Photo by David Sykes
asked o f Brown included
why the new spaper was
not more balanced in the
political views expressed
in its news coverage. “How
would we stack up against
someone being liberal or
conservative?” Brown re
sponded. “I would say we
are an independent voice,’
he said. “ I w o u ld n ’t say
we are conservative or lib
eral.”
Tea P arty m em
ber Sam Hombeck said he
thought the newspaper was
too pro-environm entalist,
such as favoring the move
to reinstate the w olf popu
lation in Oregon, and also
had an anti-logging stance,
w hich H ornbeck said is
against the best interests of
the natural resource busi
nesses in Eastern Oregon.
Some others asked
B ro w n how th e p a p e r
chooses w hich political
cartoons to run in the news
paper. Brown said the EO
does not have a cartoonist
on staff but purchases the
cartoons from a service
and then picks the ones that
“get people to think. They
also get people pretty emo
tional,” he said. He added
that the paper’s national and
international news comes
from the Associated Press,
o f which the EO is a mem
ber.
As far as the fu
ture o f newspapers in the
internet age, Brown said
he thinks newspapers will
survive because, for one
reason, they are easier to
read. He says a person can
cover more news quicker
w ith the print version than
one can scanning for news
links from an internet site.
Brown said the EO does
have a web site with news,
and offers breaking news
on that site for free. But he
said if people want to go
inside the site and get more
expanded news they need to
purchase a subscription to
the site or a subscription to
the print newspaper to gain
access.
Heppner lights up for Christmas
Main Street Heppner was recently lit up for Christmas. Beth
Dickenson and John Flaherty, staff members at Heppner
High School; Larissa Gray, Amber Gray, Shelbi VViggers,
Stephanie Schuler, Romana Pafkova, Tate Gentry, Mekenzi
Hughes, Haley Struckmeier, Kyle Harrison, Brett Harrison,
Justin Guiterrez, Garrett Robinson, Devin Robinson, Marou-
cha Veerman, Louise Torell, Hannah Koelker, Justin Bailey,
Conner Pappas, Frida Larsson, Anne Gokesch. Justin Yocom,
Karoline Sundklakk, Tom Gould, and Joe Schmidt, students
at HHS; and John Edmundson, community volunteer helped
to light up the town.
NOAA issues monthly climate summary for Heppner
Project on schedule to begin production o f Cellulosic
Ethanol in 2011
ZeaC hem Inc., a
developer o f biorefineries
for the conversion o f renew
able biomass into sustain
able fuels and chemicals,
rec e n tly a n n o u n ced the
accomplishment o f two key
financial milestones in the
construction o f its 250,000
gallon-per-year biorefinery
in Boardman.
First, the company
has obtained a guaranteed
m axim um price (G M P),
under the Engineering, Pro
curement and Construction
(E P C ) a g re e m e n ts w ith
engineering firm Bums &
M cDonnell, for construc
tion o f the core facility.
The core facility will con
vert sugars into acetic acid
and then ethyl acetate, the
chemical precursors, under
ZeaChem ’s process, to the
production o f ethanol. Sec
ond, ZeaChem has secured
full construction funding
for the core facility. The $25
million grant from the U.S.
DOE will be used to fund
the independent front and
back-end cellulosic pro
cess components, enabling
ZeaChem to produce fuel
grade ethanol as well as in
termediate chemicals from
non-food related biomass.
“ Since 1898 we
have built a reputation of
making our customers suc
cessful with practical tech
nology advancements and
p red ic ta b le c o s ts ,” said
John N obles, P resident,
Process & Industrial Group
at B urns & M cD onnell.
“We look forward to help
ing ZeaChem deploy their
technology.”
The core unit o f
the biorefinery is currently
under construction at the
site location in Boardman
and foundations are being
poured.
“ZeaChem has suc
cessfully completed the fi
nancial milestones to ensure
that our biorefinery project
can be completed on budget
and on schedule,” said Jim
Imbler, president and CEO
o f ZeaChem Inc. “We look
forward to beginning cel
lulosic ethanol production
in 2011.”
ZeaChem will de
velop com m ercial scale
biorefineries upon success
ful operations at the Board-
man facility.
According to pre
liminary data received by
NOAA’s National Weather
Service in Pendleton tem
peratures at Heppner aver
aged slightly colder than
normal during the month of
November.
The average tem
perature was 39.8 degrees
which was 1.3 degrees be
low normal. High tempera
tures averaged 48.8 degrees,
which was 1.1 degrees be
low norm al. The highest
was 69 degrees on the 2nd.
Low temperatures averaged
30.9 degrees, which was
1.5 degrees below normal.
which is expensive. This
The lowest was 0 degrees,
can be easily avoided, don’t
on the 24,h.
put it off.
There were 14 days
For more informa-
with the low tem perature
tion call City Hall at 541 -
below 32 degrees. There
676-9618.
were two days when the
•
City reminds residents to insulate water meters
The City o f Hep-
pner Public Works Depart-
ment reminds all Heppner
resid en ts that it is y our
responsibility to insulate
your water meters to pro-
tect them from freezing
and breaking. Insulation
material can be purchased
at the local hardware store,
If you fail to insulate the
m eter and it breaks, the
customer is responsible for
replacem ent o f the meter
Area pastors invited to submit Christmas messages
The Heppner Gazette-Times invites area pastors to submit Christmas mes
sages to be published in the December 22 edition. The deadline is Friday, December
17, at 5 p.m.
Messages can be dropped off at the Gazette office, emailed to editor@rapid-
serve.net, or faxed to 541 -676-9211.
ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE:
MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M.
high tem perature stayed
below 32 degrees.
P re cip ita tio n to
taled 1.82 inches during
November, w hich was 0.05
inches above normal. Mea
surable precipitation -at
least .01 inch-was received
on 14 days with the heavi
est, 0.43 inches reported on
the 14,h.
Precipitation this
year has reached 14.35
inches, which is 2.17 inches
above normal. Since Octo
ber, the water year precipi
tation at Heppner has been
3.10 inches, which is 0.64
inches above normal.
Snow fall totaled
5.5 inches with at least 1
inch o f snow reported on
three days. The heaviest
snow fall was 2.5 inches
reported on the 23rd. The
greatest depth of snow on
the ground was 3 inches on
the 23"i.
T he ou tlo o k for
D ecem ber from NOAA’s
Climate Prediction Center
calls for near normal tem
peratures and above nor
mal precipitation. Normal
highs for Heppner fall from
43.5 degrees at the start of
December to 41.6 degrees
at the end o f December.
Normal lows fall from 27.9
degrees to 26.2 degrees.
The 30 year normal precipi
tation is 1.33 inches.
The National
Weather Service is an office
of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Adm inistra
tion, an agency o f the U.S.
Commerce Department.
YOUR REWARDS CARDS HERE!
Holiday Hours:
M onday - Friday-
8:00am - 5:30pm
Saturday-
8:00am - 4:00pm
C hristmas trees
now IN STOCK
G o o d s e l e c t io n o f N o b l e ,
G r a n d & D o u g la s F ir
Morrow County Grain Growers
I