Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (April 20, 2011)
I Fletcher takes over as MCSD business manager Bom in Pendleton, he spent his early years in Ukiah before his family moved to Pendleton. He attended school there and gradu ated from Pendleton High School in 1986. After high school, Fletcher spent the next eight years attending the Univer sity of Oregon in Eugene. The unusual length of time was due, he said, to taking summer classes and work ing as a wildland firefighter during the winter. He trav eled throughout the world, backpacking and fighting wildland fires on several continents. Even though the winter jo b extended his college time, Fletcher says the experiences were in valuable. “It’s one o f the greatest jobs in the world,” says Fletcher. “I truly en joyed it.” Fletcher recalls one adventure in particular. He and a friend flew into Cairo, Egypt, intending to backpack through Israel, Lebanon and the Eastern Bloc before flying home from Germany. It was 1990, though, and the first Gulf War derailed their plans. “ We w ere stuck in Egypt for five weeks,” Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Fletcher says. “It turned out to be a great expe- and immediately took and rience. When you passed the exam to spend sometime [in become a certified Egypt], it’s remark public accountant able.” (CPA). In 1997, he also married long O ther ad time love and Hep ventures from his firefighting days in pner native Andrea clude visiting Bul Ball, whom h e’d garia about three Andy met while working years after Cher Fletcher as a wildland fire nobyl and seeing fighter. the effects that ca The couple tastrophe had on the people remained in Idaho, where there. Though Eastern Eu Fletcher taught accounting rope was poor, he said, the at Idaho State for the next people were remarkable. year, until 1998. “The people there After leaving Idaho were so super friendly. State, Fletcher worked for They would find out you Deloitte Touche in Boise, were American and say, ID, from 1998 to 2000. He ’Eat with me; come stay went from there to Building with me.’” The food lines Materials Holding Corp., and empty grocery stores a large lumber supply and were a stark contrast to that construction company in hospitality, he says. “It’s a Boise. He stayed with them very different lifestyle than until February of 2010. An w hat Americans are accus drea worked as the director tomed to.” for Rural Health for the Despite the lure of State of Idaho. his overseas adventures, Fletcher says they Fletcher did graduate from moved back to the Heppner the University of Oregon area to be closer to their in 1994, with a bachelor’s sons’ grandparents and to degree in marketing man raise the boys, now aged agement. He went on to six and eight, in a small attend Idaho State Uni community. Their kids at versity in Pocatello from tend school in Heppner and 1996 to 1997. He obtained enjoy spending time with an MBA with an empha -See FLETCHER/PAGE sis in accounting in 1997 SIX Smith says K-12 funding to get $50 million less over last biennium Corps to apply herbicide on Willow Creek Dam By Andrea Di Salvo A ndy F le tc h e r, CPA, is taking over the post o f business manager for the Morrow County School District (MCSD). The 43-year-old is tak ing over from long-time business manager Rhonda Lorenz. While not a Hep- pner native, Fletcher is no stranger to Eastern Oregon. Bessie Wetzell Newspaper Library University o f Oregon Eugene. OR 97403 HEBBfrf'ER pizette im es VOL. 130 NO. 15 8 Pages Wednesday, April 20,2011 G azette-T im es welcom es new editor News editor Andrea Di Salvo settles into her new position at the Gazette-Times. -Photo by April Sykes H ep p n er n ativ e Andrea Di Salvo is tak- ing over the position o f news editor at the Heppner Gazette-Times. Di Salvo takes over the news editor position upon the departure of long time editor Autumn Mor gan. Morgan, the daughter of missionaries, was bom in Texas and raised in Mexico and Florida. She received an associate’s degree in business from Chipola Col lege in Florida in 2004. She and her husband, Troy, moved to the Heppner area in the summer o f 2006. She is currently working on a bachelor’s degree in business at Eastern Oregon University. Morgan, who has served as Gazette-Times news editor since Novem ber of 2006, is leaving the paper to take on Mary Kay Bellamy’s previous position as Fiscal Services Special ist for the Morrow County School District. Di Salvo, 33, says she is excited to take on the role o f editor for her hometown newspaper. “Autumn has done an excellent job as editor. She made it look easy,” Di Salvo says. “I have some big shoes to fill and only hope I can do half the job she’s done over the past several years.” The daughter o f long-time residents Dex- ter and Corinne Miles, Di Salvo was bom in Heppner and raised on the Miles farm just outside of town. She was home-schooled from kindergarten through high school and went on to attend the Lutheran Bible Institute (LBI) of Seattle in Issaquah, WA. She gradu ated from LBI in 2000 with a B.A. in cross-cultural ministry. After college, Di Salvo moved to Virginia Beach, VA, to attend Regent University. The move from West to East coast was a shock, she says. “ It was the first time I’d ever had grits, and barbecue means something entirely different in Virgin ia,” she says. “Then there were the traffic, the humid ity and the hurricanes. It was a huge adjustment. I’d been to Africa and had less culture shock.” She stuck it out through the culture shock, though, and obtained a master’s degree in journal ism from Regent in 2002. After her marriage to hus band, Carmelo, in 2002, the couple settled down in Virginia Beach. Di Salvo worked in a variety of writing-related -See NEWS EDITOR/ PAGE SIX Bellam y injured in auto accident T ravis Bellam y, former Lexington resident, was seriously injured in an automobile accident on Fri day, April 15, near Bend. According to fam ily reports, he suffered a skull fracture and had sur gery to remove a blood clot in his brain and repair the fracture. He was listed in critical condition and is cur rently in an induced coma at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend. He is the son o f Sam and Mary Kay Bel lamy, Lexington. A bank account has been set up at the Bank of Eastern Oregon to help cover medical costs since he had no insurance. By David Sykes The legislature has passed a $5.7 billion K-12 education budget, which is down from $5.75 billion in the current budget, state representative Greg Smith told the Heppner Chamber of Commerce last week. Sm ith was on a conference call from Sa lem with the chamber and said he was not pleased that education funding was down, but was happy to get the budget figures out to the school districts so they could begin planning their local budgets. “This is a sig nificant reduction over what schools need with inflation and increased costs,” Smith said of the $50 million cut. In other state is sues Smith said a plan to combine Hermiston and Heppner court systems with Pendleton’s has been avert ed. In a cost saving measure the legislature had earlier floated a plan to close the Heppner court system, and Smith says that closure has been averted. In o th e r issu es Smith said a bill to com pensate ranchers for grey wolf damage has been in troduced, but he did not know if it would pass or not. “The problem with that is I do not want my tax money going to pay for wolf dam age,” said Heppner resident and Chamber member Cliff Green. “I don’t disagree, but I have a large urban population (here in Salem) and they do not understand the problems of the rural areas,” Smith responded. Smith said that, under the current proposed budget, OSU extension was set to lose $20 million. “This will cut everything from research to 4-H for kids,” Smith said. He added that he is fighting to keep 4-H spending whole. Smith said other than the budget issues he did not see a lot of “big” legislation coming out of this session of the Oregon Legislature. “There is a 30-30 split in the house between Republicans and Democrats and there just isn’t going to be a lot of ground-breaking legislation,” Smith said. “Any kind of education re form is just going to stall.” Eastern Oregon educators learn about the benefits of Google apps More than 40 edu cators from Arlington to North Powder and every where in between recently gathered at the Umatilla- Morrow Education Service District to learn how Google applications, or "apps,” for education can benefit them in the classroom. Through an agree ment with the state of Or egon, G oogle provides schools with free applica tions in mail, online docu ments, sites and calendars to provide teachers with the tools they need to keep up with the ever-changing world o f teaching with the Internet. The UMESD hosted the all-day event, which is part of a Google Apps road show by the High Desert ESD’s (out of Bend) Oregon Virtual School District Training Team of Rachel Wente and Steve Praull. Both Wente and Praull taught courses in utilizing Google Apps. as will the UMESD’s Instruc- 4 tional Technology Spe cialist Joe Buglione and Sunridge Middle School (Pendleton School District) teachers Paul Nolan and Heidi Paullus. “I’ve been thrilled with the response, and get ting it out to teachers in the classrooms,” said Wente o f her trainings around northeast Oregon, “because there are some really great apps.” Wente and Praull will return to the area either this summer or early fall for another round of training with educators from the region. The U .S. Army Corps o f Engineers will apply herbicide to the face of Willow Creek Dam this spring to kill undesirable vegetation. G&L Exteriors of Estacada, OR is currently installing a permanent fall protection system, includ ing horizontal life lines, on the face of the dam. The system will protect work ers who will later apply herbicide over the course of about a week. The total contract cost is about $127,000. In stallation of the permanent fall protection system will reduce the cost of future applications. The types of herbi cide to be used have been closely coordinated with the state Department of Agriculture and do not pose a significant health risk to people or animals in the area. The actual application area is on the face of dam where no public access is allowed. Although the her- bicides are approved for use in or near domestic, irriga tion or recreational water supplies, the Corps plans to lower the level o f the small holding basin below the dam during and imme diately after the application to minimize contact. “Vegetation con trol on the dam is some thing the Corps has always tried to accomplish, but the right equipment was not in place to do a thorough job,” said Willow Creek Dam Park Ranger Dan Dunnett. “Contractors have sprayed the face of the dam twice a year but could never reach a significant part [of] the growth with the equipment they had.” Although unsight ly, the shallow-rooted veg- etation-mostly flowering plants and grasses-on the dam’s face does not pose a hazard to the dam’s struc tural integrity. For more informa tion, call the Ranger Office at 541-676-9009. Columbia River Community Health Services receives ConAgra grant C olum bia River Community Health Ser vices and the “Investing in B oardm an’s H ealthy Future" Capital Campaign have received a grant in the amount of $ 10,000 from the ConAgra Foundation. The C o n A g ra Foundation grant will be used to support the con struction of a new health clinic for the Boardman community, which serves as many as 12,000 visits per year. Columbia River Com munity Health Services, a nonprofit organization, is the only medical facility in Boardman and provides up to 30 percent charity care each year. “In order to con tinue to offer quality health care to the Boardman and North Morrow communi ties, a new facility must be built,” said Mindy Binder, Executive Director of the clinic. “This gift from the ConA gra Foundation is wonderful news and brings the new clinic that much closer to reality.” Cu r r e n t l y , C o lumbia River Community Health Services is housed in a 5,000 square foot building that can no longer expand with the existing footprint. The new facility will be 15,000 square feet when it is completed in early sum mer o f 2012. The capital campaign's goal is to raise $4,723,800 in cash pledges and in-kind contributions; to date the campaign has secured $3,500,687. Director Binder re minds everyone that com memorative bricks are still available for purchase. Con tact Mindy at 541-481-7212 to make a donation. 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