Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 2011)
Bessie Wetzell Newspaper Library University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403 Morrow County school receives $50,000 technology grant By April Sykes The M orrow County School Board, at their regular meeting at the Morrow Education Center in Irrigon Monday night, learned that Irrigon High School has received an ad ditional $50,000 for tech nology through the GEAR UP program. The school already receives $30,000 from the grant annually. The Federal D e p artm en t o f E ducation awarded a $37 million grant to Washington State Uni- versity-Tri Cities to expand the GEAR UP program (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Under graduate Programs). The program entails sending staff and funding to mostly low-income schools to im prove students’ chances of attending college. The funding goes to already established pro grams in 16 school districts in southeast Washington and to start new programs in Morrow County, Kenne wick, Mabton, Prosser and Warden, WA. A ccording to an article in the Tri-City Her ald, the new grants will increase the number o f stu dents served from around 10,000 to 16,000 and will create around 60 new jobs, including part-time tutors in Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon the schools, one director in 5(K ette VOL. 130 NO. 44 8 Pages Wednesday, November 16, 2011 City buys into county wide marketing plan each school and around five employees on the campus in Richland. In addition to bringing tutors into the schools for one-on-one assistance, the grant funds the purchase of addition al com puters and other technology, gives teach ers additional professional training, provides financial aid classes for parents and increased parent outreach at the schools, and offers students career counseling and field trips to college campuses. Also at the meet ing, A ssistant S uperin tendent George Mendoza detailed the current trend in federal education stan dards, the Common Core Standards, which, he says, will dramatically increase course rigor. Mendoza said the new standards, which should be im plem ented by 2015, are “much “more demanding,” more “intense and purposeful” and will require “a lot of account ability.” He said that the Common Core Standards are more aligned to college and work expectations. “Our government is putting a lot of money into Common Core Standards. It’s going to be the future,” Mendoza said, adding that so far 46 states have signed on to the new standards. Board member Bar ney Lindsay told the board that he recently attended a program on suicide preven tion in Condon, which has been inordinately affected by youth suicide. “It was a powerful presentation,” said Lindsay, who recommended that a similar program be held in Morrow County. In other business, the board: -learned that the next step in establishing a health/sexuality curriculum is to create a school health advisory committee. Super intendent Dirk Dirksen pro posed that an all-inclusive meeting be held in regard to that topic and then a com mittee be established from that meeting. -adopted resolu tions on attendance and student absences and ex cuses. -See TECHNOLOGY GRANT/PAGE SIX Lady Cards provide storybook season end Multi-media campaign will focus on attracting short-term tourists to Morrow County By David Sykes The city o f Hep pner voted Monday to par ticipate in a $15,000 multi- media marketing campaign aimed at attracting short term tourist visitors to Mor row County. H eppner’s share of the campaign will be $5,000, with Boardman and Irrigon each report edly set to kick in $5,000 apiece. H eppner M ayor Les Paustian told the city council that the campaign is a good idea for Heppner and would eventually not only help local businesses but also attract more people to live here. He said when people visit here and see what a good community Heppner is, they will even tually want to settle here. “We can get more people to live here and work outside instead of the other way around,” Paustian ex plained. The council has been discussing the market ing plan for several months now and had asked in the past to see more detail from the Pendleton advertising agency ArtiFx, now named AMI Advertising Agency, regarding ju st what the campaign entailed. At Monday’s meet ing the council received more detail, including what kind of media AMI, which is putting together the cam paign, will purchase. AMI plans to use print, online/ digital, public relations, social media, the web and email in the campaign. “The fun, playful campaign is designed to at tract visitors to experience all of the five cities and all the great attractions the cit- -See CITYCOUNCIUPAGE EIGHT GT Trophy Corner The lone Lady Cardinals maintained their perfect season all the way to the end, finishing their run in storybook fashion with the state championship at last weekend’s OSAA State Vol leyball Championship at Pacific University in Forest Grove. The Cardinals marched through Top: Jake Lindsay shot this the bracket with a 3-1 win over opening round opponent, Adrian, on Friday and a straight set buck during archery sea victory over Hosanna Christian that same evening. That set up the championship match with son. Bottom: Fifteen-year-old Elaine Verstoppen of Nampa, Powder Valley on Saturday night. Clearly the two best teams in the tourney rose to the top, ID shot this elk—her first—in and those teams provided the vocal crowd with their money’s worth in a five-game match. The Montana. Elaine is the grand Cardinals took the championship match 25-21, 23-25, 25-16, 16-25, 15-10. Exchange student daughter of Dale and Marda Dominika Senkerikova, pictured, was a unanimous first team, All-State Tournament selec Adlard of Heppner. -Contrib tion. JoAnna Patton was also named to the first team. See full story on PAGE FOUR. -Photo uted photos The Heppner Gazette-Times wants to see . pictures o f your trophy animals from this hunting season. Stop by to have your picture taken, drop off photos, or email them to editor@ rapidserve.net. by Zech Hintz Reservoir Algae advisory lifted Oregon Public Health Division confirms reduced blue-green algae levels A health advisory prompted by high algae lev els found in Willow Creek Reservoir near Heppner was lifted November 9 by the Oregon Health Author ity’s Public Health Division and Morrow County Health Department officials. The advisory went into effect September 7. Water monitoring has confirmed reduced lev els of blue-green algae that can produce toxins harmful to humans and animals. These reduced levels are not likely to be associated with dangerous toxin con centrations in the water, according to World Health Organization guidelines. Oregon health of ficials advise people who recreate in Oregon water bodies to always be alert to signs o f algae blooms. People and their pets should avoid water contact if there are visible clumps of algae in the water. For local informa tion, contact the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Willow Creek Natural Resource Management Office, 541- 676-9009. For health informa tion, contact the Harmful Algae Bloom Surveillance program at 971-673-0400 or the M orrow C ounty Health Department at 541- 676-5421. Closed for Thanksgiving ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. The Heppner Gazette-Times will be closed in observance of the Thanksgiving Day holiday Thursday, November 24 and Friday, November 25. Normal business hours will resume Monday, November 28.
