False alarm clears senior
center
Library
f Oregon
Eugene. OR **
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Residents wait in front of Heppner Family Foods for St. Patrick’s Senior Center to be cleared
after a fire alarm caused the building’s evacuation around I p.m. Monday. When they received
the alarm, the Heppner Fire Department deployed two structure engines, which Heppner Fire
Chief Rusty Estes said was standard procedure for a building fire. All the occupants were
evacuated, including three seniors w ho had to be carried out by firefighters after the elevator
had been disabled. Further investigation showed there was no fire; a smoke detector in one
of the rooms had shorted out. The building was cleared for reentry after 40 minutes. Even
though it was a false alarm, Estes said he was glad to see that everything went smoothly. “It
was nice to know the whole system worked perfectly, like it was supposed to,” he said. -Photo
by David Sykes
18 applications come in
VOL. 131
N O . 15 8 Pages
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon
Bunny sightings in Heppner
Mason Seitz (L) and Keeley Nairns cuddle up with the Easter Bunny, who hopped over to
Heppner City Park last Saturday. The Easter icon handed out candy and posed for pictures
with the children who braved the chilly air to gather for the annual Easter egg hunt. -Photo
by Andrea Di Salvo
Artist offers hands-on
instruction to students
By Andrea Di Salvo
Heppner elemen
tary students are getting
hands-on art instruction
this week with the addition
o f a temporary artist in
residence.
Linda Davies Gage,
an artist of “indeterminate"
age, will be working with
students at Heppner El
ementary School all week,
teaching different methods
o f drawing and painting.
She is visiting Heppner
from Jordan Valley, popu
lation 180, in southeast
Oregon.
Gage has been em
ployed by the Jordan Valley
School District for the last
four years, teaching art
to students in elementary
school through high school.
She also teaches kindergar
ten through eighth-grade
art for three other outlying
communities, and has spent
the last four years serving
as an artist in residence
through the ArtsEast pro
gram.
Among her other
work, Gage has done illus
for city manager job
By David Sykes
The city o f Hep
pner has received 18 ap
plications for the soon-to-
be-vacant city manager job,
the city council was told
Monday night.
Current city man
ager David DeMayo turned
in his resignation Feb. 14,
and the council has been
taking applications for his
replacement. DeMayo has
said he will work until Au
gust 31 to give the city time
to find a replacement.
Deadline for apply
ing was April 11, and the
council plans on holding
a special meeting April 23
at 6 p.m. to go over the ap
plications.
“Some (of the ap
plications) are no-brainers,
but some we need to take a
hard look at,” Mayor Les
Paustian told the council.
“ We w ant to be
open and transparent about
this,” he added when an
nouncing that the council
would hold a public meet
ing to go over the applica
tions.
Paustian said he
wants all the council mem
bers to get a copy o f all
the applications and take
Homeowner Ed Tarnasky shows where proposed street reloca
tion would cut into his yard and take out a large birch tree.
- Photo by David Sykes
some time to go over them
before the meeting. The
mayor also said he wanted
to narrow the applications
down to the top five or six
for consideration at the
meeting.
D eM ayo urged
the council to consider
personal characteristics
when considering the ap
plications. “Don’t overlook
character traits, not just
experience and training,” he
said. Council member Judy
Buschke said she thought
city employees should have
input into who was hired.
Most of the appli
cations came through the
League of Oregon Cities,
an organization the city en
listed to help advertise the
job opening. One applicant
came in from as far away as
Houston, TX.
In other business
at Monday’s meeting, the
council heard from hom
eowner Ed Tarnasky, who
discussed the upcoming
renovation of Barratt Blvd.,
where his home is located.
Tarnasky is con
cerned about the engineer
ing work that has been
-See CITY MANAGER/PAGE
FIVE
School board puts stamp of
approval on Ambre Energy
By April Sykes
State Representa
tive Greg Smith told the
Morrow County School
Board Monday night that
the school district could
expect to receive around
$350,000 from Ambre En
ergy if the energy com
pany’s application to site
a coal-shipping facility at
the Port of Morrow is ap
proved by the Army Corps
of Engineers.
Sm ith said that
the d istric t’s receipt o f
the “m onies w ould not
mess” with the district's
state funding formula; in
other words, the monies Greg Smith presents a shipping facility plan to the Mor
would not be used to offset row County School District. -Photo by April Sykes
Artist-in-residence Linda Davies Gage uses an overhead pro the amount o f money the
jector to show sixth-grade students at Heppner Elementary school district receives in through a foundation and that he was m aking the
then be distributed as grants presentation as a private
School a technique for three-dimensional drawing. -Photo by
state funding. Instead the to the district.
-See MCSD APPROVES
Andrea Di Salvo
monies would be funneled
Smith, who stressed
AMBREJPAGE FOUR
trations for book publishers acrylics, oil, pastels and
in three western states and mixed media. Her subjects
has shown and sold fine also cover the gamut, from
art in five western states. figurative to landscape to
Her art has appeared in ar portraits.
Gage loves to share
ticles in Western Horseman,
on Market
Western Cowman, Cascade her gift of art with the kids
Horseman and Range mag she encounters through
azines, as well as in local teaching, believing anyone
& supplies
and regional newspapers. can learn to create art.
“Painting is like
She does both drawing and
Morrow County Grain Growers Green Feed & Seed
-See ARTIST IN RESI-
painting, working with pen
<^ 4 ^ V ^ in d a r^ A /a ^ i_ H e £ £ n a ^ ^ 6 7 ^ 4 2 2 ^ ^ 8 ^ 2 2 ^ M C G ^ T ijh i^ m c 2 2 _
DENCEJPAGE EIGHT
cil, pen and ink, watercolor.
10% discount
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