Courthouse plans for facelift
The Morrow County
Courthouse in Heppner is
in the planning and bidding
stages for a “facelift.”
Aftercareful evaluation
by engineers, it was deter
mined that the courthouse’s
bell tower has deteriorated
and needs to be repaired
in the near future. After a
Bessie Wetzell Newspaper Library
University of Oregon
Eugene. OR 97403
5(K
HEPPNER
azette
im es
VOL. 132
N 0. 6 8 Pages
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
recent wind storm, one of
the neighbors commented
that they could see the bell
tower visibly sway in the
wind.
The original estimate
to hire a crane and remove
the bell tower, repair it,
and then replace the tower
was more than $500,000,
and would have required
closing the courthouse for
extended periods of time.
A lternative process
es were considered, and
the Morrow County Court
agreed to put out bids for
an aerial lift. The dome,
which is estimated to weigh
more than 7,000 pounds,
will be lifted by helicopter
and placed on a trailer, and
then taken off-site for reno
vations. The courthouse
bell, which weighs more
than 3,000 pounds, will be
removed in a second lift and
taken off-site for renova
tions, as well. This process
will not require extensive
closures of the courthouse.
After renovations are com
plete, the bell and tower
will be returned through a
similar lift process.
Bids for the lift will
be opened by the Morrow
County Court on Feb. 27 at
is in operation. Because of
the poplar and wheat farms
in the area, Kegler said the
company will be able to find
all the raw material it needs
within a 25 to 50 miles ra
dius of the facility. He said
each bone-dry ton, or BDT,
o f material will produce
135 gallons of ethanol.
The test facility uses
about 10 BDT and the com
mercial facility, when op
erational, will use about
650 BDT per day.
Kegler said the mar
ket for ethanol is goqd, with
billions of dollars in market
share to be taken away
from fossil fuel, a move he
said will eventually reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
When asked about the
economic viability o f the
company without the mil
lions in government loans
Dean Kegler briefs last week’s Heppner Chamber of Commerce
on the progress of the ZeaChem plant at the Port of Morrow
in Boardman. -Photo by David Sykes
and subsidies it has re
ceived, including a $250
m illion loan g uarantee
from the Department of
Agriculture, Kegler said
the company can make it in
the open market, especially
with jet fuel.
“The Departm ent o f
Defense would like very
much to say their jets run on
wood,” he pointed out. He
said jet fuel costs about six
to eight dollars per gallon
and that ZeaChem is more
efficient than that.
On the job front, Keg
ler said the company cur
rently has 40 full-time jobs
and is actually still looking
for a mechanical engineer
at the plant, as well as five
other people. They will be
hiring 65 additional people
when the new plant is built
and goes into production.
Eastern Oregon med student
right at home at PMC
By Andrea Di Salvo
F o r m any O reg o n
Health and Science Uni
versity (OHSU) medical
students who pass through
Heppner for their dose of
training in rural medicine,
this small-town setting can
seem like a different planet.
For Teresa Worstell, Pio
neer Memorial Clinic’s cur
rent student, it’s more like a
piece of home.
Worstell was bom in
Enterprise. OR but raised in
Hermiston. That makes this
comer of the state familiar
stomping grounds for the
29-year-old med student.
After graduating from
Hermiston High School in
2000, she went on to obtain
a bachelor’s degree in biol
ogy from the University
o f Oregon in 2004. After
graduation, she moved to
Portland, where she went
to work for OHSU as a re
search assistant, doing lab
and clinical research from
2004 to 2010.
Worstell says she al
ways knew she wanted to
end up in medicine.
“I always really liked
science,” she says. “I really
like people, interacting with
people. I thought it would
be a good combination of
my two interests.”
She started m edical
school at the university in
the fall of 2010 and is now
in her third year.
Every third-year stu
dent is required by OHSU
to do a five-w eek rural
health rotation, observing
first-hand the differences
and challenged faced by
rural health practitioners
versus those in larger cit
ies. Despite the fact that
Worstell’s parents moved
away from Hermiston just
last fall, the pull of friends
and childhood memories
made Heppner an appeal
ing option when it came to
choosing a location.
“I put Heppner first on
my list because I wanted to
come back here,” she says.
While here, Worstell
focused on women’s health
screening guidelines and
recommendations. Aside
from shadowing the doctors
at the clinic, she spent time
creating a handout with pa
tient information, including
care timelines and informa
tion on tests such as pap
smears and mammograms.
She has also been working
on a handout for health care
providers, making sense of
the variety of guidelines and
recommendations made by
various national organiza
tions involved in women’s
healthcare.
ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE:
the courthouse in Heppner
at 10 a.m. After the bid
has been awarded and the
contractor has developed
a plan of action, more de
tails will be provided. It is
anticipated the bids will be
approximately $300,000.
The Morrow County Court
is considering an operating
loan to finance the renova
tions.
The Morrow County
Courthouse was completed
in 1903 for a total cost of
Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon
Chamber updated on progress
of Boardman bio-fuel company
By David Sykes
The ZeaChem ethanol
bio-refinery in Boardman
is now up and running and
producing small quantities
o f acetic acid and ethyl
acetate for production of
paints, lacquers and jet
fuel. Administration Man
ager Dean Kegler told the
Heppner Chamber of Com
merce last week. The plant
is a small test version of a
larger production facility
scheduled to be built later
at the Port of Morrow.
Kegler said the refinery
is currently getting its raw
material from the poplar
tree farms near Boardman,
where they harvest the trees
after five years. The refinery
can also use wheat straw to
produce up to 50 million
gallons per year once the
main production facility
The dome and bell of the historic Morrow County Courthouse
are a familiar sight, visible, and certainly audible, through
out much of Heppner. Their age is showing, though, and the
dome and bell are being prepped for major surgery, as bids
will be accepted this month for a “lift” to repair and renovate
the structure. -Photo by Andrea Di Salvo
$56,990.10. The current in
surance replacement value
of the building is more than
$4 million. Upon opening
of the courthouse, it was
declared as “...all modem
and first class and large
enough to accommodate all
future demands.”
The Courthouse is on
the National Historic Regis
try. All renovation is being
completed in coordination
with the Oregon State His
toric Preservation Office.
‘American Sniper’
killed in shooting
“I’m happy that every
body's OK. I like a happy
e n d in g ,” said H eppner
native Scott McEwen of
“American Sniper” Chris
Kyle in a recent interview.
Those words have be
come tragically ironic as
news of Navy SEAL Chris
Kyle’s murder has spread
across the nation.
Kyle, 38, and his friend
Chad Littlefield, 35, were
shot multiple times at a
gun range at Rough Creek
Lodge west of Glen Rose,
about 50 miles southwest
of Fort Worth, TX, Erath
County S heriff Tommy
Bryant said Sunday after
noon. Both men left behind
young families.
Police arrested Eddie
Ray Routh, a 25-year-old
Marine who had served
tours in Iraq and Haiti,
for the shooting. Friends
said Kyle sometimes men
tored other veterans, taking
them to the gun range as a
kind of therapy. Officials
said Routh's motive was
unknown, but Routh is be
lieved to suffer from Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD), which may have
been why Kyle and Little
field had taken him to the
range.
At a news conference
Sunday, authorities said the
three men entered Rough
Creek Lodge, a remote gun
range about 77 miles south
west of Fort Worth between
Glen Rose and Hico, at
3:15 p.m. Saturday. No one
heard any disturbance but,
at 5 p.m., a hunting guide
discovered two men near
the range who appeared to
have been shot. The guide
called 911.
Police later captured
and arrested Routh, who
was charged with one count
of capital murder and two
charges of murder. A semi
automatic handgun found at
Routh’s home in Lancaster,
TX might have been the
weapon used Saturday to
kill the two men, Bryant
said, though ballistic tests
were not complete at last
notice.
The U.S. military con
firmed Sunday that Routh
was a corporal in the Ma
rines, serving on active
duty from 2006 to 2010. His
current duty status is listed
as reserve.
Construction begins on
Tillamook plant
expansion in Boardman
OHSU med student Teresa Worstell explains the details of one
of the handouts she created while on her rural-health rotation
at Pioneer Memorial Clinic. -Photo by Andrea Di Salvo
“Which bodies nation-
ally make which recom
mendations and where they
m atch, and w here they
might be different,” she
explains.
Worstell also says she
had a good time getting out
o f the clinic and into the
community. She mentions
one such outing with Dr.
Betsy Anderson, in which
she and Anderson visited
the elementary school to
speak with fifth-graders on
the subject of smoking.
“It’s fun to see com
munity involvement in dif
ferent ways like that,” she
says.
Now in her fifth and
MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M.
final week at PMC, Worstell
says she has enjoyed her
time in Heppner.
“It’s been really great.
The doctors here provide
comprehensive care— ER
to clinic to hospital—and
I’ve had a great time seeing
how they manage all those
different areas of practice,”
says Worstell. “That’s pretty
unique to rural medicine.”
from whey (which is sepa
rated from milk in order to
make cheese) are increas
ingly being recognized for
their high nutritional value
and used in products like in
fant formula, performance
nutrition products and prod
ucts that help manage some
of the impacts of aging.
“Our farm-family own
ers have committed a sig
nificant investment to en
hancing our infrastructure
in Boardman so that we
can maximize the value we
derive from every pound of
milk we produce,” said Pat
rick Criteser, president and
CEO of TCCA. “We look
After several months
of planning, the Tillamook
County Creamery Associa
tion (TCCA), producers of
Tillamook Cheese, have
broken ground and begun
construction on a more than
63,000-square-foot expan
sion project at its produc
tion facility in Boardman,
the company announced
last week.
The facility expansion
will add whey processing
capabilities to Tillamook’s
existing cheese-m aking
plant in Boardman. The
demand for such capability
has grown significantly in
the last several years, as
the lactose and high-quality
protein components derived
-See TILLAMOOK PLANT
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