Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (April 17, 2013)
Bessie Wet/ell Newspaper Library l Diversity of Oregon Eugene. OR 97403 5(K FFA L am b O pen H o u s e h e ld h e r e Heppner FFA held an open house Monday evening that featured baby lambs. The event was held at the FFA bam at Heppner High School. Above, Ashley Hansen (R), teaches Harley Andersonabout lambs. Below, Jimmy Adams gets a good look at a sheep. VOL. 132 N O . 16 8 Pages Wednesday, April 17, 2013 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Area farmer, rancher say they will get by Lack of rainfall begins to impact local growers By Patty Nance A lack of winter snow and a serious shortage of rainfall could spell disaster for area fanners and ranch ers this year. Bill Jepsen, a wheat farmer who lives 18 miles west of Heppner, says he is already seeing the affects o f low m oisture on his crops. “Our crops are really starting to suffer,” he said. “Where the soil is shallow the leaves are starting to turn brown”. Jepsen, who has tracked the weather every day for many years, said he looks at the crop year which is Sept. 1 through Aug. 31 instead of the calendar year. If you look from the beginning of the drop year through April 15, Jepsen re corded six inches of rain in seven and one-half months. “The average is 8.62 inches through the middle of this m onth,” he said. “That makes it 2.62 inches below normal for the crop year.” In a summary of water conditions in the Umatilla, Walla Walla and Willow Basins, the National Re sources Conservation Ser vice (NRCS) data supports Jepsen’s findings. As of April 1, the basin snowpack was 75 percent o f normal which is sig nificantly lower than last m onth when snow pack was 98 percent of normal. According to the report, March precipitation was 62 percent of normal. Jepsen said the pas ture grasses are beginning to struggle. “The native grasses are much shorter,” he said. “It is heading out earlier than usual.” Life-long rancher Joe McElligott, lone, said the south slopes o f his graz ing ground are really dry. “They’re burned up,” he said, “but the north slopes have moisture.” Both men have seen bad years before. “2002 and 1999 were horrible years,” Jepsen said. He explained that in 1999 there was a total of 7.3 inches of rainfall for the crop year and in 2002 just over 9 inches. Both men have seen the best and the worst of what Oregon weather has to of fer. “We should have more moisture,” McElligott said. “But we will get by - we always do.” “ We are s p o ile d ,” Jepsen said. “We haven’t cut a bad crop in years.” Former lone student awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship A former lone High School student has re ceived one of the nation’s most prestigious honors. Alex Carlson, a stu dent at Point Loma Naza- rene U niversity in San Diego, was one o f 217 scholars awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation scholarship. Carlson’s high school physics, chemistry and ad vanced math teacher Dale Holland said Carlson was a very good student. “He was a really good student,” he said. “We are so proud of him. This is one of the top awards in the nation.” C arlson is a ju n io r undergraduate Biology- Chemistry major and is an undergraduate researcher in the Chemistry department. “Our current project is developing a small mol ecule inhibitor of the An thrax Lethal Factor pro tein,” he said. In addition to science, Carlson plays in the univer sity’s orchestra as principal second violin. Alex Carlson He will graduate from Point Loma next spring and plans to attend gradu ate school to earn a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry. The Goldwater Schol ars were selected on the basis o f academic merit from a field of 1,107 math ematics, science, and engi neering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide. One hundred seventy-six of the Scholars are men, 95 are women, and virtually all intend to obtain a Ph.D. as their degree objective. Twenty-seven Scholars are mathematics majors, 159 are science and related majors, 71 are majoring in engineering, and 14 are computer sci ence majors. Many of the Scholars have dual majors in a variety of mathemat ics, science, engineering, and computer disciplines. The one and two year scholarships will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year. R ece n t G o ld w a te r Scholars have been award ed 80 Rhodes Scholarships, 118 Marshall Awards, 110 C hurchill S cholarships and numerous other distin guished fellowships. The Scholarship Pro gram honoring Senator Barry Goldwater was de signed to foster and encour age outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergradu ate award of its type in these fields. Photo by: Megan Putter Rules for enterprise zone are developing Boardman, Port and county to vote on how money to be spent By David Sykes A set of rules governing how the Columbia River Enterprise Zone board or directors will collect and distribute money collected from businesses in lieu o f property taxes locat ing in Morrow County’s enterprise zone, has been formulated and sent to the city council of Boardman, Port o f Morrow and the County Court for approval. If approved the rules will spell out how poten tially millions of dollars collected from companies locating here will be dis tributed w ithin Morrow County in the future. The Enterprise Zone Commit tee met at the Port of Mor row April 8 to finalize its rules. Boardman, Port of Morrow and the county each appoint two people to the committee, which will make the disbursement de cisions. Boardman and the Port along with the county are located within the zone located in the North end of the county. Irrigon, lone and Heppner are not located in the enterprise zone and therefore do not have rep resentation on the board. So far the enterprise board has already made an agreement with Rackspace for paym ents in lieu o f property taxes, and will be receiving those funds short ly. The Zone is currently w aiting to sign another agreement with Columbia River technologies which will also bring addition al funds into its coffers. Last July Rackspace, a computer hosting com pany, signed an agreement with the Enterprise Board spelling out how much money the company will pay in fees instead of prop erty taxes over the next 15 years. Because the com p an y ’s new data center will be located at the Port of Morrow in an enterprise zone, it is exempt from regular county taxation. The agreement covers how much the $6 billion San Antonio, TX-based data h o stin g com pany agrees to pay each year “as a contribution to local services or infrastructure benefiting the F acility” instead of property taxes. In the agreement. Rack- space, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RAX, agreed to pay the enter prise zone board $100,000 per year for the first three years o f the agreement; from years four to 15 it w ill pay $200,000 per year in what is described as a “local service fee.” Under the new rules o f the Enterprise Board the funds will be held and distributed by a designated “fiscal agent” to be named by the board, and answering to the board. Disburse ment of those funds will be governed by the six-person board, made up of two rep resentatives from the Port, the county and the city of Boardman. Those repre sentatives will be appointed by their respective bodies. U nder the proposed rules, when giving out the money the board will entertain “recom m enda tions and requests from affected special districts of potential impacts involv ing the service provided by said districts, including but not limited to fire pro tection and public safety.” Money collected by the board will be distrib uted at least biannually, can change from year to year, and will be carried out by the fiscal agent as instructed by the board. If an agreement cannot be reached as to how funds should be distributed the funds will be divided up and given to each of the sponsor entities (City o f Board- man, Port of Morrow and Morrow County) equally. Current members on the committee are Mayor Sandy Toms and City Man ager Karen Pettigrew from the City of Boardman, Gen eral Manager Gary Neal and board member Don Russell from the Port of Morrow, and Commissioner Leann Rea and A ssessor G reg Sweek of Morrow County. Non-voting Chairman of the Enterprise Zone Com mittee is Carla McLane o f the M orrow C ounty P lan n in g D ep a rtm e n t. The board was set up in March of 2009, and governs the approximately 12-square-mile enterprise zone in the north end of Mor row County, which includes mostly the Port of Morrow and the city of Boardman. As part of last year’s R ackspace ag re e m e n t, 15 percent o f the money Rackspace pays in lieu of taxes will go to the recently- formed Morrow Education Foundation. The F oun dation is not part o f any school district, and was set up to be similar to the lone Education Founda tion. which receives money outside the regular taxing system but helps fund edu cation through a series of grants to the local schools. Future enterprise zone agreements are expected to carry similar contributions to the education foundation. LAWN THATCHER & R0T0TILLER AVAILABLE FOR RENT! TIME TO GARDEN Trees • Shrubs • Becking • Planters k Soil Amendments • Potting Soil IN STOCK . WEEKS ROSES ON IS^LE 20% 0FF Morrow County Grain Growers Green Feed & Seed 242 W. Linden Way, Heppnar • 676-9422 • 989-6221 (MCGG main office) 1
