Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 5, 2014)
I Bessie Wet/ell Newspaper l.ibrar\ University of Oregon Eugene. OK 97403 Hometown woman now Director of Oregon Dept, of State Lands Mary Abrams speaks at Chamber o f Commerce imes VOL. 133 N 0, 6 8 Pages Wednesday, February 5, 2014 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Local man shows he is a 12th man with parody on YouTube Will Lemmon says. There is no doubt Will Lemmon o f Lexington is a 12th man for the Super Bowl C ham pion Seattle S e a h a w k s. A nd if you do d o u b t it, c h eck out h is v id eo on Y ouT ube If you don’t like typing at: w w w .y o u tu b e .c o m / in all those letters, you can watch?v=onsFbJrAwfY. also find his video by going Lemmon does a nice job to YouTube and searching parodying Jeff Foxworthy’s for: 12th man parody. “You might be a redneck.” By David Sykes Mary Abrams grew up in Heppner, graduated from high school, and then went on to a diverse career before being appointed in 2012 as Director of State Lands by Governor John Kitzhaber. She spoke to the Heppner Chamber of Commerce last week about her travels and her new job. Abrams is the daughter o f the late Bob and Marion Abrams o f Heppner. Bob had a law p ra c tic e and served as C ircu it C ourt Judge during their many years in Heppner. Mary Abrams graduated from Heppner High in 1973. She worked as a country director for the U.S. Peace Corps in Africa in 2006. Prior to that, she was a division administrator and water quality specialist at the Oregon Department o f Environmental Quality ( D E Q ). A b ra m s a ls o w orked for the C ity o f Portland and the Oregon G rad u ate In stitu te. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in soil science from the University o f California at Davis, and graduated from the University o f Arizona with a B.S. in agronomy. She also w o rk ed in La Grande for several years while with DEQ. Abrams said her time w orking with farm ers in Africa was very satisfying, helping the young farmers Form er Heppner resident Mary Abrams addressed the Heppner Chamber of Commerce last week. - Photo by David Sykes im prove their lives. She received a Ph.D. in soils from UC Davis and she said her family chided her that she had “a doctor of dirt.” But she said coming back to speak at the H eppner Chamber “was like coming home.” W hile w orking w ith the Peace Corps Abrams v o lu n te e r e d to go to Rwanda, which has seen trem endous political and violence problems over the years. “ The e n tire country suffers from post traumatic s tr e s s ,” she sa y s. She actually said there some com parisons to M orrow County in that everyone knows everyone else and it is a tight-knit society. She w orked in Rw anda for two years on conflict resolution before returning to the United States to help out with her mom, Marion, w ho was hav in g h ealth problems. From there she went back to Zambia, home of Victoria Falls. “ I was expecting this great place since Victoria Falls was there,” she told chamber members, “but it looked like the Columbia Gorge.” From there she got a call to interview for the job w ith the Dept, o f State Lands and was hired on Oct. 9, 2012. “ A s an O r e g o n ia n who grew up in eastern Oregon farm country and attending public schools, I am h o n o re d to lea d O regon’s D epartm ent of State Lands,” Abrams said -See ABRAMS AT CHAM- BER/PAGE FIVE Normal temps for BMCC listens to Morrow County January, but still College to decide if levy goes to voters again not enough wet According to preliminary data received by NOAA’s National Weather S e r v ic e in P e n d le to n O regon, tem peratures at H eppner av erag ed near normal during the month of January, but the year is still on the dry side. ' The average te m p e ra tu re w as 35.5 d eg rees w hich w as 0.3 degrees above normal. High temperatures averaged 43 degrees, w hich was 0.6 degrees below normal. The highest was 65 degrees on the 16lh. Low temperatures av erag ed 27.9 d e g re e s, w hich w as 1.1 d eg rees above normal. The lowest was 19 degrees, on the 6th. T here w ere 22 days with the low temperature below 32 degrees. There were six days when the high temperature stayed below 32 degrees. P recipitation totaled 0.64 inches during January, w hich w as 0.83 inches below normal. Measurable precipitation o f at least .01 inch was received on four days with the heaviest, 0.39 inches, reported on the 29th. S in c e O c to b e r, th e w ater-year precip itatio n at Heppner has been 3.01 inches, which is 2.52 inches below normal. T h e h ig h e s t w in d gust was 43 mph, which occurred on the 11th. T he o u tlo o k fo r February from N O A A ’s Climate Prediction Center calls for near- to below- normal tem peratures and near-normal precipitation. N o rm a l h ig h s fo r Heppner during February are 47.4 degrees and normal low s are 28.2 d e g re e s. T he 3 0 -y e a r n o rm a l precipitation is 1.12 inches. By David Sykes Bl ue Mount ai n Community College came to Morrow County recently as part o f their listening tour, to find out why voters reje cte d the recen t $28 million bond measure. The college’s district c o v e rs b o th U m a tilla and Morrow County, and a lth o u g h the bond levy passed in Morrow County, it f a ile d in U m a tilla , providing enough no votes to defeat the measure. A b o u t 27 p e o p le showed up at the SAGE Casey White-Zollman of ESD conducts a BMCC listening meeting with county residents in -See BMCC LISTENS/PAGE Boardman recently. The college is contemplating putting a S28 million bond on the ballot again FIVE but wanted to hear from voters first. - Photo by David Sykes Health district discusses moving to ‘the cloud’ with data backup program By A pril Sykes The M orrow County Health District Board, at th e ir m o n th ly m e e tin g on Jan. 28, a p p ro v ed a proposal with Healthland, Welcome to the snow th e c o m p a n y w h ic h c u rre n tly p ro v id e s the d i s t r i c t ’s e l e c t r o n i c medical records services, for a one-year contract for services and software in the neighborhood o f $87,000. Chief Financial Officer Nicole Mahoney said that she believes the district can recoup 75-80 percent o f its costs through Medicare. C E O D a n ie l G rig g said that the H ealthland quote was comparable to other venders and Mahoney added that the district “was a lre a d y dow n the road with Healthland,” meaning that it would probably be more expensive to switch c o m p a n ie s . E le c tro n ic medical records are required now by federal law. “ W hat w e’re getting is what w e’re required,” com m ented D irector o f Nursing Molly Rhea. “Cloud-based storage is required,” added Mahoney. Mahoney said that the district has met stage one o f the electronic medical re c o rd s M e d ic a re and M e d ic a id “ M e an in g fu l Use” requirements and is now moving to stage two. She said that the system w ould even tu ally allow patients to have electronic access to their records. T h e b o a rd a ls o approved a cloud hosting p r o g r a m t h r o u g h 3t S y s te m s , an e x c h a n g e hosting and data backup com pany, w hich w ould allow up to 78 users at a cost o f $3,600 per month and a set-up fee which is estimated at around twice the m o n th ly fee. Each additional user over the 78 would cost the district an additional $15 per month per user. The board directed Mahoney to try to negotiate with the company to up the num ber o f d istrict users over the proposed 78. but still stay at the $3,600 per month proposed fee. In an “ in fo rm a tio n te c h n o lo g y a sse ssm e n t and p ro p o sal e x e cu tiv e s ummary,” district management said that going with 3t would outsource the district’s email system, storage and data backup, -See HEALTH DISTRICT'/ PAGE FIVE V A L E N T I N E ’S D A Y S P E C I A L ! If n r r n fain) i \ i r r rn.f i r r \T t nr r Visitors to Heppner received a chilly welcome earlier this week, in weather if not in spirit, when temperatures dropped and a light snow blanketed the area. -Photo by Mallorie Jones ,Am i M ontana S ilver ^ tiu \jo n ^ fS e ifo n v jlK ti 20% OFF ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. v _____ ____ Jrow ers Green Feed A S eed 242 W. Lindon Way, Heppner ♦ 676-9422 » 989-8221 (MCOG main ottico)______ I ( * v I
