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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 2018)
Heppner man creates his own handbag and accessory line HEPPNER G T 50¢ azette imes VOL. 137 NO. 6 8 Pages Wednesday, February 7, 2018 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Health District proceeds with remodels Morrow County Health District is in the process of remodeling the former Mountain Valley Land Company building. -Contributed photo By April Sykes The Morrow Coun- ty Health District Board, at their Jan. 29 regular meeting in Ione, awarded a $780,100 construction project to Wellens Farwell Construction, based out of Enterprise, to proceed with the long-planned re- model of the Irrigon Medi- cal Clinic. The previous month, the board approved re- modeling of a building in Boardman that had been purchased earlier by the district. The remodel of the Boardman building, for- merly the Mountain Valley Land Company real estate building at 101 Kinkade Road, is intended to ac- commodate renters in ad- dition to housing the Home Health Office, which is operated by the district. The district plans to rent space in that building to Rocky Mountain Physical Therapy, Murray’s Drug, and the previous owners of the building, Mountain Valley Land Company. The building was previously owned by Lee Docken, principal broker. Murray’s Drug had earlier indicated that they intended to buy that build- ing to establish a pharmacy there, but Columbia River Community Health, a fed- erally subsidized clinic in Boardman, subsequently established their own phar- macy in the former Good Shepherd pharmacy which is located inside the Board- man grocery market, Har- vest Town Foods, at 104 Kinkade Rd., before the Murrays’ plan could come to fruition. Some walls in the building have been demol- ished and new walls con- structed with the physical therapy area and pharmacy taking precedent. MCHD CEO Bob Houser told the board that the Home Health area “will be completed once everything else is up and going.” He also told the board that Murray’s Drug and Eastern Oregon Physi- cal Therapy/Boardman, LLC, have signed five-year leases with the district and a two-year lease has been prepared for Mountain Val- ley Land Company and has been given to them for signatures. Houser also reported that changes to the pro- posed layout of the new Pioneer Memorial Clinic have been submitted to Scott Combs, Architect, for inclusion into his draw- ings. He said that once the layout has been revised, they will be reviewed with the providers and staff and then presented to the board for review. Also at the meeting, the board heard positive news concerning their profit and loss statement. Chief Financial Officer Nicole Mahoney told the board that the district had a $178,342 gain for December and a By Bobbi Gordon Colton Helfrecht, a 2006 Heppner High School graduate, has established his own manufacturing company, CH Design & Manufacturing, to produce his personal line of hand- bags and leather acces- sories, COLTY. Helfrecht reports that COLTY is a gender-neutral leather life- style brand centered around accessories and small leath- er goods such as wallets, portfolios, totes, backpacks and body harnesses. Only limited collections are re- leased every few months. Each piece is designed, hand-cut, and sewn in a small workshop in Portland. Colton Helfrecht designs and manufactures handbags and Helfrecht moved to accessories for the COLTY line. -Contributed photo Heppner in 1998 with his parents Ronda Fox and Ja- cessory designer at Spool Over the past two years, mie Helfrecht when he was Town. Colton has become one of I n 2 0 1 3 , Portland’s top handbag de- in the fifth Helfrecht part- signers. One of his favorite grade. n e r e d w i t h things about handbags is Accord- Bespoke Ac- that they can be used by ing to his cessory Group anyone – male or female, m o t h e r, ( B A G ) a n d he said. he grew started a small up with In October, COLTY f a c t o r y. H e leather goods got interna- an inter- also continued tional exposure at Port- est in cre- working on his land’s FashioNXT 2017 ating and One of the many bags own handbag and in 2018, he’s partnering designing available from COLTY. and accessory with FashioNXT to create and was -Contributed photo line, COLTY, a solar-powered handbag. always making something cre- during that time. COLTY’s high-tech hand- Helfrecht launched his bag will go up for auction ative. He took art classes in school as well as private COLTY line at Fade to on April 13 at Power of the Light and his own website Purse, an annual event that art lessons. After he graduated in 2017. His line has been raises money for Girls Inc. from high school, he moved featured in music videos, after-school programs. to Portland and enrolled at in the Portland Monthly After that, Colton said the Portland Art Institute, and in Portland Interview he hopes to make his hand- graduating in 2010 with Magazine. Recently he was made wearable tech avail- his degree in handbag and contacted by Pendleton able to the public. More accessory design. His first Woolen Mills to do a three- information can be found job was in a men’s designer bag collection for their on his website, coltypdx. boutique and eventually he “Made in Oregon” line that com. became a handbag and ac- is sold in their online store. HES students compete in Time Out for Reading -See REMODELS/PAGE FOUR Eastern Oregon University hires Heppner students Pictured are the top ten readers in Time Out for Reading. Back (L-R): Lynn Williams, Na- than Ellsworth, Aden Lathrop, Jackson Coiner, Hallee Hisler, Zandra Masterson, Morgan Cutsforth. Front (L-R): Keeley Nairns, Landon Mitchell, John Lindsay. -Contributed photo Pictured (L-R): Patrick Collins, Abi Drotzmann, Elizabeth Basa, C.J. Kindle and Director Greg Smith. -Contributed photo The Eastern Oregon University Small Business Development Center (EOU SBDC) has added four uni- versity students, including Patrick Collins and C.J. Kindle from Heppner, to its staff as student interns. Patrick Collins, a soph- omore, will be graduating in 2020 with a BA in Ag- ricultural Science. Collins, a member of the university football team, also enjoys to fish and snowmobile in his free time. ”It’s an honor to have the ability to make a difference in my rural east- ern Oregon, which is home to me,” said Collins. C.J. Kindle, also a sophomore, plans to gradu- ate in 2020 with a BA in Business. Kindle, a member of the university football team, likes to hunt and snowboard with his friends at Anthony Lakes. “Being part of a strong team and working with Greg Smith is a huge honor for me. This professional experi- ence will be something I’ll remember, and I hope to use these lessons I learn here in the future,” said Kindle. The other two students chosen were Elizabeth Basa, a sophomore from Saipan, CNMI and Abi Crotzmann, a junior from Hermiston. The EOU SBDC stu- dents will be working with EOU SBDC Director Greg Smith to gain experience working with business owners throughout eastern Oregon. The SBDC pro- vides no-cost confidential advising to those look- ing to start a business or already in business. Their team of professional staff can assist with a variety of issues including business plan development, learn- ing the steps of starting a small business, government contracting, economic and financial assistance and more. By Landon Mitchell and Irelynn Kollman, sixth grade students at HES At Heppner Elementary School, kids read thousands of minutes each week. They are all fighting for the top prize in Time Out for Read- ing. This program was cre- ated by Mrs. Allen, who was a former sixth grade teacher at HES. This year the fifth- and sixth-graders read over 63,000 minutes in four weeks. Time Out for Reading is a program that pushes kids to read more. In this program, kids time them- selves while reading their books. They have to read at least 120 minutes per week to move on to the next quarter. This program helps kids learn to read for fun. At the end, they get a prize, with the child with the most minutes choosing a prize first. Each year the fifth- and sixth-grade students spend the month of January striv- ing to be the top reader and to be in the Thousand Min- ute Club, which requires them to read 1,000 min- utes each week. This year Landon Mitchell, Jackson Coiner and Keeley Nairns kids were in the Thousand Minute Club every week. This was quite an accom- plishment as they had to dedicate a lot of time in order to reach their goal. Aside from individual achievements, students are separated into teams and can earn team accomplish- ments as well. Each team is assigned an NBA team name and a captain who is responsible for calculat- ing the team’s minutes and average for the week. The winning team this year was the Celtics whose captain was Landon Mitchell. They were rewarded with a pizza party after Time Out for Reading ended. The top reader for 2018 was Landon Mitchell with 5,370 minutes, followed by Jackson Coiner with 4,611 minutes, and Keeley Nairns with 4,230 minutes. This program is made possible by donations from individuals and organiza- tions in the community. 20 % OFF Montana Silversmith Jewelry Morrow County Grain Growers Green Feed & Seed 242 W. Linden Way, Heppner • 676-9422 • 989-8221 (MCGG main office)
