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)