Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 2023)
Boardman finances, projects on track Council meeting topics range from streets to upset citizens 50¢ VOL. 142 NO. 1 8 Pages Wednesday, January 4, 2023 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon Local man puts labor of love into childhood home Zavier Glover. Photo by Andrea Di Salvo By Andrea Di Salvo Zavier Glover of Hep- pner is busy giving a future to a home that has already given him a lot of mem- ories. Glover, 21, has bought his childhood home in Hep- pner. It’s the house where he was raised by parents Rita Glover and Jesse Fish- er. Zavier Glover was born in Redmond, but the family moved to Heppner when he was about six months old, so all of his early memories are of the house on Quaid St. Glover attended Hep- pner Elementary and Hep- pner High School, graduat- ing in 2019. He now works as a service technician for Marlette Homes in Herm- iston. While Glover was busy growing up and finding a job, though, things weren’t going so well for the little house on Quaid St. He said his father started having issues that kept him from maintaining the house. Fisher eventually moved to Hawaii and let Glov- er’s grandfather live in the house. He also was unable to keep up with repairs and cleaning, and things only got worse after Glover’s grandfather passed away. Eventually, the house came to the point of foreclosure. “I’ve had at least five people tell me that the guy who built Murray’s built that house for himself. I don’t know if that’s true,” Glover said. “The house is not in great shape. Basical- ly, everything needs work.” Glover, who travels throughout 10 states for his job, said he was driving one day and thinking about the house. “When I’m out there driving, I have a lot of time to think,” he said. “This kind of thing doesn’t usual- ly happen to me, but I just felt this burst of joy when I thought about buying the house. I called my dad and said, ‘I want to do whatever it takes to keep the house from being foreclosed on.’” Zavier bought the home from his father and set out to fix it up. He said he knew the 114-year-old home, built in 1908, need- Fixing the roof on Glover’s childhood home ed a lot of work, but he “I was probably under- wasn’t prepared for quite qualified, but I’ve learned how much work it needed. a lot in the year and a half It turns out he’s going to that I’ve worked there,” he have to repair everything said. “There’s nothing we up to—and including—the don’t do.” kitchen sink. With work taking him “I thought it was just out of town most of the the kitchen sink that wasn’t time, he can only work on working, but it turned out to his home on weekends. be the whole house. Pretty Even so, he expects to have much every pipe has been it in good shape within a frozen and busted or isn’t year. working,” said Glover, add- “I want to have it good ing that he will have to redo to go by next Christmas all of the house’s plumbing. time,” he said, adding that He is also in the middle he’s given himself the dead- of redoing the roof. He says line because his dad wants him to host next Christmas in the house. “I definitely think its doable. I don’t have any other hobbies,” he laughed, “and I like doing it.” Along the way, he’s made some interesting dis- coveries. In the master bed- room is a door that the fam- ily didn’t even realize was there for the first 10 years they lived in the house. It leads to the basement crawl space, which he says contains a large “soap box.” “It’s a great big crate,” he said, gesturing. How it got there, he doesn’t know. once the plumbing and the The crate is twice as large roof are finished, the house as the crawl-space opening, should be livable enough he said, making it look as for him to move it. How- if the house had been built ever, the windows also need around it. work, there’s a lot of water The house also has sev- damage, and he said there’s eral trap doors and cub- far more garbage than he realized. “I didn’t realize how much it had been let go,” he said. He plans to do all of the work himself. It was something he wouldn’t have been able to tackle at one time, but his job at Mar- lette Homes has given him many of the skills required. He said his boss, local man John Steagall, was the one Cubby hole who got him his job. Heppner loses three in fatal crash The Heppner commu- nity is reeling from the loss of three residents after a fatal two-vehicle accident last Friday. Heppner resi- dents Kellie Nelson, Ron- ald Stutzman and Tamara Stutzman were all killed as the result of the crash, which happened shortly after 5 p.m. on Dec. 30. Oregon State Police (OSP) reports that Nel- son, 27, was driving a gray 2017 Ford Explorer. She was traveling eastbound on Hwy. 74 near Mead- owbrook Road when her vehicle apparently crossed the line and collided head- on with the Stutzmans’ red 1993 Jeep Cherokee. Nelson and 71-year-old Ronald Stutzman were both pronounced dead at the scene. Tamara Stutzman, 71, was taken to Pioneer Memorial Hospital in Hep- pner, where she later died of her injuries. In addition to OSP, Morrow County Sheriff’s Office, Morrow County District Attorney, Heppner Fire and Morrow County Health District Heppner ambulance all assisted at the scene. ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. by holes that connect the rooms. He says some peo- ple have suggested sinister origins having to do with the Chinese underground, but he doesn’t actually know what they’re for. They’ve also found old Heppner newspapers, a log book with lists of building supplies and a marble slab about one foot by four feet. At the same time, the home contains some memo- ries whose origins he knows well—his painted name and handprints on the wall, and Zavier and siblings height marks Childhood handprints the portion of wall where he and his siblings had their ages and heights marked as they grew. He said he recorded his age and height on the wall again when he bought the house. He also still has the senior photo he had taken in front of the home. He said he eventually wants to make a career in real estate, and the process of buying the home and fixing it up has been good practice for that. He has no plans of making it another real estate deal, though. “I do want to live there for at least a while. I defi- nitely don’t intend to sell it,” said Glover. For now, he is content to make new memories with his home and remember the good times, such as the friendliness of neighbors. “I’ve had people I don’t know come up to me and offer to help in any way they could,” he said. “I moved away for a couple of years and kind of forgot what it’s like here. It was great to come back and be reminded of how awesome everyone is.” By Andrea Di Salvo The City of Boardman saw a lot of expenditures in October, but city finances are still on track according to Boardman finance direc- tor Marta Barajas. “For those of you who help sign checks, you might remember you were sign- ing lots of big ones,” she told the council during her report at the Dec. 6 regu- lar meeting in Boardman. “That was mainly due to our G.O. (General Obli- gation) Bond water and wastewater projects. Those are going pretty smoothly. “We don’t have any- thing that is a serious con- cern with the schedule. Cost is a different thing,” she added. Barajas said $1,304,000 went out of the Capital Project Fund for water and wastewater projects. The other big expense on the October ledger was $552,000 from the build- ing fund, including IGA payments that the building fund sends out. Of the total, $499,000 was IGA fees. Boardman City Man- ager Karen Pettigrew added that the city had had to pay some retainage for work that had been done. Retain- age refers to part of a proj- ect payment that is withheld for a certain period of time to assure a contractor has finished the project com- pletely and correctly. Some of the retainage the city had withheld had become due in October, which boosted payments from the sewer reserve and street reserve. “Because we had a sew- er project going to the Lau- rel Lane loop road, that’s why it’s in the two funds, but we did get $100,000 from the small cities allot- ment from ODOT for that project,” Pettigrew added. The city received the al- lotment in November, but first had to pay out the final retainage and prove to the state that the project was done so the city could get the grant. Pettigrew added that October was an unusual month in which the city had spent more than it had taken in because of the extra bills that had to be paid. Barajas said the situation wasn’t bad, though, because the city already had the funds through the general obliga- tion bond. “The G.O. Bond, we already got all of that mon- ey up front, so you won’t see that money coming in, -Continued to PAGE SEVEN Heideman elected to Oregon wheat league board Erin Heideman Erin Hansell-Heide- man, current Morrow Coun- ty Wheat Growers Presi- dent, has been elected Sec- retary/Treasurer of the Ore- gon Wheat Growers League at the annual convention held at the end of No- vember in Coeur d’Alene, ID. Hansell-Heideman, a fifth-generation farmer, farms dryland wheat with her husband, Deacon, in both Morrow and Gilliam counties. “I’m looking forward to the challenges this op- portunity presents,” said Hansell-Heideman. “My passion is the agricultural industry and passing on this legacy to the next gen- eration.” Hansell-Heideman will commit to four years on the executive team, starting at secretary/treasurer, then vice president, president and finally immediate past president. Boardman, Irrigon lose urban status By Andrea Di Salvo Boardman and Irrigon are among more than a dozen cities and towns in Oregon that recently had their status changed from urban to rural. The change comes fol- lowing a new definition of urban areas from the U.S. Census Bureau as well as new, lower population es- timates for Morrow County from Portland State Univer- sity (PSU). PSU releases the defin- itive population estimates used throughout the state of Oregon. Those numbers not only are used to define an area’s status, rural ver- sus urban, but also affect the kinds and amounts of funding available through different state and federal programs. PSU’s certified 2022 estimate shows a 0.67 per- cent drop in population for Morrow County as a whole, from 12,399 in 2021 to 12,315 in 2022. While Irrigon’s numbers went up slightly during that same time frame, Boardman’s also dropped, from 4,338 in 2021 down to 4,116. -Continued to PAGE THREE