Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (May 24, 2023)
TWO - Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, May 24, 2023 The Official Newspaper of the City of Heppner and the County of Morrow County officially forms broadband action team By Andrea Di Salvo Morrow County took a historic step toward coun- ty-wide broadband last U.S.P.S. 240-420 week with the creation of the Morrow County Broad- Morrow County’s Home-Owned Weekly Newspaper SEARCH OLD COPIES OF THE HEPPNER GAZETTE-TIMES ON-LINE: band Action Team (Morrow County BAT), a broadband http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/ public improvement con- Published weekly by Sykes Publishing and entered as periodical matter at the Post sortium created through an Office at Heppner, Oregon under the Act of March 3, 1879. Periodical postage paid at Heppner, Oregon. Office at 188 W. Willow Street. Telephone (541) 676-9228. Fax intergovernmental agree- (541) 676-9211. E-mail: editor@rapidserve.net or david@rapidserve.net. Web site: ment between Morrow www.heppner.net. Postmaster send address changes to the Heppner Gazette-Times, County and the Port of P.O. Box 337, Heppner, Oregon 97836. Subscriptions: $35 in Morrow County; $40 senior rate (in Morrow County only; 65 years or older); $30 elsewhere; $35 student Morrow. subscriptions. Aaron Moss, who has Chris Sykes ...............................................................................................Publisher Andrea Di Salvo ............................................................................................ Editor been leading the project for Cindi Doherty.........................................................................................Advertising nearly two years, called the All News and Advertising Deadline is Monday at 5 p.m. agreement “the culmination For Advertising: advertising deadline is Monday at 5 p.m. Cost for a display ad is $5.50 per of 21 months of work and column inch. Cost for classified ad is 50¢ per word. Cost for Card of Thanks is $15 up to 100 words. Cost for a classified display ad is $6.00 per column inch. stakeholder engagement For Public/Legal Notices: public/legal notices deadline is Monday at 5 p.m. Dates for publi- putting together high-level cation must be specified. Affidavits must be requested at the time of submission. Affidavits designs for potential broad- require three weeks to process after last date of publication (a sooner return date must be specified if required). band grant services.” For Obituaries: Obituaries are published in the Heppner GT at no charge and are edited to “This has been a meet news guidelines. Families wishing to include information not included in the guidelines whole-county effort, and or who wish to have the obituary written in a certain way must purchase advertising space for the obituary. I really appreciate all the For Letters to the Editor: Letters to the Editor MUST be signed by the author. The Heppner work everybody has done, GT will not publish unsigned letters. All letters MUST include the author’s address and phone number for use by the GT office. The GT reserves the right to edit letters. The GT is not and it’s been awesome,” responsible for accuracy of statements made in letters. Any letters expressing thanks will be added Moss. placed in the classifieds under “Card of Thanks” at a cost of $10. Moss came to Morrow County in July of 2021. He said he started by having needs conversations with county stakeholders and eventually built those stake- Judith M Durkee-Nor- pner. She became an EMT holders into a team. ris, 79, of Heppner passed for a brief time and finally “And built it into, I a w a y o n realized her calling as a think, a force to be reck- M a y 1 6 , licensed massage therapist. 2023, in She enjoyed gardening, N o r t h - nature, music and dancing. port, ME. She loved meeting with old A Boardman man is in A C e l e - and new friends and often custody after attempting bration of said, “A stranger is but a to elude law enforcement Life will friend I haven’t met yet!” last week. Marco Anto- be held at Islesboro, ME Judy was involved in hos- nio Garcia, 37, of Board- on May 25 at 2 p.m. with pice as a volunteer, using man is lodged at Umatilla Reverend Patricia Good- her gift of massage. County Jail with bail set at speed of Second Baptist She is preceded in $185,000. Church officiating. Private death by her parents and her A b o u t 11 p . m . o n Burial will be at Green- grandson, Casey Durkee. Sunday, May 14, Morrow wood Cemetery. Judy is survived by her County Sheriff ’s Office Judy was born in Jack- husband, George Norris Communications Center sonville, FL to Robert and of Heppner; sister, Donna received a call reporting a Thelma (Emery) Hammond Miller of Liberty; children, pickup truck with a trailer on Sept. 27, 1943. Judy Kenneth of Islesboro, and that had pulled up to the lived in several places as a Therese and Michael of Easterday Dairy milking child, primarily Ohio and Northport; seven grandchil- parlor area and parked out Islesboro. dren and four great-grand- of sight. She worked as a house children; and many nieces K-9 Deputy Colleen cleaner in her early years, and nephews. Neubert arrived on the which developed into a Arrangements are un- scene and located a pick- love for flower arranging, der the care of Riposta up pulling a horse trailer. and went on to attend floral Funeral Home. Memories She identified herself and design school. She became and condolences may be ordered the driver to stop, a CNA, enjoying her work shared with the family at but the driver of the truck in the nursing home in Hep- www.ripostafh.com. immediately drove away. During the driver’s 3.5- mile attempt to elude the deputy, a tire came off the Larry Sperlich—Lar- WA. A graveside service at ry Sperlich, 74, previously the Heppner Cemetery will of Heppner, passed away be held in at a later date. May 16, 2023, in Pasco, Heppner GAZETTE-TIMES Obituaries Judith M. Durkee-Norris Project leader Aaron Moss oned with statewide,” he said. The stated purpose of the consortium is to al- low the county and Port to pool resources to more effectively and efficiently further broadband projects in Morrow County. Moss said that what the Morrow County Board of Commissioners was look- ing at was a 100 percent completed ordinance and 98 percent completed by- laws, and that the bylaws will need to be changed before the consortium’s first meeting. The most notable change will be to require at least one vote from each founding party to have a measure pass, rather than a simple majority, “to make sure that there’s consensus as much as possible on board decisions,” added Moss. Founding parties are Morrow County and the Port of Morrow. The Board of Commis- sioners adopted an ordi- nance approving the inter- governmental agreement (IGA) at its May 17 meeting in Irrigon. The ordinance and agreement went into effect immediately. The board will be made up of two members each from Morrow County and the Port of Morrow, either commissioners or other ap- pointed representatives, as well as two at-large mem- bers, one appointed by each of the governing bodies. The at-large members can’t be elected officials, officers or employees of either the county or the Port. The Port of Morrow also approved the ordinance at its last meeting after one reading. Morrow County Counsel Justin Nelson said the county also could have approved the ordinance in one meeting but chose to extend the process with a first reading on May 3 to allow time for public com- ment or questions. Morrow County BAT hopes to have its first board meeting June 15 at 3 p.m. “As we continue to move forward, the goal of this governmental agree- ment and this consortium is really to put together options for this new entity to pursue infrastructure funding in whatever model it deems fit, whether that’s public-private, whether that’s private-led,” said Moss. “As we continue to move forward, this is to continue to give our com- munity the best options as this historic moment of broadband funding contin- ues to grow nearer.” “This has been the most remarkable experience of my life,” added Moss, who is leaving Morrow County now that the project is com- pleted. “I’m very grateful for everybody and excited to hopefully keep Morrow County positioned to be that leader even when I’m gone.” Boardman man arrested attempting to elude during burglary Death Notice BMCC to offer free fiber optic fusion splicing certificate course Blue Mountain Com- munity College will host a free fiber optic fusion splicing certificate course in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Sumitomo Electric Light- wave. The two-day course will take place June 21-22 at the BMCC Hermiston Center. The AWS fiber optic fusion splicing certificate course is a two-day training on fiber optic installation and repair. The course is intended for anyone who wants to enter the fiber optic industry and learn fusion splicing skills. Fiber optic cables are the backbone of the modern world, carrying internet, TV and telephone data. They are made up of tiny glass tubes, which makes repairing and testing them specialized work. These skills are increasingly need- ed to build out the world’s data and communication networks like 5G, as well as data centers. Given this need, and as part of Ama- zon’s commitment to train 29 million people for free on cloud computing and technical skills by 2025, AWS has teamed up with Sumitomo Electric Light- wave to host free fusion splicing certificate courses at colleges across the U.S., including Blue Mountain Community College. Students accepted into this no-cost program will learn through a combina- tion of lectures and hands- on training and can also take part in a career net- working session, allowing participants to meet local employers. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. At the end of day two, there will be a certificate ceremony and employer networking event that will conclude at 6:30 p.m. Interested participants must register at https:// fiber-aws.pearson.com/fu- sion-splicing-registration. For more information, con- tact Kaley Cope, Director of Marketing and Commu- nications at kcope@bmcc. edu or 541-278-5774. Print & Mailing Services *Design *Print Sykes Publishing *Mail 541-676-9228 horse trailer and the truck and trailer became stuck in a potato field. The driver then fled on foot. Both the truck and horse trailer were full of items. K-9 Telly was deployed but was unsuccessful at locating the suspect. Board- man PD also responded to assist and advised that Boardman Fire had a drone that might be available. Boardman PD secured the truck and trailer and the pursuit scene. The K-9 team headed back to the milking par- lor, where they had been advised there might be a second suspect. Deputy Neubert, K-9 Telly and an Oregon State Police (OSP) Trooper cleared the building but did not locate a second suspect. The K-9 team then re- turned to the field. The drone was in the air and Ione City Council approves nuisance ordinance City water testing shows clean bill of health The Ione City Council is working on cleaning up the community—literally— beginning with a new nui- sance ordinance to address multiple issues. “The ordinance is to address the debris for an- ticipation of the sewer proj- ect, the smell of marijuana growing during the spring, and loud noises, so there was a need to address a variety of issues,” Ione City Administrator told the Gazette-Times. “In general, we would like to clean up our town.” The council passed the ordinance at its May 9 meeting. The ordinance addresses offensive odors, noise, uncontrolled weeds and grass, debris and rodent control. The city will be mailing all residents a copy of the nuisance ordinance, along with copies of the existing dog, chicken and aban- doned vehicle ordinances already in place. The city also released its 2022 annual drinking water report. Water test- ing for last year showed a DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5PM complete absence of most contaminants, while those that were present were well within federal and state requirements for safe drink- ing water. Notably, the city water showed no traces of E. coli or other harmful bacteria, and no nitrates. Lead was present at 0.0010 parts per million (ppm)—above the goal of zero, but well below the action level of 15 ppm. Small traces of copper and barium were also detected. The entire report can be found on the City of Ione’s website, https://cityofione- oregon.gov/. Anyone with questions about the ordi- nances or drinking water report can contact city hall at 541-422-7414. located the suspect in the field. He was burrowing in the dirt in an attempt to hide. The K-9 team and OSP trooper were instruct- ed on where to find the sus- pect. When they arrived at the suspect’s location, only his face was showing; the rest was covered with dirt. He was advised to co- operate and that a K-9 was present. He initially did not cooperate, but then the K-9 stepped forward and began barking. The suspect was then taken into custody without further incident. The items in the truck and trailer were identified as property of Easterday Dairy. The total value was almost $63,000. The horse trailer was also confirmed stolen out of Hermiston. The suspect was identi- fied as Marco Antonio Gar- cia, 37, of Boardman. He was currently on probation with Morrow County Parole & Probation. He also had an active Morrow County warrant, and his driver’s license was suspended. He was charged with Bur- glary II, Aggravated Theft I, Felony Elude-Vehicle, Misdemeanor Elude-Foot, Unauthorized Use of a Mo- tor Vehicle, Driving While Suspended-Misdemeanor and a Morrow County Cir- cuit Court warrant for Fail- ure to Appear on Criminal Driving While Suspended. MCSO appreciates the assistance of Boardman PD, Boardman Fire for use of the drone and operator, and Oregon State Police for their assistance. If anyone has any more information on this case, they are asked to contact Morrow County Sheriff’s Office at 541-676- 5317. WWW.HEPPNER.NET Submit News, Advertising & Announcements Letters To The Editor Send Us Photos Start A New Subscription HUNTER EDUCATION CLASSES OFFERED Classes start Tuesday, June 13th, & Thursday June 15th, 6-9 pm Field Day the 17th 8am to noon. Classes Tuesday the 20th and 22nd 6-9 pm. at the Lexington Gun Club. To sign up go to myodfw.com Must sign up on line. https://myodfw.com/articles/hunter-educa- tion-classes-field-days. Contact Instructor, Jim Marquardt at 541 969-4845. if questions. Honor their memory this Memorial Day Fresh cut and silk floral arrangements available Call our floral department today! Have a safe weekend. Closed Monday, May 29 217 North Main St., Heppner, OR Phone 676-9158 Floral 676-9426 murraysdrug.com
