shoes for Haiti: Kelly McGee, owner of Marie Josephine, A Mercantile, left, and Carole Halvorson of Zion Lutheran Church’s Women’s Group are teammates in an effort to collect shoes for Haiti earthquake victims. The shoes are being collected at McGee’s store, 1304 Adams Ave. Submitted photo

For the past few months, Kelly McGee, Marie Josephine’s proprietor, has offered her store as the drop off point for new and used shoes supporting the international “Soles4Souls” program. 

Working with Zion Lutheran Church Women’s group and with member Carole Halvorson, both helping to cover the cost of shipments, McGee has collected more than 400 pounds of shoes in total. 

Andi Sexton, Oregon Rural Action’s Farm to School coordinator, delivers opening remarks during a program workshop Friday in Island City. Bill Rautenstrauch/ Observer photo

The grassroots citizens group is teaming with Union County Fit Kids to make Farm-to-Schools a local reality. UC Fit Kids has laid some of the groundwork, with help from community partners.

“The community is driving the action steps that will be implemented over time,” Vickie Brogoitti of UC Fit Kids told a crowd of about 30 people turned out for the morning workshop.

A sizable crowd turned out for Thursday’s open house at the new CHD building, 2301 Cove Ave. The health and social services agency moved into the building, formerly The Rock Bowling Alley and Fun Center, Feb. 1. CHRIS BAXTER/Observer photos

CHD, a private non-profit organization that provides Union County residents with a a broad array of physical and mental health services, is settled in at 2301 Cove Ave., former home of The Rock Bowling Alley and Fun Center.

Beginning last August, the building was completely renovated, partitioned to house various CHD departments including public health services, home visiting services, environmental health, alcohol and drug services, veterans  services and developmental disabilities case management.

As OPB’s chief engineer in Northeast Oregon, Al Steffler’s job often requires travel to remote mountaintops in the dead of winter. Above, Steffler relaxes for a moment during a trip to the Mount Fanny transmitter. Submitted photo

No longer will he be braving rain, sleet, hail and snow to fix problems with transmitters on high lonesome mountaintops.

And that’s not all bad.

• November 1910 — the building that would later become the Liberty Theatre opens as the Orpheum Theater. S.A. Gardinier and his wife Madeline are the owners. The Gardiniers had purchased the theater property earlier and then built the Orpheum.

The Gardiniers already owned La Grande’s Scenic Theater.

The Scenic, which opened in 1902, may have been La Grande’s first film theater. Four other theaters opened in La Grande between 1902 and November 1910, The Dime, The Electric, The Isis, The Pastime and The Lyric. The Isis later became Sherry’s, The Colonial, and then the The State Theater, according to La Grande historian and author Bob Bull.

On a day in 1948, crowds gathered in front of the Liberty Theatre for a local traffic safety program, and considered whether “Chicken Every Sunday” was a movie worth seeing. The Liberty closed in 1959. UNION COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE photo

“The finest vaudeville house in the Northwest, size of the town considered...,’’ read a passage from a November 1910 article in The Observer on the opening of the theater.

Its features included a ventilation system through which fresh air was circulated in the building every six minutes, impressive lighting and furnishings and a seating capacity of 633.

Doug Campbell, a volunteer in the La Grande Main Street Program, examines some equipment left over in the Liberty Theatre projection room. Campbell toured the building Saturday. DICK MASON /The Observer

The ghost in question is the old Liberty Theatre, born as the Orpheum in 1910, featuring vaudeville acts and silent films, renamed the Arcade in 1911, and finally becoming the Liberty in 1931.

Generations of Union County residents saw hundreds and hundreds of movies at the Liberty before it closed for good in 1959.

La Grande Main Street will be holding a Community Meeting Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Johnson Community Room at the Cook Memorial Library.

The meeting is an opportunity to introduce residents and downtown business owners to the program and showcase projects the La Grande Main Street program has taken on.

It is also an opportunity for community members to provide input for future Main Street projects.

A proposal from a Sumpter group to run excursion trains for the Wallowa-Union Railroad has come to naught, and the future of this season’s “fish train” excursions remains in doubt.

After reviewing a formal proposal from Twin River Railway LLC last Thursday, the board decided the services offered would be too costly.

“We reviewed their two options, and it would be more expensive for us to operate under either one,” said board member and railroad General Manager Mark Davidson.

WC Construction of Elgin oversees about $8 million of work on the $9.5 million project. - VICKY PEARCE photos

Local contractors WC Construction of Elgin won the $8 million contract to replace the west section of the grandstand. The project has been attempted several times but never got past planning stages due to the size and cost — until now.