La Grande city councilor and Eastern Oregon University administrator Les Balsiger is moving on.

Balsiger notified City Manager Robert Strope and Mayor Colleen Johnson this week he is resigning from the council because he has a new job at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyo.

La Grande Middle School, which opened in 1976, would be replaced or retired by 2051 under the school district’s new Facility Vision 20-20 plan. - DICK MASON/The Observer

At least it will be under the guidelines of a new Facility Vision 20/20 plan the La Grande School Board recently adopted. The plan, which states the school district’s long-term goals and objectives, calls for all buildings in the district to be retired or replaced prior to reaching 75 years of age. This means Central, which opened in 1954, would be retired or replaced by 2029.

Jill Wilkins holds her son, Samuel, of Haiti in an earlier photo. Wilkins is a 1990 Imbler High School graduate. Samuel, who is 20 months old, was not hurt in Wednesday’s earthquake. - Submitted photo

Concerned not about the more than 1 million people who would soon be watching her, nor worried about a once-in-a-lifetime chance to talk to a television icon.

I was thinking today about how I have changed over the years. From being a “know nothing” to a “know everything and free to criticize” and now to just having an appreciation for all that folks try to do.

True, there are a lot of bad things going around us that we can’t seem to control, but I’m considering more on the little everyday things that happen about us.

When I was a young reporter, I took it upon myself to act as a critic for the high school play, not that they asked that I do so, but as my contribution to the fledgling actors and my community of readers. In spite of my picking out what I perceived to be flaws, their next play asked for another review, which I gladly obliged. I probably was a little more critical of their endeavors, and I wonder to this day if they felt I was too harsh, for they were trying their best, and I sense that I should have been more supportive than critical.

Erros Osterloh

Some of the former students wanted to write tributes to their beloved teacher, who died Jan. 5 at age 88.Those tributes follow.

Mrs. Osterloh began teaching in La Grande in 1960. She taught science at the junior high for three years before moving to the high school where she taught biology, earth science, astronomy and photography.

The polo club’s next regional competition is March 19-21 in Walla Walla. Submitted photo

Coach Melissa Joseph organized the club for EOU players eight years ago. This year seniors Mandy Griffin and Cody Darst are the presidents of their respective teams. Each team has about four players.

“The men’s team won the regional two years in a row,” said Darst. “In the past three years, we’ve had three all-star players and one best playing pony. We’ve won silver plates for past regionals, and last year we competed at the National Intercollegiate Polo Tournament at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.”

Tired of sitting on the couch, stuffing yourself with junk food and staring glassy-eyed at tawdry, third-rate television shows?

Got that niggling little feeling deep down that it’s later than you think?

Do you find yourself looking around at your safe, secure  but unfulfilled existence, thinking, “There’s got to be more to life than this?”

Voter approval of a proposed local option tax would allow the La Grande School District to restore four school days, add two teachers, fund a five-year maintenance plan and more.

At least it would under a recommendation presented to the La Grande School Board Wednesday by Superintendent Larry Glaze.

Glaze is proposing that the district seek a five-year option levy that would raise $1.26 million annually. Wednesday night the superintendent presented a prioritized list of items he would like to see the proposed levy pay.

USFS photo A fuels reduction project is under way on Mount Howard. The area is a top priority because the forest abuts private homes on Wallowa Lake and puts the economic viability of the area at risk. -

The intent of thinning the 21-year lodgepole re-growth that has occurred since the 1989 Canal Fire is to provide biomass material for fuel and to improve the ecology of the region, officials have said.

Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski, in a surprising move, has reached across party lines to name Republican Ray Baum, a former La Grande attorney and legislator, the next chairman of the powerful Oregon Public Utilities Commission.

A six-year member of the three-member PUC, Baum will succeed Democrat Lee Beyer of Springfield as chair. Beyer is leaving the commission to run for a seat in the state Senate. Beyer left the Senate when he was appointed to the PUC in 2001. Beyer has been chair of the PUC since 2003.

“I’m looking forward to it. It is a great privilege and opportunity to be able serve the ratepayers in this capacity,’’ Baum said this  morning.