June 10, 2008 01:57 pm
Thanks to increasing or stable enrollment in most Northeast Oregon school districts, and to an additional $200 the state will provide per student in 2008-09, the school finance picture overall looks rosy.
That’s a great relief. For the past decade, it seems, the news has been grim — jobs on the chopping block, declining enrollment, emergency measures to cut back school days and reduce costs in myriad other ways. Northeast Oregon school districts can heave a collective sigh of relief over the summer before next fall rolling up their sleeves and getting on with their critical mission of preparing students for the global and locally challenging
economy.
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June 09, 2008 01:53 pm
Winning a state sports championship in the spring is doubly sweet. It
happens not only on the last day of a season, but also on — or at least
very near — the last day of the school year. A player’s got time to
savor the triumph. She can bask in the memory’s warm glow all summer
long.
When all was said and done this spring, state trophies came home to roost in La Grande and Union. Now, let the basking begin!
Kara Gerst and Josi Lyman, seniors at La Grande High, punctuated their
high school careers with a tennis doubles championship, including a
third-round victory over last year’s champions, Oregon Episcopal’s Erin
Enberg and Gwenneth Johnson.
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June 06, 2008 02:54 pm
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Sen. Ron Wyden is living up to his promise of keeping in touch with Oregonians.
Wyden, D-Ore., recently visited Joseph for his annual Wallowa County town hall meeting. He met with about 100 students and a couple dozen community members and answered questions about topics ranging from the war in Iraq and veterans care to timber payments and the need to thin the forests.
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June 05, 2008 02:16 pm
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Three years ago the La Grande City Council made battling the drug problem a top priority. It held meetings to gather input on the problem. It formed a substance abuse commission. It lauded and endorsed the work of the multi-agency drug task force.
Forward to today. Drugs are still a problem, though the emphasis on the meth epidemic has subsided somewhat. The city’s Substance Abuse Commission is meeting regularly. But the multi-agency drug task force has fallen apart, the La Grande Police Department is embroiled in some personnel issues and the city council is planning to cut funding for a police officer’s position.
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June 04, 2008 02:12 pm
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Young people raising stock for display in the 101st Eastern Oregon Livestock Show, which opens this week in Union, learn a lot about keeping records, budgeting and general problem-solving skills like how to move a 1,200-pound animal off their feet.
The more than 300 4-H and FFA exhibitors who will be involved at Saturday’s stock show junior auction also learn about the narrow profit margins in the livestock raising business. Raising steers, lambs or hogs is not a get rich quick scheme. Particularly not this year.
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June 02, 2008 02:14 pm
A consultant hired recently to take a look at local economic
development saw some good things going on, but he also saw things
leaders can do to improve. With growth stagnant, our basic industries
struggling and the average citizen feeling downright insecure about his
finances, here’s hoping somebody listens.
Dick Gardner, the consultant from Bootstrap Solutions in Boise, visited
the area this spring at the behest of the Union County Economic
Development Corp. He interviewed more than two dozen people, then
compiled his report.
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May 30, 2008 02:46 pm
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Oregon Chief Justice Paul De Muniz is committed to enhancing Oregon’s legal system. Not only is he striving to bring Oregon’s court system into the 21st century, but he’s committed to making sure Oregon’s young people have a chance to see the Oregon Supreme Court in action.
The chief justice recently brought the state Supreme Court to Enterprise and La Grande where it held sessions in the local high schools. The justices heard arguments in Enterprise and La Grande for actual cases pending before the high court, then answered questions from students.
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May 29, 2008 03:13 pm
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Many senators and representatives are “extremely concerned” about the high price of gas. They are so concerned they are furrowing their brows and holding totally meaningless congressional hearings with high-ranking petroleum industry officials to get to the bottom of Gasgate.
It just so happens that many of these same senators and representatives are “extremely concerned” about getting re-elected in November and don’t want to appear to be doing nothing as their constituents suffer under skyrocketing gas prices, and the prices of so many other commodities affected by the cost of transportation.
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May 27, 2008 02:47 pm
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An event came and went last month with little fanfare, but it was an event that provided something good for some schools in our region.
The Oregon Lottery’s Scratch-It for Schools event was staged April 23 at EOU’s Hoke Union Building. Representatives of local media outlets showed up to see how many lottery Scratch-It tickets they could master in five minutes. Proceeds from the tickets were donated to three schools. The schools were drawn from a pool of schools within the region that had submitted their names for the drawing.
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May 23, 2008 01:54 pm
Round one of the two-round Election 2008 is behind us. The primary that
just concluded brought out some of the best in candidates, but it also
brought out some of the worst.
Sadly, negative-style campaigning has become the norm in our country.
Some national, state and even local elections suffer from the same
problem: it’s not about what candidates can do if they are elected,
it’s about casting elements of doubt on their opponents. We see it in
advertising, and more and more we are seeing it in letters that
supporters send to newspapers.
Locally in this primary season we saw it in some advertising, most of
which was placed independently of campaigns. Except for a few ads, most
of our local candidates focused on stressing what they had to offer.
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Opinion