>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Glaze, Hively, Page

As a community member, you are essential to the success of our schools. As the new school superintendent, I need your help.

To build a stronger school system, we need an equal partnership between citizens and educators. I want to start this process by introducing myself and opening the lines of communication with you.

I hope you will join me at a reception on Wednesday, July 16, from 6 to 7 p.m. in Cook Memorial Library.

Besides enjoying conversation and refreshments, you will have an opportunity to join a new “key communicators” network for schools. As a key communicator, you will receive regular updates about schools, and you will be encouraged to share your views with me.

You also will be setting a course for the future. Eventually, I hope everyone with an interest in our schools will become a key communicator.

I will be honored if you can attend on the 16th. Even if you cannot, I hope you will agree to be a key communicator. Please let me know of your interest by stopping by my office, calling me at 663-3202 or e-mailing me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Also, please join us after the reception for a public hearing about our proposed school bond measure. Like the reception, the hearing will take place in the library. For more information about the bond, please visit the district website, www.lagrande.k12.or.us. I hope you will study the proposal and voice your opinions at the hearing.

I look forward to seeing you on July 16.

Larry Glaze

Superintendent

La Grande Schools

I am disappointed with the coverage we received this past weekend hosting the District 3, 13-year-old Babe Ruth tournament. There has not been one article regarding the tournament.

Our community deserves to know how our young players are doing. I can understand not receiving any coverage if the tournament was out of town, but this was in our back yard.

I know The Observer was notified about the tournament on several occasions, but felt the need not to cover it. The sports page should be covered with our local sports, not the professionals. If I want to see how the pros do, then I will watch ESPN.

The Union County 13-year-old All-Stars qualified for the state tournament next week in The Dalles. It sure would be nice to receive some coverage. The kids deserve it.

Shannon Hively

manager, Union County 13 All-Stars

La Grande

The EOU Alumni Association has made the campus’ grand staircase restoration a top priority. I urge all concerned to rethink your priorities.

This staircase, built in 1928, has no function in the present or future link between the university and the community. It is a dinosaur.

It’s no longer used as ingress or egress from L Avenue to the university. The neighborhood has no adequate parking and is served by a street with no or discontinuous sidewalks.

If money is to be spent in respect to a visible connection between Eastern Oregon University and La Grande, it should be allocated in stabilizing and landscaping the mess we call the “college hill.” It has never been handicapped accessible.

Ceremonies conducted from the dinosaur were an intrusion upon the immediate neighborhood. All the problems associated with a mass gathering of people in a confined, congested area were present. It would not surprise me if an injunction was sought by the adjacent property owners against any future ceremonies, public or private.

I write this as one who stood upon the dinosaur during graduation ceremonies in 1963, and was later a property owner in the neighborhood.

How can the association condone spending more than $1 million on this project when not one red cent is used to help one single student? Earmarked funds, grants, etc., are not without future concessions.

There seems to be too much winking and nodding going on around the budget table nowadays generated by private interests, when the real push should be to feed the mind of the human in support of the advancement of knowledge.

Jack Page

Boise