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Thursday, May 24, 2018 • Vol. 133, No. 47 • Oregon, WI • ConnectOregonWI.com • $1.25
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Oregon Observer The
Oregon School District
No drugs in school sweeps But several ‘alerts’ indicate potential presence, chief says SCOTT DE LARUELLE
Inside Random searches began in 2016 Page 14
Unified Newspaper Group
Photo by Alexander Cramer
Benji says hello to trainer Tammy Bauman while Vietnam veteran Dennis Shaw looks on at the Pets for Vets picnic on May 19.
Peace with pets
‘Pets for Vets’ program introduces companions for veterans ALEXANDER CRAMER Unified Newspaper Group
The nightmares still wake Michael Egnar up in the middle of the night. He was 17 when he “hit country,” landing in Vietnam where he “saw things normal people don’t see.” Now, when he snaps awake in his bed, unsure whether he’s still in the jungle, Egnar said, “all I have to do is reach down and feel for Beanie and I know I’m (home).” Beanie is Egnar’s dog, who came to the veteran through the nonprofit Pets for Vets. Pat Seidel, director of the Madison chapter of Pets for Vets, told the Observer that the group’s mission is simple: “Rescue a pet and save a vet.”
backyard in Brooklyn for a picnic Saturday, May 19. The event was Egnar’s idea, who said it was a “good thing for the vets to see all the other vets” who have been helped by the program. “A lot of vets kind of clam up,” – Michael Egnar, Vietnam veteran Egnar said. “It’s a first step to connect with other vets who have had Pets for Vets takes rescue dogs these problems. Hopefully, in the from shelters, trains them to make years to come, it’ll grow.” acceptable companion animals and then matches them with a veter- How pets find a vet an who applies to the program. The Veterans can apply for a companveteran doesn’t need to be disabled, ion animal through the program’s Seidel explained, only has to have website or by speaking to any of the performed military service. trainers or volunteer staff. Seidel Seidel, Egnar and a couple dozen echoes Egnar’s sentiment in hoping other veterans, trainers and fami- the program will grow, saying she ly members who have been touched hopes more veterans in the area hear by the program gathered in Seidel’s
‘All I have to do is reach down and feel for Beanie and I know I’m (home).’
For the second time this school year, and the fourth time since the fall of 2016, teams of area law enforcement officers and drug dogs conducted random searches at Oregon High School and Oregon Middle School. While dogs had “several alerts” to lockers and vehicles at the high school during the Thursday, May 17 sweep, no drugs were found and no citations were issued, according to an Oregon Police Department news release. No drugs were found inside the schools during the previous random search of OHS and OMS students’ lockers on Nov. 27, 2017. However, police cited two people for possession of THC, drug paraphernalia and tobacco products after a dog “alerted” on four vehicles in the OHS parking lot. In the first two random searches, in the 2016-17 school year, there was one case of suspected marijuana inside a locker at OHS and dogs “alerted” to 11 places in or around the high school and two at the middle school.
Oregon police chief Brian Uhl said in last week’s news release canine alerts that don’t result in drugs being found doesn’t necessarily mean a “false hit.” “What is more likely is they alerted on lockers and vehicles that either contained drugs at some point in the last seve r a l w e e k s Uhl or there was residual odor from clothing or backpacks (that we are not allowed to search) which were recently removed,” Uhl said. “The canines are very effective and can detect residual odor of drugs for several weeks after it has been removed.” The random K-9 “sniff” searches May 17 involved teams from Oregon, McFarland, Monroe, Cottage Grove, Fitchburg, Verona, Janesville, Stoughton PD, the Rock County Sheriff’s Office and University of
Turn to Search/Page 14
Inside
Turn to Pets/Page 5
SUMMER 2018
Banning celebrates first published collection Unified Newspaper Group
Longtime Oregon resident Jane Banning’s reading at Firefly last Friday evening was a decade in the making.
Ten years after a suggestion from her husband Rick prompted Banning to start writing fiction, Banning
Banning was back in town to read from her first published book, a collection entitled “Asparagus Roots: Poems and Short Stories.” “A friend was writing a book and I came home and my husband told me, ‘You could write,’ and I thought,
‘OK, really?’” Banning told the Observer. “He suggested I write about giving birth to a child who was very different than myself, which turned into ‘Giving Birth to a Gearhead’ …
To the rescue
Humane Society, smaller shelters team up to find a place for all animals SENIOR LIVING:
Arthritis can be managed
Five of the best beaches around Day Trip:
FUN IN THE TWIN CITIES
Turn to Book/Page 13
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ALEXANDER CRAMER