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MRSA cases confirmed at Myrtle Point High BY CHELSEA DAVIS
MRSA
The World
MYRTLE POINT — At least two Myrtle Point students have contracted a contagious, drug-resistant staph infection. Superintendent Bruce Shull said two junior-senior high school students have tested positive for methicillinresistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, in the last week. Another three or four are suspected of having the infection. MRSA is an antibiotic-resistant bacteria that shows up as a skin infection. It’s especially common in schools where students have a lot of skin-on-
For more information on MRSA, go to theworldlink.com.
skin contact. “We haven’t had this happen before,” Shull said. “There’s a lot of misconception about MRSA — not to make it less than what it is, because it’s a serious issue we need to deal with, but it’s something you can control with good practice.” That includes wiping down and sterilizing all common areas at Myrtle Point Junior-Senior High immediately after use, including the weight room, showers and locker rooms.
They’re focused on wrestlers, especially, asking them to cover all abrasions and cuts and shower immediately after practice. “I don’t know where it started,” Shull said. “A couple of the cases were identified before the school year started. It was something that was brought to us. We’re taking extreme precautions right now.” Grandparent Karen Morrow isn’t convinced. She said the wrestling mats should be tossed out and all students should be advised of the risk, not just athletes. “They say, ‘We’re doing the best we By Thomas Moriarty, The World
Dr. Joseph Amavisca explains the dangers of MRSA to Myrtle Point High School students during an assembly Monday afternoon.
SEE MRSA | A8
Pacific A terminal of a different color US, Arab Gales now allies hit waiting on IS targets planners
in Syria
BY JOHN GUNTHER The World
Police reports . . . . A2 40 Stories . . . . . . . A2 South Coast. . . . . . A3 Opinion. . . . . . . . . . A4
The Associated Press
By Tim Novotny, The World
Workers are busy replacing the older, discolored shingles on the outside of the Southwest Oregon Regional Airport terminal with new darker green tiles. The whole process should be complete by the end of October.
Airport gets a makeover for its terminal building BY TIM NOVOTNY The World
NORTH BEND — Buildings don’t usually change colors in the fall season, but one in North Bend is definitely going through a welcome change in hue. The Southwest Oregon Regional Airport terminal debuted in 2008 with a shiny, blue-green steel exterior. However, the shingles apparently met their match with the coastal elements and started to take a turn for the worse. They began to take on a yellowish appearance that spread after being exposed to years of salt, wind and sand. Airport Executive Director
Tiling expected to be completed by end of October Theresa Cook said the architects and manufacturer of the shingles were among the groups that came together to work out a plan to put a better face on the airport building that the traveling public sees first. The new tiles, which appear darker green, at least on an overcast Monday, started going up on the front of the building Aug. 15. The shingling of the entire building is expected to be completed by the end of October.
Workforce investment board to rally around area counties BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
COQUILLE — Coos County is teaming up with Douglas and Curry counties to create a regional workforce investment board. The board will receive $2.1 million in funding from the state every year, said Commissioner Melissa Cribbins, 10 percent of which can be used for administration. The merger comes on the heels of Gov. John Kitzhaber’s executive order last summer that called for local workforce investment boards to be rechartered by June 30, 2015. “The interesting part about
Comics . . . . . . . . . . A6 Puzzles . . . . . . . . . . A6 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . B1 Classifieds . . . . . . . C3
these boards is (membership) has to be primarily business,” Cribbins said. “You’re looking at a 20-person board and 11 have to be (represented by a) business.” Once the board’s bylaws and members are in place, it will decide how to dole out funding to meet the needs of South Coast businesses. “That’s always been the complaint, is you train people for jobs that don’t exist,” she said. “There’s a real need for training in things like welding — also an improvement in soft skills, like how to dress to go to work, taking SEE BOARD | A8
Marietta Howard, Coos Bay Dorothy Applegarth, Reedsport Edward Smyth, North Bend James Vigue, Coos Bay
“The new tiles most closely reflect the architects’ original design,” Cook said. “The airport district did not have to put up any funds, except for an extended warranty (on the new shingles).” The price for the extended warranty was about $2,500. This appears to be the culmination of testing that was done on-site last year. At that time, a temporary board had been erected next to the terminal, with different tiles attached. Airport officials said at the time that it was placed by ZGF Architects of Portland as a way to test tiles against the elements of the area.
WASHINGTON — Combined U.S.-Arab airstrikes hit Islamic State group military strongholds in Syria and Iraq, and a simultaneous U.S. strike targeted an al-Qaida cell said to be plotting assaults on American and other Western interests, the U.S. military said. President Barack Obama declared Arab support for the airstrikes “makes it clear to the world this is not America’s fight alone.” “We’re going to do what’s necessary to take the fight to this terrorist group,” Obama said Tuesday as he left Washington for meetings of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the top American military official, said the U.S. and its Arab allies achieved their aim of showing the extremists that their savage attacks will not go unanswered. The U.S. and five Arab nations attacked the Islamic State group’s headquarters in eastern Syria in nighttime raids Monday using land- and sea-based U.S. aircraft as well as Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from two Navy ships in the Red Sea and the northern Persian Gulf. American warplanes also carried out eight airstrikes to disrupt what the military described as “imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests” by the shadowy Khorosan Group, a network of alQaida veterans working with the Yemeni branch of al-Qaida, SEE SYRIA | A8
Sears gets 94 months for MP home invasion BY THOMAS MORIARTY The World
COQUILLE — A transient with a history of assaults will spend more than seven years in prison for a home-invasion robbery in Myrtle Point this spring, a Coos County judge ruled Monday. Glenn Sears was sentenced to 70 months in prison for seconddegree robbery — the mandatory minimum under Measure 11 sentencing guidelines. A 24-month sentence for the unlawful use of a weapon will run consecutively to the robbery sentence, for a total of 94 months in prison.
Roger Nelson, Coos Bay Etta Ragland, Coos Bay
Obituaries | A5
FORECAST
INSIDE
SEE GALES | A8
BY LOLITA C. BALDOR AND ROBERT BURNS
DEATHS
Developers of the proposed Pacific Gales golf course near Port Orford will have to wait another month to find out if their new conditional use application to build the course meets the approval of the Curry County Planning Commission. The commission approved an initial application late last year, but the decision was appealed — first to the Curry County Board of Commissioners and then to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals — by the Oregon Coast Alliance. Elk River Property Development LLC then revamped its proposal with the current application, which came before the planning commission earlier this month. At the request of Oregon Coast Alliance and Oregon Shores, another environmental group that joined in the appeal to LUBA, the public hearing for the project was continued past the initial special meeting. The county’s new timeline includes deadlines of 5 p.m. Sept. 29 for written testimony on the application, 5 p.m. Oct. 3 for rebuttal arguments to any new testimony and 5 p.m. Oct. 13 for final arguments by the developers for why the project should be approved. The commission will discuss and deliberate on the proposal — with no new testimony — at its Oct. 23 regular meeting in Gold Beach. Regardless of the group’s decision, developers expect the Oregon Coast Alliance to again fight the project. “We know they will take it all the way to LUBA,” said Troy Russell, the project manager. But the group also likes its chances. “We feel good about it,” Russell said. Because the golf course would be built on a portion of the Knapp Ranch zoned exclusive farm use, a conditional use permit is required. In his staff report detailing the project for the planning commission, Interim Planning Director David Pratt said the project appears to satisfy all the requirements for approval, as long as the developers meet several conditions. But Oregon Coast Alliance issued testimony arguing the project can’t be approved, along most of the same issues the group used to appeal the first decision. The group’s arguments are legal in nature. ORCA questions whether the developers have legal water rights for the project. The group also claims that the golf
Sears was originally charged with first-degree robbery but the charge was lowered when he pleaded guilty Sept. 15 under an agreement with the Coos County District Attorney’s Office. Witnesses told police that Sears and another man, Jason Alex Barreras-Sanchez, forced their way into Cecil Welburn’s Willow Street home early in the morning of July 26. When Welburn produced a .25-caliber pistol and ordered them to leave, the witnesses said, Sears used a cast iron pan as a shield to grab the gun from
Rain likely 70/59 Weather | A8
SEE SEARS | A8