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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014
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Longhenry is sentenced to 70 months in prison BY THOMAS MORIARTY The World
COQUILLE — As she spoke to the pale, thin man shackled in front of her, Tracy Gilmore tried to steady her shaky voice. “You beat up on a weakling,” she told Jesse Longhenry, whose shoulders slumped forward slightly beneath a faded jail uniform. Longhenry, originally charged with murder in the 2013 beating death of Gilmore’s brother, Jesse Hayes, was sentenced to 70 months
“It never ceases to amaze me — the great heart people have.” Judge Richard Baron On family’s response
in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to second-degree assault. Under the terms of the plea
agreement, Coos County District Attorney Paul Frasier had agreed to dismiss the murder charge. “We felt we were going to have some trouble at trial proving causation,” Frasier said. Longhenry and two other men, George Ivanoff and Michael Gertson, were arrested by Coos Bay police after Hayes’ body was discovered near a warehouse on Hemlock Avenue on Feb. 24. Frasier said Hayes had been SEE LONGHENRY | A8
By Lou Sennick, The World
Jesse Longhenry speaks to the family of Jesse Hayes during his sentencing Tuesday afternoon. Longhenry pleaded guilty to assault in the death of Hayes in February 2013 in Coos Bay. He expressed remorse for his actions in open court to the family and hoped they could forgive him.
County unsure of pot stance
Chris Foltz works on a Buddha ice sculpture Wednesday night at Southwestern Oregon Community College. Below, a finished 6-foot-tall seated Buddha.
BY EMILY THORNTON The World
BY JONATHAN J. COOPER The Associated Press
SALEM — Oregon lawmakers are back with a new idea to make college more affordable, after earning national attention with last year’s proposal to allow free university tuition that would be repaid with graduates’ future earnings. A Senate panel Tuesday backed a measure ordering the state to study whether it’s realistic to allow Oregon high school graduates to
INSIDE
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Ice sculptors prepare to freeze competition in world championships BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
COOS BAY — In just an hour, huge hunks of ice turned into a pair of seahorses. The buzz of chainsaws and drills echoed through the Southwestern Oregon Community College campus last week. A spotlight illuminated the parking lot outside Empire Hall’s Video for this story kitchen, appears online at theworldlink.com/video where three people were drenched, hunched over blocks of ice. Oregon Coast Culinary Institute chef instructor Chris Foltz and two of his three teammates, Amelia Rombach and Jillian Howell, were practicing carving ice blocks in preparation for the World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks, Alaska, in less than three weeks. “You have to find the right kind of crazy people to do this,” Foltz said. During the competition, Coos Bay’s four-person team (chef and professional ice sculptor Dean Murray will join the team in Alaska) will work 16-hour days
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during the six-day multi-block event. While the competition is fun, Foltz said it’s also extremely uncomfortable. Sculptors work in minus-30to minus-50-degree weather, often in snow up to their knees, climbing scaffolding with 50 pounds of gear — and they burn at least 10,000 calories a day. Outside Empire Hall, Foltz was finishing a 6foot Buddha, practice for a 12-foot commissioned piece he’s currently working on for the city of Fort St. John in British Columbia. He just returned from British Columbia last month,
Marianne Williamson, Winchester Bay Robert Calli, Coos Bay Laurel Tofflemire, Coos Bay Thomas Applegarth, Reedsport
where he swept the competition in the Ice Magic Festival at Banff National Park. Only first place winners from the last 20 years competed in the event, and Foltz and pastry chef Victor Dagatan took home both first place and people’s choice for their sculpture, an Olympic diver entering the water. On Feb. 24, Coos Bay’s team will split in two for the threeday single-block competition. Foltz and Rombach will make a sculpture based on the Animal Planet show “River Monsters,” which Foltz watches with his kids. The pair will sculpt an arapaima leaping out of a bunch of branches to
eat a bird. The sculpture emphasizes three specific textures: scales, wood and feathers. “When you’re exhausted, when you’re tired as hell and you don’t want to do it anymore, you need something that brings you back,” he said of his decision to sculpt something personal. Howell and Murray will carve an optical illusion. From the front, the sculpture will look like a brick wall. But as people walk around the side, the lines will bend and they’ll see Wonder Woman busting through. The team has a two-day break, then it’s time for the multi-block competition. While Foltz is a professional, his students learn specific techniques and textures so when the clock starts ticking, they’re not constantly stopping to ask questions. “It would take 20 years to get these students up to speed, so we give them specific things to get to a professional level rather than teaching sculpture,” he said. “If we keep all four people busy in multi-block, we can push ahead.” That’s why last week Rombach and Howell did a fast carve, each SEE ICE | A8
Texas execution
Obituaries | A5
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Suzanne Basso, 59, could become the 14th woman executed in the U.S. since capital punishment returned in 1976.
Page A6
FORECAST
Free college tuition?
Breaking the ice
NATION
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Photo by Alysha Beck, The World
DEATHS
COQUILLE — The county is one step closer to deciding whether it will have a moratorium on marijuana dispensaries. The Coos County Commissioners voted Tuesday at a regular meeting to move ahead with paperwork that will be submitted to the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development. The paperwork will allow the county to proceed with regulating marijuana sales. “We’re just making the decision whether to start the process,” said Josh Soper, county counsel. County officials need to know what paperwork is required by the agency, said Melissa Cribbins, commissioner. The goal is to begin the required 45-day waiting period, which will end after the current legislative session, she said.
Mostly sunny 44/28 Weather | A8
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