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Umpqua Post
Weekly news from the Heart of the Dunes AN EDITION OF
WEST
Wednesday, February 26, 2014 | Serving the Reedsport area since 1996 | theworldlink.com/reedsport | $1.00
CERT is looking for a few good people BY STEVE LINDSLEY The Umpqua Post
Their vests are apparent all over the area at times. Now, the community can take the training to become prepared for emergencies. Community Emergency Response Team preparedness classes begin on March 8 at the Reedsport Community Center. The classes are open to almost everyone. “Anybody,” CERT Leader Dan Loop said, “as long as they’re 14 and
older. Usually, we don’t have that many kids, but anybody can come to the class. It’s a really good class.” “You’re going to learn about search and rescue,” Loop said. “You’re going to learn about fire safety, disaster medical training and disaster psychology.” Loop says you’ll also learn about first aid cribbing. “Which is how to pull large, heavy objects off of somebody,” he said. This will be my fourth training and, I’ll tell you, you can’t get better training’” Loop said. “You
should come to it.” Loop said volunteers get involved in a number of activities, such as staffing the tsunami drill last year. “We also did traffic control when the pipe bomb was discovered,” he said. A device was found on a Reedsport sidewalk in late July 2013 that required the closure of U.S. Highway 101. The state police bomb squad was called in from the Medford area. Police used a robot to pick up the device. It turned out to be an explosive device.
They also do disaster simulations. “That’s really good,” he said, “because I send these CERT trainees in.” He said living in this area means there are certain types of disasters to prepare for. “Living here on the coast, you don’t have a lot of terrorism, although that’s possible,” he said, “We do have the Cascadia (Subduction Zone). We do have a chance of tsunami. There’s a lot to get search and rescue and first aid involved.”
Instruction also includes how to extinguish small fires, turn off natural gas at damaged homes, performing light search and rescue and providing basic medical treatment. Even though the classes are through the Douglas County Health Department, Loop said the local group works closely with the Coos County CERT. “We work together,” he said. “We’re not really associated with each other, but they a lot of things
SEE CERT, PAGE A7
Four-day school week is favored
LEARNING FROM THE EXPERTS
BY STEVE LINDSLEY The Umpqua Post
By Lou Sennick, The World
Fishing faithful watch and learn some fly tying skills and tips from Vern Jeremica on Saturday at the Fly Fishing Expo in Reedsport. Jeremica was one of the many demonstrators showing their crafts and offering tips.
‘Remodeled’ chamber begins new era THE UMPQUA POST Tri-tip, awards and networking were the highlights of the Reedsport/Winchester Bay Chamber of Commerce annual dinner at the Marina Activities Center at Salmon Harbor. “I do want to thank all of you for allowing me to be president for two years,” immediate past president Nancie Hammond told the crowd. “It was a rough two years. It really was. And not just because of me.” Hammond, in addition to her chamber duties, also writes the What’s UP! column for The Umpqua Post. She said the chamber has been rebuilt “from the ground up. “It was like a remodeling project,” she
explained, “and once we started picking away at stuff we found some things that weren’t that great underneath. It was hard for us to learn it. It was hard for us to fix it. But, right now, we’re going forward from such a fabulous place, with such a great board, that I feel like the chamber is the best place it’s been in 20 years. I really do. That’s not because of me. It’s because of you.” She explained some changes come in the way of turning finances over to a professional Reedsport certified accounting firm. “I think that’s really important for us to do,” Hammond said. “We, literally, need to have an outside company doing that for us. We haven’t done that in awhile. It’s important. I think it was a really great decision.” She said there have also been changes in
chamber committees. “We have teams that specialize in a part of it and from there we hand it off — it’s a machine,” she said. “Boy, we really hammered it. We nailed it this year.” She pointed out the large chamber events: The just completed Confluence; the Oregon Divisional Chainsaw Sculpture Championships on Father’s Day weekend; DuneFest, July 29 through Aug. 3 in Winchester Bay and Kool Coastal Nights on Aug. 22 and 23 this year did well in 2013. “All of our events (last) year were profitable,” Hammond said to applause. “All of them. And, I think it’s because we all worked so well together.”
SEE CHAMBER, PAGE A7
The Reedsport Community Charter School board recently heard a report on returning the district to a five-day school week. That report included comments from parents who responded to a questionnaire sent out by Administrator Laura Davis. Davis said she received 10 responses from 300 parents. The answers were confidential. All of the returned surveys suggested remaining with the fourday week. “The kids love three days off and I would, too,” read one response. “Three-day weekends allow more adequate time for family activities with our kids.” That response suggested work weeks also should be four days. One parent said the four-day week means “more time for student help on Fridays. More time for teachers to work on curriculum, teaching issues.” Another parent said the Friday extra day was worthwhile. “My kids play sports,” the response read, “and that makes it hard to get help after school. I think that we should keep the fourday school week.” Many of the returned surveys simply had the box checked next to “I would like to keep the four-day school week.” “We take advantage of Friday tutoring,” another parent wrote, “and also feel the students benefit from the longer weekend.” “I like the kids having three days off,” wrote another parent. “It gives them self and family time.” At the junior and senior high level, it is very helpful to have the opportunity for tutoring, meeting directly with teachers for help and enhancement activities such as music lessons on Friday,” concluded another parent.
Chamber dinner closes out two amazing years The annual membership dinner for the Reedsport / Winchester Bay Chamber of Commerce held last Saturday afternoon was a lot of fun. The “picnic” theme was something we haven’t tried before and it went well. The grillers, a quad of impromptu competitors, all did very well. The tri-tip steak was created by the secret home recipes of Paul Stallard, Jonathan Wright, Bob Del Re and long-time fave Jack ‘s smoker version from the Tides Inn. Each one was actually delish, so a clear winner was never declared but it was fun to try the different varieties and techniques from the dry-rub to the wine-marinated. And no doubt that the gigantic pot of baked beans made by Ethel Dibala are a family favorite because they were so good. I’m going to try to get myself invited over for those! Now that Ethel is back home, I’m sure there will be upcoming family gatherings that include her famous
dishes – she’s shared some incred- The teamwork has been incredible, ible recipes with me in the past, and having teams that interact on and Jimmy’s sauerkraut is legevery committee means a smooth endary. Ethel is serving on the machine and it has worked very board again in 2014, and also will well. In the past two years our be volunteering at the events have become susfront desk on Mondays at tainable, even a little the Chamber office. We’re WHAT’S UP! profitable, and each one so glad to have her back! of them carries its own In wrapping up the weight. Now that’s activities and accomplishprogress! ments of the past two years In addition to repair I’ve been president, there and healing, the board just wasn’t enough time to has been very committalk about the amazing ted to moving forward. things the board has done. No point in going backNancie It’s been a huge time of ward or digging up old H a m m o n d bones when there is change for the Chamber since 2011, and the 2012work to do, and that’s 2013 board has been the rare group really been our credo. Having a willing to take it on and do the hard nice mix of longtime members and jobs. We dug to the bottom of our fresh faces has helped accomplish financial problems, turned the that. It’s also brought new energy monitoring over to a professional and ideas to the table. outside company and found out we I am very honored to have been had plenty to fix with our budgets trusted to be the president, espeand how we were running things. cially during challenging times,
and so grateful to the board for doing all the hard work. I’ve been sick a lot this year, and it’s been very frustrating that I haven’t been able to do as much as I needed to, so seeing how everyone has stepped in and helped has been so heartening. This is a group with heart, that’s for sure. And what commitment! Every single person on that board has given so much of themselves. Not just time, although certainly plenty of that, but thinking forward, and covering all the bases without passing it off on anyone else. If you’ve been to any of our events this year, you’ve surely noticed that every board member is “on the ground” working hard. If you run into a board member, it would be great to thank them for making it happen. We were close to losing our chamber at one point and these people kept it from happening.
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The community says ‘’thanks!” The Chamber has the honor and responsibility of getting nominations and presenting the winner at our annual meeting, of the Oscar Anderson Volunteer of the Year Award. This award is for a someone not necessarily associated with the Chamber, but who works within the community in a variety of volunteer positions. Xoa Ward was presented with the award, the highest honor given by the community. Letters nominating Xoa told stories of her personal generosity, and willingness to help on a one-on-one level. Her friends say she has a way of finding people who need a hand and offering one to them. She also has
SEE HAMMOND, PAGE A5