August 3, 1972
A new event slated for the Sportsman’s Holiday will be a treasure hunt.
A spokesman for the event, which is sponsored by White’s Electronics and Albany Metal Detector’s Club, said 7,425 coins and tokens will be buried in the hunting field at the high school football field.
Participants will be able to keep the coins, but tokens must be turned in for a chance to win the grand prize of a $20 gold piece valued at about $100, plus a trophy.
The recent passage of HB1158 has imposed high license and inspection fees on food booths, making it virtually prohibitive for most organizations to operate food booths due to small margin of profit.
Because of the high fees, there were no food booths at the recent 4-H Fair in Sweet Home, and five of the eight prospective food booths for Sportsman’s Holiday have canceled.
Gene Collins, president of the Sportsman’s Holiday, wrote a letter to Gov. Tom McCall sharing how the bill is causing the extinction of “the hometown carnival,” as well as affecting income for the neighborhood PTA, and civic and church groups.
In Cascadia news: Chet Totman, whose service station is near the school building, is “fuming” about uninsured drivers.
One, riding a motorcycle, went through his plate glass window “doing about 60 miles per hour” after careening off the rear-end of a small foreign car as it turned into the station.
Dale Ruff, 11, is at Camp Melakwa near Scott Lake on the McKenzie Pass with his Newport Boy Scout Troop 62 for a Boy Scout Survival Camp-out. Families of the community met for a picnic at Cascade Park on Friday, and a surprise birthday party for Postmaster Irma Pinster took place at her home on Saturday. The Ervle Morris family attended the races at Cottage Grove to see the Cascadia T-bird run, but were again disappointed when it failed to finish due to mechanical problems.
July 30, 1997
The Linn County Board of Commissioners provided the final funds needed to match a U.S. Forest Service grant for new seating on the Sweet Home Rodeo grounds.
The board agreed to provide $7,464 from Linn County Video Poker funds to complete the $50,000 necessary match to the $200,000 grant. The funds are to be considered as a last resort, and the funding will be reduced as other eligible matching resources become available.
“We are very impressed with the level of community support demonstrated in this effort and acknowledge the importance of this project to the Sweet Home community,” the commissioners wrote in a letter to the Chamber of Commerce.
Wilderness Village Park volunteers received a verbal commitment for a $62,000 U.S. Forest Service grant for a feasibility study. The Wilderness Village steering committee is attempting to raise $4,000 of its $15,000 match for the grant. More than $10,000 in private donations and 4,500 volunteer hours have been spent over the past five years to bring the Wilderness Village project to where it is now.
The Wilderness Village project will serve as a nonprofit foundation which will administer as its moneymaking venture a unique business retreat lodge and exhibition hall equipped with the latest state-of-the-art media and computer technology. It will include property capable of handling events such as the rodeo and Jamboree, an 18-hole golf course, railroad transportation, lodging facilities for 200, a restaurant and a virtual reality indoor and outdoor live historical logging museum.
The public is being asked to assist the Oregon State Police and Oregon Department of Forestry in preventing and reporting arson fires that threaten state and private timber lands. A trial program has been initiated statewide and is being funded by a grant from the U.S. Forest Service. District Forester Dan Shults said the Department of Forestry has good people trained in arson investigation, but none with law enforcement experience who can interview people and track down leads in a way that would provide a suspect and solid case. Two retired Oregon State Police troopers visited East Linn and said their goal was to meet as many people as they can and have them become their eyes and ears in the area.
An anonymous tipster called the city’s code enforcer with a complaint about Sandy Hagle’s rabbits and guinea pigs living in a plastic container on her driveway. Based on a safety concern for the animals, Code Enforcer Carol Lewis checked out the situation only to find the four rabbits were in hutches. However, Hagle was breaking a 1986 law that prohibits the keeping of rabbits and fowl on properties smaller than half an acre.
Reporter Sean C. Morgan mused that the intent of the ordinance was to prevent commercial breeding, and Councilman Craig Fentiman said the council got carried away back then and ended up prohibiting any rabbits at all. Hagle appeared before the City Council, which agreed the prohibition was absurd and would review ordinance revisions.
Residents of Berlin Road announced they raised $500 to file an appeal of a Linn County Planning Commission decision to grant revised conditions on a 1981 conditional use permit for Liberty Rock Products. The quarry is located on Berlin Road just outside of Sweet Home. Residents object primarily to three aspects of the conditional use permit and quarry operation, including increased traffic, blasting damaging their wells and homes, and previous violations of the conditional use permit on the property. They also claimed there have been numerous close calls with trucks on the road, and said the road is too narrow to support trucks and school buses.
Bo Christianson, 8, was crowned the bantam weight Greco Roman National Wrestling champion during the AAA Grand National Tournament held in Bakersfield, Calif. Christianson, a member of the Sweet Home Mat Club, defeated all seven of his opponents in the first period. He pinned the two-time Hawaiian Islands champion in .59 seconds, the Kansas state wrestling champion in .49 seconds, and a European champion from Italy in .53 seconds. Now he plans to take some time off and get ready for the third grade, where he enjoys math. The next national tournament will be held at Disney World in Florida.