Jan. 11, 1973
Shawn Patrick Lindley was the first baby born of the Sweet Home district this year, and the first child for parents Kenneth and Carolyn Lindley.
Shawn was born Jan. 3 at 9:49 p.m., weighing 7 lbs., 14 oz. He already has plans to spend the first few years of his life in Scotland. His father, currently on leave in Virginia, is a Navy man, boiler tender third class.
His mother arrived in Oregon two days before Shawn’s birth and will join her husband in Scotland in February, where he will be stationed. Both parents are graduates of Sweet Home High School.
The Sweet Home Sanitation Service Co., operated by Lester Weld, has again come under fire from the Dept. of Environmental Quality through the Mid-Willamette Valley Air Polution Authority, which investigated and found active open burning being used as a method for disposing of refuse at the local dump site two miles west of Holley.
Weld faces a fine if he does not cease the burning, but Weld said the fire was started by an unknown person and the only way to extinguish the smoldering pile is a costly endeavor of hauling in thousands of tons of dirt, which he cannot afford.
A stolen 1969 Datsun owned by Robert Gene Oar was located the morning following its disappearance from the First National Bank Parking lot.
State police found the car about 100 feet down the embankment off Highway 20 and about 50 feet from the South Santiam River.
Although it had not rolled, the car was considered totaled, and police said they could see where the driver had climbed back up the hill from the wreck.
Jan. 14, 1998
The body of Terry Turner was found 30 miles northeast of Sweet Home after his ex-wife, Patty Turner, reported him missing a week earlier. Terry was living with Patty, who told police the two argued the night he went missing.
Search teams first found the man’s car dumped in the Santiam River about three miles upstream from his home in Lebanon before locating his buried body.
The Sheriff believed the body was dumped in the Quartzville area and then moved to the burial site. Patty, 41, and her friend, 29-year-old Wesley James Lewis, were arrested.
The Planning Commission recommended to City Council a proposed 30-unit senior living facility on the corner of Fir Street and 18th Avenue.
Linn County Affordable Housing proposed the Ames Creek Project to be developed for low-income senior citizens. A number of residents who live near the site opposed the development, citing “a back yard fence lined with apartments in an R-1 zone” as distressing.
Opponents questioned the change of land use, burden on taxpayers, increased traffic, need for “senior welfare housing” and greater demand on emergency services.
Sweet Home will be the first to offer a new statewide awareness program called, “Drugs, Drinking, Driving. Don’t.” The program takes aim at drunk driving as well as driving under the influence of drugs, without sleep or using distractions such as a cellular phone. Of nearly 23,000 impaired driving arrests in 1996, more than 600 were caused by drug impairment; in 1995 the number was only 70.