July 27, 1972
The Sweet Home Green Peter Boat, Yacht and Regatta Association assisted in placing a new ski dock in upper Foster Lake.
The float was constructed by the county parks department and placed at the water’s edge at Sunnyside Park where members of the Yacht Club gathered with their boats to tow it to its destination about halfway between Lewis Creek Park and the point where the South Santiam River joins the lake.
One-third scale models of the Apollo Command Module and Lunar Module will be on display during the Sportsman’s Holiday, thanks to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Media Development Division.
Animations include blinking green docking lights on the Lunar Module and cabin sequence lighting on the Command Module.
T. Roger Grovom, 47, passed away suddenly while at Lebanon Community Hospital where he was taken following a collapse while at work.
He was supervising the building of fire trails on Buck Mountain for Willamette Industries, Inc. He had recently sold Roger’s Radiator Repair, which he owned for 21 years.
Friends commended four Sweet Home boys who were working with him and applied mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. They were Gordon Swanson, Kenneth Hills, Steven Hanscam and Maury Smith.
Petty Officer Third Class Bobby R. Chandler has arrived at Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean just below the equator, with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Ten’s Detail Chagos to supplement other Seabee units at work on construction projects.
July 23, 1997
Fifteen Boy Scouts from Troop 362 are spending 10 days floating by canoe in the Missouri River in Montana.
Scout leader Ben Dahlenburg said the trip was two years in the making after he made contact with a retired Silver Beaver Scout and Scoutmaster in Montana who said he’d be glad to take the group.
The Missouri River is a slow- moving, muddy river, and the scouts will be using their own constructed paddles. They will follow the Lewis and Clark trail, while also learning the history and geology of the area. The boys will also eat rattlesnake for one of their dinners.
Public Works had to close the Sweet Home Racquetball Court for maintenance, repairs and security improvements due to frequent vandalism. Recently, children were charged for allegedly attempting to set the court on fire.
Joey Phillips, 17, will have to teach his puppets Spanish if he wants his Bolivian students to understand the Bible lessons they will tell. Phillips left Sweet Home this week to spend five months in Bolivia where he will use puppets in a children’s ministry at a rural church. He will live with a missionary couple that is sponsored by his church, Community Chapel. Phillips will translate and record his puppet scripts in Spanish, and will use his two years of Spanish class at the high school to converse with the Bolivians.
Morse Brothers has again been rated as one of Oregon’s best 100 companies to work for by Oregon Business Magazine. The family-owned company jumped from 50th a year ago to 15th this year. Criteria included pay and benefits, employee involvement, community involvement, advancement and training, and workplace culture.
Sweet Home High School Principal Bill Westphal announced his resignation to take a job with the Eugene school district. After eight years with the Sweet Home school district, Westphal’s new position in Eugene as assistant principal will focus on staff development, curriculum and instruction.
Gov. John Kitzhaber signed a bill allowing police to have towed the vehicles of persons driving without a license, with a suspended or revoked license or under the influence of intoxicants. The Sweet Home City Council had been considering a similar ordinance, but it tabled the ordinance to await the decision of the governor on the new state law.
Sweet Home police are investigating the drowning of 12-year-old Samantha C. Zook, who was found along the South Santiam River near 18th Avenue. Zook, her brother and three other friends were camping on a small island in the river during the night. She told her companions she was going to get up early to go swimming.
When the others awoke, they found her face down in the water between the island and shoreline. When they tried to bring her to shore, they found her clothes were caught up on an underwater obstruction. Friends also noted she had recently been hospitalized with complications related to her diabetes, so they wondered whether her disease played a role in her death.
For the second year, Sweet Home was represented at the da Vinci Days kinetic sculpture races by Sweet Home High School and Foster Elementary.
The kinetic sculpture racers were required to negotiate a 10-mile road course, a three-mile trip on the Willamette River and a small course through a mud bog.
The Foster students put on a show with costumes and pageantry, and won the Judge’s Choice and Racer’s Choice awards.
They dressed their sculpture, the Cycling Samurai, as a Komodo dragon and dressed themselves in samurai costumes.
The Sweet Home Tree Commission decided to replace a row of poplar trees from Ashbrook Park with either golden locust, box elder, green ash or red maple. Some of the trees that were diseased or dying were removed last year, and the remaining are causing problems such as deteriorating fences with their root growth.