Check out this the weekly Newsish Roundup for September 8 to 14, 2016!
6 News Stories in 8 Minutes and 40 Seconds!
In the news this week:
- La Grande Race For Mayor
- Weekend Theater
- Mule Days
- Upcoming Events
- Local Sports
Hey La Grande Alive, this is your weekly newsish roundup brought to you by Direct Music Source, Grande Ronde Hospital, Northwest Furniture and Mattress, Valley Realty, and Marketplace Family Foods.
La Grande could have a new mayor. Or it could have the same one–only you can decide. In the left corner we have Steve Clemens, EOU business professor and La Grande politician extraordinaire. And in the right corner, John Bozarth, long-time La Grande resident and city-council member plus an occasional Koinonia house volunteer that has cooked my girlfriend and I eggs on several occasions. Next week we’re going to have them both in for separate Coffee With Wills. But here’s the skinny for now. Clemens is running on the platform of some projects he’s interested in developing: one, a quiet zone for the railroad. Two, more accountability for the Urban Renewal District: he wants to see documented results about how many jobs are created, how many dollars are brought in, and he wants a “strategic plan” for urban renewal spending. And three, he wants what he calls a “full-service community”, a community that provides good-quality social services like the library, police, and the pool, he said. Now, in the other corner, John Bozarth also said he likes the Urban Renewal District, and he thinks it’s working. He’s lived here 40 years and he said he’s seen more growth in the last 4 years than he’d seen in the previous 36 because of Urban Renewal. His platform, as such, is primarily focused on economic growth. He wants to continue to use the Urban renewal district to stimulate the economy and pay for many of the services that Clemens wants to see, except, and here’s the difference, he’d rather see them arise organically from the private sector rather than as state-funded services. “You can’t tax people to death,” he said. So here’s my question for you, LaGrandeAlive, as we head into election season. Everyone agrees that things like pools, libraries, and police departments are good things to have. But what’s the best way to go about funding them? Should they be state-funded, no matter what? Or is it better if they are private? If they simply arise on their own as bi-products of healthy economic growth in the private sector? Where does the government fit into providing services to citizens? How does the Urban Renewal program fit into this? Your comments in the section below.
This weekend is a weekend of broken legs. There’s several plays going on for you to attend. First of all, Little Mermaid is still going on at the Elgin Opera House. Showings this weekend are Friday at 7:30 pm and Saturday at 2:30 and 7:30 pm. Also, there’s a September 11th remembrance play being held at the Stage Door Theater in La Grande called “The Guys”. The play is a series of conversations about the September 11th attacks 15 years ago. The co-directors picked this play because they thought that La Grande just might be interested.
The Guys is showing this weekend Friday and Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm. The cost is 5 bucks and all proceeds they’re donating to the La Grande Fire Department. And the last play that’s showing this week is “The Time Machine” at the Iron Gate Theater in Baker City. Now, you may remember the story of The Time Machine from the 2002 Hollywood movie with Guy Pierce. Or, if you’re more well-read than the average panda bear, you may remember it from the original book written by HG Wells. In The Time Machine, a scientist time-traveler gets himself stuck a couple hundred thousand years in the future where different species of people have evolved. And one’s eating the other. Ultimately, he descends into the abyss where the Morlocks live and must escape and return to his own time, now a little wiser about the dangers of unhindered scientific and industrial progress. This play, on the other hand, is a children’s play, actually the first of the Eastern Oregon Regional Youth Theater plays ever, and it’s happening at 7 pm on Friday and Saturday and 3 pm on Sunday. Now, the children’s story is a little different: according to GO! Magazine, in the play, the time traveler save the Eloi (the race being eaten) and returns home, good-deed accomplished, still a fun-filled story about time travel with lots of technological flashes and small-town children’s fun.
Also, this weekend is Mule Days in Enterprise. What’s mule days? Well, let me tell you, it’s exactly what it sounds like: not a concert, a play, or a festival. It’s a mule show. Imagine a car show except for what’s driving down main-street isn’t cars, but mules and donkeys. There’s competitions, shows, and even, like I said, a parade of mules and donkeys. But there’s more going on than just a mule show. On Friday, there’s going to be a cowboy poetry gathering at 6pm. Saturday, there’s more shows, another cowboy poetry gathering at 2pm, plus a Joni Harms concert at 7. Sunday, there’s a cowboy church, a Dutch oven cook off at 9 am, and the weekend gets finished off at 6:00 pm with the Jackass awards. That’s not really their name, I’m just being snarky. So if you’re into livestock shows head over to Wallowa county for Mule Days this weekend.
Alright, what ELSE is going on other than shows this weekend? Tonight there’s live music at Ten Depot Street plus Celebrate la grande is happening on Main Street. Celebrate La Grande is a block party with all the vendors on the street, a beer garden in Max Square, plus live music and birds flying down a chimney, according to Matt Scarfo, owner of Benchwarmers. Also tomorrow, there’s live music at the Carnegie Art Center in Pendleton: pianist Keith Taylor, for all of you with a taste for classical faire. This Saturday, Adams Avenue will be closed. Businesses and games will be open for all to enjoy. There’s going to be a kids corner, a disk golf course, Zumba and Piyo lessons for those of you who, like me, like to shake their butts to Zumba tunes. Also on Saturday in Halfway there’s the Pine-Fest Music Festival. Also Saturday, there’s a game night at the Hobby Habit and a Community Dance at the Union County Senior Center in La Grande, OR. Also I should mention: there’s roller skating lessons to be had at the Maridell Center. If you’ve ever wanted to Roller Skate, the La Grande Parks and Recreation district is hosting lessons every Wednesday from 5:30 to 6:30 pm. You can sign up on their website at www.lagrandeparks.org or in person at the Parks and Recreation office here in town. Lessons are forty bucks a month from September to November.
In sports, the LHS Tigers football team lost last week, big time, a whopping drop 48-28 in their first game of the season against Pendleton. It wasn’t a bad game, per say, but the tigers just couldn’t get enough momentum after dropping behind in the first half to rally and come back from the game. The Tigers soccer team, however, swapped the football positions, winning, according to the Observer sports section, against Pendleton 4-0 on Tuesday to bring them to 2-1-0 overall for the season. The Tigers football team will play Baker this weekend in Baker and, remember, you can watch it live on LaGrandeAlive.tv. The Tigers soccer team will play Tillamook in The Dalles on Saturday.
In other prep football news, The Elgin Huskies beat Cove 36-8 in an end-of–the-game blowout. Elgin will play Arlington on Friday, and Cove will blay Harper/Huntington also on Friday. Also, Imbler beat Milton Freewater 32-12 and Umatilla beat Union 21-13, finishing up the first weekend of prep football in the valley.
As for Eastern Oregon University athletics, their football team had a much better weekend, beating the Southern Oregon Raiders Saturday in a crazy comeback from 17 points behind to win 45-40 in a thrilling first game of the season. The EOU volleyball girls also had a good weekend, beating Walla Walla for three games 25-11, 25-16. And 25-17 to bump their NAIA ranking to Number 6. According to EOU’s website, that’s their highest ranking in history. The Mountie girls volleyball is now 9-1 overall and will play Corban University Friday. And last, the Mountie Soccer team lost against Hermiston by a threadbare score 0-1.
And that’s your weekly Newsish Roundup. This roundup was brought to you by Direct Music Source, Grande Ronde Hospital, Marketplace Family Foods, Valley Realty and Northwest Furniture and Mattress.
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