15 October 2015
Event celebrates KCST’s anniversary
It’s an event that kids and their parents around the area look forward to each year: The Original KCST Great Pumpkin Giveaway. Next Thursday the Florence Siuslaw Lions Club will be handing out free hot dogs; there will be treat bags filled with candy… and free pumpkins for kids… while they last.
“It’s fun”, says Angela Hufford with Florence True Value. Her family owns and operates True Value and provides the pumpkins. They also own Old School Furniture and the Saw Shop where they will be given away next Thursday at four o’clock. Hufford said they all look forward to the event and “really enjoy watching the kids”.
In addition to pumpkins, hot dogs and candy, there will be games for the kids… and a pumpkin carving demonstration by award winning chainsaw sculptor Ryan Anderson with the Windswept Gallery. Anderson is proficient in several different media. He won’t be using a chainsaw for this event, but instead will use traditional methods. One of the carvings will be given away that afternoon.
The Original Great Pumpkin Giveaway on KCST also celebrates the station’s 27th anniversary.
Single vehicle crash turns fatal
The passenger on a three-wheel motorcycle that crashed a week ago on Highway 101 in downtown Florence has died from her injuries.
90-year old Jean Benson of Reedsport was airlifted from Florence to River Bend Hospital following the October 8th crash. She died a few days later.
69-year old David Cheeseman of Florence was the driver of the cycle. He was treated for injuries at Peace Harbor Medical Center.
Florence Police Lieutenant John Pitcher said it appears alcohol was a factor. The crash occurred at about 9:30 PM, October 8th, on Highway 101 just north of the Siuslaw River Bridge.
Pitcher said the investigation is continuing.
Court orders federal agency to implement recovery plan
A federal agency has released a roadmap for the recovery of threatened Oregon Coast Coho salmon.
The plan from the National Marine Fisheries Service focuses on improving degraded stream habitat.
Coho were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1998. It was later taken off that list, but was granted federal protection again in 2008.
In July, two environmental groups sued the federal agency over its failure to write the recovery plan.
Between 1 million and 2 million Coho once returned each year to Oregon’s coast, but the number plummeted to about 20,000 in the 1990s due to overfishing, loss of habitat and impacts from hatchery fish.
Annual returns now range from 100,000 to 350,000, but poor ocean conditions and climate change could pose a challenge.
OPB supports UCC Strong
A Florence based bank with a branch in Roseburg has contributed $25-hundred to support victims and families of the shooting on the campus of Umpqua Community College two weeks ago. Oregon Pacific Bank CEO Ron Green said the donation went to the “UCC Strong” fund managed by the Greater Douglas United Way.
Ron Green – “We feel it’s almost a responsibility. You know we are part of the Roseburg-Douglas County business community, we have employees and families who are part of the community, we feel like it is just important to provide some sort of resource, the best that we can, to try to contribute to the healing.”
Green said the bank has encouraged other businesses and individuals in the Roseburg area to contribute to the United Way fund.
King Tides Coming
Coastal visitors and residents are being encouraged to document the first of three “king tide” events expected along the Oregon Coast between now and the end of this year.
Tides will range from a low of minus 1.2 and a high of 8-plus-feet over a three day period, October 27th, 28th, and 29th.
The Oregon King Tide Project is encouraging photographers to detail the highest tides, as well as the proximity of the water to any manmade structures like buildings, seawalls and roads. Project coordinators also encourage photographers to return to the same location at a regular high tide and take a comparative photo.
They can all be posted online at the project’s website.
Two more high tide episodes are expected in late November and late December.
Oregon unemployment rate dips, state loses jobs
There were 5,300 fewer workers on the job in Oregon last month than in August; the first monthly decline in employment in the state in 36 months.
The Oregon Employment Department said this week the loss of more than five-thousand jobs in a single month has been rare over the past six years.
But, Oregon’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was essentially unchanged from the previous month… down from 6.2 percent in August to 6.1 percent in September. The jobless rate is still improved from 6.9 percent a year ago.
A state employment department economist says it’s too early to tell if the job losses are just a “blip” in Oregon’s economic recovery… or a sigh of slower growth.
