The Canyon Weekly February 1, 2012
Volume 3, Issue 5
News and Life - For Our Side of the Mountain!
Serving the communities of Lyons, Mehama, Elkhorn, Mill City, Gates, Niagra, Detroit, Breitenbush, Idanha and Marion Forks
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Mill City Middle School hosts 25th Annual Writing Festival Small groups of middle school age kids sat in circles, not just politely quiet, but intently quiet, actively listening, engaged in each others stories. Each child, all 171 of them from grades 5-8 at the Mill City Middle School, with a story to tell. Each with a story they wrote themselves to share at the 25th Annual Writing Festival. Guest Author Tom Birdseye, an award winning writer from Corvallis, joined the festival this year to shine a light on the path to becoming a published author. By his own account, Birdseye wasn’t interested in academics as a youth, rather finding his passion in sports and the outdoors. Striking a familiar chord, he writes on his website, “I can really identify with the reluctant writer in school today. Everything seemed to get in the way of my completing stories: from being left-handed,
to my poor spelling skills, from punctuation woes, to especially a lack of ideas. Fortunately, the right people came along at the right time and helped me see past the hurdles, emphasizing instead the joy of the work …” His latest book, Storm Mountain, the At the writing festival, guest author Tom Birdseye looks on author integrates his as students share their writings. competence in mounOther well know books by Tom Birdseye taineering with his confidence in his writinclude: Attack of the Mutant Underwear, ing. It’s a story about a daughter who Eye of the Stone, and Tarantula Shoes. wants to honor her late father by spread“Having guest authors each year is ing his ashes from the same summit that hugely important,” said (cont’d on page 2) took his life.
Mill City City Hall framework goes up, controversy continues
The framing of the new city hall on 1st street in Mill City has started, and the bones of the building are starting to take on their intended shape. Driving by one might wonder how the finished project might look. Since the initial choosing of Precision Construction as the design build firm, the City of Mill City has been met with weekly challenges to uphold their decisions. Many locals have remained quite vocal of their disapproval, and attendance to city
council meetings have taken an upward turn. Much of the discussion seems to be pointed at Precision Construction and their parent company, Hoffman Construction - who according to their website is one of the largest general contractors in the United States and has completed some of the most challenging projects in the world....(with an) annual volume of $1 billion. Those statistics have proven a bit intimidating for local subcontractors.
That didn’t go unnoticed by the “higher ups” at Precision’s Portland office. On site is Kip Leonhardt, project superintendent for the build. Kip has been working for Precision Construction for over 3 years, and seen many projects through. He reports he was excited hearing about the build in Mill City and wanted to be part of it. “I was raised in Salem and have been fishing in this river since I was five,” he said, motioning towards the sound of the (cont’d on page 3)
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