Thursday, June 27, 2019 • Vol. 134, No. 52 • Oregon, WI • ConnectOregonWI.com • $1.25
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Oregon Observer The
Oregon Area Food Pantry
More fresh food choices Pantry-goers to see onions on shelves in coming months EMILIE HEIDEMANN Unified Newspaper Group
Olivia Paul, 9, smiles as she swings through the air during Summer Fest Thursday, June 20.
Photo by Kimberly Wethal
Into the swing of summer Festival celebrates start of season
Visitors of Summer Fest started the first weekend of the season off the right way. From Thursday, June 20, through Sunday, June 23,
festival attendees engaged in athletic tournaments and races, rode thrilling Spectrum Carnival rides, relaxed with some yoga, danced the night away with some live music and more. And even though rainy weather pushed the Sunday,
June 23, “Wisconsin Pride” themed parade back 15 minutes, hundreds still turned out to spectate the hour-long affair. – Emilie Heidemann
Inside More Summer Fest photos Page 7
Oregon School District
RCI students solve ‘playground problems’ and more with STEAM SCOTT DE LARUELLE Unified Newspaper Group
The next time you need a good team to design a playground, you might want to call some of the fifth graders from Rome Corners Intermediate School who completed the STEAM course a few weeks ago. The students, led by RCI STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) teacher Michelle Minter, spent the semester learning about the Engineering Design Process. They used the process to then tackle problems and strengthen collaborative problem solving skills, using various design and presentation tools to navigate real-world challenges. Some of the projects this semester included “Steamville Bridge Design,” “Global Issues and Inventions” and most recently, “The OSD Playground Problem.”
Throughout these challenges, students were asked to examine each phase of the EDP (Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create and Improve) before moving onto the next phase. Minter said it’s a process that “forces students to be intentional about planning their work and collaborating within a group.” “Oftentimes when students are presented with a challenge, they’re excited and want to jump right in to create the first solution that comes to mind,” she said in an email to the Observer. The final “Playground Problem” unit aimed to improve the school experience for future fifth graders using a real-life scenario. Students learned how teams of teachers, architects and students have participated in various design elePhoto submitted ments of the new OSD elementary An RCI fifth-grader in the STEAM course checks out the 360-degree photos he Turn to RCI/Page 10 just took at the school’s playground.
Patrons browsing Oregon Area Food Pantry shelves might see garden-fresh red and yellow onions on the shelves later this summer into early fall. A n d t h a t ’s j u s t t h e beginning of potential vegetable options pantry-goers may have within the next few years. They will come right from their backyard; more specifically, organic raised bed gardens from Anderson Farm County Park. Pantry managing director Diane Sliter said the goal of the project is to provide OAFP with additional produce during
the harvest season – the pantry already gets some through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin, the Community Action Coalition and Oregon businesses. The garden, located at 805 Union Road, is comprised of six 4-by-16 organic raised beds with wooden frames that hold the onions. Anderson Park Friends Inc. President, Roe Parker pointed to how some of the onions’ leaves were beginning to “flop over,” indicating it’s already almost time for harvest, even though volunteers built the gardens in April and planted the onions in May. Harvesting time came a little earlier this year, Sliter said, because of the rainy spring season.
Turn to OAFP/Page 5
A red, white and blue neighborhood Krenz to end 25 year run organizing July 4 parade EMILIE HEIDEMANN Unified Newspaper Group
If You Go What: Merri-Hill Neighborhood Fourth of July Parade When: 10 a.m. lineup; 10:30 a.m. Thursday, July 4 Where: Starts at 525 E. Richards Rd., turns on Merri-Hill Drive then Landover Drive, wraps around on North Perry Parkway and will end back at 525 E. Richards Rd. Info: 438-2482
As Merri-Hill Neighborhood Fourth of July Parade organizer, Nadine Krenz paged through three photo albums filled over the past 25 years, she held up one picture in particular. The photo, shot in 1995, depicted a crowd of around 30 kids all dressed in red, white and blue attire and grinning – they had just attended the inaugural Fourth of July parade, she is Krenz’s last parade to organize. told the Observer. She hopes the parade A lot has changed since then, she said. Even w i l l s t a y t h e f u n more will change after Turn to Parade/Page 12 this year’s event, which
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