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Concert series run ends with Coming Up Threes

New Conference, new challenges await Panthers gridders See B1

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Wednesday August 28, 2024 | Volume 148, Issue 35

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Big and small, two nonprofits in need of rescue Zack Packard Memorial Foundation seeks $300,000 to keep Oregon 4-H Center open

Little Cat Pumpkin Cafe seeks new home for her cats before lease expires

By DAVID HAYES Itemizer-Observer

Sasha Blake has been involved one way or another at the Oregon 4-H Center for the past 16 years. She started as a homeschooled, outdoor school camper, enrolled in the myriad 4-H activities offered at the 326-acre facility in the far northeast corner of Polk County. Blake has since progressed to outreach program coordinator after being recruited back to the fold in 2015. However, as other nonprofits scramble to raise the funds to keep the

Emily Samuelian grew up in a dog family. She’d never had any cats until she got her first one in college. Then she got a second. “It grew into this crazy cat lady title,” Samuelian said. She’s actually trying to maintain that nomenclature, having established the identity within the Independence community as the proprietor of the Little Pumpkin Cat Cafe. Having sold her artwork at local farmers’ markets, Samuelian had also wanted to start a senior cat rescue for a couple years after graduation. She finally found the perfect location within the Little Mall on Main Street to combine her two passions. She brought in her first cat, Fred, a big orange tabby and moved into current space a month later. Samuelian has successfully adopted out a couple so far and gotten more

See 4-H, page A8 PHOTO CONTRIBUTED

Chuck “Grizz” Packard films a live feed featuring the youth participants of Wildlife Stewards at a Friday campfire at the Oregon 4-H Center in Polk County.

PHOTOS BY DAVID HAYES

Emily Samuelian, owner of Little Pumpkin Cat Cafe in Independence, holds Saturn, her rescue cat she says adopted her, needs to raise funds to purchase a house to move her business to before her lease expires at the end of September than 30 strays fixed, vaccinated and cleaned of parasites before being released back into feral colonies. “I came to the sudden realization after couple years I

really like doing this. I really want to keep rescuing them,” Samuelian said. See HOME, page A3

SALT celebrates 30 years as the eyes and ears of the PCSO By DAVID HAYES Itemizer-Observer

When the staff of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office can’t always be first on scene, they have relied on a second set of eyes and ears to help augment their law enforcement efforts. The Sheriff’s Auxiliary Law Enforcement Team (SALT) celebrated 30 years of providing that aid on Aug. 24 at the Polk County Fairgrounds. More than 30 current and former members of SALT gathered to share tales and memories of their time with SALT. Like the time Lee Schlenker, while on routine patrol, was called by dispatch to get to a fire scene as fast as possible and was authorized to go in lights flashing (sirens still had to be reserved for deputies). Patrol duties always had the potential to lead to some surprise, said Pattie Baldwin, 89, who joined SALT in 1994, following her husband’s lead. “You pull into any of the city parks with a marked vehicle, it’s mass exodus sometimes,” Baldwin recalled. Baldwin got involved in SALT after working with the city of Dallas for 22 years, five or six of which with the police department in dispatch. When they first started with about 10 members in 1994, the sheriff’s office mostly relied on them to patrol, Baldwin said. Then they started adding in helping to handle police files and evidence, eventually

PHOTOS BY DAVID HAYES

Polk County Sheriff’s Auxiliary Law Enforcement Team (SALT) met Aug. 24 to Celebrate the programs 30th anniversary expanding to helping Dallas, Independence and Monmouth. She added SALT lent a hand in jail operations scanning records and fingerprinting. “And after 9/11, when they required everyone who needed an official record, we had to fingerprint everybody else, including teachers, real estate agents and insurance agents,” Baldwin said. The SALT team’s volunteer membership since its humble beginnings has since grown to about 30 active members. The team was assembled under then Polk County Sheriff Ray Steele, who led the department from 1985 to 1998.

Steele said the idea came from his good friend Marion County Sheriff Robert Frenslow. They’d heard about a similar program out of Arizona with Frenslow implementing SALT just before Steel did in Polk County in 1993. In late 1993 the PCSO started recruiting for its SALT team. From there, SALT graduates were assigned to help the Dallas Police Department. “We provided uniforms, a car and supervision to Dallas,” Steele said. “Then we brought on Independence, furnished them with a car and uniforms, and supervised them. Then it

IN THIS ISSUE Voices Corrections Obituaries Puzzle Solutions Social Public Records Classifieds Puzzles

A4 A4 A6 B2 B2 B5 B6 B7

Two cakes honoring 30 years of the Polk County SALT program wait to be ceremoniously sliced into and doled out to the more than 30 members who attended the reunion Aug. 24 at the Polk County Fairgrounds. became an interchangeable county program.” The SALT team’s mission started simple. “The role back then was to promote contact with senior citizens to see what issues or

problems they were having. We expanded that throughout the county by making contact with all residents,” Steele said. He explained that slowly morphed into any deputy

needed help, like with traffic control and crime scene protection. See SALT, page A2

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