Thursday, May 31, 2018 • Vol. 133, No. 48 • Oregon, WI • ConnectOregonWI.com • $1.25
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Oregon Observer The
Oregon School District
Saying goodbye
SCOTT DE LARUELLE Unified Newspaper Group
The Oregon School District will say farewell to 14 educators later next month. It’s a bittersweet time for many staff members, several of whom have spent more than two decades in the district. Teachers, nurses, physical therapists, administrative assistants, associate principals, custodians and paraprofessionals – they represent a cross-section of district employees with collectively more than 320 years of service in Oregon
Inside Questionnaires from some retiring staff Pages 13-14 and Brooklyn schools. For many of the educators, working with kids and watching them learn and achieve their goals has been the best part of their jobs. Brooklyn Elementary School second-grade teacher Mary Kay Gillespie, who has spent 31 years in the school, said
Turn to Retirements/Page 13
Village of Oregon
Civic campus plan open house next week been in the works for more than two years. With the village planning to build a new library BILL LIVICK on North Main Street in 2020, officials are considUnified Newspaper Group ering what to do with the The village is holding an Oregon Area Senior Center open house next week for building and the Village the public to view and ask Hall. questions about a proposed Turn to Campus/Page 3 civic campus plan that’s
Two options for Village Hall location
Inside
Photo by Alexander Cramer
PVE fourth-graders front, from left, Layla Strait, 9, RaiTano Mesa, 10 and Cameron Altschafl; back row, from left Kennedy Faris, 10, Jacy Andrew, 10, Shelby Brown, 10, and Brock Antoniewicz, 9, during a lesson in Guinean drumming on Heritage Day Friday, May 25. The event, previously called Pioneer Days, had kids dressed up for lessons on different cultures from around the world.
Pioneering a Tradition Heritage Day an inclusive look at state, students’ histories
ALEXANDER CRAMER Unified Newspaper Group
As the fourth-graders filed in to the little theater at Prairie View Elementary they saw a man with dreadlocks sitting alone at the front of the room, waiting patiently in silence behind his drum. The normal sounds of students settling in quieted as they realized the man was waiting for silence. Several students jumped when his hand came down on the djembe in front of him and their lesson in Guinean drumming
Page 10 Read an update from Tuesday’s school board meeting on a potential referendum ConnectOregonWI.com
Wisconsin. The event began in the 1970s to show students what it was like to live in rural Oregon in the 1800s. This year, organizers changed the name and broadened the scope of the event, PVE fourth-grade teacher Rachel Fahey told the Observer. “We wanted to make sure we were celebrating all cultures of our students and people in our community,” Fahey said. “(We said) ‘Let’s have a fun day of celebration and learn some things
Turn to Heritage/Page 8
‘Craftivism’ knits charity, community ALEXANDER CRAMER
Nedelcoff steps down as boys basketball head coach
began. Mandjou Mara was at PVE on Friday, May 25, as part of Heritage Day, an annual celebration of the area’s history that had long been known as Pioneer Day. Students dressed in costumes reflecting their families’ heritage moved between different presentations and workshops. In the morning, Mandjou’s African drumming was one of three stations students visited, along with a lesson in Cuban dancing in the gym and a presentation on the history of Native Americans who have lived in
Unified Newspaper Group
On the first Thursday in May, four women gathered at the library to make blankets for charity in the first edition of “Craftivism,” the brainchild of adult services and outreach librarian Kara Ripley. That Craftivism would be Ripley’s idea makes sense,
since she said she loves doing crafts and has been knitting since she was a teenager. “I just like making things,” she said. “I started in the yarn section (at the craft store) and then radiated out.” Ripley said the event was born when someone “out of the blue” called to donate her mother’s yarn collection
that had been built up over years. Faced with a huge tote full of material and a patron’s request to start a knitting program, she married the two, inviting anyone over 14 years old to come to the library to knit or crochet “granny squares” 6 inches by 6 inches that
Turn to Knits/Page 16
If You Go What: Craftivism When: 6-7 p.m., Thursdays June 7, July 5 and Aug. 2 Where: Oregon Public Library, 249 Brook St. Info: kripley@oregonlibrary.org
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OSD losing more than 320 years of service to retirement