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Thursday, September 26, 2019 • Vol. 135, No. 13 • Oregon, WI • ConnectOregonWI.com • $1.25
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Oregon Observer The
Seeing the big picture
Oregon School District
OHS grad plans to advocate for walkability, affordability in village MACKENZIE KRUMME Unified Newspaper Group
Photo submitted
Oregon High School students and staff visit several ancient Mayan temples in Tikal.
Rainforest immersion OHS students get in the thick of it in Guatemala
Unified Newspaper Group
Jumping off cliffs into pristine sea waters, getting up close and personal with sharks and stingrays, hiking up an active volcano – all memorable things. But for Oregon High School Spanish teacher Tina Halverson, the best part of a recent school trip to Guatemala was seeing her students getting up close with their host families, and learning not only their language, but their culture.
In late June, Halverson, OHS Spanish teacher Whitney Hansen and OHS German teacher Jeff Dyer took 25 students to the Central American country for two weeks. It’s a biennial tradition for the school’s language program, which two years ago visited neighboring Costa Rica. The trip is a privilege students have to earn as well – literally and figuratively – both covering the costs of travel and writing a paper and filling out an application to be selected to participate. What they end up with, Halverson told the Observer last
week, is an unforgettable opportunity to experience another culture and make memories to last a lifetime. The group stayed in Antigua, Guatemala, a small city of around 46,000 surrounded by volcanoes. They lodged with families who only spoke Spanish, giving them a chance to immerse themselves in the language and culture. “As an educator, it’s amazing just to see students go and talk to these families and converse and get their point
Turn to Rainforest/Page 12
Edgar Knecht Jazz Trio performs for students EMILIE HEIDEMANN Unified Newspaper Group
At a music clinic this month, the Oregon High School auditorium was filled with sounds of jazz, folk music, African rhythms and German accents, all in one lesson. The clinic was one of several stops in Dane County
for the Edgar Knecht Jazz Trio, part of a county program to facilitate cultural exchanges with Kassel, Germany. The trio, which infuses elements of jazz and classical music into original German folk compositions, is filming a documentary capturing their journey as musicians. They recorded
the entire clinic, held Thursday, Sept. 19, with OHS music and German students. The 12 year old Kassel-Dane Sister County Partnership brought the band back for a second visit to Dane County – it also toured in 2016 – but it was the group’s first time in Oregon.
Oregon School District
Tax rate to dip for 2019-20 District residents approve tax levy, board realignment
German musicians visit OHS
SCOTT DE LARUELLE
Other performances included the Stoughton Opera House on Tuesday, Sept. 17, with Dane County chamber orchestra con vivo! at the First Congregational Church United Church of Christ in Madison Friday, Sept. 20, and with the Madison College
Turn to Jazz/Page 7
Turn to Cruz/Page 3
Unified Newspaper Group
While the tax rate will likely drop slightly next year, due to rising home values, residents in the Oregon School District will probably pay a bit more in school taxes next year. Unanimously and without comment, district
electors approved the tax rate, school board salaries and a board reapportionment plan at Monday n i g h t ’s a n n u a l bu d g e t hearing/public meeting. The board is set to vote on the final budget next month. The projected mill rate – subject to change with the final student enrollment count – is $11.15 for every $1,000 of assessed value, down from last year’s rate of $11.38. That would mean the owner of a
Turn to Tax/Page 12
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SCOTT DE LARUELLE
Five years ago, Elise Cruz found herself in a boardroom presenting to the mayor of Ashland, the city manager and a room of lawyers to save an 1,800 foot, historic ore dock threatened to be Cruz t o r n d ow n by Canadian National Railway. As the Ashland city planner, the 2009 OHS graduate was the only woman there, and the youngest by 40 years. Today, that landmark she fought for is a park with the ore dock as its centerpiece. She persuaded the company to donate 40 parcels of land, the ore dock base and $1.5 million to the city of Ashland. Experiences like that
one, where she learned to press developers to make decisions based on community needs rather than profit, helped prepare her for the job she starts next month: the first planning and zoning administrator the Village of Oregon has ever had. T h e Vi l l a g e B o a r d announced her hiring on Tuesday, Sept. 16. She starts Monday, Oct. 28. Although Cruz left Oregon and thought she’d never look back, today she hopes to build a life in her native community. She said she wants that smalltown feel where she knows her neighbors and is able to walk to businesses and shops. “I’m not going to a random Wisconsin community to fulfill the check box for a job,” Cruz said. “I would love to raise my own family in a place where I’m