A tale of hopes, small fortune for WOU student on ‘Wheel of Fortune’

Sara Haskell, 19, a student at Western Oregon University, participated in the College Week tapings of “Wheel of Fortune” in Portland last month. / Special to the Statesman Journal

Statesman Journal

Sara Haskell’s hopes and ambitions weren’t fully realized when she missed solving the bonus-round puzzle during the taping of her appearance on television’s “Wheel of Fortune” show last month in Portland. But they weren’t exactly dashed either.

The college coed walked away with almost $9,000 in cash and prizes, and she had what she calls the “coolest” time of her life competing in College Week on a show she’s watched since she was a “little kid.”

She’s only 19, so there should be many more moments ahead of her that will rival a “Wheel of Fortune” taping for the time of her life. But it was refreshing to see a young local woman enjoy one of the nation’s longest-running game shows (30 years), without the benefit of a smart phone, website, or battery, for that matter.

The West Salem resident, who is a freshman at Western Oregon University, was planning to celebrate her winnings at a “reveal party” Thursday night in the TV room of her dormitory, Heritage Hall. She told me that it has been difficult maintaining the confidentiality clause she signed, which required her to remain mum about her winnings until after the show aired Thursday night.

“It’s hard to keep a secret like that,” Haskell said. “Of course, my closest friends know because they came with me to the taping, but people ask questions and you try not to give hints as you tell them to watch the show to find out.”

A 2011 graduate of West Salem High School, Sara played like a pro. Wearing a WOU sweatshirt, she did her school proud buying every vowel and keeping an eye on the electronic used-letter board. On her first spin, she landed on the Million Dollar prize wedge but lost it on a subsequent spin.

She also won the game’s prize puzzle, which featured a trip for two to Barbados. She said she’s planning to take her best friend.

But she credits her family with making her a winner.

She said her mother, Anne Haskell, a third-grade teacher at Cummings Elementary School in Keizer, her dad, Willie Haskell, and sisters MaryLynn Varner and Jen Haskell, have made “Wheel of Fortune” a family activity for years. She said they always watch it together, and it’s a race to see who can solve the puzzles first; an activity that’s probably repeated in households the nation over.

Gender pay gap is topic of AAUW talk

Statesman Journal

The gap between what men and women are paid is the subject of a talk sponsored by the Salem branch of the American Association of University Women.

The talk will start at noon Wednesday in Room 103 of the Oregon State Library, 250 Winter St. NE, Salem. For information, call Sally Hollemon at (503) 391-8978.

The speaker is Mary Ellen Dello Stritto, who teaches psychology at Western Oregon University and is an AAUW member.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2009. This ratio does not account for specific skills, experience or types of jobs.

— Peter Wong

The doctor and the slave: Profiles of 2 Mid-Valley women pioneers

 

Mary P. Avery Sawtelle, shown here in 1891, is one of the first women in Oregon to earn a medical degree. / Jean M. Ward / Willamette Heritage Collection

Statesman Journal
By Jennifer Ross and Keni Sturgeon

The Willamette Heritage Center is collecting stories in preparation for installing new exhibits in the historic 1841 Methodist Parsonage. We will install exhibits about Kalapuya history and culture, Salem history and we will open three hands-on rooms — one looking at historic preservation, one about the lives of Valley children in the late 1800s and the third about women’s lives and work in the 1870s-1890s. Toward these ends, several interns have conducted research and compiled various stories for the interpretation that will fill the galleries. The following are stories of two Mid-Valley women who are part of our history.

Mary Priscilla Avery Sawtelle

Mary Sawtelle, one of the first women in Oregon to earn a medical degree, was born in New York in 1835, the daughter of Benjamin and Lucretia Avery. After the death of her father, a Methodist minister, her mother married John Stipp, a Baptist minister.

In 1848, the family traveled to the Oregon Territory, where they settled on a land claim in Marion County. On Oct. 7, 1849, at age 14, Mary Avery married Carsena A. Huntley. Twenty-one years older than

Mary, Huntley had returned from the California gold fields and consulted with John Stipp about marrying his stepdaughter. Under the Donation Land Act of 1850, marriage would allow Huntley to
file for another 320 acres under his wife’s name. The Averys apparently gave Huntley their consent on two conditions: 1) that Mary remained with them until she was 17, and 2) that she had no children until she was 25. Before long, however, Huntley persuaded his new wife to live with him, and she bore her first child before she was 15 years old.

Nine years later, while living in Douglas County, frightened by her “violent and threatening” husband, Mary Huntley took their three children and filed for divorce. In November 1858, she was granted a
divorce but exclusive custody of the children was awarded to Huntley, who had falsely charged Mary with adultery. Denied access to her children, she moved to Salem and attended Wallamet (today spelled Willamette) University, where she met Cheston M. Sawtelle. The two married in December 1861 and eventually had three children.

In the summer of 1869, Mary Sawtelle enrolled as Willamette University’s first female medical student. She went on to attend the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women, graduating in 1872.
The next year, while her husband completed his medical degree at Willamette, she worked as a physician in Salem. The Sawtelles moved to San Francisco in 1876. Cheston Sawtelle was admitted to the California Medical Association in 1879, and Mary Sawtelle was accepted in 1880. She helped form the Woman Suffrage Association of California in 1879 and organized the Women’s Medical College of the Pacific Coast in 1881.

Dr. Mary Sawtelle divorced Cheston Sawtelle in 1883 and was living in Los Angeles by 1888. In April 1894, she died at age 59 in New York City.

Rachel Belden Brooks

In 1844, Oregon’s provisional government outlawed slavery in the Oregon Country. This was closely followed by a ban on the settling of free blacks in the region. Despite these decrees, many families brought slaves to the Northwest and few, if any, were set free upon entering. Rachel Belden was one of these, and is the first known black woman of Marion County.

Born in Tennessee in 1829, Rachel was raised a slave, working in the fields and the home of her owners. Like many slaves, she was given the last name of her first master, becoming Rachel Belden. Around 1840, she became the property of Daniel Delaney Sr. In preparation for staking his claim in the West, Delaney sold his plantation and his slaves. However, Mrs. Elizabeth Delaney was very ill and in need of care.
To secure a caretaker for his wife, Delaney bought Rachel Belden for $1,000. Shortly thereafter, the Delaney family headed West over the Oregon Trail, traveling with other notable trailblazers such as Daniel Waldo and Peter Burnett, and families such as the Nesmiths and Applegates, with Marcus
Whitman serving as their guide. Mr. and Mrs. Delaney, Rachel, and three of their five sons, settled in what became Marion County in 1843.

It is possible that Rachel was unaware of the law that declared her a free woman in the Oregon Country and that may be why she stayed with the Delaney family for the next two decades. Besides taking care of
Mrs. Delaney, she did the housework and took care of the garden. Moreover, she worked with the Delaney boys in the orchards and fields. Different writers have given varied accounts of Mr. Delaney — on one hand, he was a caring man, hospitable to everyone, including his slaves. Another suggests that he did little work himself and “seemed to read his Bible chiefly to find … support for his dominion over … his female slave.” Whatever sort of man he was, Rachel lived with him and the family until he set her free during the Civil War. During this time, Rachel bore two sons: Newman in 1847 (also referred to as Noah), and Jack (also known as Jackson or Jack De Wolf). It is suspected that Mr. Delaney fathered these two boys.

In 1864, Rachel married widower Nathan Brooks, moved onto Daniel Waldo’s farm and later moved to Salem. Nathan and Rachel raised two sons of their own, Samuel and Mansfield, along with Jack. Her
oldest son, Newman, lived and worked with the Stanley family in East Salem.

Nathan Brooks died in 1874. After his passing, Rachel worked hard to support her family, and the 1877 tax records show that she “owned 144 homestead acres on the west side of the Willamette River near
the bend in the river across from Keizer.” From 1902 on, she is included in the Salem and Marion County Directory, showing her acceptance as part of the community. She resided near “Commercial (and) Mill Creek” for several years, and then is listed in the 1909-1910 directory as boarding at the corner of Miller and Fir Streets. Rachel died Oct. 12, 1910, and is buried in an unmarked grave in the Delaney plot at
Pioneer Cemetery.

Jennifer Ross is a student at Western Oregon University and Keni Sturgeon is the curator at Willamette Heritage Center.

Dancing, drumbeats set the tone for annual powwow at WOU

 

Spreading her wings. Western Oregon University's 19th annual Pow Wow, hosted by the Multicultural Student Union Saturday, April 14, 2012. Photo by Justin Much of the Statesman Journal.

Statesman Journal
By Justin Much

The beat was constant and the dancing passionate Saturday in Monmouth.

Western Oregon University’s 19th Annual Pow Wow, hosted by the Multicultural Student Union, featured a well-attended grand entry and a consistent exhibit of dancing and visiting through the afternoon.

Carrying a theme of “The Beat of the Soul,” the powwow ran from noon to midnight with a second grand entry at 7:15 p.m.

“Our adviser (Anna Hernandez) texted us and said this is the most people she’s seen in a grand entry in quite a while,” said event organizer Mayra Perez, a WOU junior.

Perez and co-organizer Susie Carrillo were nervous initially, having spent months planning the event. But once the drumbeats and dancing began and their cadence absorbed the atmosphere, the organizers were at once relieved and pleased with the tenor of things.

“This is the first time for us, but we’ve volunteered before when others coordinated (the WOU Pow Wow),” said Carrillo, a sophomore.

The ambiance in was enhanced with vendors of arts, crafts, and some traditional food cresting the dance floor. The floor highlighted dancing involving tribal members of all ages from around the Pacific Northwest.

The Multicultural Student Union dispatched about 20 volunteers to boost the show and keep the event flowing.

“I just like seeing everything come together and watching everyone socialize,” Carrillo said.

“For me, it’s watching their culture and regalia (flourish),” Perez added. “And getting to be a part of it. When you plan something like this, you get to be a part of it a lot more.”

jmuch@statesmanjournal.com or (503) 399-6736 or follow at twitter.com/justinmuch

Linda Florence of Ontario picked as new Reynolds superintendent

The Oregonian
By James Mayer

The Reynolds School Board chose Linda Florence, the head of the Ontario School District, to be its next superintendent.

The board voted Wednesday to approve a three-year contract with Florence, who is finishing her third year at the eastern Oregon district.

“I am honored that the Reynolds School District board of directors selected me as its next superintendent,” she said. “While Reynolds has many challenges, I view those challenges as opportunities to bring stakeholders together into a common vision that focuses on reaching each and every child’s potential.”

Florence beat out three other finalists following meetings with local groups and closed-door interviews with the board last week. She will replace Joyce Hendstrand, who is retiring at the end of June.

Florence said that between now and July 1, she will meet with the board to set next year’s goals, hold a public “meet and greet” and fill two vacant executive positions, a deputy superintendent and a finance director.

Florence received her undergraduate degree in English, language arts and speech from Oakland University in Michigan, a master’s degree in English from Western Oregon University and administrator’s and superintendent’s licenses through Portland State University.

She has completed the coursework for a doctorate in educational policy, foundations and administration at PSU. Only the dissertation remains.

She was assistant principal at McNary High School in Salem-Keizer, where she had taught English, and principal of Gervais High School and then Central High School in Monmouth-Independence. She served as superintendent of the Culver School District for four years before moving to the Ontario job.

– James Mayer

The 10 Greenest Dorms in the World

Mother Nature Network

Just about every facet of architecture these days is done with sustainability in mind, from single family homes to corporate office buildings. College architecture has been no exception and many colleges around the world are building some of the greenest and most sustainable buildings out there, creating beautiful, eco-friendly places for students to call home while living on campus. While there are plenty of amazing green buildings on college campuses around the globe, we’ve highlighted some of the standouts here. These dormitories (listed in no particular order) are some of the greenest in the world, and thanks to great design, look pretty great to boot.

1. UNIVERSITY OF BRADFORD, THE GREEN

   The University of Bradford’s latest dorm, completed in September of 2011, is one of the greenest buildings in the world. Called The Green, for obvious reasons, the $63 million project will house more than 1,000 students in dorms, town homes, and apartments. The building scored an impressive 95.05% on the BREEAM rating scale, the British equivalent of LEED, the highest score ever given. So what makes the building so impressive? It boasts energy usage monitors, solar-powered water heaters, extra insulation for heat retention, rainwater ponds, recycling facilities, sustainably-harvested timber, low-energy fittings, and low-flow plumbing fixtures, among other features. Even better, it’s designed to promote community among the students, offering great outdoor garden spaces around the building.

2. POMONA COLLEGE, STONTAG AND POMONA HALL

   It’s hard to get LEED Platinum certification but that’s just what these two new residence halls at Pomona College were able to do, the first in California to get such a distinction. Built to house 150 students, the buildings are beautiful modern structures of glass, wood, and steel, but they have some pretty amazing eco-friendly features under their sleek surfaces. Some of the highlights include solar hot water heaters, solar panels, high efficiency windows, lighting, and HVAC systems, low-flow fixtures, rainwater recycling, an underground parking lot, a green roof, native landscaping, and recycled and local construction materials. The residence halls are just two of several LEED-approved buildings at the school, making Pomona a very sustainable campus.

3. WESTERN OREGON UNIVERSITY, ACKERMAN HALL

   In order to get LEED Platinum certification, a building must earn at least 52 points. Ackerman Hall at Western Oregon University went beyond that, getting 53 points in a 2010 assessment of the new residence hall, one of the first in the country to receive Platinum designation. The building, opened in the fall of 2010, houses 330 students and provides both living and academic spaces within. The building is also a model of green and sustainable construction. It has a rainwater harvesting system used for flushing toilets, solar panels on the roof, occupancy sensors throughout, low-flow water fixtures, reclaimed wood from the building site, and even a recycled glass patio that filters water runoff. In its first year of operation, the dorm saved 75% more water and 35% more energy than a non-sustainable building of comparable size.

4. WARREN WILSON COLLEGE, ECODORM

   Warren Wilson College’s EcoDorm paved the way for many other green dorms worldwide, getting LEED Platinum certification in 2009, making it the first dormitory building to meet that level of sustainability. The amazingly eco-friendly dorm uses 69% less energy than other conventional structures of the same size, making it a sound investment for the school for years to come. The dorm is very small, housing only 36 students, one R.A., and one R.D., but offers a living situation unmatched by any other dorm on campus. Aside from the green features, the building is unique in that caged pets are allowed and there are two full-size kitchens and an outdoor garden where residents can grow food. The building itself is home to solar panels, a large rainwater collection system, high-tech insulating panels, recycled and salvaged materials, and low emissions paints, helping it earn its platinum certification.

5. COLORADO UNIVERSITY, WILLIAMS VILLAGE NORTH

   Colorado University is working hard to build a reputation as an environmentally-conscious school, and building a new LEED Platinum goal is helping them to further that mission. Housing 500 students, the Williams Village North residence hall is the largest building in the U.S. to achieve Platinum status. The huge building is estimated to be about 40% more energy and water efficient than conventional buildings of the same size, and is one of 10 other LEED rated structures on campus (eight are Gold-rated and two are Silver). Like other LEED buildings on this list, the dorms at CU have solar panels, power-saving shut-off systems, and native landscaping but boast a few unique features as well, like energy monitors for rooms and water bottle refilling stations.

6. DUKE UNIVERSITY, HOME DEPOT SMART HOME

   
   Duke University’s Smart Home was another groundbreaking sustainability project. Finished in 2008, this 10-person student residence hall is a model of green living, helping it receive the highest LEED rating of Platinum. The building scored a 59 on the green building assessment, making it not only one of the greenest dorms in the U.S. but one of the greenest buildings, too. What makes it so great? The 6,000-sqaure foot residence was designed by students and their advisers and makes use of solar panels, rainwater collection, green roofs, and sophisticated electronics to use as little energy and water as possible. The building isn’t just for housing students, however. It’s also a working laboratory for students who want to learn more about building sustainably to test out new technologies that can help make the dorm even greener in the future.

7. JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY, WAYLAND HALL

   
   While most of the buildings on this list were built from the ground up, this dorm on the campus of James Madison is a renovation of an old building, the first of its kind to earn LEED Platinum certification. The overhaul of the building is expected to reduce energy consumption by 39% and to save 1.3 million gallons of water annually by using a ground source heating pump and a 10,000 gallon rainwater collection tank, respectively. In addition to these technologies, the dorm was also fitted with sustainable materials, energy conservation systems, and native landscaping.

8. UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM, KEETWONEN

   
   This residence hall in the Netherlands doesn’t boast many of the high-tech, eco-friendly systems that other dorms on this list do, but it’s environmentally conscious in its own way. The dorms are made of shipping containers, recycled when they were no longer needed for their original purpose. Keetwonen is the largest container city in the world, housing hundreds of students and is the second most popular dormitory in Amsterdam. The containers make surprisingly good housing, as they are private, well-insulated, and spacious. Even better, they make use of recycled materials and rely on natural light, monitored ventilation systems, and other features which can be a big boon for saving energy and materials.

9. BASTYR UNIVERSITY, STUDENT VILLAGE

   
   Bastyr University’s Student Village is among only a handful of dorms in the U.S. to win LEED Platinum certification. Helping it earn that distinction are high-efficiency water heaters and gas boilers, energy-efficient appliances and light fixtures, low-flow plumbing, natural ventilation systems, radiant-heat flooring, sustainable landscaping and rainwater-capturing roofs. The unique dorms have also won a host of other green awards, including U.S. Green Building Council’s Outstanding Multifamily Project award and King County’s Green Globe Award.

10. OBERLIN COLLEGE

    Oberlin College may not have LEED Platinum dorms, but that doesn’t mean the school doesn’t care about being eco-conscious. Each year, the school hosts an energy competition, challenging each of the dorms to use the least amount of energy per person. Each of the dorms is equipped with a system of lights that lets students know how much energy they are using, with green meaning less than normal, yellow meaning normal, and red meaning higher usage than normal. The school also replaced and recycled 10,000 incandescent light bulbs in 2007, switching to the lower energy and longer-lasting fluorescent bulbs. Dorm dining halls are also super green, using local, sustainable and organic ingredients, many grown right on campus. Other eco-friendly dorm options include car sharing, green move-outs and move-ins, bike rentals, and wastewater recycling.

Group mental activities help people with dementia, review shows

By Kerry Grens
Chicago Tribune

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A series of group activities designed to stimulate thought, conversation and memory appears to improve the mental functioning of people with mild or moderate dementia, according to a new review of the evidence.

“This is good news for the industry,” said Robert Winningham, a professor at the University of Western Oregon, who was not involved in this study. “This is showing the people who work in memory care communities and nursing homes and assisted living facilities that they can improve cognitive function, and they need to be providing these kinds of interventions.”

Cognitive stimulation, as the therapy is called, involves structured activities in a group setting, usually one or more times a week for at least a month.

The sessions might include a discussion of current events, a sort of show-and-tell with objects, baking, drawing or other activities that get the participants to engage their minds.

Bob Woods, a professor at Bangor University in the UK who led the study, said that researchers in this field had considered cognitive stimulation to be helpful for people with dementia, based on earlier work.

To get a better sense of just how much the therapy can do, he and his colleagues at University College London pulled together the findings from 15 studies comparing cognitive stimulation to no extra intervention for people with mild or moderate dementia.

In total, 718 people participated in the studies.

The stimulation sessions lasted from 30 to 90 minutes, and people met as frequently as five times a week. The studies continued for at least a month and up to two years.

“One of the difficulties in dementia is people do become a bit apathetic and withdrawn,” Woods told Reuters Health. “So having this structured form of stimulation guarantees they are engaged and active for a period of time.”

At the end of the studies people took a test to measure their mental functioning.

Those who were in the cognitive stimulation groups performed about one or two points better than those who didn’t participate, on tests that had ranges of zero to 30 and zero to 70.

Woods said the effect is fairly small, but encouraging. He explained that people with dementia typically decline by a few points on these tests in six months or a year.

So a one or two point increase over people who didn’t receive any treatment means their dementia, at least in terms of their mental skills, was essentially stabilized and didn’t progress.

SOME RESULTS DISAPPOINTING

Other skills for daily living, however, did not show any improvements compared to the people who didn’t receive cognitive stimulation.

“To be honest, that’s disappointing,” Winningham told Reuters Health. “Activities of daily living are your ability to take care of yourself, to do a check book, go grocery shopping. We need to find ways to improve these because that’s what will allow people to stay independent and reduce health care costs.”

Winningham said the mental gains are important, though, and training staff at assisted living or nursing care facilities to provide cognitive stimulation is a worthwhile investment.

“It’s a very inexpensive way to improve cognitive function, relative to much more expensive drug therapies that have been, really, the only thing that we were sure worked before these studies came out,” he said.

Woods said most of the studies have focused on interventions given in group sessions, and he’d like to see whether individual sessions, perhaps given by a family member, could deliver similar results.

“I’m quite hopeful some grandchildren would want to do this with their grandfather or grandmother who has dementia,” he said.

In the report, published by the Cochrane Collaboration, the authors disclose that some of them have earned money by providing training and manuals for cognitive stimulation.

Cochrane is a large, international network of researchers that consolidates and reviews studies on a given medical treatment.

 

NetApp donates data storage system: WOU students shot demo video for company

By Justin Much
Statesman Journal

A high-tech communications project begun at Western Oregon University has returned in gift form to make life easier for every computer user on campus.

That’s the upshot of a video called “Snapshot,” produced by WOU’s Digital Production Services to showcase NetApp’s data-protection and -recovery software by the same name. NetApp, a storage and
data management solutions outfit, now uses the video to demonstrate its products and services in the field.

Front and center in the video are two students, “Mac” and “PC,” who illustrate their respective Snapshot software capabilities to retrieve a deleted file or computer program.

The Snapshot video benefited NetApp; now NetApp is benefiting the university. Recently, NetApp donated a storage system valued at $70,000, which will join a NetApp system the university already
employs, and boost its capacity substantially.

The extra storage capacity means students, faculty and staff who use the WOU system can store anything from Power Point presentations to class notes to video theatrical projects on the network’s “H drive.” Users also will have the ability to create HTML links for information storage.

“Every user on campus has something we call an ‘H drive’; it’s their personal space, and could have a portfolio or Word or Office documents, PowerPoint demonstration,” said Bill Kernan, director of
university computing services. NetApp storage will give them space to store their data.

The boost is viewed as a necessary one, in keeping with the school’s consistent growth of recent years.

“The campus has grown,” said Tommy Love, WOU’s director of university advancement and executive director of the WOU Foundation. Computer storage space is “critical for us and it’s going to allow us to do more and more with video and high-tech capability.”

“We are deeply appreciative of this generous gift and how it will support our campus community,” Love added.

Kernan said the new system is currently undergoing a testing phase and should be available for use campus-wide by spring term.

“We have found the integration of the NetApp systems into our existing infrastructure to be smooth and painless,” Kernan said. “And we’ve seen a performance increase of 50 percent in our virtual infrastructure,”

Tuition options: WOU has rolled out a new tuition program option for students, Western Tuition Choice.

Incoming fall 2012 students will be able to choose between the new option and the school’s Tuition Promise option, a system implemented a half decade ago to provide tuition stabilizing adjustments and a guaranteed rate.

With Promise, tuition is initially more, but students are said to save over the course of their education with its fixed rate.

Tuition Choice will offer a lower rate than the guaranteed rate for Promise, but will be subject to annual rate increases.

School officials said each option has a distinctive appeal: Tuition Promise for entering freshmen with a four-year plan; Tuition Choice for transfer students.

“The Tuition Promise has served students and their families well since its inception in 2007,” associate provost David McDonald said, noting that it’s been an effective budget-management tool for families. “Adding a choice allows families the flexibility to select a tuition plan that meets

their needs.”

Scholarship extension: Due to the mid-January flooding, WOU has extended the deadline for incoming students to apply for scholarships.

To be considered for a scholarship, the university must receive the student’s completed application file, which includes the application form, official transcripts, ACT or SAT test scores, and the application fee by 5 p.m. Monday.

jmuch@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-399-6736 or follow at twitter.com/justinmuch

Western Oregon University to hold Winter Preview Day for prospective students

Corvallis Gazette-Times

MONMOUTH – Western Oregon University’s Winter Preview Day will be held Saturday, Feb. 11.

This is a free event for prospective students interested in WOU to learn more about educational opportunities and campus life. Attendees can apply for admission and receive a decision by the end of the day. Students who have applied for admission during check-in or prior to the program are eligible for the Preview Day scholarship, which are valid for students entering fall term 2012.

Preview Day includes campus tours, meetings with WOU faculty and staff, a lunch, and workshops on financial aid and admissions. There will also be a performance by the Rainbow Dance Theatre. Sessions in Spanish will be offered. To register, visit wou.edu/student/admissions/previewday/winter.php.

With the cancellation of the Jan. 21 Winter Preview Day due to flooding conditions that impacted mail service, the scholarship deadline for all incoming freshman and transfer students has been extended until Feb. 13. Students attending Preview Day are invited to submit a complete admission file during check-in. To learn more about WOU’s scholarship opportunities, visit wou.edu/scholarships.

Willamette concert band presents annual concert

Lebanon Express

The Willamette Valley Concert Band will present its annual free Christmas concert at 2 p.m. on Dec. 17 in the Russell Tripp Performance Center at Linn-Benton Community College, 6500 Pacific Blvd. SW, Albany. Donations will be accepted.

The concert is sponsored by the LBCC Foundation.

The approximately 75-minute performance will consist of traditional and popular Christmas music, and will feature an audience sing-along of “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful.”

The Willamette Valley Concert Band is a community ensemble based in Albany that formed in 1970. Its membership includes about 60 musicians, ranging from teens through senior citizens who live in Benton, Linn, Marion and Polk counties.

Directors of the band are Dr. Richard Sorenson, emeritus director of bands at Western Oregon University, and Christine Barreto, a retired Lebanon music teacher.

For more information, go to www.wvcband.org or contact Sorenson at 503-838-3474.