KWSO News for Mon., Apr. 4, 2022

The Warm Springs Community Action team is planning for the move of the Commissary building to its new site by Highway 26 today.  As reported by the Spilyay Tymoo the commissary will be remodeled for the coming year and will become the Warm Springs Business Incubator helping small businesses to develop and thrive. Today, the Community Action team will commemorate the event in partnership with Tribal Council and community members, project partners and key contributors and stakeholders. They do ask community members to avoid the campus area as there will be delays due to the move. The action team’s plan is for the building remodel to happen during 2022 and into early 2023. When the completely renovated and remodeled building reopens in early 2023 the community action team plans for the structure to be a net-zero energy building. The Business Incubator will offer retail and co-working office space, classroom and conference room space and small business incubation services.

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs community survey was administered in January and February 2022 through paper and web-based surveys. The purpose of the survey was to help decide how funding from the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA funds will be spent. A total of 110 people took the survey with almost 52% of them female and just over 44% male. One of the areas was gauging interest in working for the Tribes, where 15.4% said yes with 28.6% unsure and an overwhelming 40.7% saying no. Some of the reasons for not wanting to work with for the Tribes is Extreme low pay, inexperienced managers and housing issues as well as the COVID vaccine mandate for workers of the Tribes. In another section of the survey there were many different categories presented, among them, Public Health and Wellness, Culture and Heritage, housing and more. Some other potential ARPA funding priorities mentioned were the Ball fields, Increases to Employees pay, fixing “Water Issues” and much more.

The release of the 1950s census records FRIDAY / LAST WEEK created a treasure trove for genealogists. Here in Oregon, these records paint a picture of what life was like for Oregonians. [OPB’s] April Ehrlich reports. “On April First, 19-50, thousands of census takers fanned out across Oregon to count its approximately 1-point-five million residents. The federal government has kept those individual records secret to protect people’s privacy — due to a federal “confidentiality” rule. But now, anyone can look up these hand-written census documents. Dawn Carlile — a researcher at the Oregon Genealogical Society — immediately pulled up her family’s records. Her relatives lived near Monroe, a city north of Eugene. CARLILE: My mom’s father was a milk tester in 1950. Her two older brothers were farm helpers and they had worked 30 hours a week each the week before. Carlile says you can find your family’s records at archives-dot-gov. There, you can search for heads-of-house by name or by their neighborhood.”

In Local Sports: The Madras Buff Boys Baseball team was on the road Friday to Mt View High School in Bend and fell short as they lost 11-1. On Saturday they traveled to Burns for a double header, they played Ontario in their first game and got the victory 18-3, then in the 2^nd game they played Burns High School and beat them as well, getting the 7-4 win. Next up for the Boys is a trip to Caldera tomorrow afternoon, game time is at 3:30pm. Lady Buffs softball traveled to Mt View Friday afternoon and came home with a victory 6-5. They traveled to Burns on Saturday and fell short as they lost 4-0 to Burns High School. Next up, the Lady Buffs travel to Caldera tomorrow afternoon, game time is at 4:30pm. In Tennis the Madras High School Boys are on the road today in their first action of the season, they will be in Redmond at Ridgeview High school at 4pm, meanwhile the Lady Buffs tennis will be hosting Ridgeview with action starting at 4pm.