With prices low, Habitat for Humanity snatches up five years’ worth of land

When the economy tanked in 2008, most homebuilders suddenly found that no one wanted their product. Or, at least, no one could afford it.

After fever-pitch rate of building leading up to the housing crash, they left behind hundreds of lots waiting for houses, many taken back by lenders looking to unloand them — quick.

That left one builder unusually suited to take advantage of the situation: Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit that builds low-cost homes for low-income families.

So the organization’s Portland branch launched a fundraising campaign and started snatching up land.

In the last several months, the group has built up a five-year supply of land, enough for as many as 150 houses. It’s aiming to pump up its production by 50 percent.

“There’s a real window of opportunity here,” said Steve Messinetti , the executive director of Habitat for Humanity Portland/Metro East. “We’re getting deals we’re not going to see again.”

Read the rest on OregonLive.com.

Volunteers seek encore for Vancouver’s Kiggins Theatre

The Kiggins Theatre has seen better days.

The on-again, off-again downtown Vancouver movie theater, shuttered since June, shows its age in its cracked leather seats, a few broken window panes and a thick coat of dust.

But the owner of the theater is getting ready to cue the lights again. Bill Leigh and a team of volunteers have launched a $300,000 project with the goal of restoring the Kiggins and reopening early next year.

The Kiggins closed June 1 because of low attendance for its second-run double features. When the theater reopens — likely early next year, said Seanette Corkill, a partner in the project –it will have a new focus on independent film, with an eye toward providing a venue for musical performances. An upstairs bar will provide a gathering spot.

“That was a business model that doesn’t work anymore,” Corkill said of the previous approach. “Commercial films in 3D you go see in a commercial theater. If you want to experience independent cinema, you come to see it in an independent theater.”

Read the rest on OregonLive.com.

Growing a Clark County wine industry

When Jeremy Brown opened Rusty Grape Vineyard in rural Clark County nearly four years ago, the winery could hold events or have customers visit for tastings, and it operated just like a country fruit stand.

His winery was one of just a few at the time. But as the budding industry grew, county officials started to grow wary of letting wineries — with their proclivity for large events and tastings — open under the loose regulations governing agricultural land.

By earlier this year when Michele Bloomquist was preparing to open her winery, Heisen House Vineyards, the county had changed its tune.

“I was told, well, you can have a winery and you can have a vineyard, but you can’t have people go there,” she said. “Of course, that’s not how the wine business works.”

The county, now home to about a dozen wineries and expecting more, is considering new regulations aimed at easing concerns about safety and the impact of winery visitors on rural infrastructure while still fostering the growing industry. The county asked vintners to weigh in to ensure the policies are winery-friendly.

Read the rest at OregonLive.com.

Lofty ambitions

102009_1022BerryBuilding_04_t_w600_h600 COLUMBIA — Just a few years ago, the warehouse known as the Berry Building was used to store car tires headed for Walmart.
But soon the building will be a key part of a revitalized North Village arts district. That development at Orr and Walnut streets, and others nearby, could increase traffic to the district and make it more of a destination for downtown visitors.

“We should be generating some critical mass here (that) I think was needed,” said John Ott, who owns not only the Berry Building but several others in the North Village and downtown. Continue reading →

Columbia seeks successor for mayor

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COLUMBIA, Mo. — In his five campaigns for mayor, Darwin Hindman was untouchable. After winning a six-way race for the office by more than 4,000 votes in 1995, Hindman has twice run unopposed, and he won by enormous margins in the two elections in which he was challenged.

But after Hindman’s Thursday announcement that he would not seek election to a sixth term, the mayoral race is wide open. The announcement touched off a flurry of speculation about possible successors.

Hindman has previously waited until early January to announce his election intentions but said Thursday that he hopes an early announcement this time will give possible candidates a chance to consider their decision.

“I hope there will be a vigorous campaign,” he said.

With no incumbent, there’s a good chance the field will look similar to that of 1995. Continue reading →

Detasseling crew stands tall

LINCOLN — They’re the Navy SEALS of corn detasselers.

At least Dawn Buell says so. She’s the owner of Not Afraid to Sweat Inc., a corn detasseling company, and she employs a group of detasselers that calls itself The Force.

“They’re very good at what they do,” Buell said. “Not a lot slips through their fingers.”

Every year, small armies of mostly teenagers descend on fields for the brief detasseling season. The task is essential to creating hybrid corn seed, and the labor-intensive work only lasts a few weeks.

These days, most of the work is done by machine. A grower will lop off the tops of some plants to allow another breed planted nearby to cross-pollinate them, creating a hybrid.

But the machine can’t get all the tassels, and growers say leaving behind more than one-quarter of a percent will contaminate the field. The detasseling teams walk through the fields and manually pull any remaining tassels. Usually, it takes more than one sweep.

That’s where The Force comes in. Continue reading →

Roughing it left to Scouts

CEDAR BLUFFS, Neb. — While campers are earning merit badges or honing their Scout skills, you usually can find a couple of their adult leaders sitting at the picnic tables near the camp administration building.

They might look more Eddie Bauer than Brooks Brothers, but they’re taking care of business using the Camp Cedars’ free wireless Internet connection.

There was a time when a week at summer camp meant staying off the map and unplugged. But in a world of cell phones, smart phones and Internet access anywhere, it’s getting harder to get away, even at Boy Scout camp.

And leaders say that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Continue reading →

Family summer tradition

NELIGH, Neb. — Sheri Neesen is terrified of horror flicks.

She never watches them when she can help it. But in her line of work, they can be hard to avoid.

In the summer months, Neesen manages the Starlite Drive-In, one of two drive-in theaters left in Nebraska. With its 40-by-60-foot screen and sound piped through concession-stand speakers and car radios, Neesen usually takes refuge in the ticket booth or the back office.

“I make myself busy,” she said. “I don’t even turn on the radio.”

Growing up at movie theaters and drive-ins managed by her parents, Franklin and Connie Johnson, Neesen was petrified by films like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Exorcist.” Pranks by her siblings didn’t help.

After those experiences, she never thought she would end up in the theater business.

But now there’s nothing she’d rather be doing. Continue reading →

‘Lest we forget’ our history

WillBrown For the better part of a century, the man at the center of a 1919 riot in Omaha has lain in an unmarked grave.

William Brown was a 40-year-old black meatpacker. On Sept. 26, 1919, he was arrested on charges of raping a white woman. Two days later, he was beaten, hanged, shot and burned by a lynch mob angered over a crime for which he was never convicted.

He lay in an unmarked grave in Potter’s Field, the Douglas County cemetery for the poor and unknown, for nearly 90 years — until an unlikely donor stepped in. Continue reading →

A new language on the school block

O’Neill — which calls itself Nebraska’s Irish capital — might be the last place you’d expect to find students learning Mandarin.

But early one morning last month, the superintendent interviewed a teaching candidate half a world away via computer.

If all goes according to plan, the candidate will teach Chinese in the O’Neill, Chambers and West Holt school districts this coming school year.

“We all really said Chinese was the way to go as far as language,” said O’Neill Superintendent Amy Shane.

The number of youngsters learning Chinese is small but growing.

The Omaha and Lincoln school districts, which offer the language at the high school level, are looking to expand to lower grades. Several school districts across Nebraska have expressed interest in starting programs.

The interest stems partly from the nation’s growing economic and political interaction with China, where Mandarin is the official and most commonly spoken native language. Omaha employers who do business in China say speaking the language can be valuable for job applicants.

“More and more companies are looking at China every day,” said Marisa Ring, the international business development manager for the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce.

In the world of language education, though, Mandarin is still on the B list. Continue reading →

Elliot Njus

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