Fern Ridge Review
Creswell Chronicle
Sweet Lorane Community News
August 27, 2015
By Pat Edwards
Two of our Lorane residents who “vacationed” part of last week at RiverBend are once again home. Marilyn Wenger Cooper, our long-time clerk at the Lorane Family Store, was taken to the hospital by ambulance due to an irregular heartbeat. It took several days to get her meds adjusted so that her heart settled back into a normal rhythm. Welcome home, Marilyn!… and yes, your spot at the store will always be waiting for you1
Michael Matchulat spent a couple of days there, as well. He had all of us rather worried, but when he began to feel better, he began mugging for the camera and the pictures were posted on his Facebook page to show all of us that he was feeling better. His wonderful sense of humor comes through in the name he uses for his Facebook account, too… one that had me wondering at first, “Who is this Mychel Matchy who was trying to friend me?” Welcome home, Michael!
This news is rather late, but I’ve been holding off saying anything about it in this column until I knew a few more details. Most everyone has heard, I think, that the Lorane Elementary School property has once again changed hands. Long-time resident, Rich Mitchell, has purchased the property from Nolan Scheid who was awarded the bid from the school district. Actually, according to Rich, “It is a family endeavor. I am married to Denice Goodheart and Olivia and Sarah Goodheart are our two daughters. We are collectively committed to it’s success.”
The papers were signed in late July and the school building, itself, has been undergoing some major restorative surgery… a furnace has been installed and new roofing put on the school.
According to Rich, “I feel we have succeeded in preserving the building for at least 50 more years. The infrastructure is solid and we are making up for 20 years of deferred maintenance by removing any rot, installing some new toilets and sinks, getting professionals in to handle the plaster and other trades-related issues…”
This, in itself, is cause for celebration as it means that the former school will remain part of our landscape, but the full scope of project is not ready to discuss.
I hope to get together with Rich and Tim Bjornstad, whom Rich describes as the project’s “program director and community liaison” to write an article on the visions and plans that they have for the school buildings and property once they are ready to share those plans with us. We’re all curious and very thankful that the property is getting the care that we envisioned for it. Thank you, Rich and Tim!
Jo-Brew and I received some wonderful news this past week. Upon doing a casual check with our book supplier to see if we have sold many of our Highway 99 books this month, I got quite a shock. Our royalty report says that we have sold over 1,200 books in August. We’re almost positive that they were purchased by Costco which has been interested in them. If that’s the case, they should be in quite a few stores throughout Oregon by the holiday season. So exciting!!
For those interested, I’ve set up a new personal website which will eventually host all of my past columns that I’ve written for both the Fern Ridge Review and the Creswell Chronicle. I’ll post each new column a week after I’ve written them. In addition, I’m including many of the other things I’ve written over the years including two Lorane newsletters, personal profiles on people I’ve interviewed and some of my personal experience non-fiction. So far, I have my last 10 columns loaded, two newsletter issues and some other more recent essays and profiles. It’s set up like a blog and I’d love to have those of you who visit register to have new emails sent whenever I post something new and, even more important, leave comments. It’s at http://allthingslorane.com. (One note about navigating it which is something I haven’t resolved yet… you’ll need to click on the salmon-colored border on the left hand side the screen to make a secret slide-out menu open to give you more options for viewing.) I still have much to learn on setting it up.
Remember – September 12 is the Lorane Celebration!
All Things Lorane 