Schools

OROVILLE – Change is never easy.

But a group of Oroville High School graduates are making the metamorphosis from Hornet to Husky a little less scary.

Ray Wilson and John Zosel both left Oroville after graduating in 1964 for the promise of a University of Washington education. Wilson is now a (mostly) retired MD living in Bellevue and Zosel lives in Oroville.

But neither one of them has forgotten their roots.

Beginning this fall quarter, Oroville High School graduates enrolling at UW will have another source for college funding.

An endowment has been set up to benefit Oroville students continuing on at UW.

“I can’t think of a better way to invest my money then helping young people get an education,” Wilson said recently while in town for a mini-class reunion.

Wilson graduated from UW in pharmacy sciences in 1969. He is an active alumnus at both the university and the college of pharmacy, which raised $50,000 in a night for a pharmacy scholarship.

At a high school class reunion the next year, Wilson decided to try to repeat that success.

“I looked around and thought, there are some really successful people from Oroville. Why don’t we do something like that?”

He proposed the idea to Zosel and soon the ball was rolling.

“We contacted all the OHS and UW graduates we could find,” Wilson said.

The university has computer records of students dating back to 1984, but for anything before then, Wilson and Zosel relied on word-of-mouth and networking to conduct their search.

TONASKET – Some are leaping, diving, guarding eggs. Others are artistic representations, Pacific Northwest Indian art interlaid on their sleek bodies.

One piece showed a bear and a waterfall, mountains in the distance and the salmon leaping up stream to spawn.

That piece is a watercolor by Katelyn Antuna, a seventh-grader in the Tonasket Outreach Program.

Antuna and more than 300 other students across the country submitted artistic pieces depicting wild salmon to Save Our Wild Salmon, a national coalition of organizations ranging from commercial and sport fishing associations to clean energy advocates dedicated to restoring wild salmon on the Columbia and Snake River runs.

SOWS held an art contest for students across the country. The top 20 art pieces will be displayed at the Capital and the four age group winners will go to D.C. to a SOWS reception.

Antuna is one of those winners.

“I was very surprised when I won,” she said. “I can’t wait for D.C.!”

SOWS pays for the winner and a parents to head to the “other” Washington in June. Katelyn’s mother, Wanda, will likely accompany her.

BRIDGEPORT – The Oroville track team participated at the league meet in Bridgeport on Friday, May 9 in their last meet before districts.

Placing for the girls were Austianna Quick, second in the high jump; Rachel Peters, second in 300 hurdles, third in 100 hurdles and fifth in the triple jump; Alexis Olmsted, fifth in 100 hurdles; Brisa Maldanado, third in the pole vault; Angel Carerra, third in the discus; Kayla McKinney, fourth in the 100 and third in the javeline. The 800

relay team was third with Carerra, Olmsted, Quick and Maldanado. The 400 relay was fourth with Carerra, Olmsted, Quick and McKinney and the 1600 relay finished first with

McKinney, Olmsted, Quick and Peters.

OROVILLE – The Oroville Hornets Soccer team, in its first official year in the Caribou Trail League, finished sixth out of twelve teams.

Last year, their first for Oroville High School, the boys played matches wherever they could be had and were not an official part of any league. This year they were accepted as part of the CTL and proved they could play with the A-leaguers.

“We had a great first year in the CTL. We ended up nine and seven for the year and finished sixth out of twelve teams,” said soccer coach Carl Iverson, who was assisted by Laura Kinman with the coaching duties.

EAST WENATCHEE – The Oroville High School Boys Baseball team won their first District Playoff game beating Waterville 4 to 3 Saturday, May 10 at Eastmont High School in East Wenatchee.

The win gave Oroville a state tournament playoff birth. They will play this Saturday, May 17 in Walla Walla against the District 9 number one seed.

Oroville had four runs on 12 hits, while Waterville collected three runs on four

hits. Bud Swenson pitched all seven innings for the Hornets throwing nine strikeouts. Matt Sharpe and Justin Miller each went two for four with two RBI’s.

“Sharpe’s second hit came in the fifth with the score tied at two, runners on

second and third. He hit a hard line-drive into the right centerfield gap driving in two runs to put the Hornets up by two,” said Coach Tam Hutchinson.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Waterville’s Rob Fila, who had hit a homerun in the third inning to tie the game, led off with a triple down the right field line. He scored

on the next batter’s fly ball out to centerfield.

CASHMERE – Several Tonasket tennis players are heading on to regionals and state following the district tournament in Cashmere last weekend.

In boys singles, second seed Zachary Ferriell had a bye into the quarter-finals, where he defeated his opponent 6-1 and 6-3.

Sixth seed Lee Leavell had a first-round bye, defeated second-round opponent 6-0 and 6-1 and defeated quarter-final opponent, a three seed, 6-4 and 6-0 in an upset, said head coach Laura Temby.

Tiger will take on Tiger in the semi-finals, when Leavell and Ferriell face off this weekend.

One boy will have a chance to play for the third spot to state.

Eighth seed Bret Hendricks had a first round by and defeated his second round opponent. He lost to Tyson McGuffin in the third round but will advance to the consolation semi-finals and could win a chance as the third seed to state.

OROVILLE – On Monday evening, May 14, families of Oroville Elementary students gathered in the school cafeteria to learn a little bit about reading informational text and reading to follow directions.

OROVILLE – For many her last name might be hard to spell, but for Haley Montowski her spelling abilities were good enough to get her a chance to compete at Wenatchee for a shot at going to Washington D.C. for the National Spelling Bee.

The 11 year-old fifth-grader from Dave Taylor’s class earned her place as Oroville Elementary School’s top speller by first winning a class competition. From there three spellers from her class went on to a school-wide spelling bee held in the gym where she got to complete with other kids from her grade.

“I was in the spelling bee last year so I wasn’t that nervous, but I wasn’t completely calm either,” said Montowski with a smile.

She says there ended up being four fifth-graders competing for the top honors and this in turn was narrowed down to two. She can’t recall just what word it was she spelled to win the school competition.

“I don’t remember…it wasn’t really easy, but it wasn’t that hard. I felt some of the kids got harder words than me,” she said.

OROVILLE – Fans of Oroville students had the chance to check out local talent on stage and on the auction tables while supporting scholarships March 4 at the high school commons.

About 65 people came to the third-annual Dollars for Scholars Talent Show, which raises money for a continuing education scholarship for an OHS graduate.

The event raised $1380 total, said organizer Tedi Fletcher, a member of the Oroville School Board. The total will be split with the school’s music department, she said. That leaves the group with $690 to award to student continuing their education.

“It’s not a lot, but every little bit helps,” Fletcher said.

OROVILLE – At the end of January, Oroville Elementary School principal Lynn Johnson set a goal for her students: to read 1,200 books in February.

Two weeks later, that goal was mastered.