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Show Em in l I It'S Alia 3ibn iims S 00 3 L9h NQI1WIOOSSH SS3Hd HHifl oo a aos la-dy- o '2P' Tuesday, October 22, 1991 2 Huntnf ton Nrm inwy , Green HKw Lawrence CeetfeOeln OrenfevMe Urm Clew oi 50 Cents Volume 92 - No. 43 Teachers, district finally settle on contracts 1991-9- 2 By LARRY W. DAVIS Progress editor HUNTINGTON Teacher contract negotiations for the 1991-9- 2 school year appear to be over. At a meeting of the Emery Education Association last week at Emery High School, teachers voted to approve the districts latest an offer across the board 3 percent raise. The package also On to victory The Emery High cheerleaders encouraged the Spartan football team on to a win in the Region 7 football game between Emery and Carbon last week. The team not only got the win but also won the Region 7championship. Emery will face Wasatch this week and then enter the state playoffs where it will host a first round game, and if the Spartans win that, will then host a second n round game. For more on the game, see todays Davis. sports page. Photo by Larry Emery-Carbo- includes funding of lane and increment changes and health care. The board approved the final package at its board meeting held at the district office on Oct. 16. Also at that meeting, the board held a budget hearing to adjust the tax rate and add funds to the budget that will be recovered from the error made by the Utah Tax Commission regarding assessment of Utah Power & Light d in Emery property state-assesse- Legislators seek resident opinions in town meetings SALT LAKE CITY On Oct. 22, town meetings will be held in 14 Utah cities for citi- zens to tell legislators what kinds of goals Utah should strive towards in the next 20 years. The meetings are part of the UTAH TOMORROW 1991 Benchmarks Project, a strategic planning process undertaken by the Utah Legislature last year. At the town meetings, legislators will ask participants to review the Proposed 1991 Benchmarks," a document of more than 200 specific, measurable goals drafted by a citizens task force of ?50 people this summer. The goals cover areas of concern like education, the environment and economic development. These goals are extremely ambitious, says Sen. Craig A. Petersen ), Senate chair of UTAH TOMORROW. Achieving all the ben- chmarks at once may not be practical; thats why we need the public to help us prioritize these goals, and decide where the Legislature puts their County (see Emery County Progress story of Oct. 15, 1991, for details). The changes in valuation prompted the budget hearing. However, final figures from the state tax office were not available, so business manager Randy Jensen indicated that the district would adopt a similar budget to the one which had previously been approved although it would include the salary changes. In addition to the increase in teacher salaries, administrative salaries were also increased by 3 percent by action of the board at the Oct. 16 meeting. Also approved were changes in the retirement policy to provide those who take early retirement a health care benefit package up to age 65. However, in order to qualify, an educator must have been in the system for 15 years. ar Hearing planned by PSC for input On phone system focus, and the taxpayers money, he said. Rep. Kim L. Burhningham House chair of UTAH TOMORROW, says People need to understand that the 1991 benchmarks is a By LARRY W. DAVIS Progress editor CASTLE DALE the has 1950s, Emery County Since been serviced by two telephone companies. While the two have tolerated each other over the years, there is now an effort on the part of one to take over territory of the other. The Emery County Farmers Union Telephone Association, Inc. of Orangeville is asking the Utah Public Service Commission to give it permission to provide service to the Huntington area which is now serviced by US West. And the PSC is listening. At a meeting last week, Oct. 15, in Salt Lake City, the PSC set a hearing for Nov. 8 in Huntington where local residents Will be given the opportunity to express their feelings about phone service in Emery County and more specifically, Huntington. Scott Johansen, attorney for the Emery County phone ' company, said that the PSC expressed concern about US working document. These goals, if formally adopted by the Legislature in January of next year, could be a road map for future legislation in Utah. The benchmarks have been written by a group of representative citizens, but they now need widespread public response. Six of the 14 town meetings will be televised on KUED Channel 7, and electronically linked to one another via the states EDNET satellite sys, tem. Each town meeting begins at 7:30 p.m., with the televised portion airing on KUED at 9 p.m. Emery County residents are invited to a televised statewide town meeting, hosted by Rep. Mike Dmitrich, at the College of Eastern Utah, Room 212 of the administration building. Wests treatment of rural Utah at the meeting last week. The PSC was upset, not just at the lack ofservice in Huntington, but throughout rural Utah by US West, he said. Also, he noted that the PSC meeting is very rare since the commission usually does not leave the Salt Lake area for hearings in rural Utah. The meeting on the 8th will be a big day for Emery Coun- ty, Mr. Johansen said. At issue is if US West is providing the kind of service in Hunting-to- n that is needed or even required. Huntington residents should let the PSC know how they feel." After the Nov. 8 meeting (location and time will be set later), Mr. Johansen said that a second meeting with the PSC will be held on Feb. 12 in Salt Lake City to decide if the transfer from US West to Emery County Farmers Union should be made. However, he pointed out that the (Continued on Page SAJ Emery teacher lauded by association dence and experience that proved invaluable the following year when I became a member of the Emery High School faculty. With only two years of teaching experience petition. The announcement behind me, I was presented came at the recent Utah Education Association Convention with some real challenges. As in Salt Lake City. Earlier, Mr. I moved into the physics Merrell was named the Emery department, I found there was District Teacher of the Year. not a science lab and only 16 Mr. Merrell grew up in the students enrolled in physics. rural community of Naples, Physics was meant to be a Uintah County. He earned an laboratory class. My 16 stuassociates of science degree at dents and I worked hard that the College of Eastern Utah in first year, but we turned the in June of whole building into a physics 1980 and graduated from lab. Utah State University a couPhysics students developed and started higher level thinking skills on ple of years later auditorhis first teaching assignment top of Emerys ium as they tossed eggs off the in Arizona. Mr. Merrell said, Those school roof to bring out the hard facts about gravitation first two years gave me confi Duane Merrell, science teacher and coach at Emery High School, was recently in the named a runner-u- p Utah Teacher of the Year com- ry build concepts on solar used scramblers. Cardboard acceleration. Students catapulted water balloons with Mr. Merrell as a target to get greater accuracy in trajectory motion. The long halls of Emery High became kinematic labs. Students learned about Newtons laws of motion as they added classmates to the shopping carts for greater mass and sought out the better carts with less friction to race. They were literally offto the races, learning about velocity and acceleration with their personally designed pinewood derby cars that whizzed down a track built by Mr. Merrell. Ramps at the high school lent themselves to the study of energy. Without special equipment or funding to purchase equipment, the students learned physics on a shoe-strin- g budget and found out that physics was happening all around them. And happen it did. A collection of mobiles hanging from the ceiling ofthe schools library was a study in rotational dynamics. Requiring students to learn about simple machines (by building Rube Goldberg machines," elaborate devices that use rubber bands, levers and other devices to perform a simple task, like striking a match to light a candle) made learning physics fun. Students studied potential and kinetic energy while they rotational inertia, and the sunlight from outdoors gave students the opportunity to aerobies became a great way to learn about lift, drag and Bernoullis principle. Yet, with great determination, budding scientists worked on projects that sometimes took them a full quarter to construct. Parents were encouraging students to get involved in science pretty scientific. What happened was phenomenal the physics enrollment more than doubled that first year, and this year of the high school population is enrolled in physics and 40 percent of that one-four- th enrollment is female. In rt a $1.4 million Duane Merrell science building was built at Emery High the need for the building. School. The physics departDuring the Teacher of the ment certainly contributed to (Continued on Page ZA) 1990-9- 1 state-of-the-a- I V ii rr t n nmnninfhirertwTin'iTiTiriiii itrr'n jlnmaiefrainn.iii i Tai.ii.l.e.i'witoeiei weerriit nnft iiiiojTriinm frnulli. |