Senior Center and Ped Crossing projects get underway; One man, one bike, one fight passes through town; Florence speller wins honors in Salem.

Pair of Construction projects get underway…

Two projects, eagerly awaited by Florence City Manager Bob Willoughby, get underway this week.
205 – “The first is the senior center. They’re mobilizing at the Singing Pines Park. That construction will finish up sometime next spring or early summer.”

The center was the subject of an intense four-week fund raising drive earlier this summer that netted about $176-thousand.
206 – “The second one, which will start this week sometime, is the first of five or six pedestrian crossing improvements. They’re going to start work on 30th sometime this week.”

The 30th street crossing will include warning lights and a center island of refuge to increase safety at the crosswalk near Siuslaw High School. A similar project is planned for the midblock crossing on 101 in front of Safeway.

A former Peace Corps worker who spent two years in one of the poorest countries in Africa is on a quest. Drew Marinelli spent his time in Niger helping farmers and fighting hunger. What he experienced in West Africa couldn’t be put behind him when he returned to the states last year. That’s why he set out on a cross country bicycle ride in April. Since then, he’s talked to hundreds of people and travelled 54-hundred miles, spreading the word on just how easy and inexpensive it is to help.
208 – “It’s amazing how little money can go a long way. Ten dollars can feed a child for an entire month, fifty dollars can feed a child for an entire year. And then it just exponentially so on and so on. So if you’ve got an extra few dollars, give, and give large.”

Marinelli started off in Key West, Florida. He made a stop this week in Florence where he did what he has all along the way… directed people to his website.
207 – “It’s www dot one man, one bike, one fight, spell out the word one, dot com. And, it has a lot of information and photos about me living in Africa and all about my trip as well, maps and GPS.”

The University of South Carolina graduate is expected to finish his journey sometime next week in San Francisco. He said it just depends on how many more people he can stop and talk to.

When it looked like there wouldn’t be a spelling contest this year last year at Siuslaw Middle School, then-eighth grader Derek Kennedy pushed for one and then he won it. He eventually wound up in the finals at the Oregon State Fair Contest this past weekend where he finished in a tie for third place. The Oregon State Fair spelling contest differs from the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee held in June each year. Contestants at the fair take a proctored written test… a moderator pronounces 25 words, plus five more ‘tie-breakers’ and the contestant with the highest score is the winner.

The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded went up, went down, and held steady this past week. In Florence, it went up two cents a gallon to an average of $2.77. Statewide it held steady at $2.82 a gallon according to Triple-A of Oregon. The nationwide average price actually went down by two cents a gallon this week to $2.58.

TAKING A LOOK INTO COAST RADIO SPORTS:

Prep Volleyball:
It took all five games but the Mapleton Sailors claimed victory in their first match of the year last night, beating the Oak Hill Falcons. The Sailors split the first four games evenly with the Falcons and won the fifth 15-10.

Northwest League Baseball:
The Salem-Keizer Volcanoes evened the Northwest League championship series at one game each with a two-nothing shutout win over the Tri City Dust Devils. Game three of that series is set for tonight in Keizer.