Leaving for Greece 28 May 1987 Prison is under construction: Pulp mill possible for Rogue

by Bob Van Leer

(Over Utah – Thursday, May 28, 1987)   Wednesday was an uneventful drive from Gold Beach to Medford with a side trip to Ft Dick to look over start of construction of the new prison of the Redwoods. A lot of it is being moved – this prison is usually under construction.  This is going to have a profound effect on Southwestern Oregon as well as on Northwestern California.

      After checking into our motel, we visited with old friends Jerry and Doris Latham and found from them a new development that could affect the Rogue River.  The City of Medford is considering selling a city-owned tract of land at White City outside of Medford for a pulp mill. The Rogue doesn’t need one of these.  I called Jerry Laussman, Mayor of Medford, but he was not available and left a message and will contact him later.

      We boarded a United Airlines flight at 6:30 a.m. Thursday, May 28th and departed in clear skies for Denver where we are to change planes for the next flight leg to JFK in New York.  There we join the main tour of this National Newspaper Association Study Mission to Greece and Turkey.  From the time we boarded in Medford it is a continuing trip to our first destination, Athens, Greece.

      On the flight to New York we visited with a German who is a sales manager for Otis escalators and was on his way back to Germany.  He made sure we found that KLM (Dutch Airlines) terminal and are now all checked in, but we have a five hour layover.  We allowed extra time for planes to be late, but all flights have been on time so we are ahead of ourselves.  This is the last opportunity to mail anything from the U.S. 

      The next trip is Amsterdam.