This week's stories in

The Boise City News

Aug. 6 , 2008

Hay! What a Unique Home You Have

At Top, Billy Sappenfield, contemplates the second floor of the home he and his family are building in southeast Keyes. The Sappenfields’ new home will be contructed using straw bales. When completed, the two story home will have about 5,000 square feet on two stories.

Billy and Debbie Sappenfield, along with their children, are building a unique home and, while it’s energy conserving it really isn’t green, it’s more....brown. The Sappenfields, of Keyes, are constructing a home with hay bales. It’s a construction mode Billy said he’d been contemplating for years. He began with research in such magazines as the Mother Earth News and graduated to the Internet. “With the way our world is going I wanted to show my kids you can have something nice, something good, for not a lot of money,” he explained. Sappenfield plans to have about $20,000 invested in his home when it is completed with not quite 5,000 square feet on two stories. He has no blueprints, and he and his family have baled their own straw, cast off from local farmers in their wheat fields. The walls when completed and stuccoed inside and out, will be 18 inches thick and the home will carry an R-factor of 60, making it well insulated. “If I can keep the heating and cooling bills under $100 a month, I’ll be pleased. But I’m hoping for much better. There is a home in New Mexico built like this that heats and cools for $77 a year.” The bales sit on a concrete footing and the sewer and water pipes have been installed and buried. Sappenfield estimates he will have used 1,300 bales upon completion of the family’s new home. The bales are held together by metal strapping, as they settle and before the bales are stuccoed, Sappenfield will cut loose straps and tighten them. The electrical wiring runs between the bales.

At Left, Monti Sappenfield, 12, looks through one of the north facing windows, in her family’s new home being built in Southeast Keyes. Below, is an inside view looking southwest from what will be the master bedroom through the dining room into the den. The home measures 90 feet across the back. the posts have been set to support the second floor.

There will be 93 trusses holding up the roof, Sappenfield got an estimate of $120 per truss; he built a jig and the family built the trusses for $22 each. The interior walls will be conventional. Sappenfield said that several have been concerned about the building burning. “In California, they give an insurance discount for homes built with hay. When you have a frame home you have a built in chimney every 16 inches. With this design there is very little air, so it’s hard for it to burn,” Sappenfield said. When the stucco is about to be applied, it will be Debbie’s job to visualize where she wants pictures, mirrors, etc. to hang on the walls. “She’ll have to decide then we’ll put wood up where pictures will hang and stucco over it,” Sappenfield said. As the house comes together and it comes time for a floor on the first level, Sappenfield has decided on an adobe floor, sealed with linseed oil. “I’ll mix sand and caliche, in a five to one mix, probably add some straw and till it together. I’ll smooth it as a base at about three inches and when it dries add another inch and seal it with linseed oil,” he explained. For the second level he’ll start with 2x12s, and make a wooden floor.

His daughter Monti is concerned that her father’s design has no doors on the second floor bedrooms. “But I think she’s begun to understand that she’ll have to come to the landing and rail before she can be seen. I designed it that way because I want the kids to be able to enjoy the openness,” he said. “But there’s no door,” Monti reiterated. “I’ll probably hang a curtain.” The home can be seen one block east and one south of the Keyes Post Office.

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Trimble-Baird

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Yarbrough has a New idea For Powering Its School

by Alley Jackson

A mechanic works on the electrical generator on the wind tower recently installed at Yarbrough School in Northeast Texas County.

There are new ideas for generating energy. One is wind energy. Yarbrough School has decided to power the whole school with a windmill. They have installed a small wind system to cut down electricity costs. The wind system is on the corner of the school grounds and it is to produce 1/3 to ½ of the school electricity needs.

To make sure that the school could run on wind energy alone, there was some research done at the school. When I asked Shelby Walton, a man that works with Western Wind System, why they chose Yarbrough school, he said “the school fit the criteria to generate the wind system.” He also said that the school also had the desire to have a wind turbine.

The wind generator, an Entegrity EW50 is held up with 5 1/3 yards of concrete under each leg , a total of 16 yards of concrete. This is a 50-kilowatt wind turban.Tri-County Electric is hooking the generator sometime this week. The whole project cost $180,000 with a 3% loan through Oklahoma Department of Commerce’s “Energy Loan Fund for Schools” program. It is to be repaid in nine years. In nine to 12 years, it is estimated that the project will pay for itself. The turbine should have a life of 30 years.

Yarbrough School will be the first school in Oklahoma to generate its own energy. Moscow School, in Kansas, and Pratt University, also in Kansas, are two other schools to do the same. Yarbrough’s Superintendent, Mr. Wiggins, said that he thinks that more schools would like to do the same. He also said that some schools are uncertain about the idea but if they see how well it could work they may want to do the same.

The system will start running in late August , early September and should be ready for the ’08-’09 school year. To learn more about the EW50 turbine, visit www.entegritywind.com. The turbines are being promoted for any school who is interested and willing.

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Stephanie Cochran was inducted into the Alpha Pi Nu Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa at Oklahoma State University

Stephanie Cochran, majoring in Nursing, is the daughter of Bill Percifield and Linda Percifield of Keyes , and is married to Bob Cochran of Keyes . Established in 1918 by two-year college presidents, Phi Theta Kappa is the oldest and most prestigious honor society serving two-year colleges around the world. The Society serves to recognize and encourage the academic achievement of two-year college students and provide opportunities for individual growth and development through honors, leadership and service programming. Students must rank in the top 20% of the class to be invited to membership in Phi Theta Kappa and must maintain high academic standing during their enrollment in the two-year college. Phi Theta Kappa is the largest honor society in American higher education with more than 1.7 million members and 1,100 chapters located in 50 United States, United States territories, Canada, and Germany. In 1929, the American Association of Community Colleges recognized Phi Theta Kappa as the official honor society for two-year colleges. The Society holds membership in the prestigious Association of College Honor Societies as the general scholarship honor society representing two-year colleges.

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Slinging a Smooth Stone

If There Were a 12-Step program...My Name Is Bill

I could very well be the only man to ever admit this. I kinda like station wagons.

I know, I know, they have stodgie reputations, they’re slow, they develop rattles early in their lives, they look clunky, but I’ve always liked them.

The Chrysler Corporation built one with a rear facing seat...didn’t like that too much, too easy to cause carsickness...to foment the vomit...if you will.

I’ve owned several, my two favorites were a 1965 Dodge Dart, and 1972 Ford Fairmont. Each have their stories, the ‘58 Ford Fairlaine, the 1964 Chevy Impala included.

I always wanted an Olds Vista Crusier, but never got there.

I like wagons so much I’ve even entertained the idea of owning a hearse.

When station wagons began to fall out of favor, Detroit, lured soccor moms with mini-vans. A wagon of another color so to speak. Eventually, the sordid station wagon rep attached itself to mini-vans, so Detroit went back to the drawing board and invented...the mid-sized SUV, then came the oversized SUVs I have never understood, Lincoln and Caddilac never built wagons, but they latched on to SUVs. Who’da thunk??

One of my sons, in need of a good car, (with several kids at home), turned his nose up at a really clean Buick midsize wagon I’d found. “Dad he whined I don’t want a station wagon.”

He eventually bought an SUV, a glorified station wagon with four wheel drive, but if he took that thing to the river...momma would bury him under it.

Now as gas reaches $5 a gallon, Detroit has done another turn, wagons are out, mini-vans are passe, SUVs cause global warming, (along with belching cows, or so I’m told), so now we have...the crossover. It ain’t quite an SUV, but we don’t have to call it a wagon; even though Ford’s midsize version, the Flex is boxy, just like my old ‘58 Fairlaine. But I wish I had one.

Someday, some marketing genius will be seated in a dentist’s office thumbing through its decades old magazines and receive inspiration like a bolt from the blue...“WOW!!! That new multipurpose vehicle we’re bringing out model year after next...we’ll call them....Station Wagons. The full size we’ll call a Conastoga, the midsize we’ll call the buckboard and the compact we’ll call...the Flyer.”

He’ll turn it in on Monday, and probably get enough of a bonus to build a pool and...buy a station wagon.

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Capitol Corner

by Gus Blackwell, Rep.-61

Speaker Pro-Tempore

Within the next few months, it will be time to go to the polling places and cast your vote for a number of elected positions. I hope this past primary election was no indication of what we will see in November. According to Lance Ward, Secretary of the State Election Board, his best guess is that roughly 420,000 individuals voted in the Democratic and Republican primaries and judicial races — only 21 percent of the state’s 2 million-plus registered voters.

Voter apathy is a dangerous situation for our state. There are those who would complain our government is “the will of the few over the many.” When only 21% of registered voters turn out for the elections, they are correct. A voting American adds his/her voice to the “will of the majority.”

Many people believe their vote doesn’t really matter…nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson was elected President by one vote in the House of Representatives after a tie in the electoral college.

In 1845, Washington, Idaho, California, and Oregon were admitted to the union as states by one vote (Texas was admitted by 2 votes.)

In 1846, a one vote margin in the U.S. Senate approved President Polk’s request for a Declaration of War against Mexico.

The Alaska Purchase of 1867 was ratified by just one vote

In 1876, no presidential contender received a majority of electoral votes so the determination of the country’s president was again thrown into the U.S. House of Representatives. By a one vote margin, Rutherford B. Hayes became the new U.S. president. When Tilden’s party protested the tabulation and demanded a recount, Congress established a 15-member electoral commission to again count the electoral votes and declare the result. By an eight to seven margin — again, one vote — the commission affirmed the count and gave the election and presidency to Hayes.

On August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution became law, and women could vote in the fall elections, including the Presidential election. One vote was the final deciding factor. One young legislator, 24 year old Harry Burn, had voted with the anti-suffrage forces to that time. But his mother had urged that he vote for the amendment and for suffrage. When he saw that the vote was very close, and with his anti-suffrage vote would be tied 48 to 48, he decided to vote as his mother had urged him: for the right of women to vote. And so on August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th and deciding state to ratify.

In 1948, if Thomas E. Dewey had gotten one vote more per precinct in Ohio and California, the presidential election would have been thrown into the U.S. House of Representatives where Dewey enjoyed more support than his rival — incumbent Harry Truman. As it was Dewey was expected to win the general election by a landslide so most Republicans stayed home. Only 51.5 percent of the electorate voted. Truman defeated Dewey.

If you are a young person who is ready to cast his/her first vote…do so! You are about to perform the most important act an American can perform…casting your personal ballot for representation, elected by the people. This is not simply the right of each American, over the age of eighteen…it is their patriotic obligation. For more information, contact your county election board.

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