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Campers get jump on season By MARK FREEMAN Stewart State Park at Lost Creek Lake is one of 11 state park campgrounds that opened this week for Oregonians looking for an early jump on the 2000 camping season. Most state park campgrounds open for the season in April, but the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department begins clearing spots early in several parks across Oregon. The department on Wednesday also opened camp spaces at Detroit Lake State Park near Salem, Clyde Holliday State Park near John Day, and Oswald West and Saddle Mountain campgrounds along Highway 101 on the northern Oregon coast. Cascadia State Park, near Sweet Home, opens Friday. Five other campgrounds, mostly along the Oregon coast, open to campers March 15 and two others near Portland open March 17. Through April 30, reduced campsite rates will be in effect at all the state-run campgrounds, including the 28 campgrounds that remain open year-round. Rates during the so-called Discovery Season are roughly $2-$4 less each night than the regular rates that run May to September. For information on the rates and for reservations, call Reservations Northwest at 1-800-452-5687. The reservations center is open weekdays during regular business hours. GLENDALE -- High school students from Tillamook to Brookings will showcase their projects March 10 in Glendale at the first Regional Watershed Science Symposium. About 100 students will converge upon Glendale High School to display and discuss the findings of their experiments and projects involving watershed health issues in Oregon. Students from Gold Beach, for instance, plan to present a project that used DNA-testing equipment on plants. Glendale High students built a fish hatchery at the school and will be offering tours during the symposium. Most of the students are in applied science or environmental classes in their respective high schools, and some of the students plan to enter their projects in upcoming state and international science competitions. The symposium, which organizers hope to become an annual event, is coordinated by Oregon Stewardship, a non-profit education program founded and run by Jim Hutchins, a Jacksonville naturalist. "Oregon Stewardship teaches students how ecosystems function, and that we can all be stewards of our local environments," Hutchins says. The symposium runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Partners and sponsors in the symposium include teachers, the Cow Creek Seven Feathers Foundation, state and federal natural resource agencies and several private businesses, Hutchins says. For more information, contact Hutchins at 770-2703, or reach him with electronic mail at: [email protected] The Medford-based Rogue Flyfishers Association has acknowledged two of its members for what club members call exceptional support and participation in the association's activities. Former president Hank Rogers of Ashland was presented with Outstanding Club Member of the Year awards for both 1998 and '99. Rogers, the current secretary of the association's board of directors, was president of the club for the past three years. He also published the club bulletin for three years and participated in all the recent club activities involving fly-fishing and conservation. Gerald James of Grants Pass was awarded the club's highest honor, the Dick Ruff Award. The award acknowledges the club member whose effort and resources best promote the club's conservation and recreational ideals. A childhood brain injury has kept James, a nationally known flytier, from physically participating in many of the habitat-improvement projects conducted by the association. But James has donated several thousand of the artificial flies he's tied for auctions and raffles in 29 years of club membership. He has also tied flies and framed them in artistic "color plates" that have been donated for auction or raffle to several fly-fishing and conservation groups across Oregon. Rogers and James were presented with their awards during the Rogue Flyfishers' Feb. 16 meeting in Medford. (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470 or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Mail Tribune � 2000 -- Medford, Oregon USA