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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 2020)
2A — THE OBSERVER TuESday, dEcEmBER 1, 2020 LOCAL/REGION Daily Planner TODAY Today is Tuesday, Dec. 1, the 336th day of 2020. There are 30 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a Black seamstress, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala- bama, city bus; the incident sparked a year-long boycott of the buses by Blacks. ON THIS DATE: In 1824, the presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Repre- sentatives when a deadlock developed between John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Craw- ford and Henry Clay. In 1862, President Abra- ham Lincoln sent a message to Congress, in which he called for the abolition of slavery, and went on to say, “Fellow citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Adminis- tration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.” In 1965, an airlift of refu- gees from Cuba to the U.S. began. In 1969, the U.S. gov- ernment held its first draft lottery since World War II. In 1990, British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel between their coun- tries met after knocking out a passage in a service tunnel. LOTTERY Megabucks: $5 million 22-25-30-38-39-48 Mega Millions: $214 million 4-10-27-35-58 — 10x2 Powerball: $202 million 8-12-18-44-51 —PB-18 x2 Win for Life: Nov. 29 14-58-64-72 Pick 4: Nov. 29 • 1 p.m.: 0-6-0-7; • 4 p.m.: 4-6-6-1; • 7 p.m.: 9-2-3-4; • 10 p.m.: 5-3-9-8 Pick 4: Nov. 28 • 1 p.m.: 1-5-2-7 • 4 p.m.: 7-0-0-1; • 7 p.m.: 8-7-3-2; • 10 p.m.: 4–7-2-7 Pick 4: Nov. 27 • 1 p.m.: 2-6-4-0 • 4 p.m.: 0-4-4-1; • 7 p.m.: 6-3-1-7; • 10 p.m.: 6-0-6-4 DELIVERY ISSUES? If you have any problems receiving your Observer, please call 541-963-3161. Get ready for holiday-spirited competition The Observer LA GRANDE — For the second year in a row, the Union County Chamber of Commerce will hold a county-wide holiday deco- rating competition with cat- egories for best house, best business, best street/neigh- borhood and best town. Judging takes place Dec. 19-23. Winners will receive trophies and prizes, including energy credits from Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative. The judges will consider: • Unique design and creative use of lights and decorations. • Maximum energy effi- ciency (for example, LED lights, timers and non-light creativity). • Presentation (color coordination, balance and overall attractiveness). • Implementation and use of holiday-spirited theme. Entries/nominations Dick Mason/The Observer, File Dick Mason/The Observer, File The home of Joel and Jill McCraw in Union placed first in the residential category in the Union County Chamber of Commerce’s 2019 Holiday Decorating Competition. The La Grande Country Club won the business category in the Union County Chamber of Commerce’s 2019 Holiday Decorating Competition. judging period, between 4 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Dec. 19-23. Judging will be based on what can be seen from the street. The judges will not enter the property. Also, La Grande Main Street Downtown is hosting and judging a decoration competition for only down- forms must be submitted to the Union County Chamber by Dec. 15 at 5 p.m. The forms are available at www. visitunioncounty.org or by calling 541-963-8588. Participants should ensure all lights, anima- tions and decorations are in place and activated for the LA GRANDE — It is a question many people ask themselves. How do we respond to someone who we fear is considering suicide? The answers will be provided at a pair of free online suicide preven- tion clinics the Center for Human Development is conducting Tuesday, Dec. 1, and on Dec. 15. Tues- day’s clinic will start at 4 p.m. and it will be repeated Dec. 15 begin- ning at 6 p.m. Each clinic will run up to two hours. The Observer JOSEPH — The Josephy Center for Arts and Cul- ture in a press release announced the launch of a buck tag raffle to raise funds in support of a cam- paign to make the center a permanent and sustainable home for arts and culture in Wallowa County. The winner of the raffle will receive a three-day guided hunt with Land- owner Preference Program tag for up to three people on the Nature Conservan- cy’s Zumwalt Prairie Pre- serve in the fall of 2021. The drawing will be held in March 2021. Every year the Nature Conservancy gives a handful of buck and bull tags to nonprofit organi- zations to raise money for causes that will ben- efit their local community. The Josephy Center will sell 200 tickets at $50 each to raise $10,000 toward repairs for the log building in which it resides, stated the release. Tickets are available for purchase online at www. josephy.org or by calling 541-432-0505. The Josephy Center is closed to the public, but when public health mandates allow, tickets also will be avail- able for purchase in person at 403 N. Main St., Joseph. Hunters are respon- sible for the costs of their hunting license, tag fee and tip for the guide should they choose to give one. The raffle winner must have a hunter/angler ID number. This raffle is conducted according to the rules of the state of Oregon, according to the release. You must be 21 years of age to buy a ticket. Once a ticket is purchased, it will be placed into a box and blindly drawn at random. Those participating in the online clinics, which will be identical, will be taught the Question, Per- suade and Refer method for helping people who are contemplating taking their own life. QPR is a process through which people first learn how to ask a friend or family member they are concerned about if they are considering taking their own life and, if they are, how to persuade them to get help and, finally, how to refer them to profes- sionals who can help them. Aaron Grigg, mental health director for the Center for Human Devel- opment, said he wants to get as many people trained in QPR as possible in Union County. He com- pares it to having people trained in CPR. Grigg said it is important for people to know QPR so they feel comfortable having a con- versation with someone who is struggling with mental health. Both online clinics will be conducted by Teresa Dowdy, a La Grande High School counselor and QPR trainer. Grigg said there is a need for the suicide pre- vention clinics now because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that many people are experiending mental health issues now because of the increased isolation it is forcing people to endure. Grigg fears this may result in long-term difficulties for more people. To register for either of the clinics go to CHD’s website, www.chd.org. Wallowa County author puts out sci-fi series By Ronald Bond Wallowa County Chieftain ENTERPRISE — A Wallowa County author who returned to the region a few years ago has recently put out her latest series of books. Joyce Reynolds-Ward has self-published “The Martiniere Legacy” — “Inheritance,” “Ascendent” and “Realization” — all of which were released in October and November, with the third book of the trilogy coming out Nov. 15. The books, which are based in the near future in Northeast Oregon’s “Thunder County” — which bears resemblance to Wallowa County — “explore a future where debt leads to indentured servitude and ranchers and farmers compete on a game show, the AgInno- vator, to fund high-tech- nology agriculture proto- type projects,” she said. At the same time, the books contain a thread between two of the main characters who are dealing with the fallout of a broken relationship. “The protagonist, Ruby Barkley, is an ex-rodeo queen,” Reynolds-Ward Joyce Reynolds-Ward/Contributed Photo Joyce The Martiniere Legacy, a trilogy by Wallowa Reynolds- County author Joyce Reynolds-Ward, was Ward released in October and November. said. “(Her ex-husband, Gabe Ramirez) is on the run because of bad stuff he did. He was hiding out as a low-level saddle bronc rider. Ruby is big on her horses, she loves the ranch, loves the land. That was an element I wanted to bring into the whole story, a character like Ruby that loves the land and horses.” The exes, who are com- peting against each other in the AgInnovator con- test, realize their son, one of the show’s producers, is in trouble and in danger of indentured servitude, Reynolds-Ward said. Efforts to keep their son free lead to the couple revisiting what led to their divorce and to Ramirez being called on to help reform the Martiniere Group, a family-held inter- national tech conglomerate. Ramirez actually is a member of the Marti- niere family and is running because he previously tes- tified against human traf- ficking that was taking place within the group. The series is a return to a genre Reynolds-Ward has written in before — sci- ence fiction — but more specifically a new dive into a sci-fi offshoot called agripunk (agricultural technology) where she delves into mind-control technology. “I’ve been looking at poking around at agri- cultural technology for a while. The John Deere right-to-repair issue caught my eye,” she said. “I’ve had kind of a fascina- tion for biological robots — bio-bots. This got my attention more strongly as I started looking at how varied the field was.” The book also ties in one of Reynolds-Ward’s own passions. “I like mixing my horses and my sci-fi,” said Reynolds-Ward, who is a horse owner. The set was not intended to be a trilogy, but as she wrote, that is what came about. “It was originally going to be a standalone book,” she said. “The original idea was I was going to try to pitch it to New York.” In fact, she is working on a fourth book for the series, and has a Christmas story tied to the set — “A Belated Christmas Hon- eymoon” — which is out now. The author took about a year to write the set, and tried a new approach in releasing all three books in short order. She said that not only gets copies to readers more quickly, but also helps maintain conti- nuity in writing as opposed to working on books over a longer period and releasing them one at a time. The author added: “Somebody who has a mild interest in near-futuristic, wants to read about rela- tionships, wants to get that rural feel in an agriculture or high tech setting might enjoy (the series).” An Independent Insurance Agency Reed & Associates for excellent service LOCALLY! Nicole Cathey page, call 541-963-1223 or email director@lagrande- mainstreet.org. La Grande Main Street is a partnership effort between the Friends of La Grande Main Street, the business community and the city of La Grande Urban Renewal Agency. Raffle tickets are $50 for a shot at a Zumwalt buck Two online suicide prevention clinics set The Observer town La Grande businesses, with prizes for first, second and third place. Downtown businesses may enter both competi- tions — they will be judged separately. Look for details at www. lagrandemainstreet.org and the organization’s Facebook 10106 N. ‘C’ • Island City 541-975-1364 Toll Free 1-866-282-1925 Ellen Morris Bishop/Wallowa County Chieftain, File On an early summer morning in 2020, elk mosey up a slope on private lands on the Zumwalt Prairie in Wallowa County. The Josephy Center for Arts and Culture is hold- ing a raffle for three-day guided hunt on the Nature Con- servancy’s Zumwalt Prairie Preserve in the fall of 2021. Pendleton sewer tests show rise in COVID-19 By Antonio Sierra East Oregonian PENDLETON — COVID-19 has shown a resurgence in Umatilla County over the past month, and Pendleton’s sewers are reflecting it. The city of Pendleton has been testing its waste- water treatment plant for COVID-19 since April, and its last couple of tests have shown significant growth in November. The most recent report from a sample collected on Monday, Nov. 16, not only detected COVID-19 in the city sewer’s system, but measured it out at 630,000 genome copies per liter of sewage. According to Biobot Ana- lytics, the Massachusetts lab that processes the city’s samples, that’s the equiva- lent of an average of 25 new COVID-19 cases per day. That’s a sharp rise from mid-October, when Biobot’s projections showed Pend- leton was averaging in the single digits. Pendleton Wastewater Superintendent Mark Milne said he’s still skeptical of some of the projections Biobot makes based on its sewage samples. In addition to a case count projection, Biobot also estimated that Pendleton’s sewer system, which serves both the city and Mission on the Uma- tilla Indian Reservation, had higher COVID-19 con- centration levels than 88% of all quantifiable samples collected in the past three weeks. But Biobot’s pitch always has been that its analysis can cast a wider net than what testing data shows, espe- cially for a disease where carriers can be largely asymptomatic and access to tests is sometimes limited. According to a Johns Hopkins University study that includes Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, Oregon has the third lowest testing rate in the nation. Despite his skepticism over some of Biobot’s projec- tions, Milne said the testing data has been informative. “I don’t think it’s perfect right now, but you got to try something,” he said. In the early days of sewer testing, the city didn’t widely share the results it got back, reasoning that testing methods were too novel to get a reliable picture. But as sewer testing has become more prevalent and the pandemic has worn on, the city is sharing its find- ings with more sources. Over the past two months, Milne said he’s shared the results of each sewer test with Umatilla County Public Health as well as provided the department with all data from previous tests. Milne said Oregon State University and the Oregon Health Authority also have begun processing samples from Pendleton’s waste- water treatment plant, but the results they’ve pro- vided back to the city only include whether COVID-19 is present in the system rather than any kind of spe- cific data. Initially, the city planned to only test its sewer system through the end of the year, with a rise in Biobot testing prices causing the city to slow its testing pace from weekly to every other week. Milne said he still needs to talk with his superiors, but he’s considering a request to extend its deal with Biobot beyond December. Biobot charges $1,200 per test, but Milne said he would like to con- tinue receiving data from the tests, at least until the state’s sewer test results expand the amount of data it provides. Medicare, Auto, Home insurance and Annuities www.reed-insurance.net Kevin Reed
