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