2A — THE OBSERVER
Today in
History
Today is Saturday, Feb.
20, the 51st day of 2021.
There are 314 days left in
the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN
HISTORY:
On Feb. 20, 1905, the U.S.
Supreme Court, in Jacobson
v. Massachusetts, upheld,
7-2, compulsory vaccination
laws intended to protect the
public’s health.
ON THIS DATE:
In 1839, Congress prohib-
ited dueling in the District of
Columbia.
In 1942, Lt. Edward
“Butch” O’Hare became the
U.S. Navy’s first flying ace
of World War II by shooting
down five Japanese bomb-
ers while defending the air-
craft carrier USS Lexington
in the South Pacific.
In 1962, astronaut John
Glenn became the first
American to orbit the Earth
as he flew aboard Project
Mercury’s Friendship 7
spacecraft, which circled the
globe three times in a flight
lasting 4 hours, 55 minutes
and 23 seconds before
splashing down safely in
the Atlantic Ocean 800 miles
southeast of Bermuda.
In 1965, America’s Ranger
8 spacecraft crashed on the
moon, as planned, after
sending back thousands of
pictures of the lunar surface.
In 1987, a bomb left by
Unabomber Ted Kaczynski
exploded behind a comput-
er store in Salt Lake City,
seriously injuring store
owner Gary Wright. Soviet
authorities released Jewish
activist Josef Begun.
In 1998, Tara Lipinski of
the U.S. won the ladies’
figure skating gold medal at
the Nagano Olympics. Mi-
chelle Kwan won the silver.
In 1999, movie review-
er Gene Siskel died at a
hospital outside Chicago at
age 53.
In 2007, in a victory for
President George W. Bush,
a divided federal appeals
court ruled that Guantana-
mo Bay detainees could not
use the U.S. court system
to challenge their indefinite
imprisonment.
SaTuRday, FEBRuaRy 20, 2021
LOCAL/REGION
La Grande police officer honored
Officer Ryan Herbel
receives Above and
Beyond Award
By DICK MASON
The Observer
LA GRANDE — A
La Grande police officer
is being saluted for going
beyond the call of duty.
Officer Ryan Herbel
has received the city of
La Grande’s Above and
Beyond Award for service
to his community.
Herbel received the
award after using his own
time and resources to
drive a family to Portland
to see their daughter after
she was seri-
ously injured
in car crash in
the summer
of 2020 on
Highway 30
Herbel
near Pierce
Road.
Herbel was among the
La Grande police officers
who were the first to arrive
at the scene of a multi-ve-
hicle crash, which caused
injuries to a number of
people.
“Officer Herbel and
his partner, officer Scott
Norton, played a pivotal
role in assisting with a
patient that was in critical
condition before medics
arrived,” said La Grande
Police Chief Gary Bell.
An ambulance took
the patient, a juvenile, to
Grande Ronde Hospital,
La Grande. Police followed
so they could assist the
patient’s family, who were
from outside the area.
The patient had a bleak
prognosis, and later a heli-
copter ambulance flew her
to a hospital in Portland.
Herbel, after learning
doctors did not expect the
girl to live through the
night, knew the family
could not wait and asked
to have the rest of the night
off so he could drive them
to Portland.
The family did not have
a vehicle available because
theirs had been totaled in
the wreck, said La Grande
police Lt. Jason Hays, but
with Herbel’s help they
were able to get to Port-
land to be with their child.
The family’s loved one
not only made it through
the night but recovered and
was able to walk out of the
hospital months later.
La Grande police Sgt.
Dusty Perry nominated
Herbel for the Above and
Beyond Award.
“This level of devotion
and humanity is exactly
what we embody at the
La Grande Police Depart-
ment,” Perry wrote
in a letter with the
award Herbel received.
All alone in the snow
Be wary
of phone
scammers
The Observer
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
A snow-doused and abandoned Chevrolet firetruck sits off Hays Road by Highway 82 near Imbler on Friday, Feb. 19,
2021.
Snow scarcely stops at Anthony Lakes ski area
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
ANTHONY LAKES —
Peter Johnson is not the sort
who begrudges a blizzard.
But even as someone
who depends on snow,
Johnson concedes it’s pos-
sible for a little too much to
fall a little too rapidly.
As much as 4 feet of
powder in less than a week,
for instance.
The positive part of this
frozen onslaught is that it
accumulated on the ski runs
at Anthony Lakes Mountain
Resort, where Johnson is
the general manager.
In the midst of a rather
lackluster winter, the series
of potent Pacific storms that
plowed through Oregon
the past several days were
welcome.
But because skiers and
snowboarders have to drive
to the resort, and because
they like to park when they
get there, this wintry bar-
rage was causing a night-
mare for Anthony Lakes’
maintenance crew.
“Our crew’s been at it
since 6 a.m. Wednesday
(Feb. 17),” Johnson said on
Thursday morning. “And
they’re still going.”
La Grande City Man-
ager Robert Strope, who
presented Herbel with his
award, also praised the
police officer.
“(Officer Herbel)
went out of his way to do
the right thing,” Strope
said. “It was an act of
selflessness.”
Bell also had high
words of praise for Herbel,
who has been in the La
Grande Police Department
just over three years.
“Officer Herbel’s
actions in this situa-
tion exemplify our core
values,” Bell said, “and is
in keeping with the highest
traditions of the La Grande
Police Department.”
Chelsea Judy/Contributed Photo
Tumble Off, along with the other ski runs at Anthony
Lakes Mountain Resort, have plenty of fresh powder
snow after a week in which up to four feet of snow fell at
the ski area in the Elkhorn Mountains.
The weather offered
only a brief respite for the
beleaguered plow drivers as
they prepared the ski area
for its opening Thursday
morning, Feb. 18. Snow
tapered off late Wednesday,
but the latest storm arrived
Thursday and added
another half a foot or so to
the ski area’s base.
Anthony Lakes is open
Thursday through Sunday.
On Wednesday after-
noon the ski area, via its
website, asked visitors who
were planning to drive
up the mountain that day
and stay overnight in their
RVs to wait until Thursday
morning to give workers
time to push the snow out of
parking areas.
Johnson said he’s never
seen so much snow fall in
one week during his decade
as general manager.
The weather pattern
during that period illus-
trated the sometimes dra-
matic differences between
what happens in the moun-
tains and in the valleys.
Although several inches
of snow also fell in Baker
City on Monday, Feb.
15, the snow there all but
stopped by late that day.
But snow continued to
fall, heavily at times, at
Anthony Lakes on Tuesday
and Wednesday. And on the
road and parking lots, of
course.
The same pattern
pummeled other moun-
tain areas, including the
northern Blues around
Tollgate, with lots of
snow over the same period.
The official snow-mea-
suring station nearest
Anthony Lakes is an auto-
mated device in a meadow
about half a mile east of
the ski area itself. That sta-
tion, which reports snow
depth at midnight each day,
recorded 43 inches of snow
at the start of Thursday,
Feb. 11.
During the next seven
days, concluding at the
start of Feb. 18, the snow
depth increased to 79
inches — a total of 36
inches.
Another station, in
the northern Blues near
Tollgate, recorded sim-
ilar totals for the week.
There the snow depth rose
from 47 inches early on
Feb. 11 to 90 inches the
morning of Feb. 17 — 43
total inches in six days.
At Schneider Meadows,
in the southern Wal-
lowa Mountains north of
Halfway, the snow depth
increased from 68 to 88
inches. Two sites at the
southwest corner of the
Wallowas both measured
about 30 inches of new
snow over the past week.
LA GRANDE —
A La Grande resident
warned other locals to
be wary of phone scam-
mers pretending to be
with the Social Security
Administration.
Brenda Hamann said
she started getting calls
a couple of weeks ago
claiming someone was
using her Social Secu-
rity number, but when she
stayed on the line to find
out more, she would remain
on hold.
“Sometimes they called
twice a day,” she said, and
the pattern repeated each
time.
Hamann said she never
gave out any personal infor-
mation and figured if there
was a real problem with her
Social Security number,
the administration would
not call and put her on hold
but instead send an official
letter.
She said she stopped
answering calls that looked
suspicious, but the scam-
mers were tricky. She
answered some calls from
Portland-area numbers
because she has friends
there. And the most recent
call appeared local.
“It was a La Grande
number, so I answered it,”
she said.
This time there was
another Social Security
scammer on the other end,
this time telling her to
call the La Grande Police
Department and talk with
“Officer Davis.”
She said she indeed
called La Grande police and
found there was no officer
Davis, but the officer she
spoke with assured her
this was a scam, even if
it seemed to come from a
local number.
Hamann said she wanted
other locals to be aware of
these kinds of calls and not
fall for the deception. For
more information about
fraudulent Social Security
calls, visit www.ssa.gov/
antifraudfacts or www.ssa.
gov/scam. For more infor-
mation about phone scams
in general and what you
can do, visit www.usa.gov/
stop-scams-frauds.
New breast cancer support group provides resources, information
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — A
new local breast cancer
support group had its first
meeting Tuesday, Feb. 16,
with a goal of providing
resources, information and
backing for those in Wal-
lowa County and the sur-
rounding area who have
dealt with breast cancer or
had a mastectomy.
The group was put into
place after two local health
care providers — Wallowa
Memorial Hospital Occu-
pational Therapist Angela
Mart, and Dawn Has-
kett, CNA2 and referral
coordinator for Wallowa
Memorial Medical Clinic
and Dr. Kenneth Rose —
responded to a need.
“It became pretty clear
pretty quickly (with) the
number of folks we see,
there were questions being
asked that could have been
directed to other specialties
and specialists,” Haskett
said. “I felt like there was
a need for some support
for this population of folks,
whether it be breast cancer,
mastectomy patients (or)
male breast-issue patients.”
Haskett approached
Rose about the idea,
then spoke to Mart, who
said similar information
was being sought by her
patients.
“In working with
women, I feel like I saw
a need, women asking
questions and asking (for)
information, and a sup-
port group bringing them
all together seemed like
an appropriate idea,” said
Mart, who in her role as an
occupational therapist pro-
vides education for women
following a mastectomy
and exercises to strengthen
them following the surgery.
“We took this to the hos-
pital and asked the clin-
ical and hospital leadership
to move forward, and that
is the root for the support
group,” Haskett said.
The meetings, which
will take place every third
Tuesday of the month at
Wallowa Memorial Hos-
pital, will include a guest
speaker, but the hope is that
the roughly 90-minute ses-
sions are organic in nature.
“We want to provide
resources, mostly, right
off the top,” Haskett said.
“These ladies need a lot of
resources. Transportation,
medication management,
the ability to reach out to
occupational therapy, the
ability to coordinate care
in other states and coun-
ties. … The rest of the
meeting should be spent
independently for those
people to share, talk about
milestones, challenges, how
to resolve those, sharing
resources, all those things.”
“We are the initial facil-
itator and we want them to
run with it,” Mart added.
Resources and infor-
mation about prosthetics,
counseling, compression
garments, and even wigs
and other personal aesthetic
items also are included.
Haskett said she has
sent information to about a
dozen women for the start
of the group. What those
people share, though, will
be more impactful than the
number of people who take
part — and will help fur-
ther shape what the group
becomes.
“I think we’re going to
see various different stories
that are going to occur as
these ladies and some men
at some point become part
of the group,” she said. “I
think their stories are going
to vary and we are going to
identify different things we
don’t know about.”
Mart added they don’t
want to limit the group
members to just the
extreme northeast corner of
the state.
“We want to make this
group available to women
inside and outside of Wal-
lowa County,” she said.
She also said work is
being done by her, Haskett
and WMH Communica-
tions Director Brooke Pace
on an informative booklet
“that will be available to
men and women going
through the breast cancer
experience. It’ll be kind
of a guide and give them
information about the pro-
cess, questions they might
ask a doctor, exercises,
(and) it’ll have a resource
section about compression
garments, prosthetics (and)
wigs.”
The group meets at
6 p.m. every third Tuesday.
For more information, or
to register for a meeting,
contact Haskett at 541-
426-7919. Due to social
distancing guidelines,
the meetings will be lim-
ited to about eight people
in-person. Those who
register beyond that
number will be added to
the meeting virtually.