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Catt lemen
question
federal
river bill
All adults
OK for
vaccines
by July 1
Act could make hurdles
for managing land
Oregonians 65-69 now
can seek COVID-19 shots
By GEORGE PLAVEN
By GARY A. WARNER
Capital Press
Oregon Capital Bureau
PENDLETON — Eastern
Oregon ranchers said they are
wary of federal legislation
that would add nearly 4,700
miles of wild and scenic rivers
statewide, despite assurances
the proposal will not affect
existing private property or
water rights.
U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and
Jeff Merkley, both Demo-
crats from Oregon, introduced
the River Democracy Act on
Feb. 3, which calls for dra-
matically expanding wild and
scenic river designations in all
corners of the state to protect
water quality, enhance outdoor
recreation and mitigate wild-
fi re risks.
Oregon has 2,173 miles of
wild and scenic rivers. The
River Democracy Act would
roughly triple that number.
The bill also expands wild
and scenic river corridors from
a quarter-mile to a half-mile
on both sides of the river. For
4,700 river miles, that amounts
to slightly more than 3 mil-
lion acres of protected land
— an area about the size of
Connecticut.
“It’s a huge, vast amount of
land,” said Todd Nash, a Wal-
lowa County commissioner
and rancher. “That alone is of
huge concern.”
Congress created the
National Wild and Scenic
Rivers System in 1968 to
shield certain waterways from
development. In 2019, Wyden
invited members of the public
to nominate new streams and
rivers for protection, which led
to the River Democracy Act.
“Oregonians made it loud
and clear: they cherish Ore-
gon’s rivers and want them
protected for generations
to come,” Wyden said in a
statement. “More protected
rivers and clear management
objectives mean more jobs,
improved wildfi re resiliency
and a guarantee for the liva-
bility of Oregon.”
However, Tom Sharp, pres-
ident of the Oregon Cattle-
men’s Association, said the bill
caught him off guard.
Sharp, who ranches near
Burns in Southeast Oregon,
said many producers in the
Rudd and Freeman are
undaunted, though, and said
they hope to fi nd copies of year-
books for those years as part of
the Graduation Class Picture
Project they are launching with
major help from 1969 LHS grad-
uate Nan Fordice. The trio aim to
create a group of volunteers who
will restore the frayed senior
class photo frames and create
collections for the missing grad-
uating classes.
Freeman is excited about the
prospect of heightening the visi-
bility of past graduating classes.
“We want to share LHS’s his-
tory,” the assistant principal said.
The restoration work would
include having the picture
frames’ plastic glass replaced
with a type that will help protect
them from ultraviolet light to
prevent the photos in the frames
from fading.
SALEM — Every adult in
Oregon will be offered a vacci-
nation against COVID-19 by July
1, with the two-shot vaccines
reaching all adults who want it
by August, Gov. Kate Brown said
Friday, Feb. 26.
“Come summer, any Orego-
nian who wants the vaccine can
receive it,” Brown announced at a
virtual press conference.
It was a surprisingly optimistic
forecast after recent estimates that
the vaccination of the entire state
would stretch into autumn or even
early 2022.
Oregon has had one of the
lowest COVID-19 infection rates
in the nation, with 154,878 infec-
tions and 2,206 deaths through
Friday. Nationwide, there have
been just under 28.5 million
infections and 510,089 deaths,
according to the Johns Hopkins
Coronavirus Resource Center.
The shorter timeline
announced Friday is based on
reports from the Biden Adminis-
tration that Pfi zer and Moderna,
the maker of the two currently
available vaccines, will hit their
production targets, which would
increase the number of doses
coming to states.
Johnson & Johnson is devel-
oping a third vaccine that requires
just one inoculation, though initial
reports show its effectiveness is
somewhat less than the Pfi zer and
Moderna doses.
Logistical bottlenecks are
being cleared, and Biden is
bringing in more help for states.
In Oregon, Phase 1 vaccine eli-
gibility, which covers about 1.36
million people, reached its last eli-
gibility milestone Monday, March
1, allowing those age 65-69 to
make appointments.
The state then plans to used
most of March to catch up with
some of the Phase 1 backlog.
Phase 2 eligibility begins
March 29, when residents 45-64
See, Photos/Page 5A
See, Vaccines/Page 5A
See, Cattlemen/Page 5A
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
La Grande High School Assistant Principal Eric Freeman inspects a frame of the school’s images of the
graduating class of 1924 in the high school’s library Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021. It is the oldest graduation
presentation in the school’s collection. Freeman and Kathy Rudd, a La Grande High School graduate,
are working to restore missing photos of some of the school’s graduating classes.
RESTORING THE PAST
AT LA GRANDE HIGH
Project aims to fill gaps of missing graduate photos
By DICK MASON
LHS GRADUATION
CLASS PICTURE
PROJECT
The Observer
L
A GRANDE — La
Grande High School alum
Kathy Rudd recently
made a startling discovery —
her school’s history is vanishing.
Rudd, with the help of Eric
Freeman, the school’s assistant
principal, was examining framed
collections of LHS graduating
class photos from 1924 to 2001.
All had been taken down from
the walls near the school’s main
entrance so their condition could
be examined. Rudd, a 1969 La
Grande High graduate, found 33
picture frames present and 23
missing.
The good news is La Grande
High’s extensive yearbook col-
lection will help fi ll a big part of
the graduate photo void.
The school has yearbooks
for 18 of the years the senior
photo collections are missing.
Rudd and Freeman plan to
• La Grande High School has
framed collections of graduating
class photos spanning 1924 to
2001.
• Missing from the series are 23
of the graduating classes.
• Yearbook photos can fi ll in
18 years’ worth of the missing
photos.
• Yearbooks are needed for 1940,
1949, 1955, 1958 and 1971.
make copies of the photos of the
seniors in those 18 annuals and
put them in frames for their class
so they can be on display at the
school.
The disheartening news is La
Grande High has no yearbooks
for fi ve of the missing frames
— for 1940, 1949, 1955, 1958
and 1971 — meaning it may be
impossible to make photo frames
for those classes.
What to do when the
lett ers fall off the page?
Concussion leaves Joseph children’s writer with disorder
By ELLEN MORRIS BISHOP
For the Wallowa County Chieftain
JOSEPH — In 2018, Joseph chil-
dren’s writer Catherine Matthias suf-
fered a fall. She hit her head, hard, and
had a brain concussion.
“After that,” she said, “I couldn’t
stand, and I couldn’t handle glare or
bright lights.”
But Matthias, whose grandson suf-
fers from Irlen Syndrome, recognized
these effects as symptoms of the same
little-known brain disorder.
“Irlen Syndrome is not a vision
problem, it’s a brain processing
problem,” Matthias said. “It’s a per-
ceptual disorder caused by the brain’s
inability to process specifi c wavelengths
of light.”
“People who have this syndrome get
INDEX
Classified ...... 2B
Comics .......... 5B
Crossword .... 2B
Dear Abby .... 6B
headaches. They get nauseous or dizzy,”
she said. “They may look at a page and
what looks like an orderly column of
numbers or letters to you may appear
to them as random fi gures spread all
across the page.”
Irlen Syndrome sufferers often have
trouble reading conventional text —
black type on white paper. Instead of
nice, orderly text, they see swirls of sen-
tences or letters that move, appear in
columns, vibrate or literally fall off the
page.
Matthias now is a certifi ed Irlen Syn-
drome screener. But her personal expe-
rience made her acutely aware of the
devastating effects this rarely recog-
nized condition, found in an estimated
See, Syndrome/Page 5A
WEATHER
Home ............ 1B
Horoscope .... 3B
Lottery........... 2A
Obituaries ..... 3A
THURSDAY
Opinion ......... 4A
State .............. 6A
Sudoku ......... 5B
Weather ........ 6B
Ellen Morris Bishop/For the Wallowa County Chieftain
Catherine Matthias of Joseph is a children’s writer who has
Irlen Syndrome and is an Irlen screener. Her book about the
condition, “Word Gobblers,” is due out in mid-March 2021.
Full forecast on the back of B section
Tonight
Wednesday
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47/28
Partly cloudy
Periods of sun
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CONTACT US
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Issue 23
2 sections, 14 pages
La Grande, Oregon
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Online at lagrandeobserver.com