Business AgLife
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Thursday, March 18, 2021
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Marching into Spring
Wallowa
County
wellness
clinic moves
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Union County Chamber of Commerce Director Suzannah Moore-Hemann poses for a portrait in her office Tuesday, March 16, 2021. She
said the latest local shopping promotion, March into Spring, had 40 participants the first week and it appears to be gaining in size.
Union County shopping event gains momentum
By DICK MASON
The Observer
LA GRANDE — March into
Spring appears to be gaining
momentum.
The month-long event, which
the Union County Chamber of
Commerce and La Grande Main
Street Downtown are putting on
to promote local businesses, had
40 participants the first week
and it looks like the number will
be jumping this week. Suzannah
Moore-Hemann, executive
director of the chamber, said on
Tuesday, March 16, the number
of people participating seems to
be up from the week before.
“More people appear to be
coming in to get punch cards,”
Moore-Hemann said.
Participants pick up punch
cards in La Grande at the
Chamber of Commerce, 207
Depot St., or La Grande Main
Street, 102 Depot St. Next, they
go to any of the 38 participating
businesses in La Grande, Island
City, Cove, Elgin and Union and
make purchases. Every time they
make a purchase at a store, their
card will be punched one time
for each dollar they spend.
Those turning in cards at
participating locations are eli-
gible to win weekly drawings
each Wednesday of the month.
Those who enter weekly draw-
ings are eligible for baskets of
prizes worth between $350-$400
in total. All cards turned in by
4 p.m. March 31 will be entered
in the grand prize drawing for a
gift basket of items worth a total
of $500. The merchants partici-
pating in March into Spring are
donating the prizes.
“They have been incredibly
generous,” Moore-Hemann said.
The grand prize winner will
be announced on social media
April 1.
Entrants do not have to fill
up their cards with punches
to win. Cards with any
amount of punches can be
submitted for drawings.
“We wanted to make this con-
test accessible and for there to
be a lot of participation,” Moore-
Hemann said.
Another objective, she said,
was to encourage people to visit
stores they have not shopped at
before.
Lists of the the stores partici-
pating in March into Spring are
available at the Union County
Chamber of Commerce and La
Grande Main Street Downtown.
For more information, contact
the chamber at 541-963-8588 or
Info@VisitUnionCounty.org, or
La Grande Main Street at 541-
963-1223 or director@lagrande-
mainstreet.org.
Duck, duck, goose:
World-renowned waterfowl breeder retires
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
PHILOMATH — When Dave
Holderread, one of the world’s
leading waterfowl breeders,
announced in 2019 he would retire in
2020, it shook the poultry and water-
fowl communities.
“I’m still trying to absorb the
news of his retirement,” said Jean-
nette Beranger, senior program man-
ager for the Livestock Conservancy.
There are few waterfowl breeders
of his caliber and knowledge in the
world, Beranger said.
“His retirement is huge. I mean,
he’s the man. In hockey, it’s Wayne
Gretzky. In basketball, it’s Michael
Jordan. And in waterfowl, it’s Dave
Holderread,” said Colin Davis, owner
of Apricot Valley Waterfowl Preser-
vation, a farm in Ontario, Canada.
Holderread, 68, has bred and
raised waterfowl for six decades in a
lifelong game of duck, duck, goose.
In Philomath, between Mary’s Peak
to the west and snow-mantled Mount
Jefferson to the east, Holderread and
his wife, Millie, raised more than 20
heritage goose varieties and 40 her-
itage duck varieties they shipped
to hatcheries and homesteads
nationwide.
During his career, Holderread
developed a new duck breed and
improved existing breeds. He taught
people around the world about the
benefits of raising waterfowl for pest
and weed control, eggs, meat, down,
as protection against predators and
for companionship.
Holderread said as his body has
slowed down, it’s gotten harder to
catch and handle birds, and the work-
load is no longer manageable. It’s
time to move on.
“It’s hard giving them up,” Hold-
erread said.
His glance strayed leftward,
where his remaining geese grazed
ENTERPRISE — The Wallowa
County wellness center offering
acupuncture and other practices is
operating at a new location.
Jamie Kimball, a doctor of acu-
puncture and Oriental medicine,
recently moved her 4-year-old prac-
tice from her original location on
East Main Street to 616 W. North
St. across from Happy Gardens Chi-
nese Restaurant.
“We’re a wellness center,” Kim-
ball said. “We provide integrated
health care along with traditional
medicine to give people an option
outside of what you would consider
traditional or Western medicine.
There are a lot of terms involved to
what we do — integrative, I think, is
the most ‘PC’ word these days.”
She also recently welcomed
Amy Zahm, another DAOM, to
her practice, which consists of five
practitioners and two office staff.
The clinic offers acupuncture, chi-
ropractic, naturopathic, physical
therapy and massage services, as
well as a holistic approach that often
uses body work, supplements, herbs
and nutritional guidance.
Zahm, Kimball said, had been
practicing at another wellness center
in Wallowa County since the early
2000s and joined Eagle Cap in early
February. Kimball said she and
Zahm “treat all sorts of conditions,”
including pain and anxiety.
Contrary to the concerns the
uninitiated may have about acu-
puncture, she said it’s actually quite
painless and relaxing.
“How I determine where I put
in the points is based on what the
person is telling me, what I feel in
their pulse — pulse diagnosis is a
big part of acupuncture — and then
what I feel in their body,” Kimball
said. “The points get placed in areas
of either muscle tension or different
points depending on their action and
what they do. The points balance out
State to settle lawsuit
halting relief funds
for Black Oregonians
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
Millie and Dave Holderread of Philomath pose for a recent photo. Dave Hold-
erread recently retired as one of the world’s leading waterfowl breeders.
on pasture and ducks rooted under
leaves.
“It’s been an adventure.”
A love for animals
Holderread was born in Twin
Falls, Idaho. His dad was a high
school agriculture teacher, and Hold-
erread’s earliest memories are of tag-
ging along to see students’ FFA proj-
ects. Animals captivated him.
“I was fascinated by anything that
moved,” he said.
He said he remembers, from an
early age, seeing ducks and geese as
the animals that could do it all: walk,
swim, fly. Whenever Holderread dis-
appeared at parks, his parents looked
for the nearest body of water, where
they’d find him at the shore watching
ducks and geese splashing.
Jungle island
When Holderread was 3, his par-
ents whisked him away to Puerto
Rico, where his dad got a job man-
aging the first modern dairy opera-
tion on the island.
“What’s better for a kid that loves
animals?” he said.
Holderread’s mom was a nurse,
and within three years, she helped
deliver about 100 babies. Holderread
recalled she would often ride off on
a horse into the jungle to help with
deliveries.
“She was short and sweet, but
nobody messed with her,” Holder-
read said.
He stroked his beard and smiled.
With his parents working, Hold-
erread said he had “free run” of
mountains, meadows and jungles he
explored with his collie puppy.
Two yellow ducklings
When Holderread was 7, his
family moved back to Idaho.
The transition was bumpy; he
got kicked out of second grade
for talking back to his teacher in
Spanish.
See, Retire/Page 3B
See, Clinic/Page 2B
JOHN DAY — The
state has agreed to settle a
Grant County-based law-
suit halting coronavirus
relief money for Black
Oregonians.
Should the court
approve, the fund could
resume paying out aid to
Black-owned businesses
and their families, and as
part of the settlement, the
state would pay an unde-
termined sum to non-Black
applicants who had applied
for help from the fund last
year, according to a pro-
posed settlement agree-
ment filed Friday, March
12, in U.S. District Court in
Pendleton.
Great Northern
Resources, a John Day log-
ging company that lists Tad
Houpt and Grant County
Commissioner Sam Palmer
as agents, filed a lawsuit
alleging race-based dis-
crimination after being
denied funding from the
coronavirus relief fund set
up to help Black-owned
businesses.
Under the terms of the
settlement agreement,
Great Northern would
receive $45,000, plus up
to $186,000 in fees for its
attorneys.
The settlement proposal
noted that $25,000 of the
logging company’s payout
would be for COVID-19-re-
lated expenses listed on its
grant application, while the
additional $20,000 would
be its service award as the
lead plaintiff of the class-ac-
tion lawsuit.
Applications that were
submitted on time by busi-
ness owners who are not
Black will be automati-
cally considered for funding
through the grant program
unless they opt out of the
class action settlement,
according to the settlement.
Houpt declined to com-
ment Friday, and Palmer did
not immediately respond
to the Eagle as of Friday.
Palmer told the Eagle in
December that he was not
involved in the lawsuit.
In a Friday press release,
the Oregon Cares Fund
said, amid mounting legal
challenges, the fund offered
to deposit with the court
the remaining $8.8 million
it had not distributed, after
distributing $49.5 million to
nearly 15,600 Black people,
their families and their
businesses.
If the court approves the
settlement, $5.3 million of
the funds deposited with the
court will be immediately
released, and can be dis-
persed to eligible applicants
who have been waiting for
grants. The remaining $3.5
million will continue to be
held.
Great Northern —
the original plaintiffs in
the case — joined with
Salem electrical contractor
See, Settle/Page 2B