FROM PAGE 0NE
SATURDAY, MAY 29, 2021
IMPACT
Continued from Page 1A
in terms of the content they
have been taught, but it
could take a year or more to
accomplish this.
“I wish I had a crystal
ball,” said McKinney, who
will retire at the end of
June.
InterMountain Educa-
tion School District Super-
intendent Mark Mulvihill,
like McKinney, said the
pandemic has shown many
students fare much better
with in-person instruction
as opposed to online edu-
cation. Mulvihill noted
throughout the school dis-
tricts served by the IMESD,
educators are fi nding that
for most students in-person
instruction is more eff ective.
Mulvihill said attendance
improves and students begin
earning better grades.
One reason is that some
students are at distinct dis-
advantages when it comes
to learning online. Mulvi-
hill noted some students
do not have access to high-
speed internet because
of where they live. Also,
many children are from
single-parent families or
those in which both par-
ents work full time and the
students may not get the
help they need while doing
online classwork at home.
“It is no surprise that
kids need to be in school to
get a good education,” said
Mulvihill, whose ESD dis-
trict serves Union Coun-
ty’s six school districts
plus many more in Uma-
tilla, Morrow and Baker
counties.
Union School District
Superintendent Carter
Wells believes his stu-
dents are doing well since
they have been receiving
in-person instruction each
day for most of the 2020-21
school year.
Unfortunately a number
of Union students who were
in high school when the
pandemic hit in March 2020
are still feeling the impact
of the loss of in-person
instructional time.
Wells said some stu-
dents did not adjust well
to online only instruction,
which reduced the number
of credits they earned last
spring. The superintendent
noted that high school stu-
dents will have to make up
for the loss of these credits
in order to graduate on
time.
“It will be diffi cult,” he
said.
North Powder School
District Superintendent
Lance Dixon believes his
students are emerging from
the pandemic in solid shape
academically.
“I do not think it has had
a lot of impact,” said Dixon,
whose district has off ered
in-person instruction for
much of the 2020-21 school
year.
He noted that the number
of students failing classes
is less than 2%, which is
about what the school dis-
trict’s average has been.
Dixon noted that one
thing that has helped stu-
dents this spring is the
return of high school ath-
letic competition in all
sports, one overseen by the
Oregon School Activities
Association. The superin-
tendent said this has given
high schoolers an outlet for
pent-up energy and frustra-
tion and helped many stu-
dents maintain their focus
on their classes.
“If they had not brought
back sports when they did,
BEEF
Continued from Page 1A
“Food insecurity is a
real thing,” Kavanaugh
said. “We came up with a
strategy to help our local
communities purchase meat
in bulk.”
The program is called the
Farm to Table Loan.
Loan amounts are avail-
able from $500 to $4,000.
When someone inquires
about the loan, Kavanaugh
said they meet with an Old
West staff to discuss the
loan amount and pay-back
details.
Storing meat can be a
challenge for some fami-
lies, too, so a freezer can
be fi nanced into the loan as
well.
The 12-month loans are
interest-free.
Kavanaugh said Old
West introduced the pro-
gram several months ago,
and will relaunch it around
June 1.
To initially promote the
program, Old West held a
raffl e for “Get a Freezer,
Give a Freezer Full of Beef.”
When Union County
rancher Charlie Rohlf found
out about the loan program,
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Rancher Riley Martin feeds his cattle from the back of a tractor at the
family’s North Powder farm Monday, April 5, 2021. Old West Federal
Credit Union is trying to make it easier for residents to buy locally
raised beef.
he donated half a beef to
fi ll the second freezer. Billy
Bob’s Butcher Shop in Elgin
processed the meat at a
reduced cost.
Union County Sheriff
Cody Bowen drew the win-
ning ticket for Brett Baxter,
the principal of La Grande
High School.
Baxter chose the Union
Food Bank to receive the
freezer full of beef, and Old
West posted a video of the
delivery on Facebook.
Kavanaugh said the
loan program is also sup-
ported with a grant from
the Northwest Credit Union
Foundation.
How it works
Once a loan is approved,
the borrower specifi es where
he or she wants to buy meat
(beef, lamb, chicken, pork,
etc.).
Kavanaugh said Old West
cuts a check to the butcher.
The loan recipient hands
over the check and receives
a supply of fresh meat.
When the program was
about to launch, Kavanaugh
called meat processors
around Northeast Oregon.
THE OBSERVER — 5A
there would have been a
lot more problems,” he
said. “We may have had
more students take jobs.
They would have still been
enrolled but not engaged.”
La Grande High School
Principal Brett Baxter said
the majority of his school’s
students have adjusted well
to the challenges they have
faced.
“Our students are strong
and resilient,” he said.
Baxter agrees that the
return of sports this spring
has given students a boost.
This occurred after there
were fall sports practices.
“There had been a long
drought of outside activi-
ties. It was very timely,” he
said.
Cove School District
Superintendent Earl Pettit
said he has not detected
drop off in academic per-
formance. He believes that
any loss caused by the move
to online learning in the
spring of 2020 has been
erased.
Pettit, whose smaller
school district has been
able to off er in-person edu-
cation this year, said, “We
have caught up over the past
school year.”
At Billy Bob’s Butcher
Shop, co-owner Kaleen
Smith was quick to praise
the idea.
“He said, ‘Is there a
need?’ I said, ‘You’re
already behind the ball,’”
Smith said.
She said the shop has
off ered its own type of loan
program to help people pur-
chase meat. And, she said,
meat prices are continuing
to rise.
“Not everybody had the
money up front,” she said.
She’s telling customers
about the Old West program,
and helping connect con-
sumers with producers, too.
“I’d advise people to look
into it,” she said of the bank
loan.
Rohlf said it costs about
$1,200 for half a beef,
which includes cutting and
wrapping.
When meat supply dwin-
dled in the grocery stores,
he had more locals seeking
out meat from his ranch.
The Old West program,
he said, will help people buy
good-quality meat and sup-
port the local economy.
“They’re helping pro-
ducers, the local butcher
shops, and the local com-
munity,” Rohlf said.
FLYOVER
Continued from Page 1A
who lives in Eatonville,
Washington, and works out
of McChord Air Force Base
near Tacoma, Washington.
Bieker also did fl yovers
May 26 over Pendleton and
Nyssa to greet his brothers,
Dave and John, during the
four-hour training fl ight.
Dave Bieker is an ele-
mentary school teacher
in Nyssa. He took his stu-
dents outside to observe the
fl yover.
After his fl ight and
landing at McChord Air
Force Base, Jim Bieker
was greeted by his wife,
Kate, and their daugh-
ters, Hannah and Ella, who
sprayed him with water
while someone from the Air
Force came up from behind
and dropped several gallons
of ice water on him. Bieker
said he was not surprised by
the dousing.
“It is a tradition for pilots
after their last fl ights,” he
said.
Bieker said he will miss
serving in the Air Force.
“What I really liked
were the many wonderful
people I got to meet,” the
pilot said.
Bieker, who graduated
from Cove High School in
1993, has fond memories of
growing up in Cove where
he said some of the favorite
things he did was work in
cherry orchards and ride
motorcycles with friends.
Bieker’s Air Force expe-
rience includes eight years
on active duty and 14 years
as a reservist.
While in the reserves,
Bieker has had to make
training fl ights, like the one
he made on May 26, every
FIRES
Continued from Page 1A
2018 federal farm bill he
included authorization to
double spending on forest
collaboratives — which
he described as the “anti-
dote to the timber wars.”
But the next step —
indeed, the vital step —
is to actually include that
money in the Forest Ser-
vice’s budget.
During the May 26
hearing before the sub-
committee, Merkley urged
Christiansen to include
that money in the agen-
cy’s budget request for the
fi scal year that starts Oct.
1, 2021.
“This is an amazing
opportunity,” Merkley
said.
Backlog of projects
Two collaboratives
are underway in the
Blue Mountains, one in
the southern part of the
range, the other in the
northern section, on the
Wallowa-Whitman and
Umatilla national forests.
Last year, the U.S.
Department of Agricul-
ture allocated $2.7 for
the latter collaborative
during the current fi scal
year, which started Oct.
1, 2020.
Forest Service offi -
cials have said that the
$2.7 million will help
the two national for-
ests start chipping away
at a backlog of projects
that are ready as soon as
money is available.
Although the details of
the work vary depending
on the area of the Blue
Mountains involved, the
general concept is to cut
some of the trees, pri-
marily smaller-diameter
ones, that are growing in
higher densities than was
historically the case in
the northern Blues, Steve
Hawkins, deputy fi re
staff offi cer for the Wal-
lowa-Whitman, said in a
2020 interview.
Those smaller trees,
most notably grand
and white fi rs, have
encroached over the past
century or so in places
that used to be dominated
by ponderosa pines and
tamaracks, in part due
to the exclusion of fi re,
which historically killed
most of the fi rs when they
were relatively small.
Ponderosa pines and
tamaracks, which gen-
erally grow in widely
spaced stands rather than
in thickets, are much
more resistant to wild-
fi res than the grand
and white fi rs that have
become much more prev-
alent over the past several
decades.
Although Merkley
promotes the additional
$40 million for collabo-
rative projects, his ulti-
mate goal is even more
ambitious.
He said he believes the
federal government needs
to spend at least $1 bil-
lion more each year on
forest restoration work
nationwide.
‘We have to do more’
Contributed Photo
Lt. Col. Jim Bieker shows his daughters, Hannah, left, and Ella, the inside of the cockpit of a C-17 Globe-
master III aircraft May 26, 2021, at McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma, Washington. They are shown in
the aircraft after Jim Bieker, a Cove native, completed his fi nal Air Force fl ight, which included a La Grande
fl yover.
couple months. The C-17
Globemaster III he co-pi-
loted is a military transport
plane for troops and cargo.
Bieker said when fl ying the
plane it takes him about 40
minutes to go from Tacoma
to Nyssa and back.
Bieker has been a pilot
for Delta Airlines for 11
years, fl ying primarily
domestic fl ights. He plans
to continue fl ying for Delta
for years to come. He does
not hesitate when asked
what it is about fl ying that
captures his imagination.
“It is fun to see the world
from above,” he said.
Bieker credits his Air
Force training with putting
him in a position to land
his job with Delta. He said
he never tires of fl ying, and
it is unlikely he ever will
because “I have a job which
never feels like work.”
In Oregon alone,
Merkley said, forest
improvement work,
including thinning
and logging, that has
already gone through
the environmental
review process could
treat 2 million acres
at an estimated cost of
$388 million, were the
money available.
One way to increase
the chances of bol-
stering budgets, Merkley
said, is by ensuring that
the federal government
does not return to the
practice known as “fi re
borrowing.”
That term refers to
the federal government
transferring money from
Forest Service and other
agency budgets to cover
fi refi ghting costs, leaving
less money for projects
designed to reduce the
size of wildfi res and thus
the cost to fi ght them.
Fire borrowing
was necessary in sev-
eral years over the past
decade as millions of
acres burned annually
across the West.
Merkley said that
although Congress ended
fi re borrowing in 2018,
the changes made then
will expire at the end of
the current fi scal year —
Sept. 30, 2021 — unless
it’s reauthorized.
“We cannot go back to
the fi re borrowing of the
past,” Merkley said.
On May 28, Merkley
lauded Biden’s budget
request for 2022 that
includes $2.45 billion to
ensure fi re borrowing
doesn’t resume.
The president’s budget
request also includes the
$80 million for collabo-
rative forest projects that
Merkley promotes.
During the May
27 press conference,
Merkley recalled driving
the length of Western
Oregon in September
2020 following the fi res
that burned more than 1
million acres, destroyed
towns such as Detroit,
east of Salem, and killed
11 people.
“It was unforgettable
to me,” Merkley said of
the experience of driving
for hours and never
escaping the cloying
smoke that persisted in
much of Oregon for more
than a week. “I’ve never
seen anything like this.”
Merkley also talked
about the 2020 fi res
during Wednesday’s
appropriations hearing
before his committee.
“Whether they have
lost a loved one, busi-
ness or home to a wild-
fi re, had to pack their
most valuable belongings
and anxiously awaited go
orders, or were trapped
inside by a thick blanket
of hazardous smoke,
nearly every family
in the West has been
impacted by wildfi res in
one way or another,” he
said. “It’s impossible to
thrive if your commu-
nity is being ravaged by
these blazes. That’s why
any plan to boost Ameri-
ca’s infrastructure, create
jobs and protect lives
and our economy must
include responsible forest
management strategies
that can help us stay
ahead of wildfi re risks.”
Merkley said the
threat of severe fi re sea-
sons is likely to increase
due to climate change.
“Fire seasons are get-
ting longer, forests are get-
ting drier,” he said. “We
have to do more on the
forest management end.”
EASTERN OREGON
2021
PHOTO CONTEST
Official Rules:
Photo Contest open now and closes at
11:59 pm Sunday, June 20, 2021.
Staff will choose the top 10. The public can
vote online for People’s Choice from 12:01
am Monday, June 21 through 11:59 pm
Thursday, June 30.
Digital or scanned photos only, uploaded
to the online platform. No physical copies.
Only photographers from Oregon may
participate.
The contest subject matter is wide open but
we’re looking for images that capture life
in Eastern Oregon.
Submit all photos
online at:
Entrants may crop, tone, adjust saturation
and make minor enhancements, but may
not add or remove objects within the
frame, or doctor images such that the final
product doesn’t represent what’s actually
before the camera.
The winners will appear in the July 8th
edition of Go Magazine; the top 25 will
appear online.
Gift cards to a restaurant of your choice
will be awarded for first, second and third
place.
lagrandeobserver.com/photocontest