Business
AgLife
1B
Thursday, June 3, 2021
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Element owner Leah Johnson shows one of her encaustic paint-
ings that shows a view of the Wallowa Mountains from the Zum-
walt Prairie on Thursday, May 27, 2021, in her new shop in Joseph.
TOP: Artwork
adorns the wall
of the newly
renovated and
modernized
restaurant
section of
Raul’s Taqueria
in La Grande.
RIGHT: Arturo
Escamilla,
co-owner
of Raul’s
Taqueria,
pauses for a
photo in the
newly added
section of the
restaurant on
Tuesday, June
1, 2021.
Alex Wittwer/
The Observer
In her ‘Element’
Raul’s Taqueria to
double in size with
addition of space
formerly occupied by
Looking Glass Books
By DICK MASON
The Observer
L
A GRANDE — A
promising new chapter
in the story of Raul’s
Taqueria is about to
begin in space that once
housed a bookstore.
The popular Mexican
restaurant will soon double
in size after the renovation
of 1,000 square feet of space
adjacent to it is complete. The
restaurant’s new addition is set
to open sometime next week.
“We are very, very excited,”
said Arturo Escamilla,
co-owner of Raul’s Taqueria
with his father in-law, Raul
Correa.
The addition, which previ-
ously housed Looking Glass
Books, will feature a bar with
a porcelain tile surface and
seating for 43 customers. Its
features also include fi ve tele-
visions and ceramic tile fl oors.
The bar will serve seven
Former banker,
Leah Johnson,
opens art shop
opens in former
jewelry store
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
varieties of draft beer,
including Modelo, Widmer,
Dos Equis XX, Coors Light,
Irish Death and Barley
Brown’s IPA. The varieties
include a seventh which will
be changed depending on the
season.
The bar will also fea-
ture other drinks, including
gin, rum, scotch, tequila,
Irish whiskey and Canadian
whiskey.
“We hope to have the
largest selection of alcoholic
drinks in La Grande,” Esca-
milla said.
The renovation work, which
started in April of 2020, will
be paid for with the assis-
tance of a $21,072 grant from
the city of La Grande’s Urban
Renewal Call for Projects
program.
“That will be a tremendous
help,” Escamilla said.
Funds from the grant will
also be used to help pay for
extensive renovation work
that has been completed at
Raul’s current space, including
new paint, new back door,
replacing styrofoam signs
with ones with metal lettering
and adding lettering over the
entrance.
The renovation of the
restaurant’s old and new space
has been a time-consuming
and sometimes grueling
process.
“We did everything our-
selves except for the electrical
and plumbing work,” Esca-
milla said.
Additions to be made later
include the installation of a
digital jukebox. People with
the proper smartphone app
will be able to select from
thousands of songs they will
be able to play without leaving
their seats.
Escamilla and Correa have
See, Soon/Page 2B
Rondon appointed director of Oregon
Integrated Pest Management Center
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
HERMISTON — When
Silvia Rondon fi rst arrived
in Hermiston in 2006, local
farmers were struggling
with a surge of potato tuber
moths damaging their crop.
Rondon, a professor and
entomologist at Oregon
State University’s Herm-
iston Agricultural Research
and Extension Center, was
just establishing her pro-
gram focused on integrated
pest management for irri-
gated row crops in the
Columbia Basin.
After studying the per-
nicious insect, Rondon and
her team learned the moth’s
larvae prefer to feed on
the leaves of young potato
plants. Rather than spraying
seven or eight pesticide
applications throughout the
growing season, farmers
could spray once or twice
closer to harvest before the
foliage shrivels and dies.
“That is the critical
time,” Rondon said. “Once
the foliage, which is the pre-
ferred feeding host of the
pest, is gone, that’s when
they start attacking the
tubers.”
Over the years, Rondon
has helped growers in
northeast Oregon and
southeast Washington battle
a variety of infestations,
pesticides. It takes into
including potato psyllid,
account things like crop
potato beetle and lygus
selection, mechanical con-
bugs.
trols, biological agents such
as harnessing benefi cial
Her experience has led
insects and regular fi eld
Rondon to a new position
monitoring. These practices
as director of OSU’s Inte-
work in tandem to keep pest
grated Pest Management
populations at manageable
Center, helping farmers
levels.
across Oregon and the
The center has four sig-
Pacifi c Northwest improve
nature projects,
their production.
including pesticide
The Integrated
risk management
Pest Management
and safety education
Center — formerly
and pest and weather
known as the Inte-
modeling. The fourth
grated Plant Pro-
project is working
tection Center — is
with researchers and
based at OSU’s main
Rondon
growers to put inte-
campus in Corvallis,
grated pest management
though Rondon said she
plans into action.
will remain in Hermiston
Rondon said she
for the time being and con-
tinue to oversee the station’s is looking forward to
expanding the center’s
entomology program.
infl uence, and improving
Rondon was selected by
communication within
an 11-person search com-
those networks.
mittee consisting of mem-
“A lot of people do fan-
bers from OSU, the state
tastic work within their own
Department of Agriculture
niches,” she said. “Better
and industry groups. Her
communication will really
appointment is eff ective
connect the dots.”
July 1.
In an email announcing
“I am super excited
Rondon’s appointment,
about this position, and the
Alan Sams, dean of the
new challenge ahead of
OSU College of Agricul-
me,” Rondon said. “I think
tural Sciences, said she
my expertise fi ts really
will help to strengthen the
well.”
center, “enhancing our
Integrated pest manage-
ment is about more than
strategic goal to help our
industries compete in their
markets, domestically and
globally.”
Being based in Herm-
iston has given Rondon
a broad grounding. The
Columbia Basin, with its
loamy soil and climate con-
sisting of hot days and cool
nights, grows more than
200 irrigated crops, each of
which poses its own chal-
lenges and opportunities.
Umatilla County leads
the state in production of
vegetables, melons and
potatoes, according to the
most recent USDA Census
of Agriculture, with sales
topping $111 million.
“My specifi c program
here in Hermiston will con-
tinue to be driven by the
needs of local growers,”
Rondon said. “I am
extremely appreciative for
all the support they have
given me.”
While her background
is in entomology, Rondon
knows she has more to learn
in her new role. Integrated
pest management involves
not only insects, but plant
pathology and weed and
livestock management, she
said.
“The other pieces have
not really been part of my
job,” she said. “What I want
to do is to keep learning.”
JOSEPH — Leah
Johnson is now in her Ele-
ment: That’s the name
of the art studio and gift
shop she opened recently
in downtown Joseph.
“I like the simplicity of
the word and the meaning
— a part of something,
a part of me, part of the
community and science.
I’ve always loved the peri-
odic table of the elements,
how it looks, how each
element is made of atoms,
specifi c parts,” she said
in a prepared statement.
“It is a reference to me
respecting more creative
and artistic parts of myself
with this new business.”
After working for 17
years at Community Bank
in Joseph — the past 12
as marketing manager —
the Joseph native decided
to go out on her own with
her true passion: art.
“I also had been
learning about the clas-
sical elements, earth,
water, air and fi re. I’m
between an earth and a
fi re sign and my artwork
uses earth (with wax, resin
and pigment) and then is
fused with fi re or heat.
… So the name Element
encompasses all the rea-
sons I was going into the
business and combining
these things together.”
Johnson’s artistic
medium fi ts well with her
statement.
“I do encaustic painting
and it’s wax and resin,
beeswax and tree resin are
used to make the encaustic
medium,” she told the
Chieftain Thursday, May
27. “You melt it and apply
it on a fl at surface. You
can use oil paints to paint
on your encaustic medium
doing layers and build up
some color as you go. It’s
really fun. You have to
fuse the layers together to
make sure they adhere to
the previous layers. You
fuse it with a heat gun or a
blowtorch.”
After obtaining her col-
lege degrees in art and
painting, she and husband,
James Johnson, returned
to Wallowa County. He
owns Joseph Hardware
across the street.
“When we moved back
here, it was just a great
job available and so I just
stuck with (the bank) and
See, Element/Page 2B
Lower production
will hit Oregon Wheat
Commission budget
allowed to commission to
be in a place for the cur-
SALEM — The Oregon
rent budget year to fund all
Wheat Commission expects base research, marketing
decreased production due to and grower service projects;
increase funding to cover
drought conditions.
benefi cial projects; and add
That will mean less
assessment revenue, Oregon to its carryover revenue,
Wheat CEO Amanda Hoey Hoey said.
“That carryover revenue
told the Capital Press.
is important for a year
Growers pay
like the one upcoming,
an assessment of 5
wherein we anticipate
cents per bushel of
that the budgeted reduc-
wheat and $1 per
tion in revenue will
ton of barley.
materialize,” she said.
Commission
“We have not seen those
board members
timely of rains in the
Hoey
recently fi nalized
same way this year that
their budget for the
2021-2022 fi scal year, which we did last.”
Hoey expects to have
begins July 1.
nearly $6.5 million in avail-
Board members
able funds, with expendi-
approved a budget of $2.19
tures of $2.4 million.
million, adding $3,000 to
With the anticipated
the approved budget from
lower production, Hoey
the year before.
said, the commission won’t
“In April 2020 we were
add funds into savings.
facing crop uncertainties
“We project we will end
in relation to dry weather
the upcoming year with a
so had projected lowered
carryover savings of about
assessment revenue at that
time,” Hoey said. “With the $4 million, which keeps
the commission in a stable
benefi cial rains that arrived
in May 2020, our actual rev- fi nancial position able to
meet its commitments over
enues were much higher
the long term,” she said.
than budgeted.”
Domestic travel is
The increased revenue
expected to return to near
and cost savings in reduc-
tions in personnel and
travel due to the pandemic
See, Wheat/Page 2B
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press