Business
New support
for local
business
owners
New and improved Business-
Resource Connection series
highlights networking, local
resources available to assist
By SHANNON GOLDEN
The Observer
LA GRANDE — La Grande Main
Street Downtown is relaunching its
monthly networking series, Business-Re-
source Connection, for local business
owners after a break for the summer.
Attendees can learn from diff erent orga-
nizations about a wide variety of topics
to help their businesses better under-
stand and utilize their local
resources.
“We are looking to do
whatever we can to make a
thriving downtown, because
that does have that trickle
back to a thriving overall
community,” project chair
Moore-
Hemann
Suzannah Moore-Hemann
said.
The series will take place on the
third Tuesday of each month from 8:15-
9:15 a.m. at the Ignite Center, 104 Depot
St. It is an expansion of previous series La
Grande Main Street Downtown has hosted
in the past. The fi rst meeting will take
place Tuesday, Sept. 20.
La Grande Main Street Downtown is
part of the national Main Street Program,
a subsidiary of the National Trust for His-
toric Preservation. The nonprofi t gener-
ates investment, jobs and rehabilitation in
downtown areas. It works alongside busi-
nesses and local organizations to plan
events and provide support.
“One of the goals of re-launching this
series with adjustments to the time and
format is to highlight the wide range of
resources we have locally which busi-
nesses can leverage to really elevate their
performance,” said Timothy Bishop, the
city’s Economic Development Director
and committee chair of the Economic
Vitality Committee, in a press release.
The committee began hosting the series
in the spring of this year. Now they are
bringing back the series with the goals of
off ering resources and fostering connec-
tions. Moore-Hemann also noted that the
new time slot is meant to make the series
as accessible as possible.
The spring sessions took place at noon
but upon querying some of the attendees,
they learned that many business owners
couldn’t attend because they had to
cover the lunch hour for their employees.
Moore-Hemann said the earlier time slot
will hopefully capture more business
owners before they are “in go-mode” for
the day.
“It’s not meant to be super long and
drawn out,” Moore-Hemann noted. “We
want to be really
respectful of every-
ONLINE
one’s time.”
For more infor-
City of La
mation about La
Grande’s Eco-
Grande Main Street
nomic Development
Downtown, visit
department, Eastern
www.lagrande-
Oregon University’s
mainstreet.org.
Rural Engagement
and Vitality Center,
Eastern Oregon Vis-
itors Association
and the Eastern Oregon Workforce board
are among the list of organizations that
will come to speak during the monthly
series.
According to Moore-Hemann, some of
Business-Resource Connection series’ ses-
sions will also consist of human resources
services, panel discussions, tax prepara-
tion and more.
“A lot of businesses might not have
access to always having an accountant on
hand or might not have an HR department
like the larger organizations do,” she said.
The series has no set end, and the com-
mittee will look to expand the series or
make it more frequent, depending on par-
ticipant feedback. Main Street Downtown
also has other series it is planning to boost
the city’s economic vitality.
“We really have the opportunity to
make a positive impact for the businesses
by off ering those,” Moore-Hemann said.
“If we can raise the water level, all of the
boats will rise together.”
The promotion and resources for the
series are partially funded by the city of
La Grande’s Rural Development Initiative
grant. Light refreshments and coff ee will
be provided.
AgLife
B
Thursday, September 1, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
HAPPY WALRUS,
happy customers
Happy Walrus Farm Stand brings fresh produce, flowers to downtown Imbler
By SHANNON GOLDEN
The Observer
I
MBLER — For those
driving through down-
town Imbler, the last
thing they might expect
to see is a walrus. But one
needs to look no farther
than the corner of Ruckman
Avenue and Main Street to
spot this marine mammal —
on a sign welcoming pass-
ers-by into the new Happy
Walrus Farm Stand.
Kagan Koehn, alongside
her partner, Dylan Howell,
and her parents, Susan
and Toby Koehn, opened
the new farmstand on Sat-
urday, Aug. 20, to increase
access to fresh produce for
rural communities in Union
County.
“Ideally, if everybody
could shop at a farm stand
that was a couple of miles
from their house, I think that
would be like the perfect
world,” she said.
According to a United
States Department of Agri-
culture report released in
August, prices for fruits and
vegetables are now predicted
to increase between 7% and
8% from 2021 to 2022. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics
reported in May that the
9.4% rise in food prices this
year is the largest annual
increase in 41 years.
Koehn asserted that rising
food expenses are closely
connected to rising costs
in the commercially grown
produce industry. And
with rising fertilizer and
gas prices, commercially
grown produce is becoming
more expensive to grow and
transport.
“If we can cut out the
middlemen of transporting
food and the amount of time
Photos by Shannon Golden/The Observer
Fresh fl owers wait for customers in the Happy Walrus Farm Stand on Friday, Aug. 26, 2022, in Imbler.
The bright green Happy Walrus Farm Stand is open for business in
Imbler on Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. Inside, customers can purchase fresh
produce and fl owers through a self-service system.
it’s in trucks and, and all of
that, your food is fresher,”
she said.
As compared to the hun-
dreds of miles produce often
travels to make it on super-
market shelves. Fresh food
that makes its way to the
Happy Walrus Farm Stand
is grown just over 6 miles
away — not more than a
10-minute drive. Koehn,
Howell, Toby and Susan
began their localized gar-
dening endeavors around
two years ago, around when
the pandemic hit.
“Maybe it would be nice
to get back to growing food
for people and ourselves,”
Koehn said of the group’s
initial interest in the idea.
Koehn’s grandparents had
owned land off of Happy
Walrus Road in Summer-
ville since the seventies —
and used to run a small herd
of cattle on their property
— but had never utilized
their acreage for market gar-
dening. With the go-ahead
from them, Koehn, her par-
ents and her partner began
growing their own market
garden on the property in
2020.
They began growing
all manner of produce,
including squash, zucchini,
cabbage, chard, potatoes,
onions, broccolini, green
beans, tomatoes, eggplant
and more. The group has
See, Walrus/Page B6
Colorful local produce and fl owers sit on a table in
the Happy Walrus Farm Stand in downtown Imbler on
Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. The stand opened Aug. 20.
Lumber prices soar, then abruptly fade
By MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
PORTLAND — Oregon
forest products companies have
endured a wild stretch over the
past two years, with lumber
prices quintupling during the
pandemic and then fading back
to something close to normal.
The extreme price swings
are another sign of the supply
chain chaos and economic
upheaval that accompanied
COVID-19.
Soaring lumber prices were
a harbinger of coming infl ation
when they began their steep
upward climb two years ago.
Now, a rapid fall could help
moderate historic infl ation in
other sectors that use lumber.
Lumber prices soared from
around $300 per 1,000 board
feet of lumber in the weeks
before the pandemic hit in
2020 to more than $1,600 in the
spring of 2021.
Demand also soared in 2020
amid an uptick in homebuilding
— an industry that wasn’t dis-
rupted by COVID-19 health
restrictions — and a surge in
home-improvement projects by
do-it-yourselfers. People across
the country were cooped up at
home with fewer alternatives
for spending their wages and
pandemic relief payments.
At the same time, the lumber
supply was disrupted by a
shortage of truck drivers and
millworkers. The resulting
squeeze pushed prices to astro-
nomical levels.
“Prices skyrocketed from
what was actually a pretty
stable trend for decades,”
said Brandon Kaetzel, prin-
cipal economist at the Oregon
Department of Forestry.
Prices then went into steep
decline as producers unsnarled
their supply chains and rising
interest rates cut into home
sales. That, in turn, reduced
home construction and lumber
demand.
It’s great for lumber pro-
ducers when prices rise, but the
upside was short-lived before
prices abruptly fell back to
earth. Current prices are around
$500 per 1,000 board feet, up
only modestly from right before
the pandemic — and down
slightly from 2018 and 2019.
Some companies couldn’t
meet peak demand during the
pandemic because of their own
labor or supply constraints.
Others, Kaetzel said, took
advantage of the brief surge to
invest in mill upgrades.
“I’d hesitate to say it was a
windfall for anybody,” he said.
Not among independent
Oregon mills, anyway. Boise
See, Lumber/Page B6