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About The Baker County press. (Baker City, Ore.) 2014-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 27, 2015)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2015 THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS — 5 Local Trail named after Neal Bork Power outage affects 449 BY MEGHAN ANDERSCH Meghan@TheBakerCountyPress.com “It was his passion. He lived from weekend to weekend to go snowmo- biling,” recalled Marlene Bork of husband Neal, who passed away earlier this year. Bork was very involved in the Blue Mountain Sumpter Valley Snow- mobile Club, including serving as President for the past five or six years. Marlene said Neal was sometimes known as, “the guy you didn’t want to follow if you weren’t sea- soned. He enjoyed going challenging places.” She said he loved the sport and loved being around other snowmobil- ers. During November’s Snowmobile Club meet- ing, Director Elden Doser presented a sign made by Melvin Cross re-designat- ing the 1090 snowmobile trail as the Neal Bork 1090 Trail. Doser said they felt it was appropriate to desig- nate the trail as a memorial of Bork. He explained that there were some problems several years ago and the club had to find a new route. Bork found a new way through and (after receiving all necessary permissions), brought up his Cat, helped open up the route, and get it going. Doser said, “Without him, we probably wouldn’t have this particular trail.” Doser said that when- ever help was needed, whether it was mechanical A power outage Tuesday in the Medical Springs and Keating areas started approximately 12:56 p.m., with about 449 members affected. The cause was weather related due to snowfall. Oregon Trail Electric Co-op (OTEC) crews dispatched and were on site with estimated time on restoration of 3:30 p.m., but power was restored earlier at around 3:06 p.m. Local OSP trooper gets award On November 6, 2015 the Oregon Police Officer's As- sociation (OPOA) held their annual recognition banquet. At the ceremony the following Oregon State Troopers were recognized, including local trooper Brad Duncan: Unit Citation Award- Oregon State Police Major Crime Team: Lieutenant Darrin Lux, Lieutenant Jeff Fitzgerald, Detective Bryan Scott, Sergeant Annie Harris-Powers, Detective Jess Elzy, Detective Travis Lee, Detective Jes- sica Hall, and Detective Ray Stallsworth Life Saving Award- Senior Trooper Bradley Duncan. The Oregon State Police is very proud of all of the ef- forts of the members of the department and congratulate those who received awards. Photos courtesy o f Elden Doser Top: Jim Sheller and Marlene Bork. Lower: The sign after being hung to mark the trail. work on the grooming Cat, serving as president, or assistance during the Poker Run, Bork was always willing to lend a hand. Jim Sheller, Grooming Chairman of the Snowmo- bile Club, said Bork was the heart of the grooming team. He said, “Neal was my right-hand man and I miss him dearly.” The new sign was posted on a place on the trail with a scenic valley view. As stated on the club website (sumptersnowmobileclub. wordpress.com), “We think Neal would love the view from here!” Huntington Food Bank thanks Walmart for donation BY EILEEN DRIVER Eileen@TheBakerCountyPress.com The Huntington Food Bank surprised their clients with Thanksgiving turkeys in addition to their regular food boxes on distribution day, Saturday, November 21. Food Bank Committee Member Ed Hughes said, “We have been working to- ward getting Thanksgiving turkeys for a while, but didn’t know until the day before if we would have them or not.” The food bank work- ers and recipients wish to thank Walmart in Ontario for their hard work in find- ing an extra 60 turkeys and getting them delivered on time, which was not easy during high buying turkey season. According to food bank Treasurer Kathy Hughes, “Walmart gave us such a generously low price on the turkeys that it allowed even our limited budget to be able to afford it.” The Huntington food bank serves 50-70 low- income Baker and Malheur county families every month. Eileen Driver / The Baker County Press Timothy Burns of the Walmart meat department stands by the donations. The food boxes hold enough food to feed individuals and families for about a week, which supplements their monthly food budget and helps them make ends meet. The addition of the tur- keys not only adds another meal or two but allows a family to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with the spirit with which it was meant to be celebrated, with thanks for the com- munity and generosity of spirit of those around us. In this time of not enough jobs and higher and higher food prices, with more families signing up for food boxes every month, the food bank vol- unteers feel privileged to be able to help out as much as they can. The Food Bank would also like to thank its finan- cial partners whose yearly donations make the food bank possible: Huntington Lions Club, Huntington Christian Center and Ash Grove Cement. Library to hold painting workshop Baker County Public Li- brary will host an abstract painting workshop on Friday, Dec. 11, 2015, 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. at 2400 Re- sort Street in Baker City. Have fun learning how to control chaos and create beautiful art in the process! SK Cothren, artist, writer, M. Ed teaches the event. Create 1-2 abstract paintings in 2 hours. Be- ginners welcome! SK Cothren spends her days in the fun mode of creating art and writing. Books were her favorite toys as a child, so it is no surprise that writing is her first love. SK embraced painting with a passion and has created hundreds of multimedia paintings. Along the way, she earned a M.Ed and taught teens and adults from middle school to college. This program is part of a series of art workshops and events brought to rural eastern Oregon through local public libraries. Funding for the events is provided by a grant from ArtPlaceAmerica. Entrepreneur workshop scheduled Oregon has a new law that allows regular folks to invest in Oregon businesses, and encourages Oregon’s entrepreneurs to raise capital from their neighbors. The Northeast Community Capital Collaborative (NEOC3) and Hatch Oregon are teaming up to help Northeast Or- egonian entrepreneurs prepare their own capital campaign with an extensive workshop series that will take place in Baker City and Joseph. The Community Public Offering (CPO) is a new law in Oregon that creates an exemption for Oregon small business owners to raise up to $250,000 in loan or equity agreements with Oregon residents, who do not need to be accredited investors. The CPO exemption has a maximum per-person, per-deal investment of $2,500. Check out existing Oregon CPOs at https://secure.hatchoregon.com/. If this sounds like an interesting capital-raising strategy, sign up for Hatch Oregon’s free Intro to the CPO webinar for entrepreneurs on Dec. 9 (12 p.m.). Topics covered: Whether a CPO is right for you and your business Costs of raising capital this way Time commitments required for a successful raise Technical requirements of the rules (disclosure docu- ments, business plan review, legal compliance) What the Hatch platform offers What the Investor Ready accelerator offers Because Hatch has USDA funding to support CPO training in Northeast Oregon, they have waived the fee for residents of Baker, Union, and Wallowa counties. Registration via Hatch Oregon at http://www.eventbrite. com. Use the promo code NEOEDD to waive the $50 registration fee. An entrepreneur or business owner who has a business plan may then apply to participate in the InvestOR Ready Accelerator, which will run from mid-January through February (Mondays in Baker City and Tuesdays in Jo- seph; dates TBD). The multiple-session workshop series will delve more deeply into the intricacies of the CPO; apply here http://hatchoregon.com/IRA-application. The $2,500 fee is also waived for residents of Baker, Union, and Wallowa counties. NEOC3 is a community partnership that’s spreading the word about local investing, to educate people about their ability to take more control of their financial futures. The Northeast Oregon Economic Development District’s mission is to provide resources and facilitate quality decision-making for the benefit of entrepreneurs, businesses and communities in Baker, Union, and Wal- lowa counties. Learn more about its programs and busi- ness support at www.neoedd.org. Barley’s Pale Ale gets award Barley Brown’s Hand Truck Pale Ale won a People’s Choice vote by readers as reported by The Oregonian. Locals can follow at oregonlive.com/best as that news- paper begins a “Best of” award process on December 3. Hand Truck Pale Ale also won a gold judge’s award in the 2014 Great American Beer Festival and a silver in the 2014 North American Beer awards. According to the article, “The paler ales category in- cluded pale, blonde, golden and cream ales. The 20 final- ists received the most votes in the paler ales category of our mega-survey asking readers to nominate their favorite Oregon beers.”
