A10
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Women: Most ranches have a specialty Election: Will take
Continued from Page A1
“We talked, she hired
me,” Van Doozer said.
“It’s my dream job. I get
up every morning excited
to go to work, no matter
what the weather, or what
we are doing. Every day is
different.”
Like most ranches in
Wallowa County, Bar-B and
Tami’s own herd are tradi-
tional cow-calf operations.
They breed their mother
cows in May. Calves arrive
about 283 days (9.4 months)
later in March. They are
branded in May, allowing
them to be identifi ed should
they stray from the herd.
By June, when the cow-calf
pairs are turned out on grass
range, the calves are big
and strong enough to fol-
low their mothers the 10 to
20 miles necessary to reach
summer pastures, and fend
for themselves in a world
where predators await.
Then, as fall comes, cat-
tle are driven back to the
home place, where calves
are weaned. Steers ship
to feedlots, usually in the
Boise area, along with heif-
ers that will not be kept as
replacement mother cows.
Cows are fed all winter, and
in March, the cycle begins
all over again.
To prosper in an uncer-
tain economy, most ranches
have a specialty. For the
Bar-B, it’s the bloodlines
and quality of beef.
“Our Angus cows are
bred to Akaushi bulls,”
Lambrecht said. “They’re a
Japanese breed, similar to
Wagyu, that produces ten-
der, well-marbled beef.”
The Bar-B works with
HeartBrand Ranch of Fla-
tonia, Texas, that provides
the bulls and semen, and
then buys back the weaned
calves. The prices are a bit
higher, but there’s also more
work required — each calf
must be genetically tested
place on May 21
to keep track of its breed-
ing and ensure that its father
was an Akaushi bull.
Genetic testing is done as
part of the tagging and vac-
cination process when the
calf is less than a day old.
Like most cow-calf oper-
ations, The Bar-B keeps a
written record of the day and
if possible, the time, of each
birth, and gives each new-
born calf a shot of immu-
nity-boosting supplements
that help insure survival.
Along with the shot, the
calf receives an ear tag with
a number that allows Tami
and Avey to easily iden-
tify it. It’s hard to recog-
nize individual calves in a
herd of mostly black cows.
Ear tags are a necessity. At
the Bar-B, each calf is also
tattooed with an individual
number that supplants the
ear tag, and a sample of hair
is taken for a genetic record.
Spanish cattle
Adele Schott is a sixth
generation rancher who runs
the 6 Ranch with her mother,
Liza Jane McAlister.
They raise Corriente cat-
tle, lithe animals descended
from stock brought to the
Americas by the Spanish
Conquistadors. They breed
calves in May, when tem-
peratures are above freez-
ing in Wallowa County and
calving is less diffi cult.
Last fall, McAlister
invested her savings in 20
more Corriente cows from
a ranch in New Mexico,
where in March it begins to
get warm, grass greens up
and cattle begin to calve. But
now the New Mexico bunch
are in Wallowa County,
where March is cold, snowy,
wet, and inhospitable.
“I’ve been going out
every two hours at night
to check on them,” a tired
McAlister said. “There’s no
need to pull calves, but if
they are born in the snow
they might not be able to
Continued from Page A1
EO Media Group/Ellen Morris Bishop
Tami Lambrecht, of the Bar-B Ranch, holds hypodermic nee-
dles for administering shots of nutrients, multivitamins and
antibiotics to a newborn calf. Generally, the shots are admin-
istered within 24 hours or less of the calf’s birth.
get up. If it’s really cold they
could freeze to death, or
if they are delivered into a
big puddle, or their head is
stuck under a fence, they are
going to need help.”
So far, each of the cows
has moseyed into the barn
and delivered her calf on a
nice cozy bed of straw. No
worries.
Like many successful
ranches, the 6 Ranch does
things differently. Their
Corrientes are grass fed and
hormone-free.
It’s not that Schott always
knew she was destined to
be a rancher. “When I was
in high school,” she said, “I
was like a lot of kids here.
I thought I was too big for
Wallowa County. I wanted
to get out and see the world
and do other things.”
She spent her junior year
as an exchange student in
Argentina. “It was a differ-
ent world,” she said. “It was
one I didn’t belong in. It was
urban. There were people
everywhere.”
After high school, she
tried college.
“It didn’t really fi t me,”
she said. “So I found jobs,
mostly day jobs, on other
ranches.” Then she went
to culinary school. And
then she came home. After
spending a tough winter and
spring calving out cows in
six feet of more of snow near
Troy, Adele came back to
the 6 Ranch, along with her
new husband, Mark Schott.
Like may younger ranch-
ers, Adele and Mark are
looking for a unique, and
more profi table, niche in the
ranching business.
“The most challeng-
ing thing about ranch-
ing?” Adele said. “It’s how
to make money doing the
things I love.”
Gambling: ‘We’re mandated to do fi nancial counseling’
Continued from Page A1
people do it for the gains,
or because they think they
can gain. For me, it was just
to have a blank mind for a
while.”
Iris, who chose to be
identifi ed only by her fi rst
name, has been in treatment
for about two months at New
Horizons in Hermiston, a
program that offers counsel-
ing and treatment for gam-
bling addiction.
“I made a mistake — I
went beyond my resources,”
she said. “I’m still paying for
that. Then I decided it was
time to give it up.”
Jose Garcia runs New
Horizons, one of only two
services in the county
that offers gambling treat-
ment. The other is Umatilla
County Human Services.
Garcia has a group of
12 problem gamblers that
meets weekly. He said he
gets most of his clients
through advertising, primar-
ily in the Latino community.
He has also had clients fi nd
him by calling a quit hotline
number.
But Garcia said it can
be diffi cult to get people to
even recognize they have a
problem, let alone seek help.
When people fi rst come
in, he screens them, using
questions that assess how
gambling has affected their
behavior, relationships, and
fi nances.
“A lot of them at the
beginning say ‘no,’ but as
we break it down, they say
‘yes,’” he said.
Iris said many people suf-
fering from gambling addic-
tion don’t want help.
“Some people are lonely
and go for the company,”
she said. “You’re not really
lonely, but you’re not asso-
ciating with people. A lot
of people don’t realize their
problem.”
For her, the thing
that fi nally clicked was
being able to go to treat-
ment and talk about other
issues that got to the heart
of the problem, without a set
timeline.
“The treatments I’ve had
in the past, it was more like
they were bullying you,” she
said. “They expect you to
change in no time fl at.”
To break a pattern she’s
been in for 20 years, she
said, is not that simple.
“A lot of people don’t
feel comfortable opening up
about personal feelings or
their family,” she said. “This
can’t happen in one month
or 60 days. It may take peo-
ple longer than that.”
Garcia said that treat-
ment for gambling tends to
be a more long-term process
than for other addictions.
“There are people I’ve
had for two years who still
want to come back, because
they feel they need to talk
with someone, or they feel a
connection with the group,”
he said.
Amy Ashton-Williams,
director of Umatilla County
Human Services, said there
are three people currently
enrolled in gambling treat-
ment through the county.
Ashton-Williams
said
training for gambling addic-
tions counselors focuses a
lot on helping clients recog-
nize triggers that may cause
them to reengage in addic-
tive behavior.
“We don’t always think
about activities we engage
in that can be triggering to
gambling addicts,” she said.
For example, if some-
one’s offi ce has a weight-loss
challenge, and the “buy-in”
is $25, that can be a trigger.
Iris said the triggers can
be related to other stressors
like family or work, or they
can be even more obscure.
“Somebody may not be
triggered by seeing a bee
on a fl ower, but to others it
is,” she said. “That’s what
I’m talking about. These are
the little things that trigger
people.”
In Garcia’s group at New
Horizons, he said they work
on understanding the root
of addiction, both gener-
ally and specifi c to gam-
bling. They talk about
motivations to change, and
things that may infl uence
their behavior, like anger
or loss. Finally, they learn
about how to fi nd balance in
their lives, and fi nding other
ways to spend their time and
money.
Ashton-Williams
said
there’s one unique aspect
of gambling treatment that
doesn’t happen in other types
of addictions counseling.
“In gambling (treatment)
we’re mandated to do fi nan-
cial counseling,” she said.
“When they start playing
with money, all of a sudden
money is missing, there’s
not enough to pay the bills.”
Both Ashton-Williams
and Garcia said gambling
addiction can be hard to
recognize, and the con-
sequences aren’t always
immediate.
“If you use meth or her-
oin, and you have parapher-
nalia on you, that’s a crime,”
she said. “People go through
the courts, the justice sys-
tem. A lot of times, that’s
how people end up in treat-
ment. “
But while problem gam-
blers may get arrested for
theft, or a crime moti-
vated by their addiction, the
charges aren’t always related
directly to gambling.
The Portland-based fi rm
Herbert and Louis compiles
statewide data on problem
gambling services for the
Oregon Health Authority. In
the past fi ve years, 76 gam-
blers have enrolled in gam-
bling addiction programs in
Umatilla County. Data from
2017-18 says that video lot-
tery games are the most
popular form of gambling,
and women are more likely
to enroll in treatment than
men.
Statewide, lottery sales
have grown steadily in the
past 30 years. But the num-
ber of people enrolling in
treatment has seen a down-
turn since 2008.
Needs
Though treatment for
problem gamblers is free,
both clients and counselors
said they’d like to see more
people and services focused
on it.
“In Eastern Oregon our
resources are so low,” Gar-
cia said. “There’s the need
for two counselors to focus
just on gambling, period.”
Ashton-Williams
said
she’d like to see a Gam-
bler’s Anonymous 12-step
program.
Iris said those seek-
ing treatment would bene-
fi t from a service that helps
people deal specifi cally with
the fi nancial ramifi cations of
gambling.
She encouraged people
to seek treatment, and said
Garcia has helped her.
“To fi nd a place where
you don’t feel ashamed
about getting treatment is
one of the best things you
can do,” she said. “That’s
key — making someone feel
better about doing better.”
Problem gamblers in
Oregon can get help at
1-877-MY-LIMIT, or at
www.opgr.org.
The clinic also has
connections to a Umatilla
Rural Fire Protection Dis-
trict Board of Directors,
where Encore operations
manager Kelly Payan is
running against incum-
bent Fred Sheely.
Mark
Keith,
the
co-owner of Encore and
Armstrong’s husband, is
running for a different
seat on the board.
In Stanfi eld, Stanfi eld
Public Library Director
Cecili Longhorn is run-
ning for an open school
board seat against Jim
Griffi n.
The seat is being
vacated by Terry Monkus,
who drew attention in
2017 when the then-cheer-
leading coach accused
Monkus of berating her
and the cheerleaders for a
lack of enthusiasm during
a championship loss by
the Stanfi eld High School
boys basketball team.
Monkus said her com-
ments were not directed at
the cheerleaders but were
overheard by the coach.
Other contested elec-
tions include one for
a seat on the Athe-
na-Weston School Board,
where incumbent Jennifer
McClure-Spurgeon, who’s
also the sitting mayor of
Weston, will face Shan-
non Hoehna, the owner
and food safety consul-
tant for SH Consulting
in Weston, and the Uma-
tilla County Fire District
Board of Directors, where
incumbent Spike Piersol
is getting a challenge from
Sebastian Sanchez.
New faces
In other elections, new-
comers should breeze
toward election without
facing an opponent.
Mason Murphy is run-
ning to replace longtime
Pendleton School Board
member Dave Krumbein.
Murphy co-owns the
Pendleton bar 40 Taps and
was charged with fi rst-de-
gree theft in 2015 for
allegedly taking the doors
from the old St. Anthony
Hospital demolition site
without authorization.
Murphy’s attorney said
it was a misunderstand-
ing over who his client
purchased the doors from
and the case was even-
tually dismissed when
Murphy agreed to a civil
compromise.
At Blue Mountain
Community College, Jane
Hill is continuing her
return to local politics by
running for a full term on
the board of education.
Appointed to the board
in May 2018, Hill served
on the Pendleton City
Council from 2012 to
early 2016, resigning to
take a job as the legisla-
tive affairs manager for
the Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation.
Other newcomers who
will fi ll open seats include
William Markgraf, who
will replace BMCC board
member Bob Savage, and
Keri Standley, who will
replace Randy Schuening
on the Pilot Rock School
Board.
Empty seats
Not every seat in the
May election will have a
listed candidate.
In 20 seats, including
one seat on the Pendleton
School Board, no one fi led
for election.
Since Michelle Monk-
man didn’t fi le for her
Zone 6 seat on the Pend-
leton School Board and no
one fi led to replace her,
write-in votes will now
determine
Monkman’s
successor.
Whoever wins the
most write-in votes will
be offered the seat, but if
that person declines, the
school board will be able
to appoint someone to fi ll
the seat.
The write-in process
played out in 2017, when
no one fi led for an open
Hermiston School Board
seat and Mark Gomol-
ski won the seat with 14
write-in votes.
While the Stanfi eld
School Board does have
one competitive race,
local election observ-
ers will also have an eye
on a $14 million Stan-
fi eld School District bond
election.
If passed, the district
would receive a match-
ing $4 million grant from
the state and the combined
proceeds would go toward
a new middle school and
career technical education
facilities at the secondary
school, and further reno-
vations of the elementary
and secondary schools.
Elections for all special
district seats and the Stan-
fi eld school bond will take
place on May 21.
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