OFF PAGE ONE
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
East Oregonian
A9
Restaurants: Limited indoor recreation, entertainment are a go
Continued from Page A1
Throughout the pandemic,
Meda has been adding on to
his business, creating a Day
of the Dead-themed cantina
next door. The high-ceilinged
bar, colored predominantly
in red and gold, is decorated
with dozens of multi-colored
skulls over glossy counter-
tops of reddish-brown wood.
Empty wooden frames adorn
the walls, waiting to be filled
with tall canvas paintings,
Meda said.
“There was some uncer-
tainty in making sure I was
good to go ahead and be able
to make this and keep the
business going,” Meda said of
the new addition to his busi-
ness. “Business expansion
has to do with projected sales.
When your projected sales are
not coming, your investment
becomes: ‘Should I do this?’”
With the limited reopen-
ing effective on Feb. 26, Meda
said he is pushing to open his
new establishment in the next
two months. Across the street,
Burt is undergoing a similar
effort. He plans to open a new
grilled cheese restaurant in
April nearby called “Toasted.”
“Now that there’s a little
light at the end of the tunnel,
now I can start training people
and see about opening this
when we’re at at least 50 or
75%,” Meda said, simulta-
neously reaching above him
to knock on a wooden frame
overhead.
‘It feels really good to
feel a little more stable
than we did before’
With some of the highest
coronavirus infection rates
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Joe Meda, owner of Joe’s Fiesta Mexican Restaurant, serves up food to dine-in customers at his Pendleton restaurant around
the lunch hour on Monday, March 1, 2021.
in Oregon, Umatilla County
has been caught firmly in
the extreme risk category
for months. However, with
a steady recent decline in
cases, Gov. Brown’s office
announced on Feb. 23 that
the county was eligible for
high risk, permitting indoor
dining at 25% capacity.
The change also allows
indoor and outdoor recre-
ation, entertainment, and
shopping and retail estab-
lishments to reopen at
limited capacity, as well as
faith institutions, funeral
homes, mortuaries and
cemeteries. It allows indoor
and outdoor visitation at
long-term care facilities and
only recommends, rather
than requires, that office
work be done remotely.
When speaking of future
business, Meda and Burt
couldn’t help but follow
each prediction or aspiration
by mentioning the uncer-
tainty that has consumed
local businesses through-
out the pandemic. But on
Feb. 26, watching the famil-
iar faces of loyal customers
walk through the door and
taking countless phone calls
brought with it a sense of
hope that things were inch-
ing back to normal.
Collin Taber, a 19-year-
old employee at Moe Pho
Noodles & Cafe in the same
block as Joe’s Fiesta, said he
showed up at work on Feb.
26 at noon to find seven full
tables, a sight he described
as both “scary” and “excit-
ing.” After three months of
solely takeout orders he and
his co-workers were rusty,
but over a 2½-hour rush,
they got back in the swing
of things.
“It was nice to see famil-
iar faces, too,” said Taber,
a student at Mount Hood
Community College. “When
I came in I noticed that the
people I saw before were
back, which was really cool,
and then I had something
to talk to them about, about
being back. And they were
really excited, which made
us really excited.”
Customers who came to
get their daily dose of pho
were happier than usual, said
Taber and his co-worker,
Alexi Brehaut. Customers
were eager to know how the
business was doing and to
show support by coming in.
They knew how much other
businesses had been strug-
gling.
“It’s just us getting some
breathing room,” Brehaut, a
20-year-old student at East-
ern Oregon University, said.
“Being able to take a deep
breath and finally get some-
thing that’s not supposed to
mean that much to someone,
but it does mean that much to
people.”
Taber added that the latest
reopening has brought with
it a sense of stability after
months of uncertainty.
“With all the uncertainty
that we had, it feels really
good to feel a little more
stable than we did before,”
Taber said.
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Weston Middle School sixth grader Megan McLouth reads
her lines during a read-through of a play she and Hazel
Hammersla wrote virtually on a shared Google document
during pandemic isolation.
Playwrights: Details
of the performance
are to be determined
Continued from Page A1
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Oregon National Guard members await their next patients during a COVID-19 vaccination clinic at Wildhorse Resort & Casino
in Mission on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021.
Wildhorse:
Continued from Page A1
health care workers admin-
ister the second dose of the
Pfizer vaccine later this
month, everyone who lives,
works or is enrolled with the
Umatilla Indian Reservation
that wants the vaccine will
have received it.
The Wildhorse event
marked the first time the
Tribes were opening up their
vaccine supply to non-Indi-
ans who live on the reserva-
tion or work for a tribal entity.
While tribal members
were still eligible to receive
the vaccine at Wildhorse, a
two-day breakdown showed
that 85% of those vaccinated
were non-American Indians.
One of the factors
enabling the CTUIR to take
this vaccine moonshot was its
decision to order its vaccines
through the Indian Health
Service, a division of the U.S.
Department of Health and
Human Services. Although
the sovereignty of Oregon’s
nine federally recognized
tribes means they can tailor
their own vaccine programs,
the CTUIR was one of only
two tribes who opted for the
Indian Health Service over
the Oregon Health Authority.
Tribal leaders credit their
vaccine supply with allowing
them to steadily vaccinate
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
An Oregon National Guard member draws up a dose of the
Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine during a vaccination
event at Wildhorse Resort & Casino in Mission on Tuesday,
Feb. 23, 2021.
tribal members, identifying
anyone who was willing to
obtain the vaccine through
the Tribes’ enrollment office.
W hen the CTUIR
received a nearly 1,000-dose
shipment, Yellowhawk CEO
Lisa Guzman realized the
Tribes would need to plan
something larger than the
weekly clinics they had been
running.
The Tribes sent out post-
cards to non-tribal residents
throughout the reserva-
tion, continuing to network
even as the Wildhorse event
started to vaccinate as many
people with connections to
the reservation as possible.
“All of those staff who
were working are connected
to a lot of folks in the commu-
nity,” Guzman said. “So they
would pick up the phone and
say, ‘Is your family in here?’
And they would say, ‘Well,
no.’ And we would say, ‘Well,
get them in here.’”
By April, Sams and other
tribal officials believe they
can fully reopen their govern-
ment and tribal enterprises,
given the vaccination rates.
As the CTUIR looks to put
the pandemic behind them,
Sams credited the plans they
had in place that blunted the
impact of the virus.
As of Monday, March 1,
only one tribal member has
died from COVID-19, and
despite the virus modifying
how they operated, Wild-
horse and other tribal enter-
prises have turned a profit
during the pandemic.
“I think had we had a
better plan countywide, we
probably could have had
more things open than we
did,” he said. “And we were
trying to demonstrate that
over and over again, that it is
possible if you have a strong
developed plan.”
For the Tribes, it wasn’t
just about protecting its
economy, but also protecting
a tribal membership that had
previously been decimated in
centuries past by epidemics
spread through white settlers.
For the Oregon National
Guard, this is the first time
they assisted a tribal vacci-
nation event and their first
vaccination operation in
Umatilla County, according
to Maj. Heather Bashor, a
public affairs officer with the
Oregon National Guard.
For Guzman, having the
National Guard there was
another milestone for the
tribes.
“When we roll out any
kind of event in a tribal
community, people have their
own views on what tribal
communities are about,”
she said. “So for us to bring
young National Guardsmen
to help us and participate and
be part of the tribal commu-
nity and work with our tribal
members or individuals from
other federally recognized
tribes, it breaks down barri-
ers. It really does.”
imately 30-minute play
isn’t set into a specific
time period. There are
no phones, but they have
trains and McDonalds,
Megan explained. In the
main role, a boy named
Kye attempts to deliver a
message to “the next great
warrior.”
After not seeing each
other for months, they
finally got together in
person i n m id-Ja nu-
ary to post play audition
posters in Athena busi-
nesses. Auditions took
place several days later at
Athena City Park. During
tryouts, the girls realized
they had a bit of a problem.
“We were going to have
more boys in the play, but
only one boy showed up at
the tryouts,” Hazel said.
Mega n a nd Ha zel
adjusted the script on
the spot. Most boy roles
became girl roles, but not
all. A girl plays Kye’s dad.
The cast list includes 19
characters played by 10
actors.
A couple of Wednes-
days ago, the cast members
assembled at the Moose-
bees Hair Salon in Athena
for a first read-through.
They plopped on a couch
and chairs near a cozy fire
in a wood stove. On the
coffee table lay a big bag
of Quaker Chewy Bars and
an assemblage of masks
and phones.
T hey ig nore d t he
dings of incoming texts
and concentrated on the
dialogue. Megan directed
the action when she wasn’t
reading her own lines.
At the end of the read-
through, they decided
to practice their curtain
call just for fun. As she
watched the young actors
e mot e, salon ow ne r
Christy Lovins smiled.
“I think they really
miss socializing with
their friends,” Lovins said.
“This is a good thing.”
“The Messenger” is
actually not Megan and
Hazel’s first attempt at
play writing. They collab-
orated on a short play
called “Friends” last year,
which they wrote together
at Hazel’s house, meet-
ing together once a week.
Megan had caught the
theater bug after acting
in “The Best Christmas
Pageant Ever” at the Little
Theater of Walla Walla in
Washington, in December
of 2019.
“I really wanted to be
in a play again,” she said.
“I thought, ‘Nobody else
in our school is going to
make a play that I can be
in so I’m going to make
one myself.’”
The girls recr uited
actors for “Friends,” and
then performed it at school
for their classmates.
The young playwrights
haven’t yet scheduled
the performance of “The
Messenger.”
“We haven’t decided
when we’re going to
perform,” Megan said.
“We’ll do it whenever
we’re ready.”