WEEKEND EDITION
THE WEEK
IN PHOTOS
LOCAL TEAMS HEADED TO UNOFFICIAL
CROSS-COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS
SPORTS, B1
THE BACK PAGE, A10
TWO MORE SUSPECTS ARRESTED IN
MOTEL INCIDENT
E O
AST
145th Year, No. 75
REGION, A3
REGONIAN
APRIL 10-11, 2021
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Search continues for missing Idaho woman
Deborah ‘Deb’
Hendrichs has been
missing since Jan. 11
By DICK MASON
La Grande Observer
MEACHAM — Cindy Taylor
is not losing count of the days her
sister has been missing. She also is
not losing hope.
Taylor’s sister, Deborah “Deb”
Hendrichs, 56, of Star, Idaho, went
missing on Jan. 11
at about 5 p.m. just
outside Meacham,
where her car, a
black Toyota RAV4,
ran out of gas at a
bridge entrance.
“This is day 87,
Hendrichs
I do not want this to
become a cold case,” she said.
Taylor has been working fever-
ishly since Jan. 11 to fi nd her sister.
Taylor was in La Grande on Monday,
April 5, and Tuesday, April 6, scour-
ing the area in Meacham with her
husband and two metal detector
operators. The search, like others in
the area, proved fruitless.
“We found nothing. We were
hoping to find personal effects
there,” said Taylor, who lives in
Merrill near Klamath Falls.
Oregon State Police Lt. Daniel
Conner of Union County shares
Taylor’s frustration, explaining no
new leads have surfaced.
“The case has gone absolutely
dark,” he said.
To get the investigation to move
forward, OSP again is encourag-
ing people to come forward with
any new information they have.
State police is particularly eager
to talk with anyone who may have
seen suspicious activity late in the
afternoon of Jan. 11 near where
Hendrichs’s compact SUV stalled,
Conner said.
An Oregon Department of Trans-
portation worker was the last person
who reported seeing Hendrichs after
her vehicle stalled. Conner said the
ODOT employee asked Hendrichs
if she needed help and she said her
cellphone was not working in the
area but someone was coming to
help. The ODOT employee then put
out safety fl ares to protect Hendrichs
and called OSP, which sent a trooper
to assist.
The trooper arrived 20 minutes
later. By then, Hendrichs’s vehicle
was empty. State police have not
been able to confi rm any reports of
anyone seeing Hendrichs since that
time.
Hendrichs is an employees of
the Les Schwab Tire Center in
See Missing, Page A9
Mr. Smith
to return
from D.C.
Gordon Smith
heading back to
Pendleton after
retirement
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Gordon Smith
is returning home.
Following 24 years in Washing-
ton, D.C., fi rst as a U.S. senator then
as the chief executive offi cer of the
National Association of Broadcast-
ers, Smith is step-
ping down to an
advisory role with
the lobbying group
and returning to his
birthplace: Pendle-
ton.
I n a v ide o
message announc-
Smith
ing his retirement,
Smith said he would step down at the
end of 2021 to spend more time on
his family business, his church and
his family.
“Many of these things I have put
on hold this past quarter century to
give public service and to be among
broadcasters,” he said. “I look
forward to time with them, doing
things that grandfathers ought to do:
attending baseball games, recitals and
more.”
As a lobbyist, Smith represented
some of the largest radio and tele-
vision broadcasting companies in
the country, including iHeartMe-
dia, Cumulus Media and the Sinclair
Broadcast Group. And although
providing news is only one part of
what these broadcasters do, it’s one
See Mr. Smith, Page A9
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
At midnight on Thursday, April 8, 2021, Lifeways closed its Aspen Springs Psychiatric Hospital in Hermiston after just over six months in
operation.
A BIG LOSS
Lifeways closes Aspen Springs as psychiatric hospital
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
H
ERMISTON — When Aspen
Springs Psychiatric Hospital
opened in Hermiston, it was
hailed as a sorely-needed
addition to the state’s meager
supply of mental health treatment beds. But
the facility closed at midnight on Thurs-
day, April 8, after just over six months in
operation, citing “unsustainable” diffi cul-
ties staffi ng it.
Umatilla County Commissioner John
Shafer said Aspen Springs had been a
“wonderful” addition to the county’s
eff orts to improve access to mental health
services, and he was disappointed it would
not continue.
“It kind of took the wind out of our sails,
to be honest,” he said. “It was a huge blow.”
Lifeways, a community mental health
provider covering parts of Eastern Oregon
and Idaho, opened the 16-bed inpatient
hospital for acute psychiatric care offi cially
in September 2020, four years after it fi rst
broke ground on the project. According to a
news release, it served a total of 75 patients
between then and its closure on April 8. The
facility was at the highest level of psychiat-
ric care off ered in Oregon, for individuals
experiencing a severe mental health crisis.
The news release stated Lifeways will
work with Oregon Health Authority to
fi nd “an alternative level of care for Aspen
Springs that is more aligned with health
care worker availability.” Liz Johnsen, chief
See Loss, Page A9
Evolving tech changes work at electric cooperatives
Umatilla Electric
Cooperative linemen
use GIS in the fi eld
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
HERMISTON — When Mitch
Colvin started working as a lineman
for Umatilla Electric Cooperative
six years ago, he spent a lot of time
looking at maps.
The maps, which crews hauled
around in their pickup trucks,
spanned two black binders, each
several inches thick and much wider
than a standard binder. When line-
men needed to locate a specifi c util-
ity pole or other infrastructure, they
had to look up the right paper map
out of thousands, then search the tiny
numbers on the page, looking for the
right one.
Now, everything is digitized and
everyone has their own iPad.
“It speeds up the process a ton,”
Colvin said. “You just type it in and it
pulls it right up.”
The iPad not only pulls up the
information that was previously
contained in the maps, but also a trea-
sure trove of other details, from the
size of a transformer to the name and
phone number of a customer associ-
ated with a meter. Linemen can also
COVID-19 NUMBERS
add information, such as photos, from
on-site.
The Geographic Information
System used to help crews pinpoint
infrastructure in the fi eld is overseen
by Adelaide Zumwalt, GIS adminis-
trator for UEC.
At the cooperative’s Hermiston
offi ce, she toggled through diff erent
maps, showing an interconnected
See Electric, Page A9
TOTALS FOR WEEK ENDING 4/8/2021
IN UMATILLA COUNTY
RISK LEVEL
MODERATE
NEW
CASES
OVER 2 WEEKS
74
TOTAL
CASE GOAL
40
OR LESS
OVER 2
WEEKS
POSITIVE
TEST RATE
3.8
%
POSITIVE
1.2% TEST GOAL
%
5