NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
The show goes on at Enterprise’s OK Theatre
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
INTERESTED IN
DONATING?
ENTERPRISE — The
show must go on.
That’s Darrell Brann’s
intention and his plan is to
reopen Enterprise’s historic
OK Theatre next spring.
Right now, the building’s
façade is covered with scaf-
folding in anticipation of its
restoration this week.
“I’ve had people ask, ‘Are
you tearing it down?’ Well,
we’re tearing it back to the
good stuff and then rebuild-
ing from there,” Brann said.
Inside, much of the theater
has been gutted in prepara-
tion for other work, such as
retail spaces, a bar, remodel-
ing the foyer and a green room
— the place where perform-
ers prepare before coming on
stage.
“Ours was yellow,” Brann
said of the old green room.
He said there also are plans
to replace some sagging ceil-
ing joists and he hopes to even
add a kitchen.
Who: Darrell and Christin
Brann
What: Send check to OK
Theatre
Where: 306 S.E. Second
St., Enterprise, OR 97828
Email: oktheater1@
gmail.com
lete,” Brann said. “You could
still get it, but it was tough.”
He said the estimated
$100,000 to convert to digital
was beyond the reach of the
previous owners — or him.
Musical family
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
The façade of the OK Theatre in Enterprise is undergoing a major refurbishment as part of
work to restore the theater and prepare it to reopen next spring, said co-owner Darrell Brann
on Friday, Nov. 19, 2021.
happy to have it, but it doesn’t
take you as far as you’d like. A
lot of theater owners, they’re
spending millions. With all
the help we’ve had from the
community, as far as labor,
it’s been an amazing thing.
But we long for the day when
we can be open and full and
people can have a good time
in here like they used to.”
Already, through grants
and donations, the heating
system has been upgraded,
as has the electrical wiring.
Grants, donations
helped
Brann said both grants and
donations have helped fund
the work.
“We were awarded a grant
from the State Historic Pres-
ervation Office of $85,000. I
haven’t done any fundrais-
ing,” he said. “We were super
More decorative items also
have been added, such as two
opera boxes and the prosce-
nium — the arch that creates a
“window” around the scenery
and performers.
Brann said he also
received help from Restore
Oregon, which has a mission
to preserve, reuse and pass
forward historic places.
The theater was originally
built in 1918. In those days, it
was where you’d go to see a
silent film with Buster Keaton
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
WEDNESDAY
Windy with a
couple of showers
Considerable
cloudiness
46° 31°
46° 35°
51° 32°
47° 33°
| Go to AccuWeather.com
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
Cloudy and not
as cool
SATURDAY
Cloudy
Sun through high
clouds
or Charlie Chaplin or maybe
Douglas Fairbanks and Mary
Pickford. Unlike some in the
late 1920s, the theater was
equipped to accommodate the
new “talkies” and kept show-
ing films until 2013, when
everything went digital.
“One of the main reasons
the previous owners were
getting out of it was that 2013
was the last year you could get
reel film, and all the theater
had was 32 mm. That equip-
ment was fast becoming obso-
State offers help to pharmacies
Employee program
not open to local
pharmacies
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
56° 48°
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
57° 45°
56° 42°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
51° 48°
57° 44°
60° 42°
OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
49/41
38/27
51/26
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
46/34
Lewiston
50/39
52/33
Astoria
50/39
Pullman
Yakima 46/27
49/36
44/32
Portland
Hermiston
51/40
The Dalles 51/32
Salem
Corvallis
51/34
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
42/28
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
51/36
45/26
40/26
Ontario
46/26
Caldwell
Burns
35°
33°
48°
31°
73° (1974) 6° (2013)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
52/34
0.00"
1.08"
0.79"
5.00"
3.90"
7.26"
WINDS (in mph)
45/25
42/18
0.00"
1.17"
1.02"
7.20"
12.13"
11.34"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 38/21
52/36
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
HERMISTON
Enterprise
46/31
52/34
34°
29°
47°
31°
71° (1933) -5° (1985)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
49/35
Aberdeen
36/25
46/30
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
48/39
Today
Wed.
Boardman WSW 12-25
Pendleton WSW 12-25
Medford
50/30
SW 3-6
S 6-12
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
44/17
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2021
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
7:06 a.m.
4:17 p.m.
7:31 p.m.
11:09 a.m.
Last
New
First
Full
Nov 27
Dec 3
Dec 10
Dec 18
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 90° in Fallbrook, Calif. Low 0° in Bodie State Park, Calif.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
“For me, it was a perfect
step for the theater for us. …
We thought what could we
do? So in 2011, was the first
show I booked at the OK
Theatre” before it was for
sale, he said. “I was just a local
citizen, I have a construction
company, I play music and
grew up with music, I play a
lot of gigs around here locally.
… I play guitar — blues, rock
and folk. My wife (Christin)
and I will do duos, country
and folk. She’s a singer and a
pianist, but she always sang
harmony with me primarily.
We do a lot of weddings and
things like that and our kids
all got into it.”
Of their five kids, the
oldest, Meredith, who just
turned 20, already has
recorded two albums. The
most recent was recorded at
the OK and released just a
couple weeks ago.
Like today, when the OK
first opened, the world was
then in the midst of a deadly
pandemic — the 1918 influ-
enza pandemic — and was
not allowed to open until early
1919.
The OK was forced to shut
down again in March 2020,
when the coronavirus struck.
But that didn’t stop Brann.
“Given our situation here,
we’ve always had to sell every
seat to make it work,” he said.
“We decided to take advan-
tage of the forced down time
to start remodeling.”
In the meantime, he’s
gotten back to booking shows
for the coming year.
“It will be open, but
whether or not we get enough
funds to really finish the bar”
and other elements, he’s still
not sure.
“People should look
forward to potential shows
… I don’t want to do it in the
thick of construction, but
maybe by early spring we’ll
have a show. We’ll see what
we can pull off,” he said. “In
our family, we’re hoping to do
something for the community
in gratitude for all the help
we’ve had on the theater, the
work days.”
SALEM — The Oregon
Health Authority is offer-
ing to pay pharmacies $35
for each dose of COVID-19
vaccine they give, a move
that could help pharma-
cies hire employees to deal
with the growing workload
that resulted in long lines
in Pendleton and across the
state.
The program, which
launched this month, also is
intended to boost vaccination
rates and ensure vaccines are
available to all residents, said
Rudy Owens, a public affairs
specialist for the Oregon
Health Authority.
To qualif y for the
payments, pharmacies must
meet certain standards for
“vaccine equity,” including
such things as offering multi-
lingual signing for COVID-
19 vaccinations, “expanded
vaccine-related counseling
aimed at boosting vaccine
confidence,” and “a plan
for ongoing evaluation and
continuous improvement to
ensure equitable access,”
according to a flyer from
OHA.
T he agency’s other
program more directly
addresses the staffing short-
ages that have plagued phar-
macies, as the state will pay
temporary pharmacists to
bolster workforces.
However, Owens said the
temporary staffing program
is available only to indepen-
dent pharmacies. Corpo-
rate-owned pharmacies,
including the three in Baker
City — at the Safeway,
Albertsons and Rite Aid
stores — are not eligible for
the program, Owens said.
The larger chain phar-
macies are eligible for the
vaccine payments, however.
Owens said OHA doesn’t
have data yet on how many
pharmacies have applied for
the supplemental payments.
He said the pharmacy
staffing shortages have been
exacerbated by the closure of
more than 35 Bi-Mart phar-
macies, including the one in
Pendleton.
The bigger culprit in
the pharmacy crisis is the
limited reimbursements that
pharmacies receive from
what are known as pharmacy
benefit managers, or PBMs,
said Brian Mayo, executive
director of the Oregon State
Pharmacy Association. If
those reimbursements were
“fair,” pharmacies would be
able to hire more employees
and lines would be shorter,
Mayo said.
Pend leton resident s
recently reported waiting
in pharmacy lines more
than an hour-and-half.
Some reported having to
wait several days to receive
crucial medication. Those
delays are not acceptable,
Mayo said.
“Many community phar-
macies across Oregon are
five to 14 days behind fill-
ing prescriptions because
they can’t keep up with the
demand,” he said. “When
somebody needs a medi-
cation they can’t wait two
weeks. Patient safety is a
huge issue at this point.”
Mayo said the Oregon
State Pharmacy Association
has been warning for years
that low reimbursements to
pharmacies by PBMs are a
problem.
“The harms we have
warned of have now come
true,” he said.
The Pharmacy Associa-
tion is urging elected officials
to take immediate action on
reforming the PBM system.
The organization also is
asking Oregon to exempt
prescription drugs from the
state’s Corporate Activities
Tax, which the Legislature
approved in 2019 and which
took effect Jan. 1, 2020.
The Pharmacy Associ-
ation has some high-level
backing in its effort to reform
the PBM system.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden,
D-Oregon, recently sent a
letter to Chiquita Brooks-La-
Sure, administrator of the
Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services, a federal
agency, citing PBM reim-
bursements and the fees
charged by PBMs and by
Medicare Part D prescrip-
tion plans as contributing to
pharmacy closures.
“I am deeply concerned
that the rise of these fees has
contributed to the perma-
nent closure of 2,200 phar-
macies nationwide between
December 2017 and Decem-
ber 2020,” Wyden wrote in
his letter to Brooks-LaSure.
Wyden is calling on the
Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services to review
pharmacy closures in the
U.S. over the past five years,
including the nature and
effect of PBM payment prac-
tices, and to use the agency’s
authority to regulate their
fees.
Mayo said the current
situation, with lines of
customers snaking through
some stores, is frustrating for
pharmacy employees.
“The pharmacists, techni-
cians and interns are work-
ing as fast as they can,” Mayo
said. “In many cases, they
are being forced to continue
working without required
breaks and voluntarily work-
ing longer unrecorded hours
so they can provide care to
their customers. They want
to help the patients. That’s
why they chose this profes-
sion, but it feels like things
are getting out of control.
“We must improve work-
ing conditions in pharmacies
for the sake of patient safety
and pharmacy staff member
well-being,” Mayo said.
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
-10s
-0s
0s
showers t-storms
10s
rain
20s
flurries
30s
snow
40s
ice
50s
60s
cold front
E AST O REGONIAN
— Founded Oct. 16, 1875 —
70s
East Oregonian (USPS 164-980) is published Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday,
by the EO Media Group, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801. Periodicals
postage paid at Pendleton, OR. Postmaster: send address changes to
East Oregonian, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801.
Copyright © 2021, EO Media Group
90s
100s
warm front stationary front
110s
high
low
Circulation Dept.
For mail delivery, online access, vacation stops
or delivery concerns call 800-781-3214
CORRECTIONS: The East Oregonian works hard to be accurate and sincerely
regrets any errors. If you notice a mistake in the paper, please call 541-966-0818.
ADVERTISING
Regional Sales Director (Eastside) EO Media Group:
• Karrine Brogoitti
541-963-3161 • kbrogoitti@eomediagroup.com
211 S.E. Byers Ave., Pendleton 541-276-2211
333 E. Main St., Hermiston 541-567-6211
Office hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Closed major holidays
EastOregonian.com
In the App Store:
80s
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
Multimedia Consultants:
541-564-4531
Local home
delivery
Savings
(cover price)
$10.75/month
50 percent
541-966-0827 mbarnes@eastoregonina.com
52 weeks
$135
42 percent
• Audra Workman
26 weeks
$71
39 percent
541-564-4538 • aworkman@eastoregonian.com
$37
36 percent
Business Office
EZPay
13 weeks
Single copy price:
$1.50 Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
• Melissa Barnes
• Dayle Stinson
541-966-0824 • dstinson@eastoregonian.com
Classified & Legal Advertising
Classified advertising: 541-564-4538
Legal advertising: 541-966-0824
classifieds@eastoregonian.com or legals@eastoregonian.com
NEWS
• To submit news tips and press releases:
call 541-966-0818 or email news@eastoregonian.com.
• To submit community events, calendar items and other items:
email community@eastoregonian.com.
• To submit engagements, weddings and anniversaries:
email community@eastoregonian.com or visit eastoregonian.
com/community/announcements.
• To submit sports or outdoors information or tips:
email sports@eastoregonian.com.
COMMERCIAL PRINTING
Commercial Print Manager: Holly Rouska
541-617-7839 • hrouska@eomediagroup.com