INSIDE: Echo volleyball team earns OSAA award | PAGE A10
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2021
146th Year, No. 10
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Area bikers bring toys to hospitalized children
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group
A sapling that had succumbed to the dry con-
ditions sits dead in the ground Nov. 30, 2021, at
the Donivan Tree Farm in La Grande. Scorching
summer heat waves and persistent droughts
damaged the new plantings of Christmas trees,
killing off most saplings and seedlings.
H
ERMISTON — The
parking lot of Good
She phe r d Me d ic a l
Center in Hermiston
nearly was silent. It was an over-
cast and crisp Saturday, Dec. 4,
and the hospital spokesperson
was standing alone out front,
hoping people would show up.
Then Santa Claus came
rumbling in on a motorcycle.
With Mrs. Claus in the side-
car, he led a parade of at least
100 motorcyclists as they thun-
dered from Echo to Hermiston,
revving their engines loudly
for the 18th annual Echo Toy
Run. The bearded and tattooed
bikers donned leather jackets
and chaps, jeans and bandanas
while carrying stuff ed animals
and toy trucks for hospitalized
children.
“Bikers are some of the most
generous people out there and,
given a chance, respectful,” said
Santa, otherwise known as Phil
Spencer.
The event brings toys to chil-
dren who are in the hospital
over the holidays. What’s left-
over is given out to sick youths
throughout the rest of the year
and to the Hermiston Police
Department for its Christmas
Express program.
Nor ma Sa nchez , who
works in the labor delivery
department at Good Shep-
herd, said the hospital hasn’t
been able to give children
toys due to pandemic proto-
col. She said she was thrilled
to see the gifts were pack-
aged so they could be cleaned
Photos by Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Bikers carrying toys stride through the parking lot Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021, as the Echo Toy Run
arrives at Good Shepherd Medical Center in Hermiston.
and given to local youths.
“It’s Christmas, they would
love that,” she said.
The ride continues in
memory of Alan Sells, the
event organizer for 15 years
before he died in August 2019
near Plymouth, Washington,
when a car hit him while he
was riding a Harley-David-
son motorcycle. Now, Sells’
daughter, Amanda Silvani,
runs the event.
“We couldn’t let it die,”
Silvani said, adding, “It’s amaz-
ing to see how giving people
are.”
See Toy Run, Page A9
Jack Cooper deposits a gift in a donation bin Saturday, Dec. 4,
2021, during the Echo Toy Run at Good Shepherd Medical Cen-
ter in Hermiston.
Santa Claus, also known as Phil Spencer, leads the Echo Toy Run
out of Echo on Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021, en route to Good Shepherd
Medical Center in Hermiston.
Drought
scorches
trees, aff ects
Christmas
tradition
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
LA GRANDE — A scorching summer
and persistent drought in Oregon has stressed
young saplings and seedlings of Christmas
trees from the Willamette Valley to Eastern
Oregon. Those environmental conditions have
exacerbated an already strained industry that
was just starting to recover from a Christmas
tree shortage that was decades in the making.
Due to a large surplus in trees in the early to
mid 2000s, many Christmas tree growers had
one unprofi table year after another, leading the
farmers to seek out other avenues of revenue
as prices plummeted
for their product.
Oregon leads
“Between grow-
the U.S. in
ers not planting —
that stayed in the
Christmas tree
businesses — the
production,
number of trees that
with exports
were going into the
ground from 2006 to
exceeding
2007 wasn’t enough
$100 million
t o su st ai n t he
demand that would
be out there 10 years in the future,” said Greg
Smith, owner of Molalla Tree Farms, which
grows Christmas trees on nearly 200 acres in
Clackamas County. “So, in 2015, you started
seeing the market tighten up for supply, and
then people have been planting again, but we’re
still — it’s such a long process to grow a Christ-
mas tree. It’s a 10-year project to get a market-
able tree.”
Smith had lost many of his younger saplings
and seedlings this year due to the high tempera-
tures in the summer that pushed the mercury
to more than 110 degrees in some parts of the
state. Drought, rising gas prices, labor short-
ages and heat waves conspired to reduce the
already low supply of Christmas trees this
year, and the eff ects of the heat wave are just
the beginning.
“We lost basically our entire plantings this
year, now we’ve got another big hole that’s
going to suck up any excess that would have
been in the future,” Smith said, speaking about
the Christmas industry as a whole.
See Drought, Page A9
‘Right now, it’s all hope’
Coronavirus cases have
dropped in Eastern Oregon
By BRYCE DOLE
and DAVIS CARBAUGH
EO Media Group
PENDLETON — In many parts of
Eastern Oregon, coronavirus infection
rates have fallen to the lowest levels
in months, according to state data and
regional public health offi cials.
But with the omicron variant now
having reached the United States,
prompting travel restrictions while
scientists worldwide have sounded an
alarm, regional health offi cials are urging
caution as families gather for the holi-
days.
“My advice for the typical Umatilla
County resident would be, yes, this is
something we may have to deal with
down the road,” Umatilla County Public
Health Director Joe Fiumara said of the
omicron variant, which scientists say has
the potential to be more transmissible
and less susceptible to existing vaccines
due to a high number of mutations. “It’s
not something that will have to be dealt
with today or tomorrow, but it might be
next week.”
Average daily coronavirus cases in
Umatilla County have fallen to the lowest
levels since April, the Oregon Health
Authority reported. In Morrow County,
case rates in recent weeks have fallen to
among the lowest in Oregon.
“Casewise, we’re in about as good of
a position as we could have ever hoped to
be,” Fiumara said. “Over the last several
weeks, our numbers have plummeted.
And it’s a good thing.”
See Hope, Page A9
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
Registered nurse Lexie Futter, left, prepares Raylene Ellis to receive
her COVID-19 booster shot Oct. 29, 2021, during a vaccination clinic
at the Pendleton Convention Center.