Business improvements underway in Pendleton | REGION, A3
TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2022
146th Year, No. 64
$1.50
WINNER OF 16 ONPA AWARDS IN 2021
COVID-19
Masks
in school
again?
OHA recommends
mask mandates
return to schools
where infection
rates are high
By ERICK PETERSON and
JOHN TILLMAN
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Oregon’s
COVID-19 case rate is rising again,
and that has state health and educa-
tion offi cials worried.
The state issued a health advisory
Friday, May 13, eff ective through
Aug. 31, recommending that schools
require face masks again in coun-
ties where the federally-defi ned risk
level is high. No Oregon counties
have reached this level yet, but six
are classifi ed as medium. These six,
according to Oregon Public Broad-
casting, are Multnomah, Washing-
ton, Clackamas, Columbia, Benton
and Deschutes counties.
The other 30 counties in the state,
including Umatilla and Morrow
counties, are low, according to
federal ratings, which are based on
hospitalization data.
The state’s warning comes amid
rising coronavirus cases, a previ-
ously predicted bump brought on by
the highly infectious omicron BA.2
subvariant and the lifting of mask
restrictions. Hospitalizations are
rising, too, and are predicted to peak
at around 320 within about a month.
According to OHA data, pediatric
COVID-19 cases have been increas-
ing since the middle of March,
similar to cases statewide. Hospital-
izations remain low but are on the
rise. Health offi cials have called it “a
mild virus” in most cases.
The advisory also recommends
that schools monitor for high absen-
tee rates and notify their local public
health authority if absences reach
a certain level, or if they see an
“unusual spread of disease.”
ODE said schools leaders should
tell their county health offi cials if
absences exceed certain bench-
marks, such as if absences reach 30%
or more, with at least 10 students or
staff absent at the school level, and
if classroom absences reach 20% or
more, with at least three students or
staff absent.
Schools have learned from
past 2 years
InterMountain Education Service
District Superintendent Mark Mulvi-
hill said the state advisory was “a
heads up that COVID is creeping up
in some Oregon counties. It is a bit in
our area as well.”
See Masks, Page A6
Firefi ghter Josh Hoeft with
the Umatilla Tribal Fire
Department secures a catch
pole around the neck of Azra
as he works to rescue her
Thursday, May 12, 2022, from a
ledge on Cabbage Hill about 9
miles east of Pendleton.
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation/Contributed Photo
Rescuers save 3-year-old Anatolian
shepherd on a cliff near Pendleton
and Azra still did not return. While Morgan
said she was unable to search for Azra, her
husband, David Morgan, did.
“Every spare moment, every free time he
had, he was looking for her,” she said, even
going door to door in the area.
“Every place he could go, he went,” she
said.
David Morgan had a friend, Tim Melter,
who came over from Milton-Freewater to
help look for Azra, she said, and another of
her husband’s close friends, John Lancaster,
put the word out about Azra on social media.
“It’s really a community thing,” she said.
“A community of dog lovers, animal lovers,
pet lovers.”
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
P
ENDLETON — Azra
had been missing for
three days when her
owner got the call
Thursday, May 12, that
someone found her.
Carol Morgan said
she received a call from
Robin Berheim, an Oregon Department of
Transportation supervisor in Pendleton, after
an ODOT employee spotted the 3-year-old
Anatolian shepherd a couple of miles from
her home on the Umatilla Indian Reservation
near Pendleton.
Berheim asked if the dog had a choke
chain around her neck. Morgan said she
answer was yes and Berheim, reported just
where Azra was:
“She’s trapped on a cliff going up Cabbage
Hill.”
Azra goes missing
“I got her when she was a puppy,” Morgan
said.
And she was the runt of the litter. Morgan
said Anatolian shepherds are big dogs. Azra’s
sister weighs 120 pounds, but Azra tips the
scales closer to 70.
“I train dogs off and on for fun, been doing
it over 40 years,” she said, and when she lived
in Colorado she fostered and retrained dogs
for adoption.
Morgan said she usually walked her dogs
in the morning.
“That’s my exercise, I’m a senior now,”
she said.
She explained she recently injured a leg
and foot, preventing her from those morning
The rescue
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation/Contributed Photo
Azra, a 3-year-old Anatolian shepherd, stands
Thursday, May 12, 2022, on a ledge overlook-
ing Interstate 84 on Cabbage Hill near Pend-
leton. Rescuers saved the dog that morning.
walks, so she let out the dogs on their own.
“And they always would come back at
10 a.m. so they could eat breakfast,” Morgan
said. She let the dogs out Monday morning,
and her other dog returned but not Azra, and
the other dog was acting off .
“She was like something was wrong,”
Morgan said, “so I knew something was
wrong right away.”
Morgan said she waited another hour,
Umatilla Tribal Dispatch received a call
from the Pendleton offi ce of Oregon Depart-
ment of Transportation reporting the missing
dog was on a ledge on a steep cliff on Inter-
state 84 on Cabbage Hill.
The dispatch center at 9:38 a.m. called the
Umatilla Tribal Fire Department to assess
the situation, according to a press release
from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation. Fire Chief James Hall
responded and found the dog on the north
side of the eastbound lane of I-84 near mile-
post 219.
Morgan said when she got the call about
Azra from the ODOT employee, she headed
out to try to get her dog.
“I’m afraid of heights,” she said, “but I
went up there anyway to see if I could get her
off the ledge.”
As soon as Azra saw her, Morgan said, she
started whining and crying.
See Dog, Page A6
Event calls for removal of Snake River dams
Tamastslikt Cultural
Institute hosts whale
totem journey, exhibit
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
MISSION — The 3,000-pound
killer whale totem was the focal point
of a one-day exhibition at Tamastslikt
Cultural Institute near Pendleton, but
the message behind the totem was far
larger:
Saving the orcas means saving
salmon, and saving salmon means
saving ourselves. And doing that
requires removing the dams on the
Snake River.
Kat Brigham, chair of the Board of
Trustees of the Confederated Tribes of
Phil Wright/East Oregonian
Attendees get a closer look at the 3,000 pound whale totem Saturday event,
May 14, 2022, outside Tamastslikt Cultural Institute near Pendleton. The to-
tem was at the center of “Whale People: Protectors of the Sea,” an immersive
video presentation on the plight of Northwest salmon and orcas.
the Umatilla Indian Reservation, put it
this way: “We have to take care of the
land, the water and air. And it hasn’t
been taken care of very well.”
Tamastslikt hosted two related
outdoor events on Saturday, May 14, to
draw attention to the extinction crisis
facing Pacifi c Northwest salmon and
orcas and build support for the Indig-
enous-led movement to remove the
lower Snake River dams.
Brothers Doug James and Jewell
James, master carvers of the House of
Tears Carvers of the Lummi Nation,
led a presentation that afternoon on
the art and cultural aspects of totem
pole carving. Bobbie Connor, director
of Tamastslikt, said dozens of people
attended the event.
The totem pole’s journey began
See Totem, Page A6