Gomes wins state archery title. SPORTS 10A
Enterprise, Oregon
Wallowa.com
Issue No. 48
March 15, 2017
RETURN OF THE
$1
ARTIST FEATURE
COHO
Courtesy Photo
Local artist Sam Collett working on a
painting in his home studio.
County
seeps
into
artist’s
work
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Coho salmon smolts shoot out of a hose into the Lostine River last week outside of Wallowa. The Nez Perce tribe is reintroducing the
fish to the Lostine River after a 31-year absence of coho salmon.
SALMON SPECIES REINTRODUCED
TO GRANDE RONDE BASIN
By George Plaven
EO Media Group
he Lostine River fl owed
gently Thursday after-
noon through Wolfe
Ranch near Wallowa, where
a truck hauling young coho
salmon backed slowly down
a gravel drive to the water’s
edge.
For the fi rst time in 31
years, coho were released
into the Grande Ronde Basin,
following a ceremony hosted
by the Nez Perce Tribe and
Oregon Department of Fish &
Wildlife. Approximately 50
people gathered to celebrate
the occasion, marking a major
milestone in the effort to re-
store a once-abundant fi shery.
Guests watched from just
T
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Coho salmon smolts swim close to the banks of the Lostine
River after being released last week east of Wallowa.
upstream of the tribe’s Los-
tine salmon weir as a thick
hose connected to the tanker
belched tens of thousands of
fi nger-size smolts into the river.
Silver fl ashes darted around
the stream bank before the fi sh
eventually took to the current
and began their long journey to
the Pacifi c Ocean.
All together, eight trucks
transported half a million coho
— or kállay in the Nez Perce
language — to the Lostine
River from the ODFW hatchery
at Cascade Locks where they
were reared. Tribal offi cials
said it was an historic event,
and the culmination of decades
of work.
“It is a great honor to be
here and serve my people,”
said Quincy Ellenwood, a
member of the Nez Perce Trib-
al Executive Committee. “We
do this for the love we have of
our culture.”
By Stephen Tool
Wallowa County Chieftain
In this continuation of the feature on local
artist Sam Collett, the Chieftain starts at the
move of Collett and his wife Susan to Wal-
lowa County.
Collett met his future wife Susan in 1993
and the couple married in 1998, shortly be-
fore their move to Wallowa County. Col-
lett’s wife had friends in Wallowa County
and they entered some of her drawings in the
Wallowa Valley Festival of the Arts, some of
which won awards.
“We came up here to see what it was like,
and we were staying at Stein’s Cabins. I was
out doing some painting when Stein came
up and asked if we wanted to buy the place,”
Sam Collett said. “Sue and I started talking
about it. We had this vision, you know, we
were blinded by it. We had no idea what we
were getting into.”
The couple tried the cabin rental business
for a time, but the stress of the business took
a toll on their artwork as well as their pock-
etbooks.
They later sold the business.
Sue Collett
Sam Collett’s wife, Sue, was talented in
her own right, both as a painter and jewelry
maker. She passed away in 2015.
See SALMON, Page A12
See COLLETT, Page A12
Bowerman Ranch: The
goats with the most
By Steve Tool
Wallowa County Chieftain
Anytime you see Bower-
man Ranch co-owner Wen-
dy McCullough, you can bet
that goats aren’t far from her
thoughts. In the shadow of
Mt. Joseph, at the end of road
named for her family, the
third generation to live on the
ranch quietly goes about her
business of raising goats.
For the most part, these
are not milk goats. These
goats are for the dinner table.
McCullough, a Wallowa
County native, has raised
goats on the several-hundred
acre ranch since 2006.
It has been a circuitous
route back to the ranch Mc-
Cullough was raised on.
After graduation from
Joseph High School, Mc-
Cullough left the area in
1969 to attend Oregon State
University.
She married and moved to
Baker City, where she lived
for the next 13 years before
departing for the warmer
climes of Arizona where she
stayed six years, before mak-
ing a move to Virginia for an-
other 13 years. Still, Wallowa
County was never far from
her mind.
See GOATS, Page A9
Lostine woman raises
her own breed of sheep
Colony cross
produces
soft wool
June Colony of
Lostine has reached a
milestone in creating a
wool-producing sheep
extraordinaire.
She has been breed-
ing her sheep for 14
years and now she has
what she thinks is the
base of her very own
breed.
See FLOCK, Page A7
Kathleen Ellyn/Chieftain
“All these girls will lamb in April,” June Colony says. Colony has
used the herd to make money in a myriad of ways.