FOR HAWKINS SISTERS RANCH,
IT’S CHICKEN FEED
Two businesses opening in Joseph | Page 6
Enterprise, Oregon
Issue No. 41
Wallowa.com
MUSH
IN THE
SLUSH
2018 Eagle Cap Extreme
filled with challenges, fun
Morgan Anderson of Enterprise guides her six-dog team toward the Salt Creek Summit check point in the first leg of
the 31-mile, two-day race. Anderson finished third overall, with a time of 7 hours, 44 minutes for the two 31-mile courses.
T
See DOGS, Page A10
$1
Legacy
land group
has eyes on
Hayes Farm
Downpayment for $2
million deal due in March
By Paul Wahl
Wallowa County Chieftain
A group of investors is attempting to
purchase the 145-acre Hayes Farm west of
Joseph but will have to move quickly.
A $750,000 down payment is due in
March. Roughly $400,000 has been raised
by Eastern Oregon Legacy Lands Fund.
The organization will pay off the remain-
ing $1.75 million price tag over a period of
two years or less, according to James Monte-
ith, chairman of the fund.
“That’s a lot of money but less than we
expected to have to put up,” said Monteith,
noting a previous selling price of $11 mil-
lion. The property has been in flux for the
past decade.
The farm is a treasure trove of historic,
natural and agricultural significance.
Located at the foot of the Terminal
Moraine just west of Joseph, the property
includes a half-mile of Wallowa River front-
age as well as Indian Ridge, where Chief
Joseph and the Wallowa Band Nez Perce
confronted the U.S. Army in September
1876, before their forced exodus from the
Wallowa country the following spring.
See FARM, Page A9
Good news
ahead for
road budget
By Kathleen Ellyn
Wallowa County Chieftain
he weather did not cooperate for the
start of the Eagle Cap Extreme Sled
Dog race. Rain poured down all day
Thursday and into the night. The rain
on packed snow at lower elevations
turned the precious three inches of white stuff into
slush and ice, neither great for sledding.
Wallowa County was represented by three
mushers this year, but Susan Parraga, scheduled to
run the 2 day 31-miles-per-day Pot Race with her
purebred Siberian Huskies, scratched on Thurs-
day morning.
“It was not worth getting sick or hurt,” she
said.
Wallowa County’s other two competitors
accepted the challenge. Morgan Anderson, grad-
uating from the youth division to run the Pot Race
and veterinarian Jereld Rice, who was running his
first-ever race in the 200, made it through.
January 24, 2018
State funding will be
increased 2021-24
By Kathleen Ellyn
Wallowa County Chieftain
Trevor Warren’s 14-month-old Alaskan Husky, Neptune, is
snow-covered but still enthusiastic after winning the 100-
mile race. Warren’s team of mostly young, unseasoned dogs,
finished in a fast time of 20 hours, six minutes.
2018 Women’s Marchers cheery, resolute
By Kathleen Ellyn
Wallowa County Chieftain
A cheerful crowd of approximately
150 met in Joseph for the Second Annual
Women’s March Jan. 20. The group
traversed Main Street with signs and
flags proclaiming a continued dissatis-
faction with the Trump administration
and Trump personally and expressing a
belief in the dignity of women and all
other individuals.
Cheerful signals a change in how
marchers and their allies are moving for-
ward from last year’s event.
The march of 2017 saw approxi-
mately 300 angry individuals in Joseph.
The 2018 Wallowa County group, though
smaller, met with more confidence than
they had exhibited at the first march.
Kathleen Ellyn/Chieftain
A year down the road, the anti-sex-
ual harassment #MeToo movement also Marchers came in all sizes, ages and descriptions for the Second
Annual Women’s March on Joseph Main Street Jan. 20.
played a role in setting the theme.
The rollercoaster that is the roads bud-
get in Wallowa County has hit bottom and is
starting another climb.
Thanks to new vehicle dealer privilege,
public transportation payroll, bicycle and gas
taxes and increased registration and license
fees, the Oregon Department of Transpor-
tation will have double its usual budget for
the upcoming 2021-2024 period, raising the
four-year total to $2.4 billion.
A proportionally increased amount
will trickle into Wallowa County. It will
take seven years, said County Commis-
sioner Susan Roberts, but eventually Wal-
lowa County will be getting a bit more than
$500,000 a year from the state.
That money is meant to make up for
the loss of timber receipts and then Secure
Rural Schools money. However, $500,000 a
year still does not match the approximately
$800,000 per year the county was receiving
from the federal schools program two years
ago, Roberts said.
The county received around $825,000
into the road department in 2016, Roberts
said. This year Wallowa County received
around $200,000 in Statewide Transpor-
tation Improvement Program money and
$61,000 in 2015 timber receipts that were
held over pending congressional approval.
Timber receipts are historically split
between schools and roads, so not all of that
$61,000 went to roads.
“It’s a considerable change,” Roberts
said. “We lost the timber revenues, we went
to SRS, and then lost that, and now over the
next seven years, the ODOT money should
build us back to $500,000. But that’s still
$300,000 less than we had.”
As a result, county projects, such as com-
pletion of the 39 Road have been placed on
the back burner. The road, also known as
See ROADS, Page A8