A4 Opinion wallowa.com August 22, 2018 Wallowa County Chieftain Let’s create ‘volunteer central’ L ast week’s column on volunteers brought a good deal of discussion about the topic. Some readers took it as a criticism of Wallowa County residents, which it was not. There are many stalwart volunteers who make a difference in our community. The problem is that the same volunteers are expected to show up every time there is a need, and we’re not expanding the volunteer base. One of my points was how do people volunteer for some- thing when they aren’t aware volunteers are needed. How do clubs, groups, churches and organizations get the word out when they need assistance? How can we match volunteers with volunteer opportuni- ties in the county? There were no ready answers. So I came up with one. Why don’t we create a Wallowa County “volun- teer central?” This would be a listing open to every organiza- Paul Wahl tion that needed volunteers, a brief description of what the work entails and contact information. It could all be done electronically. We would coordinate the listing each week here at the Chieftain, run it on our website and Facebook and schedule it in the print edition as often as space permits. We would pro- vide a printed listing to libraries or anyone else who would like one. There would be one simple form that groups would com- plete in order to be listed. We could even print and post the listing sheets on a bulletin board in a designated spot. Here’s how it would work. Let’s say one of our schools needs adults to spend time with at-risk children. The school would complete the form and send it in. Anyone reading the information would know immediately whether this opportunity fits their skills and tal- ents and how to contact the organizer. We could also go so far as to offer training for volunteer coordinators through the Rotary Club of Wallowa County. Successful volunteer efforts don’t just happen. They require an organizer –– a cheerleader –– someone to hoist the flag and lead the charge. Let me know what you think of the idea and perhaps if you’d like to “volunteer” to help get a volunteer clearing- house off the ground. WAHL TO WALL ♦ ♦ ♦ Kudos to everyone who had a part in the Wallowa County Fair last week. It was hot at the fairgrounds. I’m sure the heat had an impact. Fortunately, it cooled down by Satur- day, giving everyone a bit of relief. We have a ton of photos and results we will try to plow through in this edition and next week’s edition. We’ll also be sharing photos on Facebook and on our website. I continue to be impressed with the quality of young peo- ple we have in Wallowa County. In addition to being smart and savvy, they’re friendly. In the process of getting iden- tification for photos, I heard many great back stories from 4-Hers, FFAers and others. It also helped that this year fair exhibitors mostly knew who I was and why I was walking around with a camera ask- ing for names. I’m beginning to recognize individual faces as belonging to particular families and which families are related. Fair officials and staff were also a big help again this year making sure we had information, names spelled correctly and other helpful information. Woods’ comeback end of a long journey I n 2009, Stewart Cink won the Open Championship (formerly called the British Open) in a playoff against Tom Watson. But only die-hard golf fans will remember that Cink won that tournament. What most fans will remember was the excitement and drama of the 59-year- old, five-time Open winner Watson tak- ing the lead after two rounds and hold- ing onto it all the way through the 72nd hole on Sunday, when his par putt faded, as did his hopes and dreams of becoming the oldest major winner ever. This year’s final major in golf, the PGA Championship, will probably be remembered in a similar way. The win- ner, Brooks Koepka, deserves to be more than a footnote, as I will gladly explain toward the end of this column. But the buzz and drama of this tourna- ment was really about the greatest golfer POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY John McColgan of the last quarter century, Tiger Woods, who has won 14 majors in his career, but none since his last US Open win in 2008. Woods is now 42 rather than 59, but his quest for another major is no less improbable or quixotic now than Wat- son’s was in 2009. Woods’ career began to take a turn for the worse when his personal life fell apart along with his marriage in 2009. A great deal of Woods’ dominance in golf prior to that time derived from the apparent invin- cibility of his mental game, and Tiger’s personal debacle seemed to shake his confidence on the course as well. While he had some victories in regular tour events for several years after that, he no longer held the same edge over his com- petitors, and an array of new young golfers rose to the challenge of filling the vacuum created after Tiger’s fall from grace. In the last five years, physical prob- lems have added to Tiger’s woes. He has had knee injuries and four back surger- ies, and he has spent entire seasons on the sidelines. His return to prominence was by no means assured as he reached his 40s. And while the networks teased and Tiger sometimes appeared almost back to his old form, time and again he fell short. But this year, Tiger has proven that he has really come back. He placed sec- ond at the Valspar Tournament and briefly See WOODS, Page A5 Something is different about the weather I ’ve been swimming in Wallowa Lake this summer — every day since July 4 to brag a little. I’m not a good swimmer or a long swimmer, just a relentless swimmer with arthritis pain that feels much better with water therapy. But that is not the point here; the point is how warm the water has been and is. Warmer than I can ever remember. And while I’m at it, the smoke that has hovered over my swims for the past week reminds me of the smoke last sum- mer that caused Joseph High School to cancel a football game. I can’t even find consensus on where this year’s smoke is coming from — Central Oregon? Califor- nia? Washington? British Columbia? I know, I know. Weather changes, and the July and August freezes that killed things in my garden in years past might come again. But I don’t think a Septem- ber freeze, October snow or cold winter will alter the fact that things are different. MAIN STREET Rich Wandschneider Hot days are hotter, and there are more of them. Fire — exacerbated by a fool- ish national policy of putting out all fires “before 10 a.m. the next day” after the Big Fire of 1910 and the science of fire- fighting replaced the millennial wisdom of Indians who burned regularly — is a more frequent and devastating visitor in the region. Something at Lake Chelan seems to burn every year, and smoke creeps our way from central Oregon and the Colum- bia River Gorge, site of last year’s big fire and months of lane closure on I-84. And there is California. In California, Gov. Jerry Brown calls the persistent vol- ley of fires over an extended fire season the “new normal.” There was another period in recorded history — about 800 AD to 1300 — sometimes called the Medieval Warm Period when worldwide temperatures climbed. The impacts were uneven, with Europe receiving the blessings of good weather and water to the extent that England was growing wine grapes and Norway was growing wheat. Europe’s population exploded, and the Norwe- gians settled in Greenland, Iceland and Newfoundland. The rest of the world? Not so good. Droughts in California killed the acorns and starved the people; in Central Amer- ica, the Mayan Civilization collapsed. In the end, Brian Fagan, who wrote a book about it, says that drought is the great See WEATHER, Page A5 Accurate quotes are important when commenting on the news This letter is from a thinking resident of Wal- lowa County about your open letter to Pres. Donald Trump in the Aug. 15 edition of the Chieftain. You said, “We do our dead level best to make sure our reporting is accurate and welcome feedback from our readers to make sure we are meeting that goal.” Hooray for you. Put this in the “feedback” file. Sad to say, in this column, you are demon- strating once again to your readers the same “Fake News” errors that our president rightly condemns. You did not confirm that what you repeated from their stories was actually true. Your open letter states: “If you [President Trump] say the press is evil and doesn’t have the interest of the people in mind, they believe it.” That is a perfect example of totally Fake News. What President Trump actually tweeted on June 13 at 6:30 a.m. was, “Our Country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily pro- mulgated by fools!” If you give it just a little thought, what Pres- ident Trump said is exactly correct. Our nation depends on informed voters to guide our repub- lic into the future. When the “news” reports focus on incon- sequential stories –– such as the current Oma- rosa flap –– and neglect to report important stories about the NAFTA negotiations, the prog- ress with North Korea, the impressive economic LETTERS to the EDITOR news, the improvements to the VA hospitals, etc., that is a danger to the country. Voters are not given accurate information. That makes Fake News a lasting enemy to our country. Trump did not say that “the press is evil.” Accurate quotes are important. I agree with you, Paul, that the Chieftain is very important to our community. I appreciate the local news coverage. However, whenever you venture into national politics, and especially when using sto- ries about Trump from NBC and CNN, please consider the source. They have been proven to be 90 percent neg- ative and frequently inaccurate. Do your “dead level best” to verify everything. Or ask me for accurate web sites. Glad to help. Anita VanGrunsven Wallowa Constitution gives a voice to everyone, listen if you want Your letter to President Trump is spot on. Newspapers and journalism function to bring our attention to truths we need in order to challenge the assumptions we hold. News of scientific, religious, historical and social truths as well as local happenings give us a chance to let reality shape us. What made America great in the past was how the founding of our nation happened, namely, leaving the countries where politics and religion had an authoritarian stranglehold on the populous in order to protect patriarchy by keeping individ- uals from full self-expression. The President is to preside over the affairs of our nation, not dictate them; to promote an atmo- sphere where all voices can express themselves freely so long as they don’t harm others. What made America great in the past has been our loyalty to the Constitution and human rights principles, not loyalty to a person. President Trump has made his mantra of making America great again by promoting loyalty to himself. This is the style of dictators and the powerful in order to protect their positions in society. We have benefited immensely by changing laws and processes that have kept minorities, women, peo- ple of color, gender pluralities and others out of the democratic dialogue in the past. We now can hear their voices if we choose and embrace them with compassion as equals not inferiors. It seems that President Trump wants to take us back to a patriarchy that is out of touch with the vast majority of voices in our great country. Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884 M eMber O regOn n ewspaper p ublishers a ssOciatiOn Published every Wednesday by: EO Media Group VOLUME 134 USPS No. 665-100 P.O. Box 338 • Enterprise, OR 97828 Office: 209 NW First St., Enterprise, Ore. Phone: 541-426-4567 • Fax: 541-426-3921 Contents copyright © 2018. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Publisher Editor Reporter Reporter Newsroom assistant Ad sales consultant Office manager Chris Rush, crush@eomediagroup.com Paul Wahl, editor@wallowa.com Stephen Tool, steve@wallowa.com Kathleen Ellyn, kellyn@wallowa.com editor@wallowa.com Jennifer Powell, jpowell@wallowa.com Cheryl Jenkins, cjenkins@wallowa.com Chieftain, keep up the good and honest news reporting. Don Scully Joseph Might be time to rethink community center rates Joseph needs to become more attentive to renting its community center. They have no schedule to speak of it seems, and the daily rental rate of $200 per event per day is unreasonable. This is a community center for use by the entire community. It’s lack of use speaks volumes. Many people simply don’t need to rent it for a day, maybe two or three hours. There are no separate rates that beg the use of the facility. Nobody is going to pay $200 for a couple hours of use, so they go elsewhere. I know sev- eral people who would have used the center over a weekend for a large yard sale. However, the city set a rental rate of $600 for the weekend as these folks had to pay for a day to set up as well. For a rental rate of that magni- tude, they might as well give it all away. But the city could have made $100 maybe $150 instead of nothing at all. There are a few large events that use the cen- ter each year, and the rest of the year, the city pays See LETTERS, Page A5 Periodical Postage Paid at Enterprise and additional mailing offices Subscription rates (includes online access) Wallowa County Out-of-County 1 Year $40.00 $57.00 Subscriptions must be paid prior to delivery See the Wallowa County Chieftain on the Internet Wallowa.com facebook.com/Wallowa twitter.com/wcchieftain POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wallowa County Chieftain P.O. Box 338 Enterprise, OR 97828