OPINION  NEWS
Wallowa County Chieftain
A4
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
A nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all
VOICE of the CHIEFTAIN
T
he 74th annual Chief Joseph
Days Rodeo in now in the
record books. The cowboys’
big horse trailers with living quar-
ters have left. We can cross the street
in Joseph again. And getting a meal
at your favorite restaurant doesn’t
require a long wait. Finally, we can
all relax.
Oh, wait. The fair starts this week.
For most of us, Chief Joseph Days
is one of summer’s most eagerly
anticipated events. For some, that’s
because it’s the time they choose to
go backpacking to be far, far away
from the trafﬁ c, tumult, and mad-
ding crowds. For others, there’s joy
and camaraderie when the cowboys
come to town. For the volunteers—
and it’s all volunteers—there’s hard
work and long hours, and a rodeo
too-often witnessed only remotely—
courtesy of the announcer’s voice on
the loudspeakers. For Terry Jones,
there’s a whole lot of exercise and
fence-climbing every time he opens
one of those chute gates. It’s a mid-
summer community party, albeit
sometimes a raucous one, that cele-
brates the ranching roots of Wallowa
County.
Ellen Moris Bishop
Tuckerettes present dual American ﬂ ags at the 2018 Chief Joseph Days.
Like virtually all rodeos, Chief
Joseph Days honors the American
ﬂ ag and celebrates patriotism. On
Saturday, many in the sold-out stands
quietly joined in with Jessie Borgerd-
ing’s beautiful and inspiring rendi-
tion of the Star Spangled Banner. The
preceding PRCA video recounted the
long and proud tradition of our mil-
itary’s defense of the American ﬂ ag.
But for all its good intentions, the
video fell a bit short. Those who gave
their lives were not defending just a
ﬂ ag. They were defending the people
The case of the purloined dreadnought
A
ll units, be on the lookout for a
hot Gallagher Dreadnought guitar,
swiped from the Fishtrap writers
gathering just a few weeks ago. This gui-
tar belonged to Frank Conley, one of the
pillars of the early Fishtrap years. Is pillar
too strong of a word? I don’t believe it is.
When I started loitering around Fishtrap
in the late ’90s, Frank and Rich Wand-
schneider ran the show, and it was pretty
magical. Still is, of course. Fishtrap 2.0
continues the tradition. But I recall sitting
in meetings back then as a community
board member and Rich would conjure
up a grand scheme or a bold vision and
everybody would say, yeah, that sounds
amazing –– pause –– then someone would
raise their hand and ask if there were
enough funds to pull it off. All eyes would
turn to Frank, the nuts and bolts guy of
the operation, who would be frowning at
the ﬁ nancial statement. Rich would say,
Oh, there’s never enough money, but we
always ﬁ gure it out. And he was right.
Rich and Frank reminded me very
much of an Oscar and Felix dynamic, set
in the world of a scrappy literary non-
proﬁ t in the mountains of Oregon. Rich
would see a shape in the clouds, Frank
would convert that into budget numbers,
battery cables were hooked up to a net-
work of creative folks who also wanted to
see this happen and, by golly, that notion
out of the ether would appear in little ol’
Joseph, Oregon. It was really something
to behold.
Frank had these great little fun facts
about nature stuff in Wallowa County to
close out meetings for the good of the
order. He was a naturalist and ﬁ shing
guide, knew an awful lot about butterﬂ ies
as I recall, and was just so good at distill-
ing what makes the Wallowas special that
you wanted to leave that meeting room
and go wander up the nearest trail to take
it all in. I was doing a variety show on
the radio at the time and said, Frank, hey,
we should do these on the radio. Come in
and record these little nature nuggets and
they’ll be perfect to close out the show.
He said let’s do it. I was jazzed.
AND
FURTHERMORE
Jon Rombach
Later he called to say he wouldn’t
be able to do the radio thing after all. I
cajoled and said, Aw, c’mon man and all
that. But it was no-go. And it wasn’t too
long afterwards I learned that Frank had
run into a serious health issue and then
that was it. Frank Conley isn’t with us
anymore.
But his guitar was.
Music was another talent of Frank’s,
and his guitar lived on at Fishtrap. Every
year that guitar attended the writers gath-
ering to be played, enjoyed, strummed,
picked and reverberated. The rest of
the year it lives — lived — in the Fish-
trap house, where Janis Carper and Mike
Midlo would pick it up and make pretty
sounds come out of it, in between the
work of helping run Fishtrap these days
along with Shannon, BoDean, Cam and
Whitney. Such a nice, simple, ﬁ tting,
touching legacy. I’m so angry about this
guitar being ripped off.
So here’s my offer, whoever you are
that walked off with Frank’s guitar from
the Wallowa Lake Lodge sometime on
Saturday, July 13 or early Sunday. I’ll buy
it back from you. Unless it has dawned on
you that taking something that’s not yours
is not nice, in which case you can tiptoe
up to the back porch of the Fishtrap house
under the cover of night and leave the
guitar propped against the house where
it belongs. The address there is 400 East
Grant Street in Enterprise.
Or I’ll pay a ransom. Frank was also
really good at doing taxes, which he was
kind enough to help me with back in the
day and his talent for knowing what to do
with a 1099 surely saved me some money.
Seems like a good time to put that money
to use. Guitar stealer, I suggest you set
up an anonymous email account and send
me your terms to the new email I just set
up, purloineddreadnought@musician.org.
We can do the exchange under a bridge
or something. Seriously. I want to buy
it back. That email works. I just tested
it. Stealing this guitar is about the worst
course of action you could devise for your
karmic credit line. Saint Peter just yanks
a lever to open the trap door straight to
Hades when something like this pops up
on your resume. Let’s make a deal.
Everybody else, if you see a suspicious
Gallagher Dreadnought guitar ﬂ oating
around, or have a tip, send out the alert.
The ransom fund will work just as well
as reward money. I’d love to see and hear
this guitar back home.
Jon Rombach is a local columnist for
the Chieftain. His stolen guitar hotline is
purloineddreadnought@musician.org.
of the United States and speciﬁ cally
the precious freedoms guaranteed
by the Declaration of Independence
— that all men are created equal —
and the U.S. Constitution, including
the Bill of Rights which speciﬁ es the
right to free speech, a free press, to
freedom of religion, and the right to
peacefully assemble. Those freedoms
importantly include the right to bear
arms, the freedom from unwarranted
arrests, and the right to due process
of law.
This is a lot to include in a
three-minute video. And it’s likely
that we are all thinking of these things
while we are standing hands over
hearts, remembering, what the Ameri-
can ﬂ ag really stands for.
As a nation, and even as a commu-
nity, we are no strangers to divisive-
ness. But we have overcome divisive-
ness in the past and we can now and
in the future. The American ﬂ ag is a
symbol we all revere, We need only
remember what it actually stands for.
Rodeo announcer Jody Carper
expressed this well when he said
“The trouble with Congress is that
they are too busy being Democrats
and Republicans and they’ve forgot-
ten that they are Americans.” We are,
after all, a nation indivisible, with lib-
erty and justice for all.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Timber/Grazing zone IS
for Timber/Grazing
The Letter to the Editor authored
by Rodney and Linda Botts (July 23,
2019) corrected several factual inac-
curacies in Mr. Tool’s article concern-
ing Mr. McKee’s aborted conditional
use permit application to build a camp-
ground on Timber Grazing zoned land.
Not mentioned was that 24 county res-
idents showed up for the May 28 Wal-
lowa County Planning Commission
meeting scheduled to hear Mr. McK-
ee’s proposal. This robust turnout,
along with over 50 letters of opposi-
tion noted by Botts, sends a clear mes-
sage that encroachment of non-ag-
ricultural commercial interests into
agricultural lands are unwelcome and
will meet stiff headwinds. Protection
against such encroachment is rooted
in the stated goals and policies of the
county’s Comprehensive Plan that
aims “to preserve and maintain agri-
cultural lands” and “preserve the sce-
nic attractiveness and living conditions
desirable to farm families and other
county residents.” The commitment of
our county Commissioners to realizing
these objectives is codiﬁ ed in Article
16 of the county’s land use Ordinance,
stating that “The intention of the Tim-
ber Grazing Zone is to guarantee the
preservation of the areas so classiﬁ ed
for farm and forest use free from con-
ﬂ icting non-farm, non-forest use.” Mr.
McKee wisely withdrew his appli-
cation for the aforementioned condi-
tional use permit. The effort was not
wasted because valuable lessons were
learned along the way. First, threats to
develop agricultural land for non-agri-
cultural commercial interests are very
real and may increase with time. Sec-
ond, a coalition of residents willing to
voice their concerns can effectively
repel such threats.
Miles and Yun McFall
Joseph
BPA power rates to hold steady for the 2020-21 ﬁ scal year
By Jessica Pollard
East Oregonian
PORTLAND — The Bonneville Power
Administration, which provides whole-
sale power to Umatilla Electric Company,
Hermiston Energy Services, Paciﬁ c Power
and other area utilities, has reported that
the average wholesale base power cost will
remain ﬂ at for the 2020-21 ﬁ scal year.
The cost will remain at $35.62 per
megawatt-hour.
“If we have rate changes, it doesn’t nec-
essarily mean there will be changes to your
retail rate,” said Maryam Habibi, a public
affairs specialist for BPA.
Habibi said that retail rates are deter-
mined by local utilities, and while the aver-
age cost will remain ﬂ at, some products
will experience a rate change.
Flattening the base power rate was made
possible by reductions totaling $66 million
in projected program costs.
Last year, the BPA’s Integrative Program
Review accrued $56 million in savings, in
part due to a $30 million annual reduction
to Fish and Wildlife program expenses.
There is an increasing chance, however,
that the average rate could rise by 1.5% —
below the rate of inﬂ ation — in the future
due to a surcharge that will initiate if the
BPA has less than 60 days worth of money
for both its power and transmission lines.
“When BPA makes a change in their
rates, it becomes one of the many fac-
tors that go into ﬁ guring out our rates,”
said Tom Gaunt, a spokesman for Paciﬁ c
Power. “Any BPA rate (change) should not
have any major effect on people who get
their power from us.”
Starting Oct.1, with interim federal
approval, BPA’s average transmission rate
Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884
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VOLUME 134
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P.O. Box 338 • Enterprise, OR 97828
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Phone: 541-426-4567 • Fax: 541-426-3921
Contents copyright © 2019. All rights reserved.
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will increase by 3.6%, which was lower
than initial estimates.
Earlier this week, the Seattle Times
reported that BPA had raised its rates by
30% over the last nine years, and that some
regional public utility executives are con-
sidering other producers as contracts expire
in 2028.
“Through collaboration with our cus-
tomers and partners throughout the region,
we have worked hard to bend the cost
curve and keep base power rates ﬂ at,”
BPA Administrator Elliot Mainzer said in a
recent press release.
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General manager, Jennifer Cooney, jcooney@wallowa.com
Editor, Ellen Morris Bishop, editor@wallowa.com
Publisher, Chris Rush, crush@eomediagroup.com
Reporter, Stephen Tool, steve@wallowa.com
Administrative Assistant, Amber Mock, amock@wallowa.com
Advertising Assistant, Cheryl Jenkins, cjenkins@wallowa.com
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