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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 23, 2020)
IDE LOOK INS FOR REG IONAL HEALTH STORIE S AND MEDIC AL EXP ERT CO $1.50 LUMNS SCHOOL NURSES KEEPING STUDENTS HEALTHY FOR LEARNING DURING THE PANDEMIC OL SCHO SES NU IN R DENTS G STU R Y F R O LTH ING HEA N ING DU KEEP 2 gon K-1 E: Ore INSID and colleges ls y schoo a variet pting to ns, concer » are ada avirus s of coron s more storie plu MIC ANDE THE P LEAR PAGE 10 Enterprise, Oregon Wallowa.com 136th Year, No. 24 Wednesday, September 23, 2020 Wallowa County Voices Stephen Slingluff Wallowa County A ‘nomadic’ life ENTERPRISE — Stephen Slingluff came to Wallowa County from Philadel- phia three or four years ago and describes himself as “sort of nomadic.” In addition to car camping, he has a winter camp at an area ranch and owns a piece of land near the Imnaha River he’s setting up for long term. He hopes to make it a winter camp where he can work on crafts and keep horses. As to the crafts he’s eyeing, “I want to get into brain tanning and get into some of these old skills that I’ve dabbled in.” He’s not sure where he’ll get the hides to tan, as he’s currently on probation and not allowed to have fi rearms. He recently shared his thoughts on living in Wallowa County, including the smoke plaguing the area of late. What’s the best thing or place in Wallowa County? I love going up where the biscuitroots or other Indian foods that’re still left over. I love Imnaha and up in the river woods there to be out of the Wifi and all of that crap. I like being off the grid. I came here for the plants, certainly not the people. The people are nice, honest, hardworking, good people. But I come from Philadelphia and I think I’m the only guy around I’ve seen with dreadlocks; I haven’t seen any Black people. I come from a more diverse crowd. It’s defi nitely not the people. It’s more the plants, the horses, the wildlife that I’m here for. What do you think of all this smoke we’ve been having to deal with? Oh gosh, it looks like they legalized weed. I think it’s partly to do with climate change, partly with mismanagement of the forests — they’ve just put off the big burn. Forests are supposed to burn occa- sionally, but nobody likes it so we put out all the burns and try to control it until we’ve got an impending doom situation. What do you think is the root cause of all the blazes? It’s likely caused by not logging prop- erly and not burning enough, too. The natives used to routinely burn large areas and we’ve done some of that, but that’s not my area of expertise. And then you see all the arson going on in Portland and you wonder if it’s the same guys going out into the woods and started setting fi res, but then the governor’s blaming it all on climate change. I think it’s probably a lit- tle of both. What have you learned from living in Wallowa County? It’s a good place. There’s a story of the coyote and the monster, the Nimiipuu story — their creation story, the Nez Perce — when at some point everybody noticed everything was gone swallowed up by some swallowing monster. That’s part of why I moved here from Philadelphia, I saw that everybody was just kind of absent … so I’ll move to somewhere that when it all does come down it’s going to be safe. We’ll be able to hunt and fi sh, grow our foods and medicines. It’s a good place to reset. — Bill Bradshaw Wallowa County Chieftain Staff photo by Bill Bradshaw Workmen were hard at it Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020, preparing what will become the day care center for employees at Wallowa Memorial Hospital in Enterprise. The building is scheduled to open Oct. 19, according to Brooke Pace, hospital communications and public relations director. Bridging the gap With many employees struggling to fi nd day care for their children, Wallowa Memorial Hospital set to open child care facility By Bill Bradshaw Wallowa County Chieftain E NTERPRISE — Wallowa Memo- rial Hospital is opening a new facil- ity next month that will provide care for the young children of its employ- ees, hospital spokeswoman Brooke Pace said. The new facility is expected to be able to care for about 16 children of hospital employ- ees. It will have a full-time director and two full-time teaching assistants, said Pace, the hospital’s director of communications and public relations. Pace said the new director will be Rebecca Rasmussen, who currently owns and oper- ates Just Like Home Nurs- ery School Pendleton. She had trained with Anne-Ma- rie Kemp, owner of Learn- ing Tree Montessori Schools in Joseph and Enterprise, who helped recruit Rasmussen for the position. Rasmussen “We have had a lot of employees who are having trouble fi nding care for their young kiddos,” Pace said. “We know day care is an issue around the county.” She spoke highly of Rasmussen. “Rebecca is the right person for this job,” she said. Pace said the hospital has been considering opening such a facility on the hospital cam- pus for some time after recognizing the need. These days, when the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many people to work from home, that’s just not a possibility for emergency care personnel. Staff photo by Bill Bradshaw The new facility is expected to be able to care for about 16 children of hospital employees. It will have a full-time director and two full-time teaching assistants. “Unfortunately, with health care workers, they can’t just work from home,” she said. “We have employees needed here at the hos- pital who need day care and this is how to address that issue.” One added benefi t to the hospital’s day care facility is that it is hoped to partially relieve a shortage of available day care in the county. See Child care, Page A8 HOSPITAL OFFICIALS GIVE TOUR OF NEW JOSEPH CLINIC Offi cials from Wallowa Memorial Hospital gave the fi rst offi cial tour of the hospi- tal’s new Joseph branch clinic on Friday, Sept. 18, to members of the hospital’s Patient-Family Advisory Committee. Page B7 Veterans honored with successful elk hunt Six-by-six bull taken south of Enterprise By Bill Bradshaw Wallowa County Chieftain WALLOWA COUNTY — Once again, Wallowa County’s Divide Camp helped a disabled veteran heal — and honored others — this time by helping Anthony Taylor bring down a trophy bull elk on a ranch south of Enterprise. “This is my fi rst elk. It’s amazing,” Taylor said. “There’s nothing better I could say about it.” The 6-by-6-point bull was expected to dress out to about 300 pounds of meat, said Andy Marcum, of Enter- prise. Marcum is on the Divide Camp board, serves as its vice president and is the main elk hunting guide. He and Gold Star Dad Jeff Keller joined Tay- lor on the hunt. It was with Marcum’s .308 that Tay- lor brought down the massive bull. “He was a big, old, mature bull,” Marcum said. But it wasn’t shooting fi sh in a bar- rel. It took patience. Marcum had been scouting the herd of about 80 animals for a couple of weeks in anticipation of the hunt. “I think Andy had the most patience because he watched them for a couple weeks and had to not take them when he could’ve several times,” Taylor said. The hunt started in earnest the after- noon of Thursday, Sept. 17, on the Rock N J Ranch south of Enterprise See Hunt, Page A8 Photo contributed by Andy Marcum From left, Gold Star Dad Jeff Keller, Marine Corps veteran Anthony Taylor and feAvllow Marine veteran and Divide Camp hunting guide Andy Marcum, of Enterprise, pose with the 6-by-6 bull elk Taylor brought down as a part of a memorial hunt put on over the weekend by Divide Camp.