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THE WEEK
IN
PHOTOS
The Back Page, A16
136th Year, No. 49
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Wallowa
coach resigns
amid offi cial
complaint
Outcome of complaint
fi led by football
team in review
Casidee
Harrod
Enterprise
By ELLEN MORRIS BISHOP
Wallowa County Chieftain
Rodeo queen
heavily involved
ENTERPRISE — Casidee Harrod has
lived in Enterprise most of her young
life — the past 12 years — and now is a
senior at Enterprise High School.
After she graduates this year, she
hopes to go on to Oregon Institute of
Technology in Klamath Falls to become a
dental hygienist and return here to prac-
tice once she gets her certifi cation.
“I just love this county. I like every-
body who lives here and I want to help
support the community,” she said.
Her dad, Ron Harrod, manages the
Wallowa Fish Hatchery in Enterprise and
her mom, Cheryl Harrod, works at a bank
in Joseph. Her older brother, Boone, also
lives and works here.
She recently shared her thoughts
about living in Wallowa County.
What’s your favorite thing about
Wallowa County?
Defi nitely, I’d say it’s the supportive
community. I’ve been involved in a lot of
things here, actually I’m one of the Chief
Joseph Days royalty and everybody’s
super-supportive with all of that. I’ve
been involved in 4-H with horses and
livestock, I’ve played basketball since I
was a fi fth-grader and I’ve played vol-
leyball and I’m the president of FFA for
Enterprise.
What challenges do you believe
Wallowa County faces?
With youth members who sell ani-
mals at the fair, I hope we always have
enough support of people buying all the
animals so that it can keep going.
Now that the pandemic has
been going on about a year,
how has it aff ected you?
It’s aff ected me in a lot of ways.
Being a senior in high school, it’s aff ected
a lot of activities for youths, it’s aff ected
all my rodeo seasons, it took away my
sports seasons and all that.
Do you plan to get the vaccine
against COVID-19 as soon as
you can?
I don’t know. I will defi nitely get it if
it means I can go to college, but I don’t
know. … It’s super new and kind of risky,
so I don’t know.
What have you learned from
living in Wallowa County?
I’ve learned what a small commu-
nity can do. There’s not a lot of things
for youths to do if you’re not involved
with animals and agriculture. I think it’s
important for our community to be sup-
portive of all the things that the youths
can do.
What’s your advice for people
who are thinking about moving
here?
It’s a beautiful place to visit. I would
love to keep the community small and
not turn it into a big area. I am super for
people coming to visit to support our
small businesses, but I don’t know about
people moving here.
— Bill Bradshaw,
Wallowa County Chieftain
On Friday, Sheriff Joel Fish
and Deputy Jeff Baty went to
Portland to retrieve Bridges’
ashes. They were joined by other
local law enforcement and emer-
gency vehicles once they arrived
WALLOWA — Wallowa High
School Principal David Howe
resigned his position as the school’s
girls basketball coach Monday night,
March 15, in the face of an offi cial
complaint fi led by the school’s foot-
ball team with the Wallowa superin-
tendent of schools March 2.
The outcome of the complaint is
pending and still in review.
Head football coach Matt Brock-
amp, Wallowa Superintendent of
Schools Tammy Jones and Wal-
lowa School Board Chairman Woody
Wolfe all declined to comment or pro-
vide the Chieftain with the text of the
March 2 complaint or a second com-
plaint fi led with the school board on
March 8.
“My duties as principal and my
duties as the girls basketball coach
seem to be in confl ict with each other
and therefore I will be resigning my
position as girls basketball coach,
eff ective immediately,” Howe said in
a prepared statement to the Wallowa
School Board on Monday, March 15.
Howe’s resignation was precipi-
tated by the complaint as well as alle-
gations of encouraging and support-
ing Wallowa High School athletes
to participate in high school tourna-
ments in Idaho earlier this year. Under
Oregon School Activities Associa-
tion rules, participation in out-of-state
sports events requires student athletes
to self-quarantine for two weeks after
the out-of-state games. Brockamp had
protested Howe’s action, out of con-
cern that students who participated in
the Idaho basketball games would not
be able to play the fi rst, and possibly
other games in Wallowa’s short, fi ve-
game football season.
“As a head coach, I made my con-
cerns known to WHS about unsanc-
tioned, out-of-state basketball tour-
naments jeopardizing our opportunity
to play an OSAA-sanctioned football
season,” Brockamp stated at an emo-
tion-charged school board meeting
March 8. At that meeting he called for
“… a fundamental change in Wallowa
See Honored, Page A7
See Coach, Page A7
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Wallowa County Sheriff Joel Fish, right foreground, watches as Deputy Jeff Baty hands a bag containing
the ashes of late 911 dispatcher and Reserve Deputy Bret Bridges to Bridges’ parents, Dolores and David
Bridges, at their Joseph home Friday, March 12, 2021. Fish and Baty escorted the ashes home from
Portland, where Bridges died March 2 of COVID-19.
Latest COVID victim
honored by offi cers
Bret Bridges
gets ‘last call’ on
911; ashes get
police escort
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
JOSEPH — The ashes of a
911 dispatcher
and reserve Wal-
lowa
County
deputy
were
delivered
by
police
escort
to his parents’
Joseph
home
Bridges
Friday, March
12, and a spe-
cial “last call” over the county’s
911 system was issued for Bret
Bridges.
The 47-year-old Bridges died
March 2 at Portland’s Legacy
Emanuel Medical Center after
testing positive for COVID-19
on Jan. 25. He reportedly had
underlying issues, according to
a press release from the Oregon
Health Authority.
The “last call” was to be
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
An escort of police and other emergency vehicles arrives at the
Joseph home of David and Dolores Bridges bearing the ashes of their
son, Bret Bridges, a 911 dispatcher and reserve deputy who died in
Portland on March 2 of COVID-19.
issued at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
“It’s a very honorable thing
to do in the 911 world,” said
Brenda Micka, administrative
services director for Wallowa
County. “We’ve lost one of our
own. It’s nice to do that, to do the
‘last call’ on the radio.”
Young gamer is programming his own
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — While the
picture of a young gamer that
often comes to mind is a 30-year-
old living in his parents’ basement
spending all day playing com-
puter games, Enterprise’s Shepherd
Newton is far from that.
For one, he’s a 12-year-old sixth-
grader. Second, he not only plays
games, he’s already created one
and has a business model in mind
for how he can make a career of it.
“I consider myself a ‘dev’
because I haven’t earned the
‘eloper’ yet,” he said during an
interview Wednesday, March 10. “I
have to successfully sell a game to
earn the ‘eloper.’”
He explained he’s working at
becoming a developer of com-
puter games — and possibly other
programs — that could earn a tidy
living.
In fact, he comes by his interest
naturally. His dad, Tim Newton, is a
professional, work-from-home pro-
grammer who currently is helping
school districts around the country
— and the world — with software
that helps them send their data to
departments of education and man-
agement. Now, he is working with
the California Department of Pub-
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Having already learned much of computer programming on his own and
from his programmer father, Tim Newton, Shepherd Newton, 12, already
is expecting he won’t have need for college. “All I need is tutorials,” he said.
“Actually, I might go to college just to get the degree.”
lic Health with COVID-19 support
calls.
Mom Crystal Newton is a
graphic artist and online marketer.
Both parents are extremely sup-
portive of Shepherd’s endeavors.
“It’s very encouraging to see
him doing computer development
as opposed to seeing just word pro-
cessing or just playing computer
games,” Tim said. “He’s actually
creating something that could be
useful or foundational for later on.
It demonstrates how early someone
can begin developing.”
Noting that Shepherd already
has a business plan in mind that
many independent developers use,
Crystal told some of what he’s
learned.
“It’s not just for games,” she
said. “(Developers) will talk about
a product they’re developing and
post information in videos on You-
Tube, they’ll gather subscribers,
then they’ll start a Patreon account
to get themselves support for what
they’re doing. They’ll get subscrib-
ers to pay something — normally
something low, like $5, but if you
get 100,000 people giving you $5 a
month, you’re doing well.”
Shepherd isn’t far behind fi gur-
ing out what that’s worth.
“And that’s $500,000 a month,”
he said.
In January, he participated in a
“game jam” — short for game jam
session — a contest where partici-
pants try to make a video game from
scratch working independently or
in teams. Contests usually last from
24 to 72 hours. Participants are gen-
erally programmers, game design-
ers, artists, writers and others in
game development-related fi elds.
See Gamer, Page A8