OUTLAW
BOYS TAKE
STATE TITLE
NEW POLICE CHIEF SHARES NAIL TECH BRINGS
THOUGHTS ON NEW JOB ‘FAKES’ TO ENTERPRISE
LOCAL, A3
Sports, A9
$1.50
BUSINESS, A6
Tom Nordtvedt/Contributed Photo
137th Year, No. 1
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
OHA
urges
halt of
J&J
vaccine
Sheena
Nebergall
Chieftain staff
Enterprise
She just got
her kids back
Enterprise — Although born in
Texas, Sheena Nebergall has lived
most of her life in Wallowa County.
And, she has good reason to call the
county home.
Not only do her grandparents
live here, she kept the county as a
home base when her two middle
children were kidnapped by their
father for fi ve years. Last year, they
were found with him and his girl-
friend in Florida and after a bit of
a struggle with the state of Flor-
ida, Nebergall got them back in
December.
Married to Jeremy Dodd, they
also have a 15-year-old and a 5-year-
old. Dodd works for Eastern Oregon
Landscaping.
Their four children keep them
busy, Nebergall said.
“What else is there to do here in
the mountains?” she said. “It’s been
wild, but it’s been fun.”
Nebergall works at Wallowa Val-
ley Senior Living as a medication
tech and got her COVID-19 vaccine
early.
She recently shared her thoughts
about living in Wallowa County.
What’s your favorite thing
about Wallowa County?
The mountains. Some things
always change, but they never
change.
How has the COVID-19
pandemic aff ected you?
Since I work in an assisted living
center, I have to wear a mask and
a face shield all the time. They just
released us from the face shield and
have started letting more people in.
Which COVID vaccine did
you get and how did it go?
The Moderna. I had no symp-
toms except a sore arm.
What have you learned from
living in Wallowa County?
Don’t sweat the small stuff . Slow
down.
What’s your advice for
people who are thinking
about moving here?
Don’t bring your city ways to our
little town.
— Bill Bradshaw,
Wallowa County Chieftain
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
World War II and Korean War veteran Lee Cutler stands on his front porch in Joseph on his 96th birthday Thursday,
April 8, 2021, after receiving a U.S. fl ag that had fl own over the U.S. Capitol and a new Marine Corps fl ag honoring his
service and his birthday.
‘I was lucky’
WWII vet missed the worst of the action
Lee Cutler values
time spent in Marine
Corps, Army
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
J
OSEPH — To honor his mil-
itary service and his 96th
birthday, one of Wallowa
County’s last World War II
and Korean War veterans, Lee Cut-
ler, was presented Thursday, April
8, with a U.S. fl ag that had fl own
over the U.S. Capitol and with a new
Marine Corps fl ag.
Cutler has fl own one of each from
a pole outside his Joseph home for
years.
Glenn Smith, a community
health care worker from Winding
Waters, said Cutler “displays his fl ag
proudly,” but they’re getting worn so
they were being replaced.
Kim Hutchison, president of the
Eagle Cap Post of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, made the presentation
of the fl ags Thursday. The national
fl ag was obtained by U.S. Rep. Cliff
Bentz, R-Oregon, to honor Cutler’s
service and his birthday.
A couple dozen or more people
joined Hutchison during the presen-
tation, including fellow veterans,
county Commissioner Susan Rob-
erts, Joseph Mayor Belinda Buswell
U.S. Navy/Contributed Photo
The Curtiss Helldiver, a two-seat scout bomber and dive bomber, was the
fi rst airplane Lee Cutler fl ew in during his World War II service with the U.S.
Marine Corps.
and members of the Joseph Fire
Department — complete with a fi re
truck with lights fl ashing.
Hutchison said the honor was
prompted by Smith.
“The driving force behind this is
one of the care team and he got it
from a local congressman,” Hutchi-
son said.
While Cutler values his time in
the military, he doesn’t see his ser-
vice as particularly heroic. Although
his unit followed in the steps of much
of the island-hopping campaign to
drive the Japanese out of territory
they’d conquered in the Pacifi c, he
didn’t see any serious action.
“We seemed to be just one step
behind everybody,” he said. “We
weren’t there when they took the
island; we were there after for the
mop-up operations. I always said I
was lucky.”
He added that most veterans don’t
want to discuss the horrors of war
and he’s no diff erent. But he was for-
tunate in not having to witness much.
“I didn’t do much fi ghting,” he
said.
Cutler admits his memory isn’t
what it used to be, but he does recall
much from boot camp. The Detroit,
Michigan, native took a train to San
Diego after enlisting in late 1942
— with his parents’ consent — at
age 17. It was at the Marine Corps
Recruit Depot he learned some valu-
able lessons.
“I thought it was all a big game
at fi rst until a sergeant came out one
See WWII, Page A5
SALEM — The Ore-
gon Health Authority has
asked all of the state’s vac-
cine providers to immedi-
ately stop administering the
Johnson & Johnson vaccine,
after an announcement from
the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and
Federal Drug Administra-
tion early Tuesday, April 13.
All the health authorities
note this move is out of an
abundance of caution as the
CDC and FDA review six
cases of a rare and severe
type of blood clot in women
ages 18-48 after vaccina-
tion with the J&J vaccine.
The FDA said the adverse
events currently seem to
be extremely rare. It noted
that through Monday, there
have been 6.8 million doses
of the one-shot J&J vaccine
administered nationwide.
The press release from
the FDA states that the blood
clot in this case was called
a cerebral venous sinus
thrombosis (CVST), and the
patients also had low levels
of blood platelets, a condi-
tion called thrombocytope-
nia. These eff ects happened
6-13 days of the vaccine
being administered, accord-
ing to the FDA.
“CDC will convene a
meeting of the Advisory
Committee on Immuni-
zation Practices (ACIP)
on Wednesday to further
review these cases and
assess their potential sig-
nifi cance,” the press release
stated. “FDA will review
that analysis as it also inves-
tigates these cases. Until
that process is complete, we
are recommending a pause
in the use of this vaccine out
of an abundance of caution.
“People
who
have
received the J&J vaccine
who develop severe head-
ache, abdominal pain, leg
pain or shortness of breath
within three weeks after
vaccination should contact
their health care provider,”
the release also stated.
The OHA will be send-
ing out more detailed infor-
mation soon.
County rejects state contract for mental health funding
Proposed
contract would
put county on
the liability hook
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — A
lengthy intergovernmen-
tal agreement between the
state and Wallowa County
was rejected by the county
commissioners Wednes-
day, April 7, upon advice
of county Counsel Paige
Sully.
The approximately half-
inch-thick document would
have detailed how the
county would receive state
Department of Human Ser-
vices funds for community
developmental disabilities
services. That is usually
handled through a third-
party subcontractor, the
Wallowa Valley Center for
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Wallowa County Counsel Paige Sully, left, advises the county commissioners against
signing an intergovernmental agreement with the state, while Brenda Micka, center, and
Commissioner John Hillock listen Wednesday, April 7, 2021.
Wellness, which handles
mental health and addiction
treatment here.
But after a thorough
review of the contract,
Sully advised the commis-
sioners to reject it.
“We are responsible,
whether we perform these
services or whether we sub-
contract them out to a third
party,” Sully said. “As with
most of these contracts, the
money comes to us and we
have an obligation to pay it,
regardless of whether we
get the required reporting
from the subcontractor.”
She said the proposed
contract makes no allow-
ances for county expenses.
“This contract, in partic-
ular, doesn’t even provide
any administrative costs to
the county; we don’t get
paid at all for monitoring
this contract,” she said.
Under the proposed con-
tract, if the county makes a
payment to the subcontrac-
tor and doesn’t get account-
ability reports back, the
state “becomes unhappy
with county,” Sully said.
“We’re on the hook for
repaying the state.”
She read a portion of
the contract that discussed
the state subcontracting
directly with a vendor.
“I think that’s exactly
what they should do,” she
said. “Let the state subcon-
tract with the vendor and
then they could pay, they
could monitor compliance
and we are totally out of the
middle on this thing. … We
See Funding, Page A5