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137th Year, No. 14
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Wednesday, July 14, 2021
Wecks earns title of Miss Teen Rodeo Oregon
By RONALD BOND and
BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
Katch
Josephy
ENTERPRISE — It’s
almost as if Destiny Wecks
was destined for this title.
Wecks, one of the three
queens for Chief Joseph
Days, which rides for the
75th time later this month,
won the title of 2022 Miss
Teen Rodeo Oregon at the
Junior Miss and Miss Teen
Rodeo Oregon Pageant on
June 26 at the Tillamook
County Rodeo.
“She represents rodeo at
the teen level for the entire
state of Oregon,” said Lois
Forester, second vice pres-
ident of the Miss Rodeo
Oregon Inc. Foundation.
“It’s quite an honor.”
As Miss Teen Rodeo
Oregon, Wecks will travel
the state in 2022 promot-
ing the sport of rodeo in
parades, personal appear-
ances and rodeo events.
It’s the third state honor
the 17-year-old has won
during what already is
building up to be quite the
rodeoing career.
She said she was
named Miss Rodeo Sweet-
heart when she was much
younger — at ages 6 and
7 — and in 2015 she was
selected as Junior Miss
Rodeo Oregon in 2015.
“It’s been my dream to
go on this sequence,” she
said. “Now I’m hoping to
go on to (be) Miss Rodeo
Oregon and Miss Rodeo
America. When I got a
chance to try out, I had to
take it.”
Wecks, who will be a
senior at Enterprise High
School starting this fall,
will serve in her role for the
entirety of 2022. Until her
coronation, she is called
the “lady in waiting.”
Barb Carr, who serves
as the lady in waiting
adviser, listed a rigorous
set that was before Wecks.
“The girls go through
a pageant, and diff erent
See Wecks, Page A5
Joseph
A passionate
musician with
a familiar name
ENTERPRISE — Katch Josephy was
in downtown Enterprise recently, and
yes, hers is one of the better-known
names around Wallowa County.
The daughter of Alvin Josephy, for
whom the Josephy Center for Arts and
Culture was named, she lives on a ranch
at the north end of the East Moraine her
family has owned since 1962. At fi rst a
summer-dweller here, she’s lived here
since 1980 and raised her three children
here. She has three grandchildren.
She’s worked as an in-home care
provider, but music is her passion. In
addition to singing with a couple other
local ladies, she plays guitar, fl ute and
piano, when she can get one. For now,
she’s recovering from spinal surgery.
Katch shared her thoughts about liv-
ing in Wallowa County.
What’s your favorite thing about
Wallowa County?
The people and the land — not
landscape, the land. The natural land.
What fun plans do you have in
the county for this summer?
Finally being with family and friends
and we have a lake at the ranch. But in
a drought like this, when the ranchers
around our lake need water, they come
fi rst.
What are your thoughts now
that fi re season is here?
We’ve managed to be safe so far, but
we don’t know. Look at the mountains.
They’re looking like Chief Joseph Days
mountains (as the snowpack melts.)
We’ve been lucky. For years, everyone
around us has had drought and fi re, but
we’ve been lucky. I just don’t know how
long our luck’s going to hold out.
How has the coronavirus
pandemic aff ected you?
It’s been scary, but I’ve had to go to
physical therapy so I was lucky; I got my
shots. The hardest part of it has been
being away from friends and family for
a year.
What have you learned from
living in Wallowa County?
How to grow things, and how to
appreciate ranchers and their livestock
and the natural land.
What’s your advice for people
who are thinking about moving
here?
Don’t. But before you move here,
look into the history — not just the
Native American history, which is vitally
important, but the history of everyone
who’s always lived here. You can’t just
show up and act like you have a lot of
money. That doesn’t work.
— Bill Bradshaw
Wallowa County Chieftain
Ronald Bond/Wallowa County Chieftain
Ron Meyer serves lunch to Murna Downing of Enterprise on Monday, July 12, 2021, as the senior lunch program put on by Community Connection of
Northeast Oregon returns to the Enterprise and Wallowa senior centers. Monday was the fi rst time lunch was served in person in more than year with
the service shut down due to the pandemic.
Lunch is served again
Senior lunch program up and running after more than a year of being shut down by COVID
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — The
buzz of seniors talking
while
sharing
meals
together can again be heard
at the Wallowa and Enter-
prise senior centers.
The senior lunch pro-
gram that had been shut
down by COVID-19
restrictions for more than
a year began operating
once again Monday, July
12, at the two centers oper-
ated in Wallowa County by
Community Connection of
Northeast Oregon.
COVID
restrictions
were lifted June 30, but
Connie Guentert, CCNO’s
county manager, said the
entity needed an additional
OK before it could resume
its lunch program.
“As an area agency on
aging operating a congre-
Ronald Bond/Wallowa County Chieftain
After more than a year away, the senior lunch program
put on by Community Connection of Northeast Oregon
returned to Enterprise and Wallowa Monday, July 12, 2021.
gate meal site, we are held
to a high safety standard
due to the population we
serve,” she said. “We had
to wait for feedback and
approval from DHS and
OHA.”
Adjusting to the
pandemic
During the last year,
CCNO’s Meals on Wheels
program had expanded
greatly to reach more
seniors during the height
of the pandemic. Pick-
up-to-go meals were also
available.
“We were still trying to
serve our seniors that were
not on Meals on Wheels
that did not want to be on
Meals on Wheels,” she
said. “Anyone who came
to our centers or wanted
to come to our centers,
we actually off ered them
Meals on Wheels the last
15 months. We expanded
the service greatly outside
normal guidelines to be
able to serve people.”
There were two extra
Meals on Wheels routes
added by CCNO. Guent-
ert said they expect a large
percentage of those people
to be back with the center
open again for lunch.
“Ninety percent of those
people are coming back to
the center — which is won-
derful,” she said.
There won’t be an
immediate shift back to
pre-COVID-19
routes,
though. Any transitions
back to normal there will
be more gradual.
“We’re meeting peo-
ple where they are at,” she
said. “What that means is
those people that were on
the COVID route, meeting
them where they are at as
far as their comfort level.”
That means they will
continue delivering meals
to those on the expanded
route if they are not yet
comfortable returning to
the center.
“We’re just moving
them over to the normal
Meals on Wheels route,”
she said.
Back in action
The return of the lunch
See Lunches, Page A5
Entrepreneur program celebrates 10 years
By ANN BLOOM
For the Wallowa County
Chieftain
The Mentor Match Teen
Entrepreneur Program is
10 years old. The import-
ant milestone was cele-
brated in May with a small
ceremony at the Enter-
prise Community Congre-
gational Church, honor-
ing the participants of this
year’s Mentor Match Teen
Entrepreneur
Program.
There were six Wallowa
County juniors and seniors
who participated in the
program.
Stacy Green, the pro-
gram’s adviser, said the
program is a way to
encourage teens to think
about
entrepreneurship
opportunities. It began at
a time when many teens
were leaving the county to
pursue other opportunities
in other parts of the state
and not returning to Wal-
lowa County bringing with
them the skills they had
acquired. She said she saw
this happening in the early
2000s as many teens left
to pursue careers in educa-
tion. She saw the program
“as a way to get more teens
interested in entrepreneur-
ship and the skills business
owners need to grow,” she
said.
“We were losing the
best and the brightest to
other states and communi-
ties,” she said.
She conceived of the
program to introduce teens
to career fi elds in business
such as accounting, sales
and entrepreneurship.
Program’s purpose
The program intro-
duces teens to the nuances
of being an entrepreneur
as they learn about mar-
keting, pricing a product,
time management, cus-
tomer service, public rela-
tions and more.
According to a press
release supplied by Green,
Bayden Menton, an incom-
ing senior at Joseph Charter
School, earned the award
for Top Producer for his
business Old School Cut-
ting Boards, which earned
more than $6,000 in reve-
nue. Menton produces cut-
ting boards from the scrap
wood taken from the old
gym fl oor of the school
after the fi re in January
2020. The boards initially
sold for $75 apiece. How-
ever, after it was pointed
out to Menton by fellow
participants, Trace Evans
and Zoey Leith, that what
he was really selling were
memories of the school
(i.e., state sports champi-
onships, school dances,
etc.), and looking at the
cost comparison of class
rings and lettermen’s jack-
ets, it was decided to raise
the price to $250.
“There’s a lot of things
that need to be taken into
account when pricing your
product, he said.
The program draws
teens from the Joseph Char-
ter School, Wallowa High
School, Enterprise High
School, alternative edu-
cation and homeschooled
students. Green estimates
that over the past decade,
approximately nine to 10
See Mentors, Page A5