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137th Year, No. 39
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
WALLOWA.COM
Nicholas
Lewis
Imnaha
Money
grows on
trees for him
ENTERPRISE — Nicholas Lewis
came all the way from his teepee
home in Imnaha on Tuesday, Dec.
28, to pedal around Enterprise and
get his new puppy his first shots.
To be fair, we should say he got
a ride from Imnaha before riding a
bicycle around doing errands.
This time of year, one might
wonder at living in a teepee, if one
doesn’t think about the original
Nez Perce inhabitants of the area.
Lewis finds the lower elevation
there quite comfortable.
An arborist, he cut a tree one
day in the Imnaha area for a friend
who offered to let him set up his
teepee on his property.
“It’s a good job,” he said. “Money
does grow on trees for me.”
Lewis brought his new pup,
Waylon, to Enterprise for his first
shots. As he did, Lewis was made
well aware of the effect of the cold
an increase of nearly 2,000 feet in
elevation can mean.
“It’s a painfully cold year up
here,” he said. But, “The snow
melted away (at home) before I
came up.”
Lewis recently shared his
thoughts about living in Wallowa
County.
What’s your favorite thing
about Wallowa County?
The lake. I love the lake; it’s
magic. I swim and hang out at the
beach.
Did you get what you
wanted for Christmas?
Sure, I got a new puppy.
What are you looking
forward to in 2022?
Happiness. I kind of live in the
now.
Do you have a New Year’s
resolution?
I haven’t really thought about
that yet.
What would it be?
Stay positive.
Have you broken it yet?
No, I try to stay pretty positive.
If you don’t all you get back is the
negative.
What’s your advice for
people who are thinking
about moving here?
I hope you like the cold. My
message for the world is stay
positive.
— Bill Bradshaw,
Wallowa County Chieftain
Anna Butterfield/Contributed Photo
A snowmobiler rides alongside some cattle stranded in the Upper Imnaha area recently. Many of the cows were calving and some had to be put
down after being stuck in deep snow.
Cattle, calves rescued from
dire straits in Imnaha snows
Sheriff mulls criminal
charges; ranch may
be seized by county
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
I
MNAHA — An investigation is ongo-
ing into possibly neglected cattle —
many of which had young calves — in
deep snows on U.S. Forest Service land
in the Upper Imnaha area, Wallowa County
Sheriff Joel Fish confirmed Friday, Dec. 31.
Fish stated in an email the investigation
was started after learning the magnitude of
the situation Dec. 19.
“Wallowa County is moving toward seiz-
ing the Dean Oregon Ranch cattle for neglect,
and we are investigating possible criminal
charges,” Fish said in the email.
Fish said the sheriff’s office is “assisting
with the retrieval of the cattle on the Forest
Service grazing permits on the Marr Flat
C&H Allotment. We have had deputies
on snowmobiles assisting since that
date.”
There have been numerous
volunteers helping in the res-
cue efforts, as confirmed by
county Commission Chairman
Todd Nash and volunteers with
the Wallowa County Humane
Society.
Social media alert
One of the first widespread alerts came in
a Facebook post by Craig Stockdale, who was
one of the first to discover the cattle on the 200
Road south of Salt Creek.
“I just came upon them snowmobiling,”
Stockdale said Jan. 1.
He said the post mobilized rescuers — both
those out finding the cattle and those with facil-
ities to care for the rescued livestock — and he
has since taken it down.
Kathy Gisler Reynolds, a volunteer with
the Humane Society, shared a post of the cattle
Dec. 29. Photos posted on Facebook showed a
cow up to its neck in snow and unable to move.
“I was alerted to it yesterday by the ranchers
who have been out there trying to save them,”
Reynolds said Dec. 30.
She listed several people who
were involved in rescuing
and caring
for the
cattle and their calves, calling some of them
“heroes.”
“Some were too weak to even move,” she
said of the cattle, adding that although rescu-
ers were able to retrieve calves, a number of
the adult cows had to be euthanized.
Stockdale and Anna Butterfield, who
with her husband, Mark, ranches northeast
of Joseph, confirmed the cattle are on the
Bob Dean Oregon Ranch managed by B.J.
Warnock.
Dean lives in the Deep South and War-
nock was not at liberty to provide contact
information.
This cow had to be euthanized
after being stuck in deep snow in
the Upper Imnaha area recently. A
massive effort to rescue the cows
and their calves on the Bob Dean
Oregon Ranch has been made by
county officials and volunteers.
Craig Stockdale/Contributed Photo
Taking the plunge for New Year’s in the lake
COVID-19
Wallowa
County
reports 700th
case of 2021
Renamed to honor
the late Beth Gibans
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA LAKE — Sev-
eral dozen new year’s revelers
washed out 2021 and welcomed
in 2022 with a cleansing plunge
into a frigid Wallowa Lake on
New Year’s Day, Saturday, Jan. 1,
under skies that seemed to shine
blue just for the event.
Year’s total is a
900% increase over
2020 case count
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
New name
Rechristened the Beth Gibans
Memorial Wallowa Lake Polar
Bear Plunge, the impromptu event
has been going on at least since
2007, said Rich Wandschneider,
the only one of the five founders
of the event to take part this year.
He estimated there were 40-50
who ran down the boat ramp at
the county boat launch site at the
north end of the lake during the
“first rush.”
“We’ve had as many as 80,”
he said, adding that the tempera-
tures that hovered around zero
degrees likely discouraged some
See Cattle, Page A12
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
known for her love of the out-
doors, including the lake.
“She backpacked, danced,
ran the rivers and did all sorts of
swimming,” Werdinger said, add-
ing that she even swam the length
of the lake and swam in in many
mountain lakes, even when they
were still partially frozen.
ENTERPRISE — More than
700.
That is the number of COVID-
19 cases that have been tallied up
in Wallowa County during 2021.
The county passed that thresh-
old Tuesday, Dec. 28, when the
Oregon Health Authority reported
five cases in Wallowa County.
That moved the pandemic total
at the time to 780, and the total
for the year to 703, amounting
to a more than 900% increase in
See Plunge, Page A13
See COVID-19, Page A13
An estimated 40-50 people took the plunge into a chilly Wallowa Lake
on Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022, at the Beth Gibans Memorial Wallowa Lake
Polar Bear Plunge.
from participating.
The event was named after
Gibans this year in her mem-
ory, said her husband, Leon
Werdinger. Gibans died in June
at age 58 after a long battle with
ovarian cancer.
Gibans was known in the
county for starting Backyard Gar-
dens and the Wallowa County
Farmers Market. She also was