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“The for The
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137th Year, No. 43
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
WALLOWA.COM
FROSTY FRIDAY
Annette
Bernier
Lostine
County is
simple, home,
quiet to her
ENTERPRISE — Annette Ber-
nier has lived in Lostine for nearly
32 years and wouldn’t live anywhere
else.
“I have six kids. Three were born
here and three weren’t,” she said of
her family. “They all went to Wallowa
(schools).”
Retired from homemaking and
raising her kids, she also worked with
kids in Head Start and preschool.
Although she’s been here more
than three decades, she still has
ties to the Central Washington area,
where siblings live.
“I only have one kid who lives in
the county,” she said, adding that she
has four grandchildren.
She recently shared her thoughts
about living in Wallowa County.
What’s your favorite thing
about Wallowa County?
It’s simple. It’s home. The nature
here is beautiful. I don’t care if it’s
slow. That’s the way I like it. I like
the outdoors, the people, collect-
ing rocks for gardens. It’s a beauti-
ful county and I wish more people
would appreciate it.
What are you looking
forward to in 2022?
I’m just wait to get through the
snow — and it’s still coming in for a
while.
Are you getting cabin fever
yet?
Just the normal thing. I get
bored. I plan on eventually going to
visit my family. I have lots of broth-
ers and sisters in the Yakima, Wash-
ington, area.
Do you have plans for
Valentine’s Day?
All I know is my second-young-
est son was born a few days after
that, but I don’t plan on doing any-
thing. I did have a chocolate-cov-
ered candy with salted caramel in
the middle the other day that my
roommate came home with.
What’s your advice for
people who are thinking
about moving here?
Patience. Mellow. A little bit of
silence and some adventure. There’s
a lot out there.
— Bill Bradshaw,
Wallowa County Chieftain
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
ABOVE: The freezing fog advisory that has loomed over the Enterprise area recently did not come without its
benefi ts, as seen Friday, Jan. 28, 2022, in this frost-covered tree along Northwest First Street. Such trees and shrubs
were all over the area. INSET: Freezing fog made for a frosty windmill Jan. 28 at the Wagner Street home of Jake and
Kathy Wolfe of Enterprise.
Meat of the Matter
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY — Curtis Martin
doesn’t expect a problem that was
decades in the making to be solved
by a single announcement from the
White House, even one that comes
with a billion-dollar pledge.
But Martin, a North Powder cat-
tle rancher and a past president of
the Oregon Cattlemen’s Associa-
tion, is nonetheless encouraged by
the Biden administration’s eff ort to
increase competition in the meat-
packing industry, which is domi-
nated by four corporations.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Martin
said of the administration’s recent
announcement that it would divert
$1 billion from the 2021 American
Rescue Plan Act to address prob-
lems in the meat-processing system
and try to encourage the construc-
tion of smaller, regional meat-pro-
cessing operations and, potentially,
curb a recent rise in beef, pork and
poultry prices at the retail level.
“It’s really a positive report, and
I think the best thing ranchers can
do is engage in it and help Tom Vil-
sack,” Martin said.
Vilsack is the U.S. agricul-
ture secretary, and one of the fed-
eral offi cials who met with Biden
recently in a virtual meeting to dis-
cuss the situation.
The resulting plan, which was
announced Jan. 3, has among its
goals enforcing existing competi-
tion laws and making the machi-
nations of the cattle markets more
transparent.
That new federal focus is wel-
come news for Martin, who has
been concerned for many years
about what he considers an unfair
“IT’S SOMETHING WE
IN THE INDUSTRY HAVE
BEEN TALKING ABOUT
FOR A LONG TIME,
THE NEED TO HAVE A
MORE VIBRANT AND
COMPETITIVE INDUSTRY.”
— Matt McElligott,
Baker County cattle rancher
manipulation of beef markets by
the four companies that control
about 85% of the country’s cat-
tle processing — Cargill, Tyson
Foods, JBS and National Beef
Packing.
While retail beef prices have
risen by 21% over the past year,
according to the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture, that trend
hasn’t been refl ected in what
ranchers are receiving for their
cattle, Martin said.
Tom Sharp, former Oregon
Cattlemen’s president, addressed
the rise in beef prices in an Octo-
ber 2021 interview with the Pacifi c
Northwest Ag Network when he
still was president of the OCA.
“Those profi ts have largely
gone solely to the major beef pack-
ing companies that dominate boxed
beef production here in the United
States,” Sharp said. “There’s really
four multinational companies that
produce 83% of the total boxed
beef for retail consumption here in
the United States.”
Martin said he believes one way
to reduce the dominance those four
companies have is to encourage
more local and regional processing
of beef.
That would also give ranch-
ers more options for marketing
their cattle, and boost consumer
choice, potentially aff ording them
the option of buying beef raised,
and butchered, in the same county
where they live.
Martin said there is a suffi -
cient number of beef cattle in East-
ern Oregon and Western Idaho to
support processing plants with a
capacity to handle 250 to 500 head
per day.
But now, he said, “we have
absolutely no competition in the
Northwest. There’s no negotiation.
You take what is given to you (in
terms of prices).”
See Meat, Page A7
Dean attorney disputes resignation
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA COUNTY — An
attorney for the Bob Dean Oregon
Ranches reached out Monday, Jan.
31, to dispute the circumstances by
which former ranch manager B.J.
Warnock left his job there, say-
ing Warnock’s departure was a
“dismissal.”
Attorney J. Logan Joseph,
of the Joseph Law Firm in La
Grande, confi rmed in an email that
Katie Romero, who comes from
New Mexico according to her
website, is the new manager “of
all Dean family cattle operations
in Wallowa County,” and said that
Warnock’s “dismissal” was “on or
about Jan. 17 of this year.”
Warnock has not returned a
request for clarifi cation on the
matter.
Romero has stated that her boss,
Bob Dean’s wife, Karen Dean, has
forbidden her from speaking to the
press. Bob Dean is suff ering men-
tal trauma following a surgery in
June, Karen Dean said in early Jan-
uary, so she is speaking for him.
Joseph said he knows noth-
ing of Wallowa County Sheriff
Joel Fish’s investigation for pos-
sible animal neglect other than the
investigation is ongoing.
Fish confi rmed Jan. 31 that he is
still investigating.
The case involves hundreds of
cattle that were trapped in heavy
snows in the Upper Imnaha area
late last fall and the cows were
unable to get themselves or their
calves to safety. It is believed at
least two dozen mother cows died,
some of which “literally ‘milked
themselves to death,’ in an attempt
to provide for their calves,” Wal-
lowa County Stockgrowers Presi-
dent Tom Birkmaier said Jan. 19.
Numerous rescued calves were
taken in by area ranchers and cared
for. It is still uncertain how many
cattle were involved, but Warnock
originally said there were more
than 1,500 on summer pasture that
they were trying to bring out last
fall.
Birkmaier and others rallied
fellow ranchers to try to rescue
the cows and calves over the past
month. The eff ort included tak-
ing hay to the animals by snow-
mobile or dropping it by helicop-
ter. It also included bringing cattle
out on a trailer pulled by a tracked
vehicle that was able to get into the
animals after private and public
eff orts to open backcountry roads.
Joseph added in his email the
Dean family’s appreciation for the
help of locals in rescuing the cattle
and calves.
“The Dean family would like to
thank all of the local ranchers and
any other persons that assisted in
the location and retrieval of these
cattle,” Joseph wrote. “It is truly
encouraging to see a community
come together in such a fashion
under such circumstances.”
Paul Pelley/Contributed Photo
Howe:
Received
lack of
support
Wallowa principal
leaving post March 8
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA — Another Wal-
lowa County school administra-
tor is leaving, and
not under the best
of circumstances;
Wallowa
High
School Principal
David Howe will
leave March 8 after
submitting his letter
Howe
of resignation to the
Wallowa School
Board at its meeting Jan. 12.
In a telephone interview Thurs-
day, Jan. 27, Howe said he is leav-
ing because there is “a lack of sup-
port from the superintendent and the
board. … It is unfortunate that it has
come to this. Despite my best eff orts
I can no longer protect my staff or
students from those who are bent on
tearing us apart. I am saddened that
I can no longer promote Wallowa
High School in which I have poured
out my last six years and still care
deeply for.”
Accomplishments
Howe said much of his time at
the school has been productive.
“We (the high school staff and I)
have been able to accomplish some
amazing things at Wallowa High
School during my time. There are
a few things I am most proud of
that we were able to accomplish,”
he said. “First, we were able to
come together as a staff and focus
on doing what is best for students.
For example, we increased college
course selections for students result-
ing in savings of time and money
during their college careers — a
recent graduate was able to enter
Boise State University with fi rst-se-
mester credits completed. Second,
prior to the last year and a half, we
were able to improve the school cul-
ture and spirit in the high school and
we were able to return Wallowa bas-
ketball teams to competitiveness.
We were able to increase the num-
ber of electives in the high school
by building a business education
See Howe, Page A7