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137th Year, No. 57
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
WALLOWA.COM
WOLF DEPREDATION
Ranchers
frustrated
with ODFW
Producers believe
state should perform
lethal management
Dylan
Jennings
Lostine
Lostine
youth plans
a career in
business
ENTERPRISE — Dylan Jennings
has lived in Lostine with his parents
and sister for 12 years after moving
there from Salem.
He’s a senior at Enterprise High
School and plans to study business
at Oregon State University after grad-
uation. He’s not quite sure what he’ll
do with a business degree yet, but
hopes to fi nd out. In fact, he has a job
at Wheatland Insurance in Enterprise
that is helping him on the way.
“I’m a go-fer. You know, go-fer this,
go-fer that,” he laughed.
At least he fi gures a business
degree will be a stepping stone
toward the career he wants.
As for living in Wallowa County,
Jennings likes the quiet lifestyle.
“It’s pretty quiet; it’s nice here,” he
said. “I keep to myself pretty much, so
the quietness is nice.”
He also likes the people here.
“The people are always nice,” he
said.
Once the weather warms, Jen-
nings is looking forward to golfi ng
and working.
“Nothing too crazy,” he said.
He’ll also get out in the woods
occasionally.
“I’ll go out and hike around or
shoot squirrels,” he said.
He doesn’t attribute the increas-
ing cost of fuel to any one thing in
particular.
“I think it’s a combination of things,
both politically and actually,” he said.
“Blaming any one thing is just not fair.”
He admits to feeling the pinch of
the extra cost.
“It costs me a bit more for gas and
everything,” he said. “But maybe it’ll be
a good push toward more green and
renewable energy.”
Interviewed on May 4, the last
day for ballots in the primary election
to be mailed to voters, Jennings said
he won’t be voting because he didn’t
receive his ballot in the mail, although
he said he’s registered. He didn’t feel
inclined to go to the courthouse to
get one.
“I fi gured it was a small enough
election that it really didn’t matter,” he
said.
Anyone interested in moving here,
Jennings said, should be prepared for
the weather.
“Be ready for winter,” he said.
— Bill Bradshaw,
Wallowa County Chieftain
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Sam Morgan tells how he held up his hand and asked, “Help me, Jesus,” after falling off the bridge in the
background into Trout Creek behind his Enterprise home Jan. 12. On Wednesday, May 4, 2022, he recalled
how he felt someone lift him up so he could get out of the creek. He said that was the fi rst of three miracles he
experienced that day.
THREE MIRACLES
Morgan recalls fall into Trout Creek breaking back, ribs
By RONALD BOND
For the Wallowa County Chieftain
E
NTERPRISE — A string
of miracles is what Sam
Morgan of Enterprise
believes has him where
he is today, less than four months
after a fall into Trout Creek that
resulted in several broken verte-
brae and ribs and had him on the
verge of hypothermia.
Today, he can walk. While he
has rods in his back that help sup-
port him and can be uncomfort-
able, he doesn’t say he is in pain.
“In my mind, it’s a miracle that
I’m alive and not paralyzed. I had,
in essence, three consecutive mir-
acles that day,” he said, refl ecting
back on Jan 12.
The fall happened just two days
after his 75th birthday. He had a
plan to call one of his siblings who
was celebrating a milestone of his
own.
“I was supposed to call my
brother and wish him happy birth-
day the day I fell off the bridge,”
he said. “His birthday is two days
after mine.”
Morgan went out that morn-
ing, he said, to pull a limb that had
fallen from a willow tree into Trout
Creek. He said the creek is unpre-
dictable and often fl oods in the
spring.
“I thought ‘I got to get that thing
out of the way,’” he said.
He stepped on a patch of ice on
a footbridge he had built some four
decades ago, landing hard on the
bridge and breaking a lumbar ver-
tebrae before going into the creek
itself.
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Sam Morgan of Enterprise points to where he fell Jan. 12 while crossing
a bridge over Trout Creek behind his home along Golf Course Road. The
bridge has been torn down with plans to replace it.
“I knew I was going to fall off
the bridge,” he said.
When he did, he landed partially
on the bank and broke several ribs.
While he tried to fi gure out how
to get himself into a better posi-
tion, his condition worsened.
“My vision went totally black,”
he said. “My eyes were open but I
could see (only) black. And worse
than the loss of vision, I couldn’t
breathe.”
He said his breathing was
“paralyzed.”
That’s when one of the miracles
he experienced took place.
“I said, ‘Help me, Jesus.’ I
raised my right hand in my air.
He grabbed a hold of my wrist. I
couldn’t see him, but something
pulled me up on my back.”
In his new position, he was able
to breathe again, but as he was
turned away from his house, his
attempts to get more help failed.
Eventually, he stopped yelling to
conserve energy.
“When I got back on my back,
I fl oated down the creek a little
ways. I hurt so bad I couldn’t lift
myself at all,” Morgan said.
He was still in the water of
Trout Creek, which he said runs at
a temperature of about 41 degrees.
It was a couple hours before his
son went to check on him, found
him in the water and called 911.
Medical personnel arrived and
was able to extract Morgan from
the water. His body temperature
had reached near-fatal tempera-
tures at about 80 degrees. Per-
haps just a few more minutes and
it would have been too late.
See Miracles, Page A15
WALLOWA COUNTY —
Wolf kills of livestock are becom-
ing more frustrating to Wallowa
County ranchers and livestock offi -
cials when they see how those dep-
redations are handled by the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Crow Creek rancher Tom Birk-
maier, who is the president of the
Wallowa County Stockgrowers
Association, runs about 500 cows,
most of which have calves. He lost
a half-dozen animals to wolves of
the Chesnimnus pack in late April
and early May. One of those lost
was a calf shown in a photo in the
May 4 Chieftain that was misidenti-
fi ed as a mother cow.
Birkmaier asked ODFW to
“remove” the pack — meaning to
kill them, he said May 3.
In response, ODFW issued a kill
permit April 29. The permit, good
through May 24, allows Birkmaier
or an agent on his behalf to kill two
wolves in Dorrance Pasture or Trap
Canyon Pasture, where the depre-
dations on cattle occurred, he said.
One of Birkmaier’s agents killed
a yearling male May 3, said John
Williams of Enterprise, co-chair-
man of the wolf committee for the
Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.
Birkmaier declined to identify who
took the wolf in an interview Mon-
day, May 9.
“I don’t want him to get threat-
ened” by wolf proponents, Birk-
maier said.
He said that at the time of the
killing, the wolf was not actively
attacking cattle, but was in Dor-
rance Pasture along Crow Creek. A
targeted wolf does not legally have
to be in the act of attacking live-
stock, it just has to be in an area
where depredations have occurred,
he said.
Eff ective management?
Todd Nash, president of the
OCA, a Wallowa County com-
missioner and a local rancher, said
May 4, that the state conservation
and wolf-management plan has two
main parts.
“They’ve done one but not the
other,” he said. “They’ve been
highly critical of poaching, and I’m
not defending that, but they need to
step up to the plate when it’s appro-
priate for them to take lethal action,
and they have not done so.”
See ODFW, Page A7
McCloud believes treatment violates party bylaws
By JEFF BUDLONG
Wallowa County Chieftain
SALEM — Republican guber-
natorial candidate Tim McCloud
claims discrimination in a May 6
press release by his own party for
violating bylaws put in place to
treat all legally-qualifi ed candidates
equally.
McCloud, the fi rst Black GOP
candidate in the state’s history to
run for governor, believes a recent
exchange with fellow candidate
Marc Thielman during the April 22
Linn County forum led to him being
uninvited from scheduled guberna-
torial events and ignored altogether.
During the forum, Thielman claimed
not to know what a white suprema-
cist is.
“It has been a series of escalating
comments he is making with me in
the room,” McCloud said. “After he
said (the white supremacist remark)
he came and sat down with me and
wanted to fi st bump me as if, at
that moment, I was going to be an conviction.”
endorser for his comment.”
Following the forum, McCloud
Instead of a fi st bump, McCloud said he was uninvited to the Jose-
wagged his fi nger at Thielman to phine County forum, something
note his disapproval. He
he had committed to on
subsequently voiced his dis-
April 16.
pleasure with the comment
“Three days after (the
on May 5 during a League
white supremacist remark)
of Minority Voters event in
was made, I got an email
Portland and has yet to hear
from Josephine County tell-
a response from Thielman.
ing me that what would
Thielman said he does
be best for me is to pur-
McCloud
not recall making a com-
sue a lower offi ce and I
ment about the defi nition of
was no longer invited,” said
a white supremacist and said
McCloud of the April 29
the media often “throws out
event.
name calls without giving
McCloud said he can’t
any defi nition to the term.”
prove the two things are
“If Tim had an issue with
related, but he believes it all
me he should have talked to
shows that as a legally-qual-
me like a man, a grown-up,
ifi ed candidate he is not
Thielman
a professional rather than
receiving equal treatment.
draw a conclusion about
Thielman said he has no
that,” Thielman said. “I am glad ability to invite or disinvite McCloud
Tim is signed up in the race, he is to events and does not see the con-
the fi rst African-American, and he clusion being made as accurate.
is a hero to me and I appreciate his
Holli Morton, chairwoman of the
Josephine County Republican Party,
said the number of candidates was
reduced for the forum by taking into
account numerous factors. She noti-
fi ed fi ve of the 12 candidates that
they were not going to be included
in the forum.
Morton said name recognition,
fi nancial ability, government expe-
rience and business experience were
the factors taken into consideration
when inviting candidates. Candi-
dates had to meet at least two of the
four factors to be included. The busi-
ness experience criteria was set for
someone who has run a business and
had at least $10 million annual reve-
nue with 12 or more employees.
“Our forum was two-and-a-half
hours long with just the seven can-
didates we had,” she said. “We made
the same response to fi ve candidates
and it is not personal. We felt those
candidates did not meet the criteria
that we established.”
See McCloud, Page A7