‘A C ACOPHONY
C OLOR ’
THURSDAY
FOOTBALL COACH TAKES ON UNUSUAL TASK: PAGE 6A
OF
NORTHEAST OREGON
First Friday art shows
open March 5
MARCH 4, 2021
www.gonortheastoregon.com
Also inside:
Image by Laurel Macdonald
BIG READ NEARS THE SHORE
FISHTRAP FIRESIDE
BOOK REVIEWS
Handcrafted beers, baked goods and food.
Find us on Facebook and Instagram
Open for Dine-In or our website 1188brewing.com
Lunch & Dinner
141 E. Main St., John Day
541-575-1188
Toast Takeout App for
online ordering.
GO! Magazine
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
March 4, 2021
IN THIS EDITION:
QUICK HITS
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Alisa
Anderson of Baker City.
Local, 2A
Every Oregon county
will receive 100 doses this
week of the new Johnson
& Johnson single-shot
COVID-19 vaccine that
President Joe Biden said
Tuesday is a key part of
vaccinating all Americans
before summer.
Local • Business & AgLife • Go! magazine $1.50
County extends visitor contract
■ Deal with Chamber of Commerce to operate visitors center in Baker City continues through Aug. 31
By Samantha O’Conner
soconner@bakercityherald.com
The Baker County Board of Com-
missioners voted 3-0 on Wednesday
morning, March 3, to extend until
Aug. 31, 2021, the county’s contract
with the Baker County of Chamber
of Commerce, through Baker County
Unlimited, to operate the visitors
center in Baker City.
Commissioner Mark Bennett,
who made the motion to extend the
contract, said the action will end any
uncertainty about the Chamber’s role
through the summer.
Shelly Cutler, the Chamber’s execu-
tive director, said last week that she
was concerned about the possibility
that commissioners would cancel the
contract, which pays the Chamber
about $77,000 per year.
The loss of the contract could im-
peril the Chamber’s ability to put on
events, including the Miners Jubilee
celebration in July, Cutler said.
The money comes from the lodging
tax that guests pay at motels, bed and
breakfasts, RV parks, vacation rental
homes, campgrounds and other lodg-
ing businesses.
Class 1A State Basketball Tournaments Take A Year Off Due To Pandemic
BRIEFING
Prekindergarten
preenrollment at
Haines Elementary
HAINES — Haines
Elementary School has
announced that preenroll-
ment for its prekindergar-
ten program will begin
April 1.
Students must be 4
years old by Sept. 1, 2021,
to enroll for the 2021-
2022 school year, a press
release stated. Priority will
be given to students resid-
ing in the Haines enroll-
ment area.
From there, it will follow
the policy on the District’s
website under Board
Policies, Students, Remote
Rural Schools Enrollment
at policy.osba.org/baker/J/
JC%20R%20D1.PDF
Pre-K hours are 7:45
a.m. to 11:20 a.m. Monday
through Thursday. More
information is available by
calling Kathleen Chris-
tensen, school secretary, at
541-524-2400.
WEATHER
Today
50 / 33
54 / 33
Partly sunny
Full forecast on the back
of the B section.
The space below is for
a postage label for issues
that are mailed.
See Contract/Page 3A
Two
COVID
deaths
reported
■ 87-year-old Baker
County woman, and
an 88-year man,
each of whom had
underlying
conditions, both died
Feb. 26 at home
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Kathy Orr/Baker City Herald File
The bleachers in the Baker High School gym aren’t packed as usual this week with enthusiastic basketball
fans from Oregon’s smallest high schools. Due to the pandemic, the annual Class 1A state girls and boys
basketball tournaments, a Baker City tradition since the 1970s, were canceled.
Missing Hoops
Sunny
Friday
Your guide to arts,
entertainment
and other events
happening around
Northeast Oregon
Two Baker County
residents died on Feb. 26, two
days after testing positive
for COVID-19, the Oregon
Health Authority (OHA) an-
nounced on Tuesday, March 2.
The deaths bring the
county’s total to nine during
the pandemic.
Both people died at home,
according to OHA.
One resident is an 87-year-
old woman, the other an
88-year-old man.
Both had underlying medi-
cal conditions, according to
OHA.
See Deaths/Page 3A
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Kathy Taylor is supposed to be
exhausted right now.
She should be rushing from one task
to another this week, with scarcely a
spare moment to rest.
Taylor wishes that were so.
For more than a quarter century,
the fi rst week of March has meant
one thing for Kathy and her husband,
Rick.
Basketball.
Specifi cally, the Class 1A state
basketball girls and boys tourna-
ments at Baker High School. It’s the
culmination of the season for Oregon’s
smallest high schools, the week when
players from towns, some of which lack
a single traffi c signal, try to win one
of those glossy trophies carved in the
shape of the state.
Kathy Taylor has been co-director
of the annual tournaments, which are
run by Baker County Tournaments,
since 2017.
But she and her husband have
volunteered to help with the events
since 1994.
The tournaments themselves have
an even longer legacy at BHS. The
boys tournament has taken place
there every year since 1974, and the
girls tournament moved to Baker City
in 1977.
But then came the pandemic.
And with high school basketball not
scheduled to start in Oregon until May,
and no state tournaments planned,
2021 will be the year of the asterisk.
TODAY
Issue 126, 22 pages
Tournaments A Big Boost
For Baker City businesses
By Samantha O’Conner
and Jayson Jacoby
Baker City Herald
The Class 1A state tourna-
ments don’t just bring exciting
basketball to Baker City.
They bring business.
The infl ux of hundreds of
visitors who arrive from across
Oregon to watch their sons and
daughters, grandsons and grand-
daughters, compete at Baker
High School also fi lls motels and
restaurants during late winter, an
otherwise sluggish period for the
area’s tourism economy.
“Economically it’s huge,” said
Shelly Cutler, executive director
“I feel lost,” Kathy Taylor said on
Tuesday morning, March 2. “It’s like
there’s something I’m supposed to be
doing but I’m not.”
Taylor said the Oregon School
Activities Association (OSAA), which
oversees prep sports in the state, told
her in December that the tournaments
wouldn’t happen in 2021.
An OSAA offi cial says, however, that
the organization has no plan to move
the tournaments from Baker City.
And Taylor wants nothing more
than to return to her usual hectic
Business .............. 1B-3B
Classified ............. 4B-6B
Comics ....................... 7B
Community News ....3A
Crossword ........4B & 6B
Dear Abby ................. 8B
of the Baker County Chamber
of Commerce. “Each one of those
folks, they’re dining out, they’re
shopping downtown.”
In a report after the 2020 tour-
naments, Kathy Taylor, co-director
of the events, wrote that “the mo-
tels reported that they were full
from Wednesday evening through
Saturday morning. Some teams
stayed Tuesday night and some
stayed Saturday night depending
on their games.”
Total attendance at the tourna-
ment over the four days was
9,493.
15 virus
cases at
Settler’s
Park
■ 10 cases reported
at Behlen Mfg. Co.,
the county’s first
workplace outbreak
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
introduction to March in 2022.
“I’m hoping we get back to some
semblance of what we call normal,”
she said.
A year ago the situation at the BHS
gym seemed normal only with the
benefi t of hindsight.
The 2020 Class 1A tournaments
took place as scheduled from March 4
to March 7 (as did the Class 2A events
in Pendleton, and the Class 3A tourna-
ments in North Bend).
Fifteen cases of COVID-19
have been reported at Set-
tler’s Park memory care com-
munity in Baker City.
The majority of people who
have tested positive have
had “mild to no symptoms,”
according to a press release
issued Wednesday, March 3,
by the Baker County Health
Department.
The press release did not
say how many of the cases
are residents and how many
are employees.
See Hoops/Page 3A
See Outbreak/Page 2A
See Business/Page 3A
Horoscope ........4B & 6B
Letters ........................4A
Lottery Results ..........2A
News of Record ........2A
Obituaries ..................2A
Opinion ......................4A
Senior Menus ...........2A
Sports ........................5A
Weather ..................... 8B
INSIDE — BAKER VOLLEYBALL FALLS TO BURNS IN 5 SETS: PAGE 5A