BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2021
State: 168 of 700,000
vaccinated later
tested positive
FORMER U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Gordon Smith returning to Pendleton
■ Smith stepping down as CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters
By Antonio Sierra
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Gordon
Smith is returning home.
Following 24 years in
Washington, D.C., fi rst as
a U.S. senator then as the
chief executive offi cer of
the National Association of
Broadcasters, Smith is step-
ping down to an advisory role
with the lobbying group and
returning to his birthplace:
Pendleton.
In a video message an-
nouncing his retirement,
Smith said he would step
down at the end of 2021 to
spend more time on his fam-
ily business, his church and
his family.
“Many of these things I
have put on hold this past
quarter century to give public
service and to be among
broadcasters,” he said. “I look
forward to time with them,
doing things that grandfa-
thers ought to do: attending
baseball games, recitals and
more.”
As a lobbyist, Smith rep-
resented some of the largest
radio and television broad-
casting companies in the
country, including iHeartMe-
dia, Cumulus Media and the
Sinclair Broadcast Group.
And although providing news
is only one part of what these
broadcasters do, it’s one of the
topics he chose to focus on in
his farewell video.
“It has been my great
honor to give the lion’s roar
for broadcasters — those
who run into the storm, those
who stand fi rm in chaos to
hear the voice of the people,
those who hold to account the
powerful — and to stand with
those of the fourth estate
who have the hearts of public
servants,” he said.
Although he won’t be in
Washington full time any
more, Smith plans to use
some of his time as an advisor
for the association advocating
for local media in an increas-
ingly inhospitable climate.
Smith referred to himself
as “a pea picker from Or-
egon,” albeit one whose family
also owns a food processing
business that produces mil-
lions of pounds of peas, corn,
carrots and lima beans per
year.
Smith made a name for
himself locally by taking over
Smith Frozen Foods and its
facility in Weston. But politics
also ran through his blood.
Pamplin Media Group
Former Oregon U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, the CEO of the National Association of
Broadcasters, is stepping down from that position and returning to Pendleton.
“I look forward to time
with them, doing things
that grandfathers ought
to do: attending baseball
games, recitals and more.”
— Gordon Smith, former
U.S. Senator from Oregon
His father was an assistant
agriculture secretary during
the Eisenhower administra-
tion and Smith has several
cousins who have served in
the U.S. House and Senate
in Arizona, New Mexico,
Colorado and Utah.
Smith won a seat repre-
senting Pendleton in the
Oregon Senate as a Republi-
can in 1992 and was elected
Senate president a few years
later. In 1996, Smith sought
an open seat in the U.S.
Senate only to narrowly lose
to Ron Wyden, the fi rst time
the state elected a senator
by mail. Smith would get a
second shot at the Senate
later that year when Mark
Hatfi eld retired, and this
time he prevailed.
Smith would go on to serve
two terms in the Senate be-
fore he lost reelection to Jeff
Merkley in 2008, putting an
end to his political career. He
stayed in Washington and
joined the National Associa-
tion of Broadcasters a year
later.
Starting next year, Smith
will serve as an advisor to
the broadcasters association,
necessitating only a few trips
to Washington per year.
In a Thursday, April 8, in-
terview, Smith said he plans
RESCUED
Continued from Page 1A
McClay said the car had a nearly
full tank of gas, and the family ap-
parently was able to run the engine
to operate the heater and warm the
interior.
There are no weather stations
within 15 miles or so of the site.
A station at Salt Creek Summit,
about 16 miles northeast, recorded
a low temperature of 20 degrees
Monday.
The Baker City Airport tied a
record low of 16 degrees Monday
morning.
In early March the Wallowa-Whit-
man National Forest, prompted by
multiple search and rescue calls this
past winter along Road 39 in both
Baker and Wallowa counties, issued
a press release reminding drivers
that the road is a snowmobile route
during winter. The Forest Service
placed barriers along the road to
discourage passenger vehicles.
According to the press release,
the Forest Service planned to move
the barriers farther up the road this
spring as the snow recedes.
Baker County Sheriff Travis Ash
said Forest Service offi cials noti-
fi ed him recently that the barriers
would be removed. A sign remains
warning the road is not maintained
to use some of those trips to
lobby Congress to take steps
to save local media.
The past 20 years have not
been kind to local newspa-
pers and broadcasters.
As the internet became
one of the dominant forms
of consumption and com-
munication, local businesses
stopped advertising with lo-
cal media outlets and started
fl ocking to a handful of tech
giants like Facebook and
Google.
Local media outlets relied
on these advertisers to fund
their news operations, and,
as a result, many of them
shrank or shuttered. Accord-
ing to a 2019 study from the
Brookings Institute, more
than 65 million Americans
live in a county where there
is only one newspaper or
none at all.
The COVID-19 pandemic
has only exacerbated these
trends, and the effect is being
felt locally.
In March 2020, the EO
Media Group, the parent
company of the East Orego-
nian and Hermiston Herald
and the owner of more than
a dozen newspapers in
Oregon and Washington, laid
off 47 employees company-
wide, including eight locally.
Since then, the company
has also closed its Pendleton
printing facility and laid off
another 20 employees.
Working with broadcast-
ers, Smith said the same
trend is happening at local
TV and radio stations, and
much of that has to do with
the way tech companies have
dominated the advertising
market.
Conducting the interview
from his phone on a trip
through the Columbia River
Gorge on his way back to
Pendleton, Smith said tech
companies were not only
hurting local journalism by
consolidating the advertising
market, but also elevating
bad journalism and misinfor-
mation that tends to prolifer-
ate the web.
“They are cannibalizing
the advertising market, tak-
ing broadcaster and newspa-
per content, putting it online
and then competing against
it for advertising dollars,” he
said. “At the end of the day,
good journalism costs money.
They don’t care about local-
ism or journalism. They just
care about making money.”
Smith said the solution to
local media’s decline could
lie in Australia, where the
country passed a law that re-
quires tech companies to pay
news outlets for their content
posted on the companies’
platforms.
Nearing 70, Smith said his
move back to Oregon does
not presage a return to poli-
tics. He said his passion for
elected offi ce died when he
lost re-election in 2008 while
acknowledging the state’s
leftward turn would make it
diffi cult for a Republican to
try to win.
And once he returns to
Pendleton full time, he has
no intention of leaving.
“I was born in Pendleton
and I will die in Pendleton,”
he said.
By Fedor Zarkhin
The Oregonian/OregonLive
So far 168 Oregonians have tested positive for the
coronavirus despite being fully vaccinated against
COVID-19, leaving 19 hospitalized and three dead
— fi gures so small that offi cials said they were “good
news.”
The case count means that of the 700,000 people
who reached full immunity, just 0.024% got infected
anyway.
“This shows the vaccines are working really well,”
said Dr. Melissa Sutton, the Oregon Health Author-
ity’s medical director
for respiratory viral
Few ‘breakthrough’
diseases. “All of those
cases in NE Oregon
numbers are good
Although the state
news.”
report on fully vac-
While coronavirus
cinated Oregonians
vaccines are proven
who later test positive
to be effective at
for COVID-19 doesn’t
preventing hospital-
have county-level data,
izations and deaths
it does note that there
among those who do
were nine such “break-
get infected, no vac-
through” cases in the re-
cine is foolproof. Sut-
gion that includes Baker
ton was not surprised
County. That region also
by the death and
includes Morrow, Uma-
hospitalization counts,
tilla, Union, Wallowa and
either.
Malheur counties.
“They are, of course,
unfortunate,” Sutton
said. But the numbers
were “not more than we would have expected.”
State offi cials calculated the number of so-called
“breakthrough” cases among Oregonians who had
reached full immunity, which comes two weeks after
a fi nal vaccine dose. Offi cials track the cases because
they could point to dangerous mutations of the virus.
It’s unclear how many, if any, of the breakthrough
cases Oregon announced were caused by virus vari-
ants, Sutton said, though none of them are known to
be.
State offi cials said many of the people with identi-
fi ed breakthrough cases reported no symptoms and
were tested for other reasons, such as care-facility
workers who must be screened at least once a month.
None of the three deaths was tied to a variant, the
state said. Oregon has now identifi ed 294 cases driven
by variants the federal government is concerned about.
COVID case affects
Early Learning Center
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
A student at the Baker School District’s Baker Early
Learning Center, which has preschool and kindergarten
classrooms, has tested positive for COVID-19, the school
district announced Sunday, April 11.
The district was notifi ed of the positive test Friday,
April 9, according to a press release from the district.
The student did not contract the virus at the Early
Learning Center, which opened on Oct. 9, 2020, in the
North Baker School building at 2725 Seventh St., accord-
ing to the school district.
The district still plans an open house Friday, April 16
from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the Early Learning Center that
includes installing a plaque commemorating the $2.3 mil-
lion renovation that created the Center.
Although the student who tested positive “did spend
some time at school when they may have been conta-
gious, the facility has been cleaned/sanitized thoroughly
and anyone who may have been in close contact has been
asked to quarantine for two weeks from possible expo-
sure,” Lindsey McDowell, the district’s public information
and communications coordinator, wrote in an email to the
Herald on Monday, April 12.
“You can do fi ne on that
compact snow until you break
through. Then you’re stuck.”
— Sheriff Travis Ash
that can hold the weight of a car.
Until it doesn’t.
“You can do fi ne on that compact
snow until you break through,” Ash
said. “Then you’re stuck.”
He said people who aren’t famil-
iar with snowmobile routes don’t
recognize that a road hasn’t been
maintained for wheeled vehicles.
Ash said that although he’s happy
the Brunsons are safe, he’s concerned
that future episodes will not turn out
as well.
He believes bigger signs or some
other more blatant notice to travelers
who aren’t familiar with the area is
necessary.
“We have to do something,” Ash
said.
The sheriff is familiar with rescues
Baker County Sheriff’s Offi ce/Contributed Photo on the snow-covered Road 39.
A Beaverton family’s car got stuck in snow along Forest Road 39 in eastern Baker County on Sunday af-
On Thanksgiving Day 2020 Ash
ternoon, April 11. Baker County Sheriff’s Offi ce search and rescue members, summoned by a cellphone helped an 18-year-old Boise man
call early Monday, rescued Jason Brunson, his wife, Jennifer, and their seven-year-old son, George.
whose car became stuck in snow on
the road more than 12 miles beyond
during winter, but Ash said he
ily didn’t see the warning sign.
One problem with Road 39 and
where the Brunsons’ car was mired.
believes the sign is too small to be
Road 39, which continues north
several other forest roads that are
Exactly 20 years earlier, on the
effective.
into Wallowa County, usually doesn’t popular with snowmobilers, Ash said, same holiday in 2000, Ash rescued
He said the Brunsons told search fully open to vehicles until May or
is that the snow machines compact
three travelers from Germany who
and rescue members that the fam- early June.
the snow into a fi rm but thin surface became stranded in the same area.