LOCAL & REGION
TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 2021
BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
L OCAL B RIEFING
Betty Combs celebrating 90th birthday
with open house Saturday, June 5
Betty Combs will celebrate her 90th
birthday on Saturday, June 5, and friends
are invited to an open house that day from
1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Baker Elks Lodge,
1896 Second St.
No gifts, please. Your attendance will be
most important to her.
Combs
Baker School District reports three
COVID-19 cases at Early Learning Center
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
The Avenue of Flags at Mount Hope Cemetery, with the Elkhorn Mountains in the background, Monday, May 31.
MEMORIAL DAY
COVID
Continued from Page 1A
Even after he was himself wounded,
Holcomb, the Medal of Honor citation
goes on, “crawled through a grass fi re
and exploding mortar and rocket rounds
to move the members of his squad, every
one of whom had been wounded, to more
secure positions.”
“We never want to forget that he had
that love, the sacrifi ce he made for his
friends,” Cole said of Holcomb.
Cole asked the audience to remember
another terrible day and another self-
less act of heroism, one that happened
on June 23, 1944, in the skies over the
Nazi-controlled Europe.
He talked about David Richard Kings-
ley, 25, who was a bombardier on a B-17
bomber that was part of a raid on the oil
fi elds at Ploesti, Romania.
After enemy fi ghters damaged the
bomber and injured several crew mem-
bers, the pilot ordered the crew to bail
out.
The B-17’s tail gunner, among those
wounded, had lost his parachute, Cole
said.
Kingsley, from Portland, took off his
own parachute and buckled it to the tail
gunner.
Then, Cole said, Kingsley “rode that
airplane” to the crash landing that killed
him.
Cole talked of Robert D. Maxwell, the
The Baker School District reported on Saturday,
May 29 that three people at the Baker Early Learning
Center had tested positive for COVID-19 over the past
week.
The Early Learning Center, in the North Baker
School building at 2725 Seventh St., has kindergarten
classes.
“As we near the end of the school year, I am grateful
for staff and parents who continue to go above and be-
yond in following pandemic health and safety protocols
to help keep our students well and in school,” Mark
Witty, district superintendent, said in a press release.
Continued from Page 1A
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Seven new fl ags, each honoring a local veteran, were placed at Mount Hope
Cemetery during the Memorial Day ceremony on Monday, May 31.
nation’s oldest Medal of Honor recipient,
who died in May 2019 in Bend.
Maxwell survived despite throw-
ing himself atop a German grenade
in France on Sept. 7, 1944, to protect
nearby soldiers.
That trio — Holcomb, Kingsley and
Maxwell — and more than 1.3 mil-
lion others who died while serving the
United States “did their duty for God
and for country,” Cole said.
“Memorial Day is not the day we
honor the living, it’s the day that we
honor the dead,” he said.
After Cole’s address, Jerry Hunter,
ACCIDENT
Baker County Sheriff’s Offi ce.
Robert Reed, 64, was
Continued from Page 1A
driving a Polaris ATV, with
“We are very thankful for
his wife and their grandson,
all the responders yesterday,” who’s 3 1/2, as passengers.
Melissa Reed wrote in a mes-
While Robert Reed was
sage to the Baker City Herald turning the vehicle around,
on Monday morning, May 31. the child grabbed the throttle
“They did an amazing job.”
and the vehicle went off the
The accident happened
road down the embankment,
on a forest road near Silver
rolling about three times,
Creek, about fi ve miles north- according to the press release.
west of Sumpter, according
All three people were thrown
to a press release from the
from the four-wheeler.
local commander of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, read the names of seven
Baker County veterans, each of whom
had a fl ag planted in his memory.
The seven are Dennis L. Fuller, Lloyd
R. Cook, George D. Braughton, Clifford
D. Jacobson, Kenneth D. Schaer, Gene E.
North and Michael Jacobson.
Doug Riggs, chairman of the Avenue
of Flags committee, thanked all those
who helped place the large fl ags along
the avenue leading to the veterans
section at Mount Hope, but also the
hundreds of smaller fl ags set next to
veterans’ graves.
The grandson was wearing
a helmet, according to the
press release.
The incident was reported
to Baker County Dispatch at
10:54 a.m. Search and rescue
members had to set up ropes
due to the steepness of the
terrain. Medics treated Betty
Reed and loaded her onto a
backboard. Team members
carried her up the slope to
the road, and she was driven
to a site where the helicopter
could pick her up.
The Sheriff’s Offi ce was
assisted by the Powder
River Rural Fire Protection
District, Baker City Fire
and Rescue, Sumpter Fire
Department, Baker County
Search and Rescue and Life
Flight.
“This rescue was a prime
example of collaboration
among the fi rst responders in
rural Baker County,” accord-
ing to the press release.
Although the county’s
rate is well below the
threshold of 30 during a
two-week period needed
for the county to remain
at the lowest risk level
under state guidelines,
county offi cials are
concerned about the test
positivity rate.
That’s the second cri-
teria the Oregon Health
Authority (OHA) reviews
in setting risk levels.
To remain at the lowest
risk level — which has the
least stringent restric-
tions on businesses and
activities — the county
also needs to have a test
positivity rate below 5%.
That rate for May 23-29
was 3.9%, and for the pre-
vious week it was 1.5%.
However, the number
of tests being conducted
in the county has dropped
by about 40% over the
past month or so, even
a handful of new cases
could potentially push the
county’s positivity rate
above 5%.
That has prompted the
Baker County Health
Department to schedule
a free COVID-19 testing
clinic on Thursday, June
3 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
in the parking lot across
from the Health Depart-
ment, 2200 Fourth St.
The county plans to
have testing clinics each
Thursday during June.
Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown says she hopes to
cancel restrictions state-
wide by the end of June.
HEAT
Continued from Page 1A
The torrid temperatures, running about 20 degrees
above average for the fi rst week of June, are a product
of a ridge of high pressure that will settle over the
region for much of this week, according to the National
Weather Service.
The heat wave won’t persist, however.
A pair of cold fronts, one late Thursday or early Fri-
day, the other arriving Saturday, will spawn northwest
winds that will replace the heat with air cooled by its
passage over the chilly waters of the North Pacifi c.
Although skies will remain generally clear, with little
chance of precipita-
tion, temperatures
will dip to the mid 80s
on Friday, June 4, to
the mid 70s on Satur-
day, and to around 70,
a few degrees below
average, on Monday,
June 7.
Spring is here
for ranchers...
Please watch
for animals!
Halfway man who failed to attend 2020 court
hearing arrested with stolen car near Walla Walla
By Jedediah Maynes
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
COLLEGE PLACE, Wash-
ington — A wanted man
from Baker County who was
reportedly driving a car sto-
len in Missoula, Montana,
was arrested Thursday, May
28, in College Place after a
brief pursuit by local police.
Jonathon Russell Romine,
40, of Halfway, had a war-
rant for his arrest out of
Baker County, according to
a release from the College
Place Police Department.
Romine failed to appear
in Baker County Circuit
Court on Oct. 12, 2020, on
multiple charges, including
unauthorized use of a motor
vehicle and unlawful posses-
sion of methamphetamine,
stemming from his April
2020 arrest.
Romine had his fi rst
appearance in Walla Walla
County Superior Court on
Friday, May 29 and was
booked into the Walla Walla
County Jail with a $20,000
bond.
Prosecutors fi led charges
on two counts — stolen
vehicle possession and
third-degree driving with a
suspended license — out of
several charges presented
by police, according to court
documents.
According to the release,
police interaction with Ro-
mine began when dispatch-
ers were notifi ed of a vehicle
driving erratically on U.S.
Highway 12 around 4:30
p.m. Thursday.
College Place offi cers
spotted the vehicle, a Subaru
Legacy, heading south on
Northeast Myra Road and
followed it.
The driver allegedly ran a
stop sign while police were
trying to catch up. The driv-
er then stopped the car on
Northeast Cargill Avenue.
Romine left the vehicle
and ran away when offi cers
got out to talk to him. The
man eventually stopped in
the backyard of a house in
the 100 block of Northeast
Rose Street, and he was
arrested “without further
issue,” according to the
release.
Offi cers entered the li-
cense plate numbers in their
database, but they didn’t
match the vehicle descrip-
tion. They learned the car
was listed as stolen out of
Missoula the night before,
the release noted.
Walla Walla County Pros-
ecuting Attorney Jim Nagle
said he expected arraign-
ment on the local charges to
happen June 14.
Romine has multiple
pending charges in Baker
County, including stolen
vehicle possession, plus
charges on another case in-
volving illicit guns and drugs
and illegal burning.
Romine was convicted in
2018 of starting a fi re that
burned 800 acres and was
accused of illegal burning
again in September 2020,
when open burning was pro-
hibited in Baker County.
Romine was serving a
three-year probation term
that started in 2020 for
starting a fi re on Sept. 20,
2018, that spread from prop-
erty where he lived, about
fi ve miles east of Halfway,
onto adjacent land, burning
an estimated 800 acres.
The property where the
fi re started, along Highway
86, is owned by David R.
Romine of Clarkston, Wash-
ington, according to Baker
County Assessor’s Offi ce
records.
When Romine was ar-
rested in April 2020 he
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