BAKER CITY RESIDENTS CELEBRATE COMMUNITY NIGHT OUT: PAGE A3
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Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
August 5, 2021
Local • Business & Ag • Sports

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A special good day to
Herald subscriber Marjorie
Loennig of Baker City.
Sports, A6
TOKYO — Simone Biles
returned to the competition
at the Tokyo Olympics in
style, and will leave with
another medal.
What color it is really isn’t
the point. That she delivered
a tense, heart-pounding
routine on the balance
beam and nailed it with a
smile meant everything.
Biles looked calm as she
moved, turned and fl ipped
across the beam. It was
everyone else watching
who held their breath.
Fun at
the Fair
BRIEFING
Nadie Strayer
Fund awards three
scholarships
The Nadie E. Strayer
Fund has awarded college
scholarships to Abagail Hunt,
a 2021 graduate of Pine-Eagle
High School, and Hollie Mays
and Hailey Zikmund, both
2021 graduates of Baker High
School.
Scholarship awards range
from $500 to $1,000.
The Strayer Fund is
administered by the Oregon
Community Foundation.
Strayer’s father, William, was a
Baker attorney and long-time
Oregon senator. Her mother,
Donna, was a direct descen-
dant of the Holcomb family
of Eagle Valley. Nadie Strayer
was a journalist and pursued
mining interests. At the time
of her death she had copper
and gold mining property and
prospects in the areas of Balm
Creek and Sparta.
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By Joanna Mann
jmann@bakercityherald.com
The Baker County Fair
is back better than ever,
with people enjoying the
fun-fi lled week with extra
enthusiasm, as the event
was closed to the public last
year due to COVID-19.
The fair offi cially started
Aug. 1, and it runs through
Friday, Aug. 6. Michelle
Kaseberg, a member of the
fair board and 4-H leader,
said she noticed an increase
in attendance earlier this
week, even on days where
there usually are not a lot
of people.
“It’s been fun,” Kaseberg
said. “This is the most steers
we’ve ever had.”
4-H/FFA kids showed
their animals with pride as
spectators munched on corn
dogs and cotton candy. For
the fi rst time in the history
of the fair there was a llama
and alpaca showmanship.
Over the course of the
week, kids showed cavy,
rabbits, poultry, sheep,
llama and alpacas, goats,
steer and swine. The moos
and bleats blended in with
the country music playing
throughout each day, with
singer/songwriter Olivia
Harms performing with her
band on Wednesday night,
Aug. 4.
Joanna Mann/Baker City Herald
Zoey Justus, 15, with her market steer, Yankee, at the Baker County Fair.
See, Fair/Page A5
COVID cases set weekly record
Baker County
reported 68 cases
from July 25-31
fective at protecting people
Staten didn’t have
precise fi gures, but she said against all variants, includ-
ing the much more conta-
on Monday, Aug. 2, that
gious delta variant that
the “vast majority” of the
health offi cials say is
county’s cases
largely responsible
over the past
for the recent surge
two weeks are
By Jayson Jacoby
in cases at the local,
in unvaccinated
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
state and national
residents.
After a comparatively
levels.
She said
tranquil period that started
The Pfi zer vaccine,
at least two
in May and continued
for instance, is 88%
infections are
through the middle of
Staten
effective against
“breakthrough”
July, Baker County is in
the delta variant in
cases, when a
the midst of its biggest
preventing symptomatic
COVID-19 surge since the fully vaccinated person is
disease, according to Johns
infected.
pandemic started.
Hopkins, as compared with
“There are a few, and
And Nancy Staten, di-
rector of the Baker County we know we’re going to get a 94% effectiveness against
some because no vaccine is the previously dominant
Health Department, said
100% effective,” Staten said. alpha variant.
the recent rapid rise in
Baker County’s vac-
According to the Johns
infections is almost exclu-
cination rate of 46.7% of
sively affecting people who Hopkins University, the
residents 18 and older is
available vaccines are ef-
aren’t vaccinated.
the eighth-lowest among
Oregon’s 36 counties.
For the week of July 25-
31, Baker County reported
68 new cases, the most
in any week during the
pandemic.
The previous weekly
record was 58 cases from
Dec. 25-31.
The 68 cases for the fi nal
week of July exceeded the
total for all of May — 51 —
and was nearly as many as
the county reported during
June — 70.
Infections increased
rapidly late in July — the
county had just six cases
the week prior to the record,
July 18-24.
See, COVID/Page A5
Lightning sparks several small fi res
Biggest blaze burned
1.4 acres north of
Phillips Reservoir
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
A series of thunder-
storms this week has
sparked several new wild-
fi res in and around Baker
County, but crews have
quickly stopped the new
blazes.
Rain, and in some cases
hail, that accompanied the
lightning helped initial
attack crews, said Joel
McCraw, fi re management
offi cer for the Wallowa-
Whitman National Forest’s
Whitman Ranger District.
The largest of the fi res,
sparked by lightning Mon-
day evening, burned about
1.4 acres in the Miners
Creek area north of Phillips

Issue 37, 34 pages
Reservoir. The fi re was
reported by a citizen, and by
the fi re lookout on Mount
Ireland, around noon on
Tuesday, Aug. 3.
Firefi ghters working
on another lightning fi re a
couple miles away, near the
top of Elkhorn Ridge, also
saw the fi re, McCraw said.
The Elkhorn Ridge fi re,
which was just west of
the Baker City Watershed
boundary, burned about a
quarter of an acre. It was
reported Monday evening
around 7:45 p.m. and was
controlled about 1:30 p.m.
Tuesday.
McCraw said fi re crews
from the Forest Service
and Oregon Department
of Forestry, along with con-
tracted bulldozers, had good
road access to the Miners
Creek fi re.
The fi re was “looking
Business ..............B1–B3
Classified .............B4–B6
Comics ....................... B7
good” Wednesday morning,
McCraw said.
Firefi ghters on the
ground were joined by a
couple of single-engine air
tankers that dropped fi re re-
tardant, as well as a heavy
helicopter that dropped
about 30 bucketloads of
water, each load around 660
gallons, McCraw said.
Another round of storms
on Tuesday evening brought
more lightning, as well as
rain and hail, in the Sumpt-
er Valley area as well as in
the Sparta area northeast of
Baker City.
Two fi res were reported
in that area Wednesday
morning, both one-tenth of
an acre. One fi re, near Balm
Creek, was controlled at
10:19 a.m. Wednesday. The
other fi re is near the Del
Monte mine about one mile
east of Sparta.
Community News ....A3
Crossword ........B4 & B6
Dear Abby ................. B8
Lightning also started a
fi re in the Eagle Cap Wil-
derness. Firefi ghters had
rappelled from a helicopter
to reach that fi re, which
had burned about one acre
Wednesday morning, Mc-
Craw said.
He said fi re offi cials
were taking airplane fl ights
over the region Wednesday
morning to look for other
new fi res.
McCraw said he expects
some blazes will show up
based on the amount of
lightning from Monday’s
and Tuesday’s storms.
Lightning can start fi res
that smolder for days or
even weeks, especially
when rain falls to tempo-
rarily cool them.
“We’re trying to jump
on them quick so we can
be ready for the next one,”
he said.
Horoscope ........B5 & B6
Letters ........................A4
News of Record ........A2
Your guide to arts,
entertainment and other
events happening around
Northeast Oregon
Judge blocks
county road
survey
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
A judge has blocked Baker
County from trying to declare
as a public right-of-way a
section of the Pine Creek
Road, in the Elkhorn Moun-
tains northwest of Baker City,
that’s the subject of a lawsuit
in which the county is the
defendant.
Senior Judge Stephen P.
Forte on July 29 granted the
plaintiff, David McCarty, a
temporary restraining order.
McCarty sued the county
on April 30.
The restraining order
prohibits the county from
continuing the statutory process,
which county commissioners
started in mid-June, to declare
See, Road/Page A5
ODFW confi rms
wolf attack
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
The Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife has expanded
the area in eastern Baker
County where a rancher, or
agency employees, can kill up to
two more nonadult wolves from
the Lookout Mountain pack.
ODFW amended the kill
permit, issued July 29, which
initially covered a mix of public
and private land where ranch-
ers Deward and Kathy Thomp-
son’s cattle graze.
The amended permit
includes areas where another
rancher’s cattle graze, said Mi-
chelle Dennehy, a spokesperson
for ODFW.
Agency employees confi rmed
on July 30 that wolves from
the Lookout Mountain pack
had injured a six-month-old,
325-pound calf on the rancher’s
1,900-acre private pasture.
ODFW biologists estimated
wolves attacked the calf about
three weeks earlier.
The permit allows the
ranchers, their designated
agents or ODFW employees to
kill up to four wolves from the
pack — not including its breed-
ing male and female.
The permit is valid through
Aug. 21, or when four wolves
have been killed, if that hap-
pens before Aug. 21.
On Sunday, Aug. 1, ODFW
employees in a helicopter shot
and killed two wolf pups from
the Lookout Mountain pack.
As of Wednesday morning,
Aug. 4, ODFW hadn’t con-
fi rmed whether any additional
wolves had been killed, Den-
nehy said.
ODFW has confi rmed that
wolves from the pack attacked
cattle four times from July
13-26, killing two animals and
injuring two others.
Dennehy said the permit is
intended to stop chronic attacks
“by reducing the pack’s food
needs and disrupting the pack’s
behavior so they don’t associate
livestock with an easy meal.”
ODFW didn’t authorize
killing the pack’s breeding pair
because doing so likely would
disperse the pack entirely.
The pack consists of the two
adults, two yearlings born in
the spring of 2020, and as many
as seven pups born this spring,
according to ODFW.
Obituaries ........ A2 & A3
Opinion ......................A4
Senior Menus ...........A2
Sports ........................A6
Turning Backs ...........A2
Weather ..................... B8