PRICES FOR PROCEDURES VARY WIDELY AMONG HOSPITALS: PAGE A3
In OUTDOORS, B1
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
August 7, 2021
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School
board talks
masks,
virus
Parents say masks
harm rather than
help students
Fundraiser set for
local toddler
A fundraiser to help
Ben and Emily Becktold’s
daughter fi ght leukemia
is happening Friday, Aug.
13. The couple’s 14-month-
old daughter, Naomi, is
currently with her mom at
Seattle Children’s Hospital.
The fundraiser starts at 6
p.m. at the Baker City Elks
Lodge, 1896 Second St. The
evening includes a pulled
pork dinner, cornhole tour-
nament, and silent auction.
All proceeds will benefi t the
Becktold family to help with
medical and travel expens-
es. Dinner tickets are $15,
and available at the event.
There is a limit to 200 meals.
Entry in the cornhole tourna-
ment is $10 per person or
$20 per team. There are slots
for 32 teams. JR Streifel said
donations are still coming in
for the silent auction.
“It’s awesome to see the
community support and
rally around one of ours in
need,” he said.
To donate, call Streifel at
541-379-5174. For monetary
donations, an account has
been set up at Old West
Federal Credit Union under
the name Naomi Becktold
Benefi t Fund. Donations
can also be made through
Venmo: @NaomisVillage
Wallowa
River
redsides
By Joanna Mann
jmann@bakercityherald.com
Contributed Photo
Chelsie Thompson, 11, of North Powder, is the West
Queen for the East-West Shrine All-Star Foot-
ball Game.
By Samantha O’Conner
soconner@bakercityherald.com
The two queens for the East-
West Shrine All-Star Football Game,
which will be played Saturday eve-
ning, Aug. 7 in Baker City, both hail
from the same small town — North
Powder.
West Queen Chelsie Thompson,
11, and East Queen Adelynn Klun-
dby, 16, have both been helped by
Shriners hospitals for many years.
They will represent their respec-
tive teams when the players compete
at Baker Bulldog Memorial Stadium.
Tickets to the football game are
$15 and can be purchased at the
stadium starting at 5 p.m. Pre-game
events start at 6 p.m., followed by
kickoff at 7 p.m.
The game will be livestreamed by
EOAlive on https://eoalive.tv/.
Chelsie’s story
Chelsie was six years old on June
3, 2016, when she was hurt in an
accident with a riding lawnmower at
her family’s home.
“She had her left leg amputated
from that accident,” Chelsie’s mom,
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
East Queen Adelynn Klundby waves to the
crowd during the Miners Jubilee parade on July
17, 2021, in Baker City.
Erin Thompson said. “About a month
and a half after her accident, we
were able to start attending Shriners
and they’ve actually helped her get
all of her prosthetics.”
Chelsie spent many nights in the
Shriners Hospital in Portland during
the summer of 2016, where she ex-
perienced the nurturing atmosphere
that the Shriners hospitals across
the country are renowned for.
“They were really nice,” Chelsie
said.
She has needed a new prosthetic
every year since her accident, and
the Shriners have continued to help
the Thompsons over the past fi ve
years.
“They are defi nitely a blessing
for us because I don’t know how we
would be able to make it all work
with having a prosthetic once a year,”
Erin said. “Being able to go there has
been really nice.”
Adelynn’s story
Adelynn’s mother, Casey
Townsend, said her daughter was
fi rst treated at a Shriners hospital
when she was just a year old.
That was in Sacramento, Califor-
nia.
Adelynn was born with a birth
defect called proximal femoral focal
defi ciency (PFFD), in which her right
femur — the thigh bone — and right
hip joints didn’t develop.
From all of this, she has an above-
the-knee prosthetic.
The family moved to Oregon
when Adelynn was three, and she’s
been an occasional patient at the
Portland hospital since.
“She’s had several surgeries, she
wears a prosthetic,” Townsend said.
“They also got her involved with
Challenged Athletes Foundation
where she’s learned about sports and
how to adapt to that.”
Thanks to the Shriners, Adelynn
received a grant from Challenged
Athletes that helped her get a
prosthetic leg designed to allow her
to run.
“It’s been very positive. It’s been
great for her,” Townsend said.
Townsend said she knew Adelynn
wouldn’t have to worry about being
in pain from surgeries and treat-
ment thanks to Shriners.
COVID ravages Baker City family
About 80 people attended a
Baker School Board meeting via
Zoom on Thursday, Aug. 5, includ-
ing members of a group that
oppose a state requirement that
students and
staff, regardless
of vaccination
status, wear face
masks when
classes begin
Aug. 30.
Board Chair-
Witty
man Chris
Hawkins also ex-
pressed concern about the man-
date, which Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown announced last week in
response to a surge in COVID-19
cases statewide driven by the
more contagious delta variant.
Superintendent Mark Witty
made a presentation about the
mask issue during the early
afternoon meeting.
“The top priority for us is the
safety of staff and students,”
Witty said. “If we can’t maintain
a healthy workforce, we will be
very challenged to keep schools
open.”
In-person classes were can-
celed for the entire spring term
in 2020 due to the pandemic, and
the 2020-21 year started with
students taking classes online.
Elementary students returned
to in-person classes four days per
week on Oct. 14, 2020, and they
were required to wear masks.
Middle school and high school
students returned to their schools
for one day per week on Nov. 9,
2020, with the in-person schedul-
ing expanding to two days per
week on Jan. 25, 2021, and to four
days on April 12. Masks were also
required in those schools.
Trinidad Navarro, 59, and his mother,
Mary Hurtado, 93, both died in July
See, Schools/Page A3
Rain helps
crews douse
local fi res
Both Trinidad and Mary
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com had underlying conditions.
For more than a year,
Chuck Brown and his sis-
ter, Hope Brown, worried
about COVID-19 breach-
ing the Baker City home
where their mother, Mary
Hurtado, lived with four
relatives.
And for more than a
year, the siblings’ concerns
were kept at bay.
But then July arrived.
And when the virus
did get into that home, it
wreaked havoc.
All fi ve residents got
sick, four of them seriously.
The Browns’ brother,
Trinidad Navarro, 59, died
on July 14 at Saint Alphon-
sus Hospital in Boise.
Their mother, Mary,
died on July 29, also at
Saint Alphonsus Hospital
in Boise. She was 93.
Their sister, Donna
Valentine, 65, spent time
in the hospital, as did their
nephew, Greg Valentine, 42,
who’s Donna’s son.
Issue 38, 12 pages
But the youngest
member of the household,
Carlos Grove, 21, who is
Chuck’s grandson, Mary’s
great-grandson and
Trinidad’s great-nephew,
believes both would still be
alive if not for the virus.
“It killed my (great)
uncle and it killed my
great-grandmother,” said
Grove, who was the fi rst
member of the household
to feel ill, in late June. He
tested positive for CO-
VID-19 on July 7.
“It’s a deadly disease,”
Grove said. “If that isn’t
enough to scare people,
honest to God, there’s re-
ally no hope of getting out
of this pandemic.”
Trinidad and Mary
are among the 18 Baker
County residents whose
deaths are related to CO-
VID-19 infections.
Although the Oregon
Health Authority (OHA)
doesn’t list names of people
Classified ............. B2-B4
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Community News .... B3
By Jayson Jacoby
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
with what’s known as a
“breakthrough” case — a
fully vaccinated person
who becomes infected.
Carlos became sick
in late June, about six
weeks after he said he
received the one-dose
Johnson & Johnson vac-
cine.
He said he had trouble
breathing the night of
June 26.
Thunderstorms swept across
Baker County and other parts of
Northeastern Oregon most days
this week, bringing fi re-starting
lightning bolts but also rain that
helped fi re crews quickly douse
most blazes in Baker County.
“We’ve had a signifi cant
amount of lightning across North-
eastern Oregon but a lot of it has
had rain with it,” said Jana Peter-
son of the Oregon Department of
Forestry offi ce in Baker City.
Rain tends to keep fi res from
growing rapidly, giving fi refi ght-
ers an advantage during initial
attack, Peterson said.
The downside is that rain can
also quell, but not extinguish,
lightning fi res, which then
smolder for days or even weeks
before reviving on a hot, windy
afternoon, she said.
See, COVID/Page A5
See, Fires/Page A5
Contributed Photo (original photo included heart-shape frame)
Mary Hurtado, 93, left, with her son, Trinidad
Navarro. The two Baker City residents died in July
after testing positive for COVID-19.
who died, the agency’s
reports coincide with the
family’s situation — a
59-year-old Baker County
man who died July 14 at
a Boise hospital, and a
93-year-old woman who
died July 29 at Saint Al-
phonsus Hospital in Boise.
The family’s experience
is not limited to the virus’
potentially fatal conse-
quences.
So far as they can
tell, the problems started
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Opinion ......................A4
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