TUESDAY
BAKER FOOTBALL HAS FOUR INTERCEPTIONS IN WIN OVER ONTARIO: A6
In SPORTS, A5
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
October 19, 2021
Local • Home & Living • Sports
IN THIS EDITION:
QUICK HITS
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day
to Herald subscriber Bill
Quigley of Baker City.
BRIEFING
Tickets on sale for
Baker City Police
K9 fundraiser
Tickets went on sale
Monday, Oct. 18 for the
Baker City Police Depart-
ment’s K9 Drug Prevention
Fundraiser raffl e. Tickets
support the department’s
K9 program and drug
prevention efforts.
The grand prize is a 2021
Can-Am Maverick XDS RR
turbo side-by-side. Second
prize is a .300 Winchester
Magnum hunting rifl e,
donated by Patton Excava-
tion, with a Vortex Viper
scope donated by D&B
Supply. Third prize is a Trae-
ger Pro 780 barbecue do-
nated by Lew Brothers Les
Schwab Tires. A maximum
of 500 tickets will be sold.
They’re available at the
Baker City Police Depart-
ment, 1768 Auburn Ave.,
Cliff’s Saws and Cycles,
and Carole’s Mad Dog
restaurant and saloon in
Sumpter. Tickets are $100
each, and buyers must be
18 or older. The raffl e draw-
ing will take place Feb. 12,
2022. Winners need not be
present to win, and they
will be notifi ed by phone
and email.
$1.50
Ducks
rally to
nip Cal
Vaccine mandate could limit ambulances in east county
The mandate, which Gov.
Kate Brown announced in
August, requires health care
workers, including ambu-
lance employees, to be vacci-
nated or to have an approved
medical or religious excep-
tion if they are to continue
treating patients.
In an Oct. 12 letter to the
Baker County Board of Com-
missioners, Nora Aspy, chair
of the Halfway/Oxbow Am-
bulance Service, and team
By JAYSON JACOBY and
SAMANTHA O’CONNER
Baker City Herald
The district that provides
ambulance service to the
northeast corner of Baker
County, including the Half-
way and Oxbow areas, has
notifi ed county offi cials that
it can’t meet its minimum
response time due to Or-
egon’s COVID-19 vaccination
mandate, which took effect
Monday, Oct. 18.
leader Dana Simrell wrote
that due to the mandate, “our
service is unable to meet the
minimum response time of
45 minutes, 90% of the time.”
The letter does not say
how many employees are
affected by the mandate be-
cause they’re not vaccinated
or don’t have an exception.
Jason Yencopal, the
county’s emergency manager,
said ambulance services,
which are overseen by the
county, are required to notify
the county if they anticipate
a change in their service
level.
The minimum response
time is one such criteria,
Yencopal said.
The nearest ambulance
service to Halfway/Oxbow is
operated by Eagle Valley, in
the Richland area about 12
miles by Highway 86 from
Halfway.
The Oct. 12 letter notes
Volunteers transform the
hulking structure into a
giant haunted house
tic spiders and generally turned
the Sumpter Dredge into a giant
SUMPTER — Marsha Demaris haunted house on Tuesday, Oct. 12.
This project, organized by Lara-
strides in, her grin a stark contrast
mie Shanks, owner of the Sumpter
to the meat cleaver embedded in
Stockade, is for the Haunted Dredge
her skull.
“I just found this!” she says, still experience scheduled for Friday,
beaming as she removes the head- Oct. 29, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The dredge, which mined gold
band — it’s just a Halloween prop,
after all — and places it on the head from the Sumpter Valley from 1935
to 1954, is the centerpiece of the
of skeletal mannequin.
Sumpter Valley Dredge State Heri-
A group of about 10 volunteers
tage Area, managed by the Oregon
stretched cobwebs, placed plas-
By LISA BRITTON
lbritton@bakercityherald.com
Parks and Recreation Department
in Sumpter, about 27 miles west of
Baker City.
Shanks rushed around, adjust-
ing a web here, hanging a ghost
there.
“Is there still a creepy mask left?”
she hollers to the other workers.
This is the second year they’ve
decorated the dredge for Halloween.
They skipped 2020.
See, Dredge/Page A3
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
The Sumpter Dredge, which mined the
Sumpter Valley for gold from 1935 to 1954, has
been transformed inside into a giant haunted
house for a free event Friday, Oct. 29.
BHS senior class
planning party
See, Mandate/Page A3
Bi-Mart
pharmacy
won’t reopen
DREADING THE
DREDGE
that the Halfway/Oxbow am-
bulance service checked with
Eagle Valley, and that the
latter, “due to the mandates
... will not able to provide
consistent mutual aid.”
The letter concludes with
a request for an “ambulance
and crew to help keep the
response rate low for those
located in our assigned ser-
vice area.”
The Baker High School
senior class is raising
money for its drug- and
alcohol-free party. Find
more information at bhs-
seniorclass.com.
WEATHER
Today
63 / 44
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
The pharmacy at the
Bi-Mart store in Baker City is
scheduled to close Nov. 9, and
it will not be reopened under
the Walgreens name.
Helen Loennig, pharma-
cist and pharmacy manager
at the store, wrote to the Bak-
er City Herald that when she
interviewed with Walgreens,
“they made it clear the closest
Walgreens would be Ontario.”
Bi-Mart announced on
Sept. 30 that Walgreens was
buying Bi-Mart’s pharmacy
inventories and patient
prescription fi les at 56
stores in Oregon, Idaho and
Washington.
Walgreens offi cials said
the company would oper-
ate pharmacies, under the
Walgreens name, inside some
Bi-Mart stores.
Loennig said the Baker
City store is not among those.
The closure is limited to
the pharmacy; the Baker
City Bi-Mart store will
remain open.
A sign posted at the phar-
macy in the Baker City store
states that Nov. 9 is the last
day of business for the phar-
macy, and that the store will
help patients transfer their
prescriptions to Safeway, Rite
Aid or Albertsons.
Sunny
Wednesday
ODFW probes
possible wolf
attack on calf
58 / 36
Rain showers
The space below is for
a postage label for issues
that are mailed.
COVID cases down 74% in past month
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
The number of COVID-19
cases in Baker County
has dropped for the fourth
straight week, down nearly
74% from the weekly record
high in mid-September.
The county reported 37
new cases from Oct. 10-16,
the lowest weekly total since
July 18-24, when there were
six cases.
Weekly case totals for the
past month or so:
• Sept. 12-18 — 139 (the
county’s highest weekly
total during the pandemic)
• Sept. 19-25 — 86
• Sept. 26-Oct. 2 — 69
• Oct. 3-9 — 48
The number of COVID-19
tests done in the county
has also declined over the
past month, although not
as rapidly as the number of
infections.
TODAY
Issue 69, 12 pages
Weekly test totals:
• Sept. 12-18 — 580; test
positivity rate of 23.8%
• Sept. 19-25 — 383; test
positivity rate of 22.2%
• Sept. 26-Oct. 2 — 370;
test positivity rate of 19.2%
• Oct. 3-9 — 329; test
positivity rate of 18.2%
• Oct. 10-16 — 224
(preliminary fi gure); test
positivity rate of 10.7%
With three new cases
reported on Sunday, Oct. 17,
the fi rst day of the new re-
porting week, October’s total
was at 95 cases, an average
of 5.6 per day.
September set records
with 465 cases and a daily
average of 15.5.
August ranks second in
both categories, with 300
cases and a daily average
of 10.
“We’re clearly pleased to
see our case counts decline
Calendar ....................A2
Classified ............. B2-B4
Comics ....................... B5
four weeks in a row, and the
total cases for this week are
less than half of what they
were in the week ending
September 25,” said Nancy
Staten, director of the Baker
County Health Department.
“The Health Department is
grateful to everyone in the
community who is taking
precautions to keep them-
selves and others healthy.
The virus is still very much
at large in our community,
so everyone needs to keep
their guard up — we’d re-
ally like to not see another
spike before or during the
holidays.”
cent weekly report from the
Oregon Health Authority
(OHA), 12 of Baker County’s
48 cases from Oct. 3-9 were
breakthrough cases, a rate
of 25%.
That’s an increase from
the 23.2% breakthrough
rate from Sept. 2-Oct. 2 (16
of 69 cases), 20.9% from
Sept. 19-25 (18 of 86) and
10.8% from Sept. 12-18 (15
of 139).
Vaccination rate
Baker County’s vaccina-
tion rate is the sixth-lowest
among Oregon’s 36 counties,
with 52.4% of residents 18
and older vaccinated.
The statewide average is
Breakthrough cases
These infections in fully 76.3%.
Baker County’s seven-
vaccinated people are ac-
day running average of vac-
counting for an increasing
cine doses administered per
percentage of the county’s
day has dropped from 29 on
total.
According to the most re- Sept. 29 to 13 as of Oct. 14.
Community News ....A3
Crossword ........B2 & B4
Dear Abby ................. B6
Home ................B1 & B2
Horoscopes ......B3 & B4
Letters ........................A4
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Biologists from the
Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife are investigat-
ing what could be the fi rst
wolf attack on cattle in the
Lookout Mountain area in
almost a month.
A possible wolf depreda-
tion was reported about
11:22 a.m. on Saturday, Oct.
16 in the Manning Creek
area northeast of Durkee, ac-
cording to the Baker County
Sheriff’s Offi ce.
Wolves from the Lookout
Mountain pack, in the east-
ern part of Baker County,
have killed at least six head
of cattle, and injured three
others, since mid July.
But there haven’t been
any confi rmed wolf at-
tacks on cattle since ODFW
employees shot and killed
three wolves from the pack,
including its breeding male,
on Sept. 17.
Lottery Results ..........A2
News of Record ........A3
Obituaries ..................A2
THURSDAY — SPECIAL SECTION LOOKS AT EFFECTS OF THE DROUGHT
See, Wolves/Page A3
Opinion ......................A4
Sports .............. A5 & A6
Weather ..................... B6