TUESDAY
BAKER FOOTBALL TEAM ROLLS PAST BURNS HILANDERS: SPORTS, PAGE A6
In SPORTS, A5
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
October 26, 2021
Local • Home & Living • Sports
IN THIS EDITION:
$1.50
Rescuers
fi nd man
snowbound
in Wallowas
QUICK HITS
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Jessie
Ritch of Baker City.
By JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
BRIEFING
BAKER CITY TRICK-OR-
TREATING
The event, organized
by the Baker City Kiwanis
Club, returns to down-
town, Saturday, Oct. 30
from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Masks will be required,
and families are asked to
stay in their own group,
with one-way foot traffi c.
More information: Debbie
Poe, 541-403-0483.
FAMILY FUN NIGHT AT
CALVARY BAPTIST
Free event Saturday,
Oct. 30 from 5 p.m. to 8
p.m. at the church, corner
of Third and Broadway
streets. Chili and chili
dogs, and indoor minia-
ture golf.
TRUNK-OR-TREAT AT
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Saturday, Oct. 30 from
4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in
the parking lot at the Baker
City Christian Church, 675
Highway 7.
SUMPTER EVENTS
Trunk-or-treat is set for
Saturday, Oct. 30 from 2
p.m. to 4 p.m.
The Sumpter Dredge
also has been decorated
for a haunted tour, with
live actors, Friday, Oct. 29
from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The
Dredge is open for self-
guided tours on Saturday,
Oct. 30. The Sumpter Valley
Railroad will be running on
Friday and Saturday.
WEATHER
Today
51 / 38
Rain showers
Wednesday
55 / 36
Rain showers
The space below is for
a postage label for issues
that are mailed.
Beavers
rally to
top Utah
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Corrine Vegter fabricated this trailer to be a ticket booth and advertise the Haunted Studios.
Chilling Churchill
Former school
transformed
into creepy
haunted house
By LISA BRITTON
lbritton@bakercityherald.com
If you’re not squeezing
your eyes shut in terror,
Corrine Vegter really hopes
you’ll enjoy the artwork.
Yes, the Haunted Stu-
dios at Churchill School in
Baker City are intended to
give visitors a fright.
But Vegter, along with
Brigid and Blake Mussel-
man, have spent nearly a
year working on designs
for this year’s haunt.
“I just want it to be
unique and different,” Veg-
ter said. “I want everything
to be creative.”
The Haunted Studios
opened to the public in
early October, and have
been scaring visitors every
Friday, Saturday and Sun-
day night.
Unless you go at
5:30 p.m. on Sunday,
which Vegter designated
as the “no scare hour”
for those who want to
see everything but avoid
the screams.
For Halloween week-
end, the Haunted Studios
will be open from 6:30 p.m.
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
The “Plumber’s Nightmare” room has all manner of creepy decorations.
to 9 p.m. Friday and
Saturday, and 5:30 p.m. to
8 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets are $15 in
advance when purchased
online at www.churchill-
baker.com, or $20 at the
door.
Churchill School is at
3451 Broadway St., but
entry is in the parking lot
off 16th Street. Masks are
required.
This year, visitors can
choose to enter through
an enclosed slide, which
empties directly into the
doll room.
“It looks like a black
hole,” Vegter said of
looking into the slide
entrance.
The doll room, by the
way, has more dolls than
last year.
“We added an extra
hundred dolls,” she said.
During the summer,
she and other volunteers
painted the doll faces (and
yes, quite a few are quite
creepy).
Vegter scours estate
sales and secondhand
shops to fi nd props for the
haunted studios.
“I’ve been collecting
things from thrift stores,
and I got body parts from
the Heritage Museum,”
she said.
(Spare mannequin
parts come in handy for
haunted houses.)
They also create their
own props — for instance,
Vegter welded parts of an
old bed frame to create
a fi replace. Other props,
like trees, were made with
papier-mache. They also
repurposed the heads of
old CPR dummies, and
made handpainted head-
stones.
See, Churchill/Page A3
Rainfall sets record
‘Atmospheric river’ mostly
misses Baker Valley, but
earlier storm douses area
Friday’s rain total at the Baker
City Airport was 0.59 of an inch. That
easily surpassed the previous rainfall
record for Oct. 22 of 0.22 of an inch,
set in 1983.
The airport was one of the wettest
By JAYSON JACOBY
spots on Friday, its rainfall exceed-
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
ing what fell in, among other places,
The “atmospheric river” that
Burns, Ontario and Boise.
drenched California and doused
But on Sunday, when that “river”
parts of Eastern Oregon and Western
of moisture barreled onto the West
Idaho on Sunday, Oct. 24 mainly
Coast from the Pacifi c Ocean, the
fl owed around Baker Valley.
But a less-touted storm two days situation was reversed.
Baker Valley, which was just to
earlier soaked the valley with record-
the north of the main storm track,
setting amounts of rain.
added just 0.11 of an inch.
The Friday, Oct. 22 storm was
Areas to the south and east,
forecast to be the preliminary to the
meanwhile, were in its path, with
main event on Sunday, according to
rainfall totals to refl ect that.
the National Weather Service.
Boise, for instance, got half an inch
And although that prediction
proved accurate in parts of the region of rain on Sunday.
— including areas of Baker County
— Baker Valley was an exception.
See, Rain/Page A3
TODAY
Issue 72, 14 pages
Calendar ....................A2
Classified ............. B4-B6
Comics ....................... B7
Community News ....A3
Crossword ........B4 & B6
Dear Abby ................. B8
Kyle Stertz/Contributed Photo
A whimsical snowman
hitched a ride on the chairlift
at Anthony Lakes Mountain
Resort on Monday morning,
Oct. 25. About 3 inches of snow
accumulated at the ski area over
the weekend.
Home ....................B1-B3
Horoscope ........B4 & B6
Letters ........................A4
Crews from Baker and Union
counties rescued a Baker County
man in the snowbound Wallowa
Mountains north of Halfway Mon-
day, Oct. 25, the day after he was
stranded by a blizzard while packing
in supplies with horses for an elk-
hunting trip.
Robert Derald Borders, 67, who
lives near Baker City, did not need
medical treatment, Baker County
Sheriff Travis Ash said in a cellphone
interview Monday afternoon.
Borders, who had four horses, was
able to use his satellite device, which
works even when cell service is
limited or nonexistent, as is the case
in that remote part of the county, to
send a text message to a friend late
Sunday morning, McClay said.
The friend then called the Baker
County Dispatch Center around
noon Sunday.
The text message also included
Borders’ precise location, which
aided rescuers, McClay said.
Around 2:30 p.m. on Monday,
McClay said rescuers had reached
Borders, who had sent text messages
to rescuers with his satellite device
while they were en route.
Although Borders’ use of the
device was a signifi cant help to
rescuers, the weather, especially on
Sunday, was a major hindrance.
A group of Baker County Search
and Rescue team members, sum-
moned Sunday afternoon by Ash,
started traveling to the location,
which is in the Eagle Cap Wilderness
several miles north of Cornucopia,
in the Soldier Lake and Sugarloaf
Mountain area.
McClay said rain was falling, snow
was on the ground and powerful
winds were toppling trees as rescuers
traveled higher into the mountains.
See, Rescue/Page A3
Council could
fi ll vacancy
tonight
Baker City Herald
The Baker City Council might
have another go at appointing some-
one to fi ll the one vacancy on the
seven-member board.
The six current councilors will
meet tonight, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. at
City Hall, 1655 First St.
The Council has been down to six
members since August, when Lynette
Perry resigned due to health issues.
During the Council’s Sept. 14
meeting, two candidates to replace
Perry — Randy Daugherty and
Thomas Hughes — each received
three votes.
Councilors Shane Alderson,
Jason Spriet and Heather Sells
voted for Daugherty. Mayor Kerry
McQuisten and Councilors Joanna
Dixon and Johnny Waggoner Sr.
voted for Hughes.
During the Sept. 28 meeting,
Alderson made a motion to appoint
Daugherty. The motion failed, 3-3,
with the six councilors divided the
same as they had been two weeks
earlier.
Now a third candidate has
expressed interest — Koby Myer.
Councilors, who have already
talked with Daugherty and
Hughes, invited Myer to attend
tonight’s meeting.
Councilors could potentially en-
tertain motions to appoint one of the
three candidates, or vote by ballot.
Lottery Results ..........A2
News of Record ........A2
Obituaries ..................A2
THURSDAY — GO! MAGAZINE ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE
Opinion ......................A4
Sports .............. A5 & A6
Weather ..................... B8