A2 — BAKER CITY HERALD
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2021
BAKER COUNTY CALENDAR
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 3
Baker County Board of Commissioners: 9 a.m. at the
Courthouse, 1995 Third St.
TUESDAY, NOV. 9
Baker County Economic Development Council:
3 p.m. at the Courthouse, 1995 Third St.
TURNING BACK THE PAGES
50 YEARS AGO
from the Democrat-Herald
October 30, 1971
Led by 172-pound senior Bill Gee, the Baker Bulldog
defense clamped onto a perfect string of zeros for its 1971
home battles as Baker closed out its home encounters
24-0 over Hermiston Friday night.
25 YEARS AGO
from the Baker City Herald
October 30, 1996
More than 200 people helped Behlen Mfg. Co. celebrate
the grand opening of the Nebraska fi rm’s Baker City live-
stock equipment factory Tuesday.
The celebration at the $4 million, 107,000-square-foot
factory at 4000 23rd St. included tours of the plant, a wel-
coming ceremony and ribbon cutting.
10 YEARS AGO
from the Baker City Herald
October 31, 2011
A 24-hour Maverik gas station and convenience store is
scheduled to open Wednesday at 1520 Campbell St.
The Baker City store is the company’s fi rst Oregon loca-
tion.
ONE YEAR AGO
from the Baker City Herald
October 31, 2020
The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest is planning its
largest project in about 20 years to reduce the risk of a
wildfi re spreading through Baker City’s watershed.
The campaign, which likely won’t start until 2022,
involves several tactics, some to be employed inside the
10,000-acre forested watershed, but with a focus on its
fringes, said Kendall Cikanek, ranger for the Whitman
District.
“What we’re trying to do is create defensible zones be-
tween likely sources of ignition and the watershed itself,”
Cikanek said.
Almost all of the watershed is public land, managed by
the Forest Service.
The city taps a dozen streams and springs in the wa-
tershed to supply almost all of its drinking water. The city
also has one supplementary well — which is also used as
an underground reservoir to store excess water from the
watershed — and a company is drilling a second well now
near Quail Ridge Golf Course.
The focus of the Baker City Watershed Fuels Manage-
ment Project is on the east and south sides of the water-
shed, including the Washington Gulch and Elk Creek areas.
In those areas a swath of national forest land lies be-
tween private property and the watershed.
The Forest Service’s goal, Cikanek said, is to thin over-
crowded forests and light prescribed fi res in that buffer
zone, reducing the amount of combustible material and,
ideally, creating zones where fi refi ghters would have
a better chance to stop a fi re before it burned into the
watershed.
OREGON LOTTERY
MEGABUCKS, Oct. 27
13 — 17 — 18 — 21 — 23 — 47
Next jackpot: $5 million
POWERBALL, Oct. 27
3 — 6 — 26 — 35 — 51 PB 17
Next jackpot: $116 million
MEGA MILLIONS, Oct. 26
6 — 14 — 19 — 56 — 62
Mega
9
Next jackpot: $22 million
WIN FOR LIFE, Oct. 27
2 — 15 — 30 — 51
PICK 4, Oct. 28
• 1 p.m.: 0 — 2 — 6 — 0
• 4 p.m.: 1 — 5 — 9 — 4
• 7 p.m.: 6 — 2 — 6 — 2
• 10 p.m.: 3 — 0 — 1 — 1
LUCKY LINES, Oct. 28
1-7-9-14-18-21-27-31
Next jackpot: $25,000
SENIOR MENUS
MONDAY: Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes with
gravy, biscuits, corn, green salad, cookies
TUESDAY: Orange-glazed chicken strips, rice, broccoli,
rolls, coleslaw, bread pudding
WEDNESDAY: Herb-baked chicken with gravy, red
potatoes, peas and carrots, rolls, macaroni salad, apple
crisp
THURSDAY: Chili cheese dogs, potato wedges, mixed
vegetables, cottage cheese with fruit, pudding
FRIDAY: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, carrots,
rolls, green salad, cookies
Public luncheon at the Senior Center, 2810 Cedar St., from
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; $5 donation (60 and older), $7.50
for those under 60.
CONTACT THE HERALD
2005 Washington Ave., Suite 101
Open Monday through Friday
8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Telephone: 541-523-3673
Fax: 541-833-6414
Publisher
Karrine Brogoitti
kbrogoitti@lagrandeobserver.
com
Jayson Jacoby, editor
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Advertising email
ads@bakercityherald.com
Classifi ed email
classified@bakercityherald.com
Circulation email
circ@bakercityherald.com
ISSN-8756-6419
Serving Baker County since 1870
Published Tuesdays, Thursdays and
Saturdays except Christmas Day by the
Baker Publishing Co., a part of EO Media
Group, at 2005 Washington Ave., Suite
101 (P.O. Box 807), Baker City, OR 97814.
Subscription rates per month are
$10.75 for print only. Digital-only rates
are $8.25.
Postmaster: Send address changes to
the Baker City Herald, P.O. Box 807, Baker
City, OR 97814.
Periodicals Postage Paid
at Pendleton, Oregon 97801
Copyright © 2021
School lunches disrupted by supply chain woes
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
LA GRANDE — Supply
chain issues gripping the
nation have found a new, unex-
pected victim — local schools.
Those issues prompted state
leaders with the Oregon De-
partment of Education to issue
temporary waivers for schools
for nutritional requirements.
That meant that longtime
staples of the cafeteria such
as pizza or spaghetti were
absent. Offi cials grappled
with brokering deals with
new suppliers to get food to
the students.
With supplies short on
hand, local school lunch cooks
had to improvise to get food
out to hungry students.
“There are products we’re
only supposed to serve for
child nutrition, and all of the
pizza was zeroed out — it was
nothing — so basically I did
pizza that I put my own top-
pings on,” said Tanya Corta,
a kitchen supervisor with
Imbler School District. “We’re
running on a tight ship here.”
Tight ship or not, the
supply chain woes leave little
certainty about the menus —
typically planned a month in
advance — and whether or
not the ingredients will even
be available. That puts extra
strain on kitchen workers and
supervisors.
“I’ll have to do a last-min-
ute menu change and that’s
sometimes hard — and some-
times impossible,” Corta said.
“It’s diffi cult and stressful, but
we still get those kids fed.”
From shortchanged orders
to out-of-stock staples and
favorites, schools are making
do with less. As well, the time
it takes to order supplies
has increased dramatically
as fi lling the pantry now in-
volves dealing with multiple
vendors to fulfi ll ingredient
requirements.
Michelle Glover, business
director at La Grande School
District, said that creating
orders once took little over an
hour on Fridays. That same
order now takes as long as
four to fi ve hours to fi nish as
kitchen supervisors scramble
and broker with different
suppliers to get ingredients
More Coverage
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group
Kristi Ritchie, head cook with La Grande High School,
hands out lunches on Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021. A shortage
of fi ve-compartment lunch trays led to students
receiving plastic bag lunches. Ritchie, who has been
an employee with La Grande High School for 21 years,
laments the ordering hiccups and menu changes due
to the pandemic and supply chain issues.
shipped out in time for next
week’s lunch.
And even then, some sup-
plies might be entirely out of
stock, or orders arrive with less
than was expected.
“Our orders are not being
fully fulfi lled, and so that’s
what’s caused the real chal-
lenges,” Glover said. “It looks
like it’s coming and it doesn’t
arrive. We don’t get any notice
in advance, so they’re having
to be creative and on their toes
with alternate plans in place.”
Even though school dis-
tricts use different suppliers
and ordering methods, the
same issue has affected many
local school districts, includ-
ing Imbler.
Corta said that each week
is a struggle to get orders in
for the Imbler schools. She
now orders two weeks ahead
of time, a method she employs
to help dampen the effects of a
supply chain that has been dis-
rupted by worker shortages at
manufacturing and processing
plants, truck driver shortages,
and delayed shipments from
cargo ships.
She’s not alone. Schools
both big and small across
Union County — and East-
ern Oregon — have suffered
similar supply chain woes.
Those issues aren’t limited to
just food.
At La Grande High
School, foam lunch trays have
been particularly diffi cult to
procure, leading to lunches
NEWS OF RECORD
FUNERALS PENDING
Roscoe Curry: Memorial
service Saturday, Oct. 30 at
2 p.m. at the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints
in Halfway. Military honors
will follow at the Pine Valley
Cemetery. Friends are invited
to join the family at the church
following the interment. For
those who would like to make a
donation in Roscoe’s memory,
his family suggests the Gary Si-
nise Foundation or The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, Halfway branch, through
Tami’s Pine Valley Funeral Home
& Cremation Services, P.O. Box
543, Halfway, OR 97834. Online
condolences can be made at
www.tamispinevalleyfuneral-
home.com.
POLICE LOG
Baker City Police
Arrests, citations
FIRST-DEGREE CRIMINAL
TRESPASSING, CONTEMPT OF
COURT (Baker County Justice
Court warrants), FAILURE TO
APPEAR (Baker County Circuit
Court warrant): John Marsik
Guthrie Jr., 50, Baker City,
3:32 a.m. Friday, Oct. 29 in
the 1100 block of Washington
Avenue; jailed.
SECOND-DEGREE CRIMI-
NAL TRESPASSING, HARASS-
MENT: Jonathon Dale Fields,
34, Baker City, 12:54 a.m. Friday,
Oct. 29 in the 1700 block of Val-
ley Avenue; cited and released.
SECOND-DEGREE CRIMI-
NAL TRESPASSING, UNAU-
THORIZED USE OF A MOTOR
VEHICLE: Megan Rebecca
Beam, 34, Richland, 9:02 a.m.
Thursday, Oct. 28 in the 3200
block of 14th Street; cited and
released.
PROBATION VIOLATION
(Baker County Circuit Court
warrant): Zachery Ryan Chayse
Smith, 26, Baker City, 4:04 p.m.
Wednesday, Oct. 27 at the sher-
iff’s offi ce; cited and released.
DISORDERLY CONDUCT
(out-of-county warrant): Joseph
Wayne Baechler, 26, transient,
3:32 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 27
on Campbell Street; cited and
released.
Oregon State Police
Arrests, citations
HINDERING PROSECUTION,
SECOND-DEGREE THEFT (Mal-
heur County warrant): Lacey
Dawn Kolb, 40, Huntington,
9:17 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 27
on Highway 7, Milepost 7.
being served in plastic bags as
opposed to trays. As well, the
school has been shorthanded
one kitchen staff member,
meaning that lunches that
once offered a variety of
foods such as enchiladas or
pizza have been diminished to
sandwiches nearly every day
of the week.
“They are defi nitely strug-
gling with the supply chain
for food items so defi nitely
menu preparation (suffers),”
Glover said. “If we’re plan-
ning on serving this and then
product doesn’t arrive, or
comes in short, and it’s not
enough to cover all sites —
we are having to be fl exible in
meal preparation.”
Pendleton shared similar
worries with regard to supply
chain problems — though like
other schools, the situation is
varied as different districts
broker with different suppli-
ers for food.
“We weren’t able to get
hamburger patties for a while,
and so we would substitute
chicken nuggets or burritos,”
In an email to the Baker
City Herald, Lindsey Mc-
Dowell, public informa-
tion and communications
coordinator for the Baker
School District, wrote that
the district’s food services
director, Kristi Hensley,
said that “any short-
ages, so far, have been
manageable and handled
by ordering from backup
vendors or substituting a
different menu item.”
”We are preparing for
the possibility of more
severe disruptions to
the distribution chain by
placing large orders for
frozen products that we
will keep in freezers,”
McDowell wrote.
said Suzanne Howard, direc-
tor of nutrition services with
Pendleton School District. “Or,
we weren’t able to get pizza for
a while, so again we would ei-
ther not serve them that day if
we had other options to serve,
like at the middle school/high
school we served more than
one. And then otherwise we
would just have to replace it.”
Programs such as the
Summer Seamless Option —
which provides free lunches
to lower-income students over
the summer — were also hit
by supply chain interruptions.
Those programs will continue
to operate and feed students,
according to Howard.
Still, the districts aren’t
worried about having to deny
students lunch just yet.
“We’re not always able
to serve what I have on the
menu, but we always have a
backup. I feel a lot more for-
tunate than what I’m hearing
in other parts of the country,”
Howard said.
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