TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2021
BEAR
Continued from A1
S. John Collins/Baker City Herald, File
A long train of Christmas presents entered by the Baker County
Sheriff’s Offi ce helped brighten Main Street during the Twilight
Christmas Parade in December 2019.
SPIRIT
• Frosty’s recognition — best use
of holiday characters
• North Pole award — best deco-
Continued from A1
rated city entrance
• Best use of non-lighting decora-
• Sumpter Valley Railroad Christ-
tions, such as wreaths, garlands and
mas trains will run Dec. 10-12.
bows
On Dec. 10, the train will leave
• People’s choice — the entry that
the McEwen Depot at 7 p.m.
receives the most Facebook likes
On Dec. 11, the train will leave
Winners will receive bragging
the Sumpter Depot at 11 a.m.,
rights and a keepsake yard sign.
12:30 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
Winners will also receive Baker
On Dec. 12 the train will leave
Bucks to be spent in Baker County
the McEwen Depot at noon.
and be featured on the Baker
• Sumpter holiday celebration,
County Chamber of Commerce
Saturday, Dec. 11 from 11 a.m. to
Facebook page and website.
6 p.m. Events include horse buggy
rides, vendors, including food and
drinks, ornament making, burn bar- Candy canes will wait for 2022
rels, chestnuts roasting on an open
Baker City recently donated its
fi re, photos and a twilight parade at decorative candy canes, which previ-
5 p.m.
ously were displayed on power poles,
to the Chamber of Commerce.
Due to time constraints, Cutler
Lighting contest starts Dec. 1
said the Chamber won’t be able to
The Chamber of Commerce is
also sponsoring the Light Up Baker display the lighted candy canes.
But she said the Chamber is
County Holiday Lighting Contest
“super excited” about using the
from Dec. 1-15.
decorations in 2022.
Participants can enter their
The candy canes will need to
home or nominate a home they’ve
seen. The contest is open to all resi- have their electrical wiring updated,
dents with a Baker County address. and Cutler said Chamber offi cials
Entrants should upload a photo are talking about where to display
of the home to the Chamber of Com- the items.
“They’re so large that they can’t
merce and Visitors Bureau Face-
free stand and they can’t be just
book page by 10 a.m. on Dec. 15.
strapped to a stake. They’ll tip over,”
The Chamber’s board of directors
Cutler said.
will judge the entries. Each entry
“We have had folks reach out
must be for one of the following
to us, wanting to donate to that
categories:
project,” she said. “So that’s excit-
• Spirit of Christmas
ing. I think people are just so happy
• Griswold award — you can
that we were able to keep them and
never have too many lights
• Santa’s favorite — best display keep them local. And that our goal
is to display them again locally as
with an organized appearance or
one big bunch.”
theme
VACCINE
can’t provide a tally of ex-
ecutive branch workers who
requested exceptions, making
Continued from A2
it impossible to calculate the
state’s own approval rates.
The numbers are less
The state’s human resources
clear for health care workers
arm, the Department of Ad-
and K-12 school employees
ministrative Services, hopes
because no state agency is
to compile fi gures for state
tracking those rates.
employees next week. They
Despite the lack of com-
won’t have data on health care
plete data, a spokesperson
or school employees.
for Brown, Charles Boyle,
It’s already clear some
said Brown’s mandates had
agencies have far higher
“largely accomplished what
they were established to do” — shares of employees with ex-
ceptions. For example, just 2%
and that was to increase the
number of Oregonians who’ve of workers in the governor’s of-
fi ce received exemptions, 17%
gotten shots.
“There is no question that at the Department of Trans-
vaccination rates for state em- portation and 20% at the
Department of Corrections.
ployees, K-12 educators, and
Boyle didn’t answer ques-
health care workers increased
tions from The Oregonian
over the last several months
— with many employers now about whether the governor
believes employers who grant-
reporting vaccination rates
ed 100% of exception requests
well over 90%,” Boyle said in
undermined the spirit of the
an email.
mandate and whether Brown
But state offi cials haven’t
been able to home in on the
number of employers grant-
ing blanket exceptions to any
worker who asked for one.
In fact, Oregon offi cials
Don’t text and
drive... you
won’t have to
come see us!
BAKER CITY HERALD — A3
LOCAL & STATE
The incident happened
about 11 p.m. on Thanks-
giving, and Beckner said
a relative drove him to
Saint Alphonsus Medical
Center in Baker City.
He was treated in the
emergency room and
released.
Beckner, who has lived
in Sumpter for about a
year and a half, said he’s
convinced the bear felt
cornered when it initially
tried to fl ee and ran into
a shed near his front door.
“It didn’t want to fi ght
me — it just wanted to
leave,” Beckner said. “It
tried to defend itself, and
once it realized it could
get away it did.”
Brian Ratliff, district
wildlife biologist at the
Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife
(ODFW) offi ce in Baker
City, said he interviewed
Beckner about the epi-
sode.
Based on Beckner’s
description, and in par-
ticular that the bear fl ed
as soon as it no longer
was confi ned by the shed,
Ratliff said he hasn’t set
up any traps in Sumpter
to try to capture the bear.
Ratliff said he would
have taken a different
approach if it looked as
though the bear had
intentionally attacked
Beckner.
“It’s unfortunate that
it happened but the bear
didn’t seek (Becker) out
and attack him, and it
didn’t come back,” Ratliff
said. “It was trying to get
away.”
Ratliff said the Sumpt-
er incident is the fi rst
case of a bear injuring
a person that he’s been
aware of during his 16½
years working for ODFW
in Baker County.
Ratliff said he planned
to notify the Sumpter
City Council about the in-
cident, and to remind city
offi cials about the need to
urge residents to not keep
is considering tightening the
rules in the future by estab-
lishing a much higher bar for
approving these requests.
Anticipating resistance
One thing, however, is
clear: Tightening the rules
would encounter further
resistance from many parts
of Oregon, where many say
Brown’s vaccination mandates
were an attempt to rob them
of their “freedom of choice” —
and yet another reason they’d
like giant swaths of Oregon
to become part of more like-
minded Idaho.
Irate county commissioners
and school boards, including
the Redmond School Board,
have sent the governor let-
ters and passed resolutions
expressing their distaste for
the mandates. Many of them
asked the governor to rescind
them. And when she didn’t,
many found a go-round.
last hour of Thanksgiv-
ing.
He didn’t hear any-
thing — he was just going
outside.
The bear was about
fi ve to six feet away.
“I’ve seen a fair
amount of bears, and I
recognized it immedi-
ately,” Beckner said.
The bear turned and
ran, but its route was
blocked by a shed that’s
just outside the front door.
Then it spun and ran
toward Beckner.
“It slashed at my face
but I moved out of the
way and it just nicked
me,” he said.
The bear then stood on
its hind legs.
Beckner, who is about
5-foot-9, said the bear
was slightly taller than
he is.
He said he “wrestled
Noah Beckner/Contributed Photo for a little bit” with
the bear, during which
Noah Beckner sustained wounds to his face
the bear briefl y bit his
when he was attacked by a black bear outside
shoulder.
his Sumpter home on Thanksgiving night.
Beckner said he then
Sumpter resident shot
food sources, including
punched the bear.
coolers or refrigerators, as and injured a bear on his
He said the bear
well as trash, outdoors in front porch. The same
backed up slightly and,
places easily accessible to bear later entered a home once it realized its path
in Sawmill Gulch near
bears.
was not blocked by the
Sumpter through an
Ratliff said he will
shed, it ran down the hill.
continue to monitor the unlatched door.
“I never saw it again
That bear was one of after that,” he said.
situation in Sumpter.
the three that ODFW
“My biggest concern
Beckner estimated the
is that this bear is going employees trapped and
incident lasted 45 seconds
to choose not to den up,” killed.
or so.
Ratliff said he’s had
he said.
Although the bear
only a couple reports of
Ratliff said Beckner
was emaciated, Beckner,
bears in Sumpter this
described the bear as
who has competed in
year.
very skinny — Becker
wrestling and grappled
“It’s nothing like the
said in the phone
with opponents up to 250
level that we had a few
interview that he could
pounds, said he’s “never
years back,” he said.
see the animal’s ribs —
felt a human so strong as
which suggests that the
that.”
bear isn’t in condition to A late-night surprise
He said he under-
hibernate.
Beckner said he’s seen stands that leaving food
Bears aren’t uncom-
or trash in accessible
bears several times in
mon in Sumpter.
Sumpter, including near places can entice bears,
The historic gold
his home on Ibex Street, and he strives to avoid
mining town, population up the hill and about
such situations on his
200, is in the midst of a
three blocks east of Mill property.
ponderosa pine forest
Street, the town’s main
Beckner said he thinks
about 27 miles west of
thoroughfare.
he was simply unlucky,
Baker City.
“Bears are constantly and the incident didn’t
During the late sum- walking through Sumpt- make him more fearful of
mer and fall of 2017,
er, every night,” he said. bears.
ODFW offi cials trapped
But Beckner had no
“If it had not been
and killed three bears in reason to think about
for the fact that it got
or near Sumpter.
bears when he walked
cornered it wouldn’t have
During that period, a out his front door in the attacked me,” he said.
Jared Cordon, superin-
tendent of Roseburg Public
Schools, which granted excep-
tions to 22% of its staff, said he request submitted because
every employee who applied
has no issue with his district
qualifi ed.
approving every exception
E
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