A4 BAKER CITY HERALD • SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 2022
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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news@bakercityherald.com
Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Windfall for
the fairgrounds
T
he peeling green paint and protrud-
ing nails on the perimeter fence at
the Baker County Fairgrounds rodeo
grounds tell the tale.
The 17.7-acre property in Baker City is due
for maintenance and other upgrades.
But that’s no easy task.
Not when the Baker County Fair Board has
an annual budget of about $155,000.
But that problem, at least temporarily, is not
so pressing.
The Oregon Legislature, before it adjourned
its short session earlier this month, approved
House Bill 5202. That bill, among its tens of
millions of dollars of allocations for projects
statewide, includes $2 million for the Baker
County Fair.
Little wonder that Ron Rowan, chairman of
the Baker County Fair Board, used the adjec-
tive “exciting” a couple times in an interview
about this unprecedented one-time allocation
from the state’s general fund.
The influx of money will help the Fair Board
make great progress on the projects outlined
in the 5-year master plan for the fairgrounds,
adopted in 2021.
The list of work is long, and includes re-
placing the aforementioned fence, making
other improvements to the rodeo grounds
including potentially adding permanent
seating, incorporating the former Leo Adler
Field into the fairgrounds, and building an-
other barn for small animals.
The fairgrounds are an important asset for
Baker County. The property has great poten-
tial as a venue for events beyond mainstays
such as, of course, the Baker County Fair in
early August, and, for nearly 30 years now,
the Baker City Bull and Bronc riding compe-
tition during Miners Jubilee.
It’s gratifying to find out from Rowan that in
addition to the projects in the master plan, the
Fair Board has discussed moving the painted
sign, in centerfield at Leo Adler Field, that
honors Adler, the great Baker City philanthro-
pist who died in 1993. The Baker Sports Com-
plex, which also has an Adler Field, would be
the ideal place for the sign.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
COLUMN
Continued vigilance for COVID-19
F
or two years, we have all eagerly
awaited a time when the worry about
COVID-19 was in our rearview mir-
ror. We have longed for things to return
to the way they were in the pre-pandemic
times. When families and friends could
gather to celebrate milestones and events,
large and small, without having to heav-
ily weigh the risks and benefits. When a
trip to the grocery store wasn’t compli-
cated by a face mask. When trips, events,
conferences, and school didn’t have to be
canceled on short notice. When the most
vulnerable of our community didn’t have
to worry about whether they could safely
leave home out of fear of catching the
COVID-19 virus.
In the last several weeks, there has
seemed to be a glimmer of hope on the
horizon that we could be entering a new
phase of the pandemic.
Infection rates from the most recent
omicron variant have eased, the num-
ber of hospitalizations and COVID-19
patients in our intensive care units have
gone down, and many COVID-19 re-
strictions are being eased, including here
in Oregon.
COVID-19 is not over, and we continue
to see patients who are becoming very ill
from COVID in our community.
Mask mandates in our state will end
Saturday, March 12, per direction from
Gov. Kate Brown and the Oregon Health
Authority. But the coronavirus is still
While the end of the mask mandate
means we may no longer need to wear a
mask when going to the store, to a movie
or out to dinner, the OHA and governor’s
order continues to require masks be worn
present in our community and will con-
in healthcare settings. This includes hos-
tinue to spread and infect people. And
pitals, doctor offices, dentist offices and
while fewer people are needing hospital
nursing homes. We will continue to screen
care, COVID-19 is still a threat to a large
patients and visitors when they enter our
number of Oregonians with underlying
facilities and require wearing of medi-
health issues. Those who are immuno-
cal-grade masks. Cloth masks are less ef-
compromised, have chronic lung diseases fective at preventing spread of the virus. If
like asthma or COPD, diabetes, heart con- you don’t have a mask, we will provide one.
ditions or people who are overweight and If our doctors, nurses, or medical support
obese all run a higher risk of getting se-
colleagues get sick or exposed, they will be
verely ill from COVID-19. Many of those forced to miss work. That will impact the
folks have been vaccinated and may have care you may receive when coming to our
received their booster shots, which will
hospitals or clinics. It may take longer to
help protect them. They may still get sick, see a provider, and scheduled appointments
but thanks to the vaccines, there is less of may be delayed or canceled. We’re trying
a chance they will need to be hospitalized our best to avoid impacting patient care,
but if our people are out sick or are in quar-
or will die from COVID.
We can all still do our part to keep these antine, they can’t be caring for patients.
We applaud our state’s leaders and the
family members, friends, and neighbors
OHA, for taking swift and decisive action
safe. The steps you can take to help pro-
over the past two years to slow the spread
tect our community include continuing
of COVID-19 and utilizing the best medi-
to wear a mask when you’re gathering
with someone in these vulnerable groups, cal and scientific advice when setting pub-
lic policy. These measures have protected
staying home if you have any signs of ill-
ness (even if you don’t think it’s COVID), vulnerable populations and have helped to
minimize the toll of the pandemic.
and getting vaccinated including with a
booster if you are eligible. The vaccines
Dr. Lily Wittich is the medical staff
available are safe and effective. Some peo-
liaison at Saint Alphonsus Medical
ple may choose to continue to wear masks
Center-Baker City.
at all times when they are out in public.
Dr. Lily
Wittich
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Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald,
P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814
Email: news@bakercityherald.com
COLUMN
Watching the Stang Gang celebrate a milestone
T
he Stang Gang was nearly 200
miles from home, but for one
night they made the Baker
High School gym their own.
Their enthusiasm was the conta-
gious sort that makes you want to
join in, to bask in the reflected glee,
even if you have no connection with
what’s going on.
The Stang Gang, though, had a lot
to celebrate.
And there were a lot of them to do
the celebrating.
More than I might have expected
considering what I know of Crane
and its high school, whose fans com-
prise the Stang Gang.
The unincorporated community
is in Harney County, about 30 miles
southeast of Burns. Crane’s popula-
tion is around 150.
But the high school draws its stu-
dents — and thus its fans — from an
area bigger than Connecticut, Dela-
ware and Rhode Island.
Combined.
Crane Union High School is
unique in Oregon. It’s the state’s only
public boarding high school.
(Several Oregon schools, including
Burnt River and Huntington, have
welcomed multiple foreign exchange
students, in part to bolster their de-
clining enrollments, but Crane’s
boarding students are homegrown,
so to speak.)
About half the 88 high school stu-
dents at Crane live during the school
week in a dormitory (there are two
— one for girls, one for boys). It’s the
only feasible way to run a school in
Harney County, where some students
live on ranches 100 miles away.
Students from kindergarten
through eighth grade, by contrast,
attend one of eight schools scattered
across the vast expanses of sagebrush
and rimrock that stretch across the
county to the Nevada border. Those
who don’t live in the neighborhood
— in Harney County, where the con-
cept of a neighborhood is rather mal-
leable, your nearest neighbor might
be as distant as, say, Baker City is
from Haines — move into the dorm
when they get into high school.
(The threshold is 20 miles, but
exceptions can be made for students
who play sports, lest they or their
parents have to make too frequent
dark drives through some of the
most remote country in the lower
48 states.)
It was basketball that brought the
Stang Gang, several hundred strong,
to BHS on Saturday, March 5.
Both the Crane girls and boys
teams were playing for the Class 1A
state championship.
The girls were seeking their third
state title under longtime coach
Stub Travis, and their second in a
row. The Mustangs won the 2020 ti-
tle, also in the Baker gym. The 2021
tournament was canceled due to
the pandemic, although Crane went
undefeated during its abbreviated
schedule in June 2021 and won the
championship in a 16-team unoffi-
cial state tourney.
(Also played at BHS; the Mus-
tangs, suffice it to say, do not lose of-
Every age class was represented.
I saw babies who surely haven’t yet
smeared their face with the frosting of
their first birthday cake.
And I saw beaming visages
ten anywhere, but their record over of grandparents, perhaps even
the past three years in Baker is un-
great-grandparents.
blemished. And that includes upset-
They were sharing an experience
ting the Class 4A Baker Bulldogs in that I’m certain will become part of
December 2021.)
the lore not only for the school and the
The Crane boys, meanwhile, were community, but for the whole sprawl-
hoping to make history of a different ing district, which extends from the
sort, completing a perfect season at bird-luring marshes of Malheur Lake
31-0 with the school’s first boys bas- across the glacier-gouged ramparts
ketball state championship. The boys of Steens Mountain and the strange
coach is Eric Nichols, a 1995 Baker
blankness of the Alvord Desert.
High School graduate, and one of
I have no doubt that decades from
the assistants, Dave Toney, is a 1980 now, maybe during spring branding a
BHS grad.
dozen miles from the nearest patch of
Both Crane teams — the boys
pavement, maybe during a Christmas
playing first, the girls finishing
gathering in a ranch house that is the
around 10 p.m. — achieved their
only source of light in the great high
goal.
desert blackness, they will reminisce
Which explains not only the pro- about that night in the Baker gym.
digious decibel levels the Stang
They’ll talk about the key baskets.
Gang produced, but also why, even
About the teenagers, now grey-
half an hour after the girls game
haired grandparents themselves,
ended, dozens of fans, most clad in who cut down the nets on that
Crane’s blue and white, were still
March night in the waning days of
congregated on the polished floor,
the great pandemic.
forming the scattered groups typical
About the dozens of Stang Gang
in such circumstances.
members who gathered on the court
Players still clad in their uniforms during halftime to line dance —
posed, with varying levels of appar-
something you’re not likely to see at
ent patience, for photos with parents any other state tournament in Oregon.
and friends.
There were hugs.
  
Laughter.
Not a few tears.
I woke up, rolled over and looked
It was for me the quintessential
at the red numbers on the clock radio.
high school sports tableau.
Tried to look, anyway.
Jayson
Jacoby
Eyes bleary with sleep don’t focus
quickly.
And my eyes, afflicted as well with
extreme astigmatism, don’t really fo-
cus at all without the aid of lenses.
Which I was not wearing.
But I got close enough that, by
squinting, I could make out 2:51.
This disappointed me.
I generally rise a bit before 5:30,
and although two and a half hours
might seem a considerable span of
slumber when you’re fatigued in the
middle of the afternoon and pining
for even a catnap, it is a less substan-
tial interval in the ebb of night.
For some reason I wasn’t satisfied.
I fumbled my glasses off the bedside
table and put them on.
The truth was instantly revealed in
brilliant glowing LED numerals.
12:51.
My feeble vision hadn’t picked up
on that slender “1.”
I felt in that instant the sort of tri-
umph that is all out of proportion to
the situation.
I wasn’t, of course, actually getting
two extra hours of sleep.
But that cold reality couldn’t dissi-
pate the glorious warmth of the mo-
ment, the sense that I had in fact re-
ceived a wondrous gift.
I rolled back over, flipped the pil-
low to its cool side, and relished one
of those minor thrills that nobody,
it seems to me, can ever have too
many of.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the
Baker City Herald.