BAKER CITY HERALD • TuEsDAY, JuLY 5, 2022 A3
LOCAL & STATE
12-unit apartment complex planned near hospital
Baker City Herald
The Baker City Planning Commis-
sion will consider an application for a
12-unit apartment complex near Saint
Alphonsus Medical Center.
The commission has scheduled a
public hearing for Wednesday, July 20
at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 1655 First St.
Eva Henes filed the application on
behalf of Ber and Kristen Anderson
and the owners of the 0.62-acre prop-
erty, Kevin and Terri Bell, according
to a public notice from the Baker City-
County Planning Department.
The vacant lot is on the east side of
Midway Drive, the street that starts at
Pocahontas Road, just east of the hos-
pital, and runs south, becoming 13th
Street near the Powder River Correc-
tional Facility.
The parcel is between Mountain
Valley Dental Clinic to the north, and
the USDA Service Center to the south.
It’s also across Midway Drive from the
hospital emergency room.
The application proposes six 3-bed-
room units and six 2-bedroom units,
along with 10 private garages, a com-
mon open space and a playground.
The complex would consist of two
apartment buildings, each measuring
42 feet by 110 feet, with six units and
five single-car garages.
The property is in the general-com-
mercial zone.
A planning department staff report
for the commission will be available
for the public to review at the depart-
ment, Suite 131 in the basement of
the Baker County Courthouse, 1995
Third St., by July 13. A digital copy
can be emailed for no cost by calling
Madison Brossett at the planning de-
partment, 541-523-8219, or by email
at mbrossett@bakercounty.org.
2022 Hidden Bottle Hunt begins July 6 for bottle redemption
East Oregonian
SALEM — The Oregon Beverage
Recycling Cooperative is hosting
the 2022 Hidden Bottle Hunt from
Wednesday, July 6, to Friday, July 10,
by hiding six commemorative bottles
in parks and trails throughout the
state. Clues for the statewide hunt
will be available daily on the Oregon
BottleDrop website, www.bottle-
dropcenters.com, leading treasure
hunters to the final hiding places.
“Last year’s Hidden Bottle Hunt
was the first of its kind, hosted to
celebrate the 50th anniversary of the
Oregon Bottle Bill,” said Eric Cham-
bers, external relations director for
OBRC, the not-for-profit cooper-
ative that serves as the operational
steward of the Bottle Bill and oper-
ates the BottleDrop network. “It was
so much fun and was so successful at
raising awareness about the legacy of
Oregon’s Bottle Bill that we decided
to do it again.”
Like last year, the 2022 Hidden
Bottle Hunt comprises six separate,
simultaneous hunts, geographically
dispersed in parks and trails across
Oregon. OBRC will release one clue
per bottle per day, leading hunters
to the final hiding spots. The lucky
winners will get to keep the com-
memorative bottle and select a Bot-
tleDrop Given on profit partner to
receive a $1,000 donation through
BottleDrop’s Containers for Change
program. More than 5,000 nonprof-
its across Oregon raise funds for
Bear
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Residents watch as officials remove a black bear from a tree along
Foothill Drive in Baker City on Sunday, July 3, 2022.
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
A Baker City Police officer stands beneath a birch tree on the east
side of Foothill Drive in case the bear in the tree came down or fell,
on Sunday, July 3, 2022.
branches, its head hang-
ing down as the tranquil-
izer took effect within a few
minutes.
Jeff Smith, who owns
J2K Excavating and lives on
Foothill Drive, walked down
the street and offered to let
officials use his bucket lift to
retrieve the bear.
He drove the machine
down Foothill, arriving at
about 10:25 a.m.
Ratliff and Ash climbed
into the bucket along with
Noodle Perkins, Baker
County roadmaster, who
operated the lift.
Ratliff used a handsaw to
cut several branches, allow-
ing Perkins to maneuver the
bucket to just below the bear.
Ratliff secured the bear
with a rope before bringing
‘Doc’
Continued from A1
The family moved to a little
town near South Bend, Indi-
ana.
“When I went to school
there, I met Lois,” said Doc,
and as he spoke of this next
chapter of his young life he
couldn’t suppress his smile.
“We got to talking, and she
got to liking me. From then
on we went to high school to-
gether.”
For the next two years of
high school, Doc and Lois,
whose maiden name was
Bunch, were daily companions,
initially seated together by luck
of alphabetical ordering.
Then, in 1941, following the
Japanese attack on Pearl Har-
bor, America entered World
War II.
“Well, I didn’t want them to
tell me where to serve if I got
drafted, I was seventeen, so I
joined the Navy,” Doc said.
He served for the next four
years, in submarine warfare.
A photograph on the wall of
his Baker City residence shows
the Air Gannett, a 110-foot
wooden ship designated Sub
Chaser 659.
Doc’s duty was to listen to
sonar, and listen closely, vig-
ilant to the sounds of the sea
gonians returning nearly two billion
containers for Grade-A domestic
recycling.
“Our Hidden Bottle Hunt will be a
fun opportunity for individuals and
families to get outside and connect
closely with the Bottle Bill’s mission
of protecting public spaces,” Cham-
bers said. “Best of all, the winners
get to ‘redeem’ their bottle for a nice
donation to one of over 5,000 partic-
ipating nonprofits serving commu-
nities across Oregon.”
Another backyard
Baker bruin
Continued from A1
Cloyd, who grew up in
Baker City and moved to
Moses Lake, Washington,
about four years ago, was
visiting for the Fourth of
July weekend with her chil-
dren, Nicholas Cloyd Jr., 10,
and Scarlett, 11.
Bouchard said she
watched the bear rumble
through a field near her
home, cross Foothill Drive
and climb the birch tree
between two apartment
buildings directly across the
street.
“It was so cute while it
was running,” Bouchard
said.
Bouchard, who has lived
on Foothill Drive for about
a decade, said she’s never
seen a bear in the neighbor-
hood.
Two Baker City Police
Department officers re-
sponded, along with a Baker
County Sheriff ’s Office
truck and two Oregon State
Police troopers.
Baker County Sheriff Tra-
vis Ash also drove to the
scene.
Baker City Police officer
Lance Woodward directed
traffic along Foothill Drive.
A car rolled through every
few minutes, most driven by
curious residents wanting to
get a look at the bear in his
conspicuous perch.
Police stood guard near
the base of the tree, one with
a gun ready in case the bear
leaped to the ground, where
it could pose a danger to
people and dogs.
At one point the bear
made a few tentative moves
down the tree, but yells from
the officers’ dissuaded the
bruin from continuing.
A little later the bear
climbed several feet higher
to what seemed to be a more
comfortable spot.
Ratliff arrived about
9:45 a.m.
He prepared a tranquil-
izer dart and, with his gun
resting on a barbecue near
the base of the tree, fired a
dart, hitting the bear around
10 a.m.
The bear scrambled sev-
eral feet higher in the tree
but became stuck between
their organizations through Bottle-
Drop’s Give program.
July marks the 51st anniversary of
the Oregon Bottle Bill, which Gov.
Tom McCall signed into law July 2,
1971. It established the nation’s first
beverage container redemption sys-
tem, and it has helped keep Oregon
clean and litter free for more than
five decades. Oregon’s Bottle Bill
also is among the most successful
in the nation. In 2021, OBRC’s re-
demption rate was 83.9%, with Ore-
US Navy Archive
Sub Chaser 659 circa 1948, at its decommissioning in New York. Be-
hind it, the Statue of Liberty.
around him. To hear enemy
submarines before they heard
him, he had to wait and listen
for specific turbulence in the
water, and collaborate with the
helmsman to stay in the sonar
blind spot submarines left in
their wake.
“We were loaded,” he said,
describing his vessel’s 40mm
gun, port and starboard 20mm
“K” guns, and the “ash cans” —
anti-submarine depth charges.
To his memory there was only
one opportunity to use the
munitions in his patrols in the
Caribbean.
“I picked up the enemy,”
Doc said. “We had a ball that
would go down into the water
(for sonar). Once we caught up
to him, it would give off a high
ping, anything else would be a
dull sound.”
The equipment allowed him
to track not just sound direc-
tion but to estimate the depth
of a vessel.
His crew managed to fire
depth charges upon the lone
submarine.
“We reported that we at-
tacked it, and presumed (it was
destroyed),” he said. “But, you
never know if you got them or
not.”
Though German subma-
rines could endure some sus-
tained depth charge assaults,
any significant damage, com-
bined with being so far from
Axis support, likely spelled
doom for the submarine and
its crew.
But as luck had it the Air
Gannett would soon require
dry dock repairs of its own for
an unrelated accident, and Doc
The black bear captured
on Foothill Drive on July 3
wasn’t the first bruin to end
up in a Baker City yard, and
to be safely trapped.
In November 2015, a
110-pound, cinnamon-col-
ored black bear was tran-
quilized near a home near
11th and Myrtle streets, be-
low Hillcrest.
Brian Ratliff, the state
wildlife biologist who tran-
quilized the Foothill Drive
bear, also was involved in
capturing the bear in 2015.
Both bears were year-
lings. Ratliff said in 2015
that bears after their first
birthday tend to disperse
from their mothers, and are
capable of roaming signifi-
cant distances.
Although the Oregon
Department of Fish and
Wildlife will euthanize
bears that have acted ag-
gressively toward people
or shown a propensity for
raiding garbage cans for
food — as happened in
Sumpter a few years ago
— bears that make their
first foray into town are
usually trapped and re-
leased in the wild so long
as they act appropriately
frightened. That was the
case with both the bear in
2015 and the Foothill Drive
bruin.
the animal into the bucket.
Perkins lowered the bucket
and drove the machine to the
cage, where Ratliff and others
transferred the still uncon-
scious animal into the cage
around 10:45 a.m.
Ratliff and Ash both
thanked Smith for donating
the use of the bucket lift.
But before Ratliff could
drive away, hauling the bear
to a location well away from
town, he had to field congrat-
ulations from many in the au-
dience, who were happy that
the bear survived the ordeal.
There had been mur-
mured speculation among
the crowd that the bear
would be euthanized.
“Another day in Baker,”
Cloyd said with a laugh as
the crowd dispersed.
was permitted to briefly return
home.
Not to waste a moment, he
married Lois on Feb. 14, 1945,
Valentine’s Day.
Six months later the war had
ended, and although Doc stuck
on in the reserves for four
more years, he was never de-
ployed to the Korean War.
The Air Gannett was de-
commissioned in 1948, and
research indicates it likely
burned at sea in 1963.
Returning home to his wife,
their family soon to include
children, Doc worked through
the 1950s, but some years later
found himself once again recit-
ing an oath of service, and once
again spending a lot of time lis-
tening for turbulence.
But this wasn’t war.
Doc became an ordained
minister in 1960, at the Oxnard
Baptist Temple in California.
Although he and the crew
of the Air Gannett might have
destroyed one submarine
during the war, Doc and his
wife devoted their postwar life
to building things up.
They rebuilt three churches
that were severely dilapidated,
down to bare walls with bro-
ken windows and exposed
roofs.
“My wife was a brilliant
woman,” Doc said. “In school
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Logan Nedrow explains how fabrics were colored using natural items,
such as berries, during a station at the Eastern Oregon Museum camp.
Nedrow and Chris Aldrich directed the camp, which was held June 27-
30, 2022. at the museum in Haines.
Campers
Continued from A1
High School, is pursuing a de-
gree in elementary education
at Eastern Oregon University
and also working as a parapro-
fessional at North Powder.
She didn’t hesitate to help
direct the camp when Aldrich
— her former teacher — ap-
proached her with the idea.
“It’s been fun,” Nedrow said.
“I just want the kids to have
fun and have something to
take away from it.”
They offered 30 spots for
students in grades 3-6. Chil-
dren attended from North
Powder, Haines and Baker
City.
To fund the camp, the East-
ern Oregon Museum received
grants from the Buerkel-Zoell-
ner Foundation and the Edna
E. Harrell Community Chil-
dren’s Fund.
Themes
Activities for each day
centered around a theme.
Monday was about rocks
and minerals, and members
of a Huntington mining
camp taught the youngsters
how to pan for gold. Each
child went home with a gold
pan and vial of gold.
“I’m a hands-on learner,”
Nedrow said, explaining her
goal with designing the ac-
tivities. “If I’m doing some-
thing I’m more likely to re-
member it.”
Tuesday was all about art.
Stations included quilting,
tie dye, pioneer toys and
they pushed her up (a grade),
she just learned, it just came to
her. She became a book editor
for Here’s Life publishing com-
pany in San Bernardino, Cali-
fornia, where I pastored.”
Lois graduated from high
school in South Bend in 1941
at age 16.
The couple were together
for nearly three quarters of a
century.
Doc’s five children grew
and raised their own chil-
dren, they raised children and
then they raised children as
well. He has the rare honor
of being a great-great-grand-
father, the youngest of his
grea-great-grandchildren just
six months old, and twins
turning two.
Lois Bryant passed away July
25, 2019, in Baker City after
years of difficulty with demen-
tia. She was 93. She and Doc
would play music and sing to-
gether in church, her on elec-
tric keyboard and he on elec-
tric guitar. The guitar still sits
in his room, corded and ready
to play on a whim.
Doc says that though he’s fi-
nally settling down, he’s seen
Mexico, Cuba, Guantanamo
Bay, Belize, Honduras, Colom-
bia, Aruba — a vast catalog of
lands and seas reaching into
South America.
games, and the sun prints
that had Sandberg so ex-
cited.
Street teaches art at North
Powder, and created her
own UV sensitive paper for
the project.
“It’s a very old process —
blueprints, basically,” she
said.
Street gave the kids a his-
tory lesson about Anna At-
kins, a botanist who in the
1850s invented this process
of combining minerals to
make paper sensitive to the
light. Atkins used it to doc-
ument types of plants.
“She made the first book
of photographs,” Street said.
Wednesday was Oregon
Trail history paired with
the importance of local ag-
riculture, and on Thursday
the campers made a history
board.
Throughout the week,
during breaks the young-
sters explored the trea-
sures inside the museum
— which organizers hoped
would create interest and
return trips.
“History is interesting
and cool,” Aldrich said with
a smile.
Visit the Museum
The Eastern Oregon Mu-
seum, 610 Third St., is open
Thursday through Saturday
from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Admission is free, al-
though donations are wel-
come.
The museum is open
through Labor Day weekend.
When asked which was the
most interesting of his trav-
els, he reflected on a particu-
lar voyage rather than a des-
tination, after leaving Miami
aboard SC-659, the Air Gan-
nett.
“We swung out, around
Cuba, and there was a hurri-
cane,” he recalled. “We rode
out that hurricane in a 110-
foot wooden boat like a cork.
I mean it was rolling. We went
through that and for three
days we didn’t know where we
were.”
Without sunlight, stars or
the grace of still water, even
a sextant couldn’t help until
clouds parted, and soon after
they resumed radio contact
and returned to their patrol.
Finally, asked if his robust
longevity stems from routines
or just plain luck, he managed
a smile and simply said, “It’s
just me.”
Doc finds himself now in
comfort, retired eight years,
and living close to his daugh-
ter for care and companion-
ship.
Though his traveling days
are done and he doesn’t plan to
return to the rolling waves, you
might still find Doc on the roll-
ing greens of Quail Ridge Golf
Course, where he still finds
time to play.