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IN THIS EDITION: LOCAL • BUSINESS
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Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to Herald
subscriber Dee Swinyer of
Sumpter.
BRIEFING
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Baker County Garden
club plans meeting
Baker County Garden Club
will meet August 3, at the
Dougherty Home at 995 J
Street at 10:30 a.m. for their
annual auction. Bring auction
items, sacked lunches, and
drinks. New members are
THURSDAY, JULY 28, 2022 • $1.50
Fire breaks helped to stop June blaze
Officials say fire breaks built
22 years ago, and maintained
annually, gave firefighters a
major assist during
Willowcreek fire
BY CLAYTON FRANKE
cfranke@bakercityherald.com
A tractor that plowed swathes through
rangeland in northern Malheur County more
than two decades ago is a major reason why
the Willowcreek fire, the biggest blaze in the
area so far this year, stopped when it did in late
June, according to officials from the Bureau of
Land Management’s Vale District.
A series of fire breaks dug 22 years ago
made “all the difference with suppression ef-
forts on the Willowcreek fire,” according to a
An aerial
photo shows
how the Wil-
lowcreek fire
in late June
2022 was
stopped when
it reached a
fire break that
was made
about 22 years
ago, and is
maintained
annually.
July 15 press release.
The blaze, which started on private land
north of Vale on June 28 and burned 40,274
acres, mostly on that day and the next, was
fully contained as of July 11, said Larisa Bog-
ardus, public affairs officer for the Vale Dis-
trict.
The cause of the fire is still under investiga-
tion, Bogardus said on Thursday, July 21. The
fire didn’t burn any structures and no one was
hurt. The fire burned about 24,400 acres of
private land, 15,300 acres of public land man-
aged by the BLM and about 572 acres of state
ground.
Flames likely would have spread across
more of the sagebrush and grass range if not
for those fire breaks, said Marcus Johnson,
who was incident commander on the Willow-
creek fire.
Kristen Munday/
Bureau of Land
Management
See Breaks / A3
welcome.
Gubernatorial
candidates to debate
July 29
120 family members come together in Eagle Valley
to celebrate Furgason, Simonis and Kirby heritages
The three leading candidates
BY LISA BRITTON
lbritton@bakercityherald.com
in the race to become Oregon’s
next governor will appear live at
a forum Friday, July 29, hosted
by the Oregon Newspaper Pub-
lishers Association.
Republican nominee Chris-
Deep
tine Drazan, Democratic nomi-
nee Tina Kotek and unaffi liated
candidate Betsy Johnson are all
Roots
scheduled to debate starting at
2 p.m. in Welches.
The forum is moderated by
Pamplin Media Group President
Mark Garber. Questions will
come from editors of newspa-
pers across Oregon.
The debate will be lives-
treamed on the Baker City
Herald’s website, beginning at 2
p.m. July 29.
WEATHER
—————
Today
99/55
Clear
Friday
99/53
Very Hot
Full forecast on the back
of the B section.
The space below is for a postage label
for issues that are mailed.
Background: Emmett Kirby, 9, learned how to
make the famous Durkee pan bread during a
family reunion on July 2, 2022. Emmett’s dad
is Rich Kirby and his great-grandfather was
well-known Durkee rancher Skinner Kirby.
Right: Members of the Kirby, Furgason and Si-
monis families attended a reunion.
Karina Schmitt/Contributed Photos
Amber Schmitt didn’t even know all the
people who attended the family reunion.
But she knew one thing: everyone — all
120 attendees — had a connection to the
families of Furgason, Simonis and Kirby in
Eastern Oregon.
“We had a fantastic family reunion,”
Schmitt said. “I’d say I hadn’t met half of the
people who came. We had name tags.”
The family story dates to 1874 when Fred
Simonis came west with his wife, Mary (Fur-
gason), and children.
Their destination was Eagle Valley, to meet
Mary’s parents, Alexander and Jennette Fur-
gason, who had arrived in 1862 to settle in
what is now Island City. They moved to Ea-
gle Valley several years later.
Fred and Mary Simonis’ daughter Ella
married William Lee Kirby, whose family
came to Oregon in 1886.
From that marriage came eight children,
including V.S. “Skinner” Kirby, who was
Schmitt’s grandpa and ranched in the Durkee
area. (Schmitt’s mom is Cheryl Kirby Cornett.)
The reunion, originally planned for four
years ago, was the idea of Schmitt and her
cousin Stacey Tatlock, granddaughter of
Skinner and daughter of Dick Kirby.
“Stacey and I really wanted to get our ex-
tended family together since we live all over
the country,” Schmitt said. “We wanted to
celebrate our heritage.”
“I want our kids to feel as connected to our
ancestors, by knowing the family history as I
do,” Tatlock said.
The reunion finally happened in 2022,
over the Fourth of July weekend.
“Our last one was in 1979,” Schmitt said.
Family members were invited to a gather-
ing at the Eagle Valley Cemetery in Richland
on Saturday morning.
Then, Saturday afternoon, everyone gath-
ered at the Durkee Schoolhouse for a barbe-
cue — including pan-fried bread, which is a
staple of the annual Durkee Steak Feed that
Kirby started with other ranchers.
Members of the Durkee Community
Corp., which still puts on a steak feed, as-
sisted with preparing food for the reunion.
Inside the schoolhouse, different branches
of the family set up displays with their side of
the family tree.
See Roots / A2
Local parents struggle
to find child care options
BY MARK BOGART
For the Baker City Herald
As with housing, the availability of child-
care can determine where workers live and
how they make a living.
And like housing, the problem isn’t new.
Parents have struggled with finding good,
affordable child care in Baker County for
several decades.
Theresa Martinez, Eastern Oregon Child
Care Resources Coordinator, said Baker
County fits the state’s definition of a “child-
care desert,” with a severe shortage of re-
sources to serve a large number of families.
She said she receives at least three calls a
week from people desperate to find child
TODAY
Issue 33
12 pages
Business .................B1 & B2
Classified ....................B2-B4
Comics ..............................B5
Youth rider Dysan Robb
ranks 47th nationwide
BY IAN CRAWFORD
icrawford@bakercityherald.com
care, but she often has no place to send
them.
Part of her job is to support communities
in Baker, Wallowa and Malheur Counties in
addressing the problem.
And while there is a severe shortage in
general, there are specific needs that are
most critical. Care for infants and for chil-
dren with special needs are especially hard
to find because their greater needs require
higher levels of adult responsibility. As a
result, the necessary ratio of adults to chil-
dren is also higher.
This, in turn, makes care more expensive
and harder to find.
Three Baker students qual-
ified for the High School Ro-
deo Association’s 2022 National
competition in Gillette, Wyo-
ming : Clark Norton, Brycen
Martin and Dysan Robb.
Circumstances didn’t allow
travel for Norton or Martin this
year. Norton and his family had
other commitments and Martin
suffered a broken collarbone at
a recent Haines Rodeo. Of the
three, Robb was able to travel
to this year’s top show with his
parents, Adam and Angela.
See Child care / A3
See Rodeo / A3
Community News.............A2
Crossword ...............B2 & B4
Dear Abby .........................B6
Horoscope ..............B3 & B4
Lottery Results .................A2
News of Record ................A2
Opinion .............................A4
Outdoors .................B1 & B2
Senior Menus ...................A2
Adam and Angela Robb /Contributed photo
Dysan Robb and his horse Kit at-
tending the 2022 National High
School Rodeo finals in Wyoming
on July 18.
Sudoku..............................B5
Turning Backs ..................A2
Weather ............................B6