The
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
W EDNESDAY , N OVEMBER 23, 2016
• N O . 47
• 18 P AGES
• $1.00
www.MyEagleNews.com
ELECTION
The Eagle/Angel Carpenter
Presidential Volunteer Service Award
recipient Joan Bowling stands with
volunteers at last Wednesday’s
blood drive at the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints in John
Day. From left: Cliff Marsh of Dayville,
Joyce Nodine of John Day, Joan
Bowling of Canyon City and Kris
Beal of Canyon City.
Red Cross volunteer
receives award from
President Obama
AFTERMATH
Urban-rural divide has
never seemed wider
Oregon timber interests
welcome Trump victory
By Eric Mortenson
EO Media Group
Joan Bowling recognized
for 21 years service
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
Joan Bowling of Canyon City had a surprise
in her mailbox earlier this month — an award
and letter signed by President Barack Obama.
She received the President’s Volunteer Ser-
vice Award for 21 years of service as coordi-
nator of the local American Red Cross blood
drives. She’s also been captain of the local Red
Cross disaster action team since 1996.
John Day resident Susan Sintay, who has
volunteered with Bowling over the years, was
happy to hear Bowling received the award.
“She has been what we call the glue,” Sintay
said.
While volunteering at last week’s blood
drive held at The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-
ter-day Saints in John Day, Sintay said she was
thinking of Bowling.
“I thought, ‘How in the world has she done
this?’” Sintay said. “She has done this faithfully.
She has been our mentor and our anchor. She
has been absolutely devoted to the cause of Red
Cross and preparedness and blood services.”
Sintay and Bowling have also volunteered
together in the past with Boy Scout and Cub
Scout committees through their church — the
Boy Scout motto is “Be prepared.”
Bowling said she started volunteering with
Red Cross because she liked their focus on pre-
paredness.
“Being prepared, no matter what comes up,”
she said, is something she’s enjoyed learning
and teaching about through her church, and she
has a fairly full pantry — with bottled fruit and
vegetables, wheat, honey and more — to show
for it.
“I’ve had several people tell me, ‘If there’s
a disaster, I know where I’m going,’” she said.
Currently, Red Cross chapters in Oregon are
preparing for possible earthquakes, including
in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and the local
chapter is also gearing up for the August 21,
2017, total solar eclipse, which could bring as
many as 10,000 people to Grant County.
“Chester’s (Thriftway) could be empty for
three days,” she said. “Each family needs to be
prepared for two weeks.”
See AWARD, Page A18
I
n Central Oregon, cattle rancher and tim-
berland owner John Breese fi gures Donald
J. Trump’s election may fi nally bring some
common-sense management to the state’s
choked forests.
In Seattle, Conservation Northwest Executive Di-
rector Mitch Friedman warns supporters, “A lying,
bigoted brute has seized power, and you’re well fa-
miliar with his intentions.”
In the Willamette Valley, the heart of an Oregon
wine industry that has risen to international acclaim,
pioneering winemaker David Adelsheim considers
the fact that his Yamhill County voted Republican,
“But I don’t know a single person who voted for
Trump.”
In the wake of a bitter presidential campaign and
tight election, the gap has never seemed so wide.
“An urban-rural divide?” a commenter on the Or-
egonLive.com website wrote this past week. “The
rural folks support racism, the urban folks do not.
Make no mistake rural Oregon, if you voted for
Trump, you said racism is OK.”
A commenter on the other side said Portland “pro-
gressives” think people outside Multnomah County
are “a bunch of uneducated hicks.” Rural residents,
the commenter said, are “just about fed up with
See DIVIDE, Page A9
By Dylan Darling
The Register-Guard
“If the core of
environmental
laws went
away, would
people in the
timber and ag
communities
that have
collaborated,
would they
still be with
us?”
W
hen he visited Eugene last spring, Donald Trump
promised to revive Oregon’s timber industry, which
for decades has been hamstrung by severe curbs
against logging in federal forests west of the Cascades summit.
“Timber jobs (in Oregon) have been cut in half since 1990,”
he said during his May stump speech to a revved-up crowd at the
Lane Events Center. “We are going to bring them up, folks, we are
going to do it really right, we are going to bring them up, OK?”
Trump didn’t offer specifi cs as to how — or how much — he
would revive logging and milling, but he alluded to loosening
federal restrictions.
Now, Trump supporters and critics in Oregon will see if he
can live up to his promise.
Trump’s election as president brings optimism to the state
timber industry and acute uneasiness to environmental groups
that have fought for decades to ensure that logging on federal
lands complies with federal environmental law.
Both sides now wonder if and how Trump’s administration
and Republican lawmakers might seek to weaken long-stand-
ing key environmental laws. Enforcement of that law and the
Mitch
Friedman
See TIMBER, Page A18
2016 Oregon vote count
count: East vs. West
Western Oregon accounted for more than 87 percent of all votes
tallied statewide for president and vice president of the U.S.
889,016
Votes counted *
Clinton/Kaine
Trump/Pence
Other
620,242
182,837
*As of Nov. 11
138,412
76,887
23,656
Winner by county
EO Media Group/Matthew Weaver
Laurier, Washington, rancher Len McIrvin addresses a Cattle
Producers of Washington meeting. He believes city residents are
controlled by the “mindbenders” of the media, Hollywood and
conventional politics.
Source:
Oregon
Secretary
of State
Total votes:
1.69 million
Total votes:
238,955
Alan
Kenaga/
Capital
Press
Bulk of fundraising begins for new county library
Site near Kam
Wah Chung
interpretive
center selected
By Rylan Boggs
Blue Mountain Eagle
If fundraising goes accord-
ing to plan, Grant County
could have a new library in
as few as five years.
The Grant County Library
Foundation has been steadi-
ly working toward a new fa-
cility and is now beginning
the bulk of its fundraising
work, Grant County Library
Foundation Secretary Tracie
The Eagle/Rylan Boggs
Grant County Library Foundation Secretary Tracie
Unterwegner (left) and foundation President Megan
Brandsma stand for a photo in the Grant County
Library on Wednesday, Nov. 16.
Unterwegner said.
The foundation plans to
raise the roughly $3 mil-
lion needed through grants,
donations and fundraising
events. It currently has about
5 percent of the required
funds to complete the design
created by Straus & Seibert,
an architectural firm in Med-
ford, Grant County Library
Foundation President Megan
Brandsma said.
The foundation chose
Straus & Seibert because of
its experience building li-
braries in rural areas, Unter-
wegner said. The new library
will be 9,270 square feet,
about 50 percent larger than
the current facility, she said.
The current facility on
Canyon Boulevard is due
for an upgrade for a num-
ber of reasons. The build-
ing is not fully ADA acces-
sible, doesn’t have enough
space and has structural is-
sues, like a leak in the roof
that closed a large portion
of the building, Brandsma
said.
The new facility will op-
erate on the same budget the
current library is on so the
foundation is trying to find
ways to make the building
more energy efficient. Un-
terwegner said the founda-
tion plans to gift the library
to the county when complet-
ed.
The new library will be
built next to the Kam Wah
Chung interpretive center on
Northwest Canton Street in
John Day. The location was
chosen because it is accessi-
ble but not on the highway,
Unterwegner said.