GRANT UNION TRACK TEAM SET FOR SEASON
The
PAGE A9
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
151st Year • No. 13 • 16 Pages • $1.00
BlueMountainEagle.com
Hamsher talks natural resources in Washington, D.C.
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
Contributed photo
Grant County Commissioner
Jim Hamsher traveled to
Washington, D.C., on March
1-7 where he attended a
National Association of
Counties committee meeting
and met with numerous
government offi cials about
natural resource issues.
A recent whirlwind trip to
Washington, D.C., by Grant
County Commissioner Jim
Hamsher and four other
Eastern Oregon county com-
missioners focused on natu-
ral resource issues, includ-
ing forest management.
“It was a very worth-
while trip,” Hamsher told
the Eagle, noting that Chris
French, the Forest Service’s
acting deputy chief and
reviewing offi cer for forest
plans, contacted the group a
week later to see if they had
any more questions.
“He’s a good gentle-
man,” Hamsher said, adding
that he believes “a lot of the
head butting will come to an
end” over forest manage-
ment disputes.
Hamsher joined Har-
ney County Commissioner
Mark Owens, Wallowa
County Commissioner Todd
Nash, Baker County Com-
missioner Bill Harvey and
Union County Commis-
sioner Donna Beverage for
the March 1-7 trip to the
nation’s capital.
The primary reason for
the trip was to talk with For-
est Service offi cials about
exempting the counties from
the Forest Service’s travel
management plan, Hamsher
said.
“We’re still awaiting
word on that,” he told the
Eagle.
Hamsher, Nash and
Harvey, who serve on
the
National
Associa-
tion of Counties’ Public
Lands Steering Committee,
attended the 2019 legisla-
tive conference.
The list of offi cials Ham-
sher met with included
Agriculture Undersecretary
James Hubbard, Agricul-
ture Acting Deputy Under-
secretary Daniel Jiron, For-
est Service Legislative
Affairs Director Doug Cran-
dall, Forest Service Chief
Vicki Christiansen, Agricul-
ture Undersecretary Senior
Advisor Debbie Pressman,
Interior Deputy Director of
External Affairs Tim Wil-
liams, Interior Principal
Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Andrea Travnicek and Inte-
rior Deputy Solicitor for
Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Karen Budd-Falen.
Hamsher also met with
Sen. Ron Wyden’s advi-
sor for energy and natu-
ral resources and took part
in a news conference with
Wyden and Sen. Jeff Merk-
DATA SHARING
Students share research at
Grant Union Science Fair
Floyd, Blood earn
gold in contest
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
T
wenty Grant Union
high school students
shared the hypothe-
ses and conclusions of
their research during the
school’s March 14 science fair.
Grant Union teachers Sonna
Smith and Randy Hennen’s stu-
dents took part in the competition.
Smith said her chemistry stu-
dents were required to take part in
the fair. Smith, who has taught at
the school since 2002, also teaches
physics and health.
She said the students who met
their benchmarks since September
had the most in-depth projects.
“Some of the ideas they came
up with were beyond our ability to
test,” she said. “The hardest part is
picking a project.”
The two gold winners were
junior Samantha Floyd and senior
Kade Blood.
Floyd won best of fair with her
project titled “Perceived Recogni-
tion Memory vs. Actual Recogni-
tion Memory.”
She said she had some sur-
prises along the way in the project
that she developed to help her 12
Eagle photos/Angel Carpenter
ABOVE: Grant Union Science Fair
judge Neil Bauer visits with junior
Samantha Floyd about her project, titled
“Perceived Recognition Memory vs.
Actual Recognition Memory.” Floyd won
fi rst place and Best of Fair.
LEFT: Kade Blood stands next to his
winning research project display
titled “How does Armarilla Fungi
Impact Forest Vegetation Growth and
Composition?” at the Grant Union
Science Fair.
See Fair, Page A16
ley where Secure Rural
Schools and payment-in-
lieu-of-taxes funding was
discussed.
The busy visit also
included
attending
a
speech by Kellyanne Con-
way and receiving updates
from Agriculture Secretary
Sonny Perdue and HUD
Secretary Ben Carson about
how counties can plan for a
future economy.
Hamsher said he spoke
with offi cials about how the
Forest Service should coor-
dinate its management plans
with county governments.
See Hamsher, Page A16
Teen
survey
looks at
social
wellness
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
While few 11th-grade
students in Grant County
said in a 2018 survey they
didn’t go to school because
of safety concerns, more
than half said they skipped
school in the past four
weeks.
Those are just two results
from the anonymous and
voluntary Oregon Student
Wellness Survey of students
in grades 6, 8 and 11 con-
ducted in spring 2018.
The survey is designed to
assess a wide range of top-
ics, ranging from school cli-
mate, positive youth devel-
opment, mental health and
physical health to substance
abuse, problem gambling,
fi ghting, harassment and
other social problems.
Results for Grant County
were presented to the Grant
School District 3 board of
directors at their Feb. 20
meeting.
The 113-page tabula-
tion of county-wide survey
results also compare results
from the state for the report-
ing years from 2012-2018.
Alcohol use or binge-
ing by 11th graders in the
past 30 days has trended
slightly downward for both
the county and state. In
2018, nearly a quarter of
Grant County 11th graders
See Survey, Page A16
January unemployment spike related to shutdown
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
A larger-than-expected uptick
in Grant County unemployment
numbers for the month of January
resulted from the partial government
shutdown that ran from Dec. 22 to
Jan. 25.
The unemployment rate, which
had been steadily dropping from
14.2 percent in September 2012 to
a low of 6.2 percent in July 2018,
rose quickly to 8.5 percent in Janu-
ary 2019.
That was the highest January
unemployment rate of any county
in Oregon, according to the Oregon
Employment Department’s season-
ally adjusted fi gures based on esti-
mates from household surveys.
Unemployment rates in many
The Eagle/Richard Hanners
With about 12 percent of Grant County workers employed by the federal
government, including the Forest Service, the partial government shutdown
in December and January increased the unemployment rate.
Eastern Oregon counties typically
increase in winter as there is less
work available in the timber and
tourism businesses. But the unusu-
ally higher increase this winter was
related to federal furloughs, accord-
ing to regional economist Christo-
pher Rich in La Grande.
About 45 percent of non-
farm workers in Grant County
are employed by schools and city,
county, state or federal govern-
ments. About 11.6 percent are fed-
eral workers.
The fi gure is similar in Harney
County, which also saw a sharp
increase in the unemployment rate
in January. Other Eastern Oregon
counties with a smaller percentage
of federal workers, such as Morrow
and Union counties, saw a smaller
impact from the government shut-
down, Rich said.
“Furloughed federal employees
were classifi ed as unemployed on
temporary layoff under household
survey defi nitions used to calcu-
late labor force statistics, such as the
unemployment rate and the number
of unemployed,” Rich said. “These
See Shutdown, Page A16