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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 25, 2019)
HISTORY SECTION: LONGTIME RANCHES RECOGNIZED | INSIDE The Blue Mountain EAGLE Grant County’s newspaper since 1868 Wednesday, September 25, 2019 151st Year • No. 39 • 16 Pages • $1.50 MyEagleNews.com Rethinking health care Former Oregon governor believes new approach needed By Kathy Aney EO Media Group Former Gov. John Kitzhaber started his keynote speech at Thurs- day’s health care summit in Hermis- ton with a personal story. He told of his early years as a 27-year-old Roseburg emergency room doctor fresh out of medical school and awed by the responsibil- ity of caring for people who arrived at the hospital injured, sick, confused or frightened. Occasionally, patients died. “When I was unable to save a life, I walked across the hall to a small room where people waited for news of their loved ones,” he said. “It seemed like a long, lonely journey across 30 feet of tile floor.” In those days, he treated each indi- vidual patient without regard to cost, viewing death as the enemy and treat- ing people as individuals. In 1978, he was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives where he was forced to look at health care from a differ- ent angle. “I came face to face with a funda- mental contradiction,” he said. “As a legislator, I couldn’t ignore the cost.” Kitzhaber’s keynote speech this week came midway through the 2019 Eastern Oregon Coordinated Care Organization Clinician & Staff Sum- mit at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center. Clinicians, health care administrators and policy makers sit- ting at white, linen-covered tables listened to Kitzhaber’s thoughts on national and state health care reform. Kitzhaber said he believes we are thinking about health care all wrong on the national level. “For decades, we’ve been asking EO Media Group/Kathy Aney Former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber chats with Chuck Hoffmann after speaking about health care delivery in Oregon on Thursday at the EOCCO Clinician & Staff Summit in Hermiston. See Health care, Page A16 Board officially restores family name to creeks By Richard Hanners Blue Mountain Eagle Official names T he legacy of a family name has been restored with the renaming of two creeks in Grant County. Eric Lupien submitted the required paperwork in February 2018 on behalf of his wife’s family, the Wyllies, and learned of their success in April. “We are pleased to inform you that the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, at its April 11, 2019, meeting, approved your proposals to change the names of two streams in Grant County with name Wiley Creek to Wyllie Creek,” Execu- tive Secretary Lou Yost wrote. Jamie Wyllie Lupien, Eric’s wife, was happy to see the family name restored. “My husband is like a dog with a bone,” she told the Eagle. “Once he got a hold of this, he wouldn’t stop. It means that much to him.” Contributed photo Eric Lupien holds up a photo of Laurie A. Wyllie, his late father-in-law, and the letter from the U.S. Board of Geographic Names saying the names of two creeks in Grant County were officially changed from ‘Wiley’ to ‘Wyllie.’ The U.S. Board on Geographic Names is a federal agency created in 1890 and established in its present form in 1947 to maintain uniform geographic names throughout the U.S. government. Official names for geographic fea- tures became confused following the Civil War during a surge of exploration, mining and settlement across the West. Inconsistencies and contradictions for names, spelling and application became a problem for surveyors, map makers and scientists. In addition to correcting names, the board takes public requests to name an unnamed natural feature. If the sug- gested name is for a person, the person must be deceased for at least five years and must have a direct or long-term association with the feature or made See Name, Page A16 Contributed photo Contributed photo The Luce family farmhouse was built in June 1860 and still stands near milepost 158 on Highway 26 west of John Day. The Luce and Wyllie families, along with the Porters and others in the valley, were joined in marriage. Contributed photo Contributed photo William James and Florence Edith Wyllie helped found the city of Dayville. James A. Wyllie, a son of William James and Florence Edith Wyllie, on his horse Shorty at the family ranch in Izee in 1919. James A. and Margaret MacGregor Wyllie, born in Scotland, immigrated separately to the U.S., met and married in Pennsylvania and traveled separately to California where they raised their family. Commissioners lobby for PILT, SRS funding in Washington, D.C. Local voices heard ‘loudly and strongly’ By Angel Carpenter Blue Mountain Eagle Contributed photo Many members of the Eastern Oregon Counties Association met in Washington, D.C., Sept. 9-13. Gathering for a photo with the Washington Monument in the background are, left to right, Wallowa County Commissioner Todd Nash, Lake County Commissioner Mark Albertson, Baker County Commissioner Bill Harvey, Wallowa County Commissioner Susan Roberts, Harney County Commissioner Mark Owens and Grant County Commissioners Jim Hamsher and Sam Palmer. Grant County commis- sioners Jim Hamsher and Sam Palmer arrived in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 9 for a four-day stay that included a visit to Capitol Hill on Sept. 11 to advo- cate for more permanent solutions for Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) and Secure Rural Schools (SRS) funding. The two commission- ers joined about 100 other county officials for the PILT Fly-In, hosted by the National Association for Counties. Hamsher said there is a push to not only reauthorize PILT funding but to create a 10-year reauthorization, and to create an endowment for SRS funding to help stabi- lize the counties that rely on the funding. About 61% of counties in the U.S. rely on the fund- ing because a major portion of their areas include feder- ally owned land, which can- not be taxed. Hamsher said hav- ing a 10-year reauthoriza- tion of PILT, instead of the current annual authoriza- tions, would make it eas- ier for counties, cities and schools to create their bud- get plans, instead of waiting every year to see what per- centage they’ll authorize or if they’re going to reautho- rize the SRS funding. “It’s very tough for everybody to try to guess,” he said. Grant County received $924,601 in PILT funding for fiscal year 2019, and approximately $4 million in SRS payments for fis- cal year 2018. More than 60 percent of land in the county is publicly owned. He said one of the import- ant points he made was, although they may have lost See Lobby, Page A16