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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (April 22, 2020)
COMMUNITY Blue Mountain Eagle A6 Wednesday, April 22, 2020 BUILDING BLOCKS HEALTHY COMPETITION F or all of you sports fans, as you know, there is nothing better than to watch a close competi- tive game between two sports teams. The spectator’s excite- ment, enthusiasm and cheer- ing accelerate as the offense and defense battle for the win. Crowds gasp as the score is tied, once again, while the clock loses time. The referee calls a timeout. Players run to their coaches to hear encour- agement and receive the win- ning play instructions. The whistle sounds, the crowds cheer and the players resume adrenaline. Inch by inch, the score goes back and forth until time runs out, and over- time begins to break the tie. With the spectators on their feet anticipating the next play, hoping their team wins, or at this point the best team wins, the ball floats through the air seemingly in slow motion with only a few seconds on the clock, and it hits the mark. Game over. This illustrates healthy competition. Two teams of equal tal- ent, practiced and coached, battling it out while giving Dorothy it their all. Nestlerode In the business world of economics, healthy competition is similar. Busi- ness owners offensively mar- ket their products (goods and services) while defensively setting competitive prices and offering quality customer ser- vice. Spectators, or custom- ers, in this case, watch for price wars, sales, discounts, rewards and selected goods or services while the owner strategically plans, provides desirable goods and services and attempts to meet the sup- ply and demand. As the sea- son changes, the owner not only inches his way from closing out products or shift- ing services, but also inches into the new season’s product or service. Customers watch for the greatest and the latest new product or deal, while the owner gasps in excitement and hopes for a profitable winning season. Then overtime happens because the game is multifac- eted. Not only does the owner strategize to meet the supply and demand of their custom- ers, but the other businesses selling the same or similar goods and services are part of the competition. This is the game changer. If the compe- tition plays fair, ethically and within the boundaries of the law, it’s exciting and bene- fits both businesses and cus- tomers. But, when the ref- eree is not present to call a fair game, no one wins. This usu- ally creates unhealthy domi- nating competition. In busi- ness, this could be referred to as a monopoly. A monopoly is defined as “a single producer of a product or service. In law, a monopoly is a firm that has a lot of mar- ket power and is able to charge very high prices for a prod- uct or service.” The consumer loses because of the lack of competition as the business invariably delivers poor qual- ity of service or products at high pricing and limited con- sumer choice. To be consid- ered a healthy community, we need to offer customers choices of goods and services; and in a small rural commu- nity like Grant County, indi- rect competition is healthy while direct competition is unhealthy. Direct competitors and indirect competitors define healthy and unhealthy com- petition. A direct competitor has watched all of their com- petitor’s film footage over and over, studied their plays and run the same game, having no plays of their own. This is the business down the street that offers the same products and services to the same cus- tomer base while copycatting the winning business. To stay alive the winning owner must continue to be innovative and creative to stay ahead of the direct competitor. This is a real challenge in small communi- ties, which lead to unhealthy competition, where both businesses struggle or fail, and customers are not given variety. A healthy competitor is known as an indirect com- petitor, a business who offers the same or similar goods and services that can serve as a viable substitute. This is the coach who studied the other team, but came up with his own team plays that took his team to the playoffs. Another illustration is two family restaurants serving break- fast, lunch and dinner but with different menu items. They may both offer salads, but the salads are prepared differently. Offering variety for the customer is a win for everyone especially in Grant County where choices are limited. How does Grant County economically become the win- ning team? The coaches (city, county, chamber of commerce O utlook SENI R Hey! Guess who came to see me? Prairie City The Easter Bunny! Seniors I was a-working away on the music Rose Coombs for Sunday in my studio and wondered who Derrol was taking to out in the front room. Turned out to be a friend who was delivering little bouquets to people from the Easter Bunny. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the gesture. The flowers were a lovely violet carnation and a yellow daffodil with a couple sprigs of greenery. Yeah. Spring! And I’m here to report that the flower saving stuff that I put in the large bouquet from the wedding on March 28 really works! Those flowers lasted until April 15! They gave me a lot of enjoyment during this time of social isolation. Thanks to all who had a hand in that. I guess the message about the time to be at the hall to pick up your meal got through. WE had people arriving before 11:30 AM and that’s OK. In addition to your meal, you were able to receive a home-made face mask courtesy of the Carter sisters of Bear Valley. Thank you ladies, for doing this for us. Our meal had meatloaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli Normandy, veggies, a rice/pasta/veggie salad, roll and – after you put it all together – strawberry shortcake for dessert. Since everything has to be put in a traveling container, the ingredients for the dessert were in separate containers. Then when you were ready for dessert, you took the muffin out of its foil wrap and the whipped cream and strawberries out of their container and mixed them up and it was delicious! Thanks to our cooks, Laura and Laura, helper Tom, registrar Pam, runners Carole and Ginger and home deliverer Carlos for a great job well done. Takes all hands to make things work. But we would rather be sitting down at our tables in the hall… Some day soon we hope. We are grateful that there has been an extremely low level of infections in our little city and county. PTL. In the olden days, like back before printing on paper became available, books were made of vellum, which was made from the skins of calves and sheep. How? That I dton’t know. Ask Siri. Anyway, when Gutenberg printed the Bible on vellum, it was 1,300 pages, which would have taken 170 calves or 300 sheep. Europe’s cattle industry never could have supported book production on the scale necessitated by the printing press. But paper could. So what’s the purpose of this bit of trivia? To help you remember that innovation can be a good thing. Again, in the olden days – like 1960 – there were no personal computers or cell phones. In toay’s world, some people have no idea how they would live without these items. Especially in this time of social isolation. So this is your challenge for the day: How would you communicate without electronics? People did it for 6,000 years. Why can’t we now? Psalm 139:16 “… All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Malachi 3:16 “Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored His name.” You know, this Covid-19 doesn’t seem to be stopping or Soo Yukawa slowing down the folks in Monument from coming to get their food for the Tuesday lunch. Ha. In fact, there were 55 takeout lunches served by the cooks, Terry Cade and Carrie Jewell. Those who picked up their lunches enjoyed a nice meal of spaghetti, fresh garden salad, garlic bread and a chocolate chip cookie. We thank and bless our cooks. I will have to share something funny though that happened to my chocolate chip cookie. I do not like soft and mushy cookies. So, I put my cookie in my toaster oven and was trying to toast it to make it crunchy. Silly me, I just placed the soft cookie on the rack and when I tried to retrieve it, it fell right through the rack! Boo hoo, I did not get to eat my chocolate chip cookie, sigh. My oldest felt sorry for me so she gave me the last bite of hers. Lesson learned, don’t put a soft cookie right on the rack of the toaster oven. Kristi Guimont and Jan Ensign did all the paperwork and counted the money. Aubrieanna Osborne helped take the food out to those who came to pick up their takeouts. Bob Cockrell collected the money from the people in their cars. It is all very organized and efficient. We thank all our volunteers for their hard work. I visited and chatted with my friend Jimmy Cole and he helped me in suggesting that I get all my family to pitch in doing the garden work. We are all going to go out every day to do at least two hours of work in the garden. My hubby and oldest are helping to pull out the old beds and weeds. I then come in and plant some seed and put in some fresh dirt. (You know, the old chicken poop that has been cooking down during the fall and winter time) and then I have my two little kiddos coming in to water right behind me. Pretty good teamwork wouldn’t you say? My other daughter is helping to also weed out a few of my flowerbeds. That is a task she likes to do because she likes pretty flowers. I think all this working outside has been good for us. We are getting our sunshine, vitamin D, exercise, and it is building character. Hope everyone is using this time wisely and getting all those things that you just didn’t have time for before done. I got some applesauce canned, going to plant and utilize every single bed for growing something. I really hope to plant lots of cucumbers this year so that I can replenish my dill pickles for the pantry. Maybe if I get ambitious, I will try and make cucumber kimchee, maybe. I’ve never made kimchee before but you know all those Youtube videos out there give you tons of information and directions. We shall have to see. Proverbs 16: 7 “When a man’s ways please the LORD, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Monument Seniors and economic development leadership) study the game of business, determine the needs and winning strategy for our county, prepare the infrastruc- ture for growth and select the right business players. Busi- ness players who offer a vari- ety of goods and services to our customer base stimulating our economy, and who choose to operate as indirect competi- tors rather than direct compet- itors. Grant County businesses and customers can both ben- efit with healthy competition. I wonder how many Grant County customers would shop locally if we didn’t have a monopoly or direct competi- tion. What goods and services would you like Grant County to offer? Let your city council, county commissioner, cham- ber of commerce or Grant County Economic Develop- ment know your wants and needs so we can be the winner. 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