SCENIC GRANT COUNTY CALENDAR | INSIDE
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
153rd Year • No. 50 • 16 Pages • $1.50
MyEagleNews.com
Starting to get
off the ground
Code changes spur lot sales
at Airport Industrial Park
By BENNETT HALL
Blue Mountain Eagle
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
On Saturday, Dec. 11., a Rude Logging truck drives down Main Street in John Day Saturday, Dec. 11, during the 28th annual Timber Truck-
ers Light Parade. Rude Logging’s truck took fi rst place in the timber category.
YULE LOGGERS
Timber truckers brighten up Christmas season
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
T
rucks decked out
with thousands of
Christmas lights
hauled in the holi-
day spirit Saturday,
Dec. 11, as John Day’s 28th
annual Timber Truckers Light
Parade rumbled down Main
Street.
Well over a hundred people
lined the sidewalk and braved
the cold to cheer on the deco-
rated logging trucks, commer-
cial vehicles, Forest Service
rigs and others. This year the
parade had 30 participants.
The parade fl oats repre-
sented four diff erent categories:
farm and ranch, timber, com-
mercial and community.
Longtime parade organizer
Leslie Traylor, a John Day
resident, said the parade was
started by D.R. Johnson, who,
at the time, operated Prairie
Wood Products in Prairie City
and Grant Western Lumber Co.
in John Day.
The purpose was to show-
case the importance of the tim-
ber industry in Grant County.
Traylor said the D.R. John-
son family continues to support
the John Day parade as well as
a similar parade in Riddle.
In the early years, Traylor
said, a majority of the trucks —
if not all — were log trucks.
The lighting displays of the
parade fl oats, she noted, were
extremely elaborate.
“They went to so much
trouble,” she said, “so much
expense to give us some beauti-
JOHN DAY — After lying dormant for nearly two
decades, the Grant County Airport Industrial Park is
showing signs of life.
Located next to the Grant County Regional Airport
on a plateau high above the city, the 103-acre industrial
park opened in 2003 with just one tenant: Winner’s
Choice Custom Bowstrings. Owner Mike Slinkard
later sold the business to focus on other opportunities,
but he kept the building, which now houses his current
venture: HECS, a maker of high-tech apparel for hunt-
ers and nature enthusiasts.
The building next door, also owned by Slinkard, is
home to Reynolds Rifl eworks, a gunsmithing business
operated by Jake Reynolds. A third building holds an
Oregon Department of Forestry Offi ce and a tree-trim-
ming business.
And that, 18 years after the industrial park opened
its gates, is the complete tenant list.
But now it looks like the park could fi nally start fi ll-
ing up. This year alone, the city has sold or is in the
process of selling 15 lots in the facility. Some of the
purchasers include Clint Benge, the owner of Benge
Milling and Custom Woodworking, and Burnt River
Farms, a diversifi ed
cannabis
business
based in Ontario that
has announced plans
to open a dispensary in
John Day.
“I’m excited,” said
Mayor Ron Lundbom.
“A lot of cool things
are going to open up
Bennett Hall/Blue Mountain Eagle
there.”
Long time coming
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
An Iron Triangle Logging truck rumbles though John Day during
the annual Timber Truckers Light Parade. Iron Triangle’s post and
pole plant, located in Seneca, took second place, while the John
Day-based location took third.
ful, beautiful entries.”
Last year’s parade, Traylor
said, underscored how signifi -
cant the event is to the commu-
nity. Due to pandemic restric-
tions, the organizers could not
host an awards dinner and did
not seek donations from mer-
chants for prizes.
She said she asked the driv-
ers what they wanted to do, and
they told her, “We’ll have a
parade anyway.”
“They didn’t get anything
for (participating),” she said,
“except maybe the satisfaction
of heralding in Christmas.”
At the close of the parade,
the participants gathered at
the John Day Elks Lodge for
chili, hot drinks and prize
announcements.
Traylor has been involved in
planning the parade for nearly
20 years.
She said that organizing the
event every year is a consider-
able commitment.
Planning for the parade
begins in early October. The
committee members pick a
theme and send letters to local
businesses asking for donations
to use as prizes for the parade
participants.
Traylor said the fi nal
months leading up to the parade
become especially busy with
coordinating gifts and prizes
and running around town. She
said she has tried to step away
from the planning in the last
couple of years.
However, after driving into
town, seeing the parade entries
with their sparkling light dis-
plays and the people lined up
on the streets, and then watch-
ing a video of the parade online
on Sunday, she said she will
likely always be involved.
“After watching all of the
cars and the beautiful entries,”
Traylor said, “I told my hus-
band, ‘I’m probably going to
keep doing this until I croak.’”
PARADE RESULTS
TIMBER
First: Rude Logging
Second: Iron Triangle Post
& Pole
Third: Iron Triangle
COMMERCIAL
First: Tyler Nodine
Second: Madden Realty &
JLM Construction
Third: Patriot Plumbing
FARM AND RANCH
First: Loop Ranch
Second: S&D Stock Horses
COMMUNITY
First: Living Word Christian
Center
Second: Whiskey Gulch
Gang
Third: City of John Day
PEOPLE’S CHOICE
First: Dakom Logging
Second: Rude Logging
SWEEPSTAKES WINNER
Lot sales at the Grant County
Airport Industrial Park have
heated up since February,
when the city eased restric-
tions on business operations at
the facility.
Lundbom has been
involved with the
industrial park since
its inception, when he
served as chair of the
Grant County Regional
Airport Commission and took on the role of chief pro-
moter for the project.
The city purchased the land in 2001 and used a $1.5
million loan from the state to develop the property by
grading the site and bringing in utilities. Shortly after
the park opened in 2003, there were 27 1-acre lots with
access to water, sewer and electrical service.
Late that year, Slinkard moved his growing bow-
string business from downtown John Day into a brand-
new building just inside the entrance to the park.
One more lot sold shortly afterward. And then …
crickets. No other companies showed any interest in
moving into the city’s new industrial park.
“It just sat there,” Lundbom said.
It wasn’t for lack of trying on the city’s part. Lund-
bom remembers giving tours to visiting executives
who would fl y into the Grant County Regional Airport
to get a look at the property.
“People would get out of the plane, do a 360 and
say, ‘Wow! What a view!’” he recalled. “If all it took
to sell it was the view, we would’ve sold it a hundred
times.”
Despite the charms of the location, there were draw-
backs as well.
Like a lot of industrial properties around the state at
that time, the Grant County Airport Industrial Park was
covered by an enterprise zone designation. Enterprise
zones confer substantial property tax breaks on com-
panies that locate there. But, in exchange, they also
Rude Logging
See Airport, Page A16
New domestic trauma center opens
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
Heart of Grant County Director Beth
Simonsen addresses the Grant County
Court Wednesday, Dec. 8. She said the
domestic trauma center will begin of-
fering communication and confl ict res-
olution classes in January.
The community got an opportunity to
see Grant County’s newly built domestic
trauma center last week during a weeklong
open house.
Heart of Grant County, a nonprofi t that
provides confi dential advocacy and protec-
tion to victims of domestic violence and
sexual assault, celebrated the completion
of requirements for the federal grant that
funded the new facility.
After Heart of Grant County provided
a $15,000 match, the county sponsored
the nonprofi t agency’s application and
received a $1.5 million federal Community
Development Block Grant.
Construction on the facility broke
ground in 2020, and the organization has
been in the building since June.
The new center features improved pri-
vacy to talk to victims, a conference room
for more group activities in private set-
tings, and the ability to house between two
and three families. The agency could only
accommodate one person at its previous
location.
Beth Simonsen, Heart of Grant Coun-
ty’s director, said staff members at the
domestic trauma center are not profes-
sional counselors.
However, they can coordinate with
agencies around the county to meet cli-
ents’ needs for mental health, medical care,
fi nancial help and housing assistance.
“Some of this stuff is new territory for
whoever we’re serving,” Simonsen said.
Communication programs
In January, Heart of Grant County
will begin off ering classes to build com-
munication and confl ict resolution skills,
taught by the group’s board chair, Nancy
Nickel.
Nickel, who recently received train-
ing as a mediator to teach the classes,
said during a County Court session on
Wednesday, Dec. 8., that the escalation
of angry rhetoric in the public sector
has been alarming, and Heart of Grant
County staff ers worry it might contribute
to domestic abuse.
She said the group wants to help peo-
ple learn how to talk to each other and
resolve confl icts peacefully.
“People get frustrated, and they lash
out,” she said, “and they love each other
a lot of the time.”
She said the last couple of years of the
pandemic had been a strain on everyone.
But, having worked at the Grant County
Courthouse for over 25 years, she told
the court she had never seen such a
See Center, Page A16