NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
A3
Sams faces ‘huge task’ at NPS
By CHRIS AADLAND
Underscore.news
and Indian Country Today
WASHINGTON — Record annual
attendance numbers. Low morale
among employees. Billions of dollars
in maintenance needs.
Those are just some of the chal-
lenges Chuck Sams will have to tackle
as director of the National Park Ser-
vice after oﬃ cially taking leadership
in a swearing-in ceremony Thursday,
Dec. 16.
Sams becomes the ﬁ rst Native
American to hold the position and
the most recent Indigenous person to
hold a high-ranking position in the
federal government since Joe Biden
became president. His boss will be
Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, the
Interior secretary and ﬁ rst Indige-
nous person to hold a cabinet-level
position.
Sams’ background and citizen-
ship with the Confederated Tribes of
the Umatilla Indian Reservation also
means some are optimistic he’ll work
to improve how the agency and its hun-
dreds of national parks, historic sites,
monuments and recreation areas work
with tribal nations and incorporate their
history and culture.
“Everyone should have access to
the outdoors no matter where they live,
how much money they have, or what
their background is,” Haaland said in
a press release announcing the swear-
ing in. “Chuck Sams understands the
importance of connecting people to
nature, and I am thrilled to work with
him as the Interior Department works
to make our national park system
accessible to all Americans.”‍
Kat Brigham, chair of the CTUIR
Board of Trustees, said Sams has a
big challenge tackling the needs of
the park service but she is hopeful he
also will prioritize improving the agen-
cy’s work and coordination with tribal
nations and Indigenous people.
National Park Service/Contributed Photo
Chuck Sams, the new director of National Park Service and an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Uma-
tilla Indian Reservation, shakes hands in this undated photo with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. Sams is
the service’s ﬁ rst permanent director in ﬁ ve years.
“He’s got a huge task,” she said.
“But I hope, eventually, that he’ll be
able to help us tell our story about our
traditions and our culture within the
national parks area.”
Sams has a 25-year background in
tribal administration and nonproﬁ t nat-
ural resource and conservation man-
agement. That work has included facil-
itating land transfers and donations to
the park service, in addition to work-
ing on park system lands with volun-
teers on conservation and invasive spe-
cies management, among other related
roles in public lands and conservation.
Sams will take over a park service
that hasn’t had a permanent director
since 2017.
Before he was conﬁ rmed in late
November, a Senate committee tasked
with vetting Sams questioned him
about his priorities and how he would
address some of the more pressing
needs of the agency and the 85 million
acres it manages. Those priorities, he
said, include tackling the agency’s $12
billion maintenance backlog. In 2020,
Congress passed a $6.5 billion bill that
aimed to address that backlog after
years of underinvestment.
But for David Lamfrom, one of the
most immediate issues is the mood
among park service employees. Lam-
from is the vice president of Regional
Programs for the National Park Con-
servation Association and works on
community-building and reaching
more diverse constituents.
He’d like to see a more diverse park
service workforce. But ﬁ rst, he said,
the workplace culture and concerns
about harassment and gender discrim-
ination have to be addressed, which
Sams has recognized as a priority.
“I think building back that trust and
morale within the agency is going to be
a really top priority,” Lamfrom said.
The morale concerns and other
staﬃ ng issues come amid surging pop-
ularity for the park service, with many
national parks — such as Zion and
Glacier national parks — having expe-
rienced record attendance numbers in
recent years.
“There’s a lot of other issues that
he’s gonna have to deal with, like the
fact is that during the pandemic, Amer-
ica fell in love all over again with our
Searchers recover body of
missing Boardman woman
East Oregonian
CONDON — The search
for a missing Boardman
woman is over.
The Gilliam County
Sheriﬀ ’s Oﬃ ce on Saturday,
Dec. 18, reported searchers
at 11:10 a.m. that day found
the remains of Autumn
Jones.
“An investigation is tak-
ing place, but foul play
does not appear to be a fac-
tor and the public is not at
risk,” according to the post
of the sheriﬀ ’s oﬃ ce Face-
book page.
“Our hearts and prayers
go out to the family of
Autumn Jones,” Sher-
iﬀ Gary Bettencourt said
in the post. “Although this
is not the outcome that we
had hoped for, this will give
some closure to Autumn’s
family.”
Jones
The sheriﬀ ’s oﬃ ce also
thanked the numerous agen-
cies and volunteers that
assisted the search and res-
cue eﬀ orts.
Jones left her family’s
home in Morrow County
on Nov. 27. She told her
W HAT’S
HAPPENING
family she was going for a
drive. She called her family
around 1:30 a.m. on Nov.
28 and stated she was lost.
Using a cellphone appli-
cation, her family placed
Jones in Wheeler County.
Law enforcement searched
but did not ﬁ nd Jones.
A mail carrier on Nov. 29
reported seeing Jones’ car, a
red 2014 Volkswagen Jetta,
near Fossil. Sheriﬀ ’s depu-
ties from Wheeler, Morrow
and Grant counties coordi-
nated search teams to ﬁ nd
Jones in the following days,
but the eﬀ orts did not ﬁ nd
Jones or the car.
Hunters on Dec. 15 found
Jones’ empty vehicle in a
canyon near Condon. The
subsequent search involved
more than a dozen sheriﬀ ’s
oﬃ ces, search and rescue
teams, other agencies and
volunteers.
Do you have a community event in Grant County
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national parks,” Lamfrom said.
In addition to ensuring people can
access the parks while making sure
they’re adequately protected in the face
of heavy attendance, he said he’d like
to see the agency engage with groups
who aren’t ﬂ ocking to park service
units and make them more welcoming
for all.
“The demographics tell us that that
ﬂ ocking is not consistent across all
communities,” Lamfrom added. “So
there’s attention and care that needs
to be put into ensuring that commu-
nities who have felt disengaged from
the parks, or have never felt engaged
with the parks, can connect and feel
welcome.”
Regardless, he said, Sams is “abso-
lutely up for this” and is taking over at
an important and potentially “transfor-
mational” moment.
In the press release, Sams said he is
honored to serve and “incredibly proud
to work with the dedicated employees
of the National Park Service.”
“I have no doubt that together, we’ll
be able to expand access to the out-
doors, protect America’s public lands,
and upgrade our nation’s infrastructure
system,” he said.
Organizations such as the National
Congress of American Indians and
other tribal leaders have been pressur-
ing the park service to improve tribal
consultation, improve access to his-
toric and culturally signiﬁ cant sites or
better protect them and include Indig-
enous history and culture as part of
each park’s experience.
Brigham, who has years of expe-
rience working with Sams from his
time as an administrator with the
tribes, said he has the knowledge and
experience to do just that.
“Chuck knows why the land is
important to the tribe; we have been
taught the need to take care of the
land, so the land can take care of us
… he knows the importance of fam-
ily connecting to the land, tradition-
ally, culturally, and in taking care of
the land,” she said. “Those are things
we don’t have to educate him on, as
we have had to try and educate other
people.”
For his part, Sams has said engag-
ing with Indian Country is a top goal,
whether that’s through improved con-
sultation with tribal nations or incor-
porating traditional Indigenous eco-
logical knowledge into agency
management decisions or incorporat-
ing Indigenous history and culture into
park experiences.
“As the Park Service’s ﬁ rst Native
American director, Chuck is well-posi-
tioned to balance recreational uses and
stewardship with our tribal nations’
needs to maintain our traditional and
ancestral ties to these lands,” NCAI
President Fawn Sharp said after Sams
was nominated in August.
At the same time, Brigham said
she and other tribal leaders are eager
to help if he asks for it.
“We’re willing to help, because it
is going to be a huge task,” she said.
“We know it’s not gonna happen
overnight.”
Utah bikes found in John Day
By BENNETT HALL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — A Grant
County man has been arrested
in connection with the theft of
multiple expensive bicycles in
Utah.
Acting on a tip, Grant
County sheriﬀ ’s deputies con-
verged on a John Day rental
property at 2:45 p.m. on Tues-
day, Dec. 14, and took one of
the residents into custody.
Jacob Dolecki, 27, of Orton-
ville, Michigan, was arrested on
a charge of theft by receiving.
The investigation remains
active, according to Sheriﬀ
Todd McKinley.
Inside the man’s house, dep-
uties reportedly recovered four
bicycles valued at $20,000.
“They were very high-end,
carbon ﬁ ber mountain bikes,”
the sheriﬀ said.
According to McKin-
ley, the bicycles found in the
house were among 15 high-end
mountain bikes stolen in Octo-
ber as part of a single incident
in Moab, Utah, a mecca for
mountain biking enthusiasts.
The Grant County Sher-
iﬀ ’s Oﬃ ce was brought into
the case after the owner of
one of the missing bikes spot-
ted his ride in a “For Sale” post
on Facebook that originated in
John Day.
The post included a picture
of the bike taken in the sus-
pect’s backyard. When he saw
the photo, McKinley realized
he had been there before.
“We got a tip called into the
oﬃ ce,” McKinley said.
“Staﬀ showed me a picture
and I said, ‘Yep, I recognize
that yard.’”
Authorities are still trying to
track down the other 11 stolen
bikes.
Saint Elizabeth Catholic Church-John Day
Saint Anne Mission-Monument
Christmas Mass Schedule
December 24th,5.00pm Christmas Eve Mass
December 25th, 9.00am Christmas Day Mass
December 25th, 12.30pm Christmas Day Mass
at St. Anne Mission, Monument.
New Year Mass Schedule
December 31st 5.00pm New Year Eve Mass
January 1st 9.00am New Year Mass
January 1st 12.30pm New Year Mass
at St. Anne Mission, Monument.
S273969-1
Anthony Lakes
Open Daily
December 18
to January 2
Ski with Santa on Christmas Eve
Merry
Christmas
(close at 1pm on Christmas Eve,
enjoy $5 off lift tickets)
Closed Christmas Day
S274528-1
From the Staff and Management at
Malheur Lumber Company
www.anthonylakes.com
S273653-1