NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
A7
Blockbusters a boon for Eltrym
By IAN CRAWFORD
Baker City Herald
East Oregonian, File
Dancers fi ll the venue during the grand entry of the 25th Wild-
horse Pow Wow on July 7, 2019.
Wildhorse Pow Wow returns
East Oregonian
MISSION — Following a
two-year absence, the Wild-
horse Pow Wow returns June
30, marking the event’s 26th
anniversary.
The gathering of Ameri-
can Indian dancers and drum-
mers takes place at Wildhorse
Resort & Casino on the Uma-
tilla Indian Reservation near
Pendleton.
“Pow wows are a celebra-
tion of cultural and spiritual
traditions by Native Ameri-
cans and First Nations peo-
ple through drumming, sing-
ing, dancing and competition,”
according to the announcement
from Wildhorse. “The popu-
lar gathering attracts dancers
and drummers from across the
U.S. and Canada to celebrate
their indigenous heritage. Pow
Wows also provide an oppor-
tunity to pass traditions on to
youth.”
The Wildhorse Pow Wow
welcomes individuals of any
heritage to observe and enjoy
the activities.
More than $90,000 in cash
and prizes are available to out-
standing dancers and drummers
in a variety of categories. Danc-
ers will compete in Traditional,
Fancy, Golden Age, Grass,
Chicken, Jingle and more. Spe-
cial dances include Elder, Cow-
girl and War Bonnet. Drum-
mers compete in Hand Drum
and Contest Drums.
The event kicks off with Pow
Wow Comedy on Thursday,
June 30, at 7 p.m., in the Rivers
Event Center at Wildhorse. The
show opens with Mark Yaff ee,
founder and co-star of the Pow
Wow Comedy Jam; headlin-
ing is Tonia Jo Hall, known for
her hilarious alter ego, “Auntie
Beachress.”
The fi rst Grand Entry for the
Pow Wow starts Friday, July 1,
at 7 p.m. at the outdoor arena.
Drumming and dancing con-
tinue daily through the after-
noon of July 3. The full event
schedule is online at wild-
horseresort.com.
Host Drum for the pow wow
is “Southern Style” of Monte-
zuma Creek, Utah. Emcees are
Jerry Meninick, Fred Hill and
Thomas Morning Owl.
The Wildhorse Pow Wow
features traditional foods, hand-
crafted Native American items
and other merchandise avail-
able from visiting vendors and
artists, including fry bread.
The outdoor arena is north-
east of the Tower Hotel at Wild-
horse Resort & Casino. Park-
ing is east of the arena. The pow
wow and comedy show are free
to the public.
BAKER CITY — Fighter planes,
dinosaurs and a space ranger have helped
bring the Eltrym Theater out of the pan-
demic doldrums.
A trio of recently released blockbust-
ers — “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Jurassic
World: Dominion” and “Lightyear” —
have attracted big audiences to Baker
City’s historic movie house over the past
month.
“We’ve been having our busiest June
since 2004,” said Terry McQuisten, who
with her husband, Dan, owns the Eltrym.
“We were hoping to get to 80% of our
sales projections, but we’re far over that
for the month of June. It’s been really
uplifting for everybody.”
“Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel
to the 1986 Tom Cruise fi lm, has been
a boon for the theater industry nation-
wide, bringing in more than $900 mil-
lion worldwide.
The movie, which opened May 27,
remains in the rotation at the Eltrym
almost a month later.
“We’ve been so busy with ‘Top Gun,’
which we knew was going to be big but
at the same time got pushed off three
or four years,” McQuisten said. “ ‘Top
Gun’ is kind of diff erent because it’s
a throwback, it brought a lot of varied
and diff erent people to the same space
together, it brought back that escapism.”
The fi lm was originally scheduled to
be released in the summer of 2020.
It was one of several major mov-
ies postponed due to the pandemic. The
lack of new releases, combined with
extended closures of theaters and occu-
pancy limits even when they reopened,
devastated the industry.
The Eltrym was closed for much of
2020, and it had to limit the number of
patrons for a few months after reopening
in March 2021.
McQuisten said in July 2021 that the
theater’s reveue had dropped 94% during
the pandemic.
That made the Eltrym eligible for a fed-
eral grant.
McQuisten also submitted written tes-
timony in support of a bill in the Oregon
Legislature that would have off ered grants
to theaters. That bill didn’t pass, however.
In her letter to the Legislature, McQuis-
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
The Eltrym Theater’s marquee on June 24, 2022, showed the three blockbusters that
have made this the busiest June for the historic theater since 2004.
Ian Crawford/Baker City Herald
Eltrym Theater owner Terri McQuisten is
considering expanding the mural on her
building, shown June 13, 2022. Current-
ly this wall is occupied only by “Movie
Mouse,” who has resided there for over
a decade.
ten wrote: “We are determined to survive
this pandemic. It has been a year, though,
and we are now beginning to make pay-
ments on (loans). In eff ect, we’ve taken
out loans to pay loans. All the while, we’ve
been doing our best to adapt to provide a
safe environment for our guests by invest-
ing in air scrubbers for our HVAC and
devoting more staff time to cleaning.”
A little more than a year later, buoyed
by the blockbusters and the prospect of
more to come, McQuisten is seeing the
industry turn from diving to thriving, even
with competition from online streaming
services.
“I’ve always had confi dence in the
industry, we saw what happened with
streaming and it never really hurt us,”
McQuisten said. “What people get out of
the theater is getting out of the house and
getting an experience.”
McQuisten said she was concerned
about whether the movie industry, after
shifting to streaming services during the
fi rst stage of the pandemic, would return to
a more traditional release schedule.
“What I didn’t have confi dence in is
what the movie studios would do with
their streaming, like Disney+,” she said.
McQuisten’s business isn’t immune to
infl ation, but thanks to the grant and to the
recent infl ux of moviegoers, she hasn’t had
to raise ticket prices.
“We haven’t changed prices since
before the pandemic,” she said, although
she noted that supply chain issues have
been a problem.
“It has me chasing down popcorn bags
online, they’re actually pretty diffi cult to
fi nd,” she said.
McQuisten said her next move might
involve lending space for public art.
She’d like to have custom posters
installed in the showcase displays on the
south side of the building, and she’s also
interested in having a mural painted by a
local artist.
The art would likely complement the
Banksy “Movie Mouse” anonymously
stenciled on the alley wall on the west side
of the Eltrym 13 years ago.
Nonpartisan survey shows Oregonians back gun control
By GARRETT ANDREWS
The Bulletin
BEND — A majority of
Oregonians support stricter
gun laws, according to a new
poll by the Oregon Values and
Beliefs Center.
The nonpartisan inde-
pendent research group on
Thursday, June 23, released
data reporting 59% of survey
respondents say they believe
the state’s fi rearms laws should
be stricter, which is in line with
an April 2021 Pew Research
poll fi nding 60% of Americans
want stricter gun laws.
The beliefs center sur-
veyed 1,446 Oregon adults
between June 2 and 11 about
gun regulations.
Last month, an 18-year-old
man in Uvalde, Texas, used an
AR-15-style rifl e he purchased
legally to kill 19 children and
two adults and injure 17 others
in an attack on an elementary
school. But with that tragedy
so fresh, open-ended questions
about guns were not asked
during the survey because it
was felt the answers would
be unproductive, according to
an email from Amaury Vogel,
associate executive director of
the Oregon Values and Beliefs
Center.
Among the groups most
likely to want stricter gun laws
are urbanites, women, college
graduates, people 75 or older
and people with household
incomes above $100,000 per
year.
Slightly more than half of
respondents, or 54%, believe
making it harder for people to
obtain fi rearms would result in
fewer mass shootings.
The survey found that
nearly half of gun owners,
46%, think fi rearms laws
should be stricter in the U.S.,
and 43% believe there would
be fewer mass shootings if
it was harder for people to
legally obtain guns.
Women are more likely
than men to want stricter gun
laws, and also less likely to
own a gun.
In Oregon, women are also
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**SHOWTIMES SUBJECT TO CHANGE. VISIT
OUR WEBSITE OR CALL AHEAD TO VERIFY**
www.eltrym.com
(541) 523-2522
Blue Mountain Eagle
Office Closure
Our office will be CLOSED
Monday, July 4th in observance of
Independence Day.
Early Deadline for the July 6th issue:
Thursday, June 30 th before 3:00 p.m.
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background checks. She said
she’s long held those beliefs,
but she’s watched her hus-
band, a military veteran, soften
his pro-gun stance in recent
years in response to mass
shootings.
“Ever since the shooting in
Springfi eld and the shootings
out East, we’ve just watched
it get worse and worse,” Min-
ney said, referring to the
1998 Thurston High School
shooting.
The survey found 90% of
respondents who identify as
Democrats believe gun laws
should be stricter, while only
24% of those who identify as
Republicans feel the same.
The results suggest Oregon is
slightly more polarized on this
issue than the national aver-
age. The April, 2021, Pew
poll found that 81% of Demo-
crats and 20% of Republicans
favored more strict federal gun
laws.
Grant County Committee Volunteers Needed
Applications are Due by WEDNESDAY, July 6th, 2022
JULY 1-7
Monday - Thursday
7am-
6pm
Monday
- Thursday
7am-
6pm
Friday
8am
- 5pm
Friday Sharpe
8am - 5pm
Mendy
FNP
less likely than men to own a
gun, 25% compared to 41%.
This is again in line with the
national level: a June 2021
Pew poll found that 22% of
women and 39% of men own
guns.
Deschutes County resident
Pat Minney was among the
survey respondents. She told
The Bulletin there are “way
too many guns” and would
like to see a ban on military
style weapons and stronger
Obtain a volunteer application from the County Court, 201 S. Humbolt, No. 280,
Canyon City, OR 97820, online at Committee Volunteer Application
or contact (541-575-0059) GCCourtAdmin@grantcounty-or.gov.
Committees are formal public bodies required to comply with
Oregon Public Meetings Law ORS 192.610.
Airport Commission (ORS 836.616)
Five commissioners plus a County Court representative serve two year terms, meeting
monthly. The commission acts as governing body for the Grant County Regional Airport.
Applicants must be full time, bona fide residents of the county and be aircraft owners or
pilots, or individuals with demonstrated interest in and knowledge of aviation matters.
College Advisory Board
Seven members plus three ex-officio members serve three year terms and meet month-
ly to promote local educational opportunities and identify educational needs within the
community.
Extension & 4-H Service District Advisory Council
Eleven members serve three year terms, meeting semi-annually to provide guidance and
assistance to local OSU Extension staff in planning, developing, and evaluating balanced
educational programs directed to high priority needs of county residents.
Library Advisory Board (ORS 357.465)
Seven members serve four year terms, meeting monthly to promote public awareness
and support of library services, receive public input, review and update library materials,
and coordinate activities with the Grant County Library Foundation.
Natural Resources Advisory Committee
Nine members serve one and two year terms. Members must live in Grant County and
constitute a representation of agriculture and livestock production, timber and wood
products production, recreation, hunting and fishing, water resources, mining, cultural
resources and advocates for natural resources stewardship through continuation of the
customs, culture, health, safety and economic stability of Grant County.
Planning Commission (ORS 192.610)
Nine members serve four year terms; two alternates serve two year terms. Meetings
are held as needed to review land use and zoning applications, discuss city and county
growth issues and site new facilities. Members must reside in various geographic areas
within the county with no more than two voting members engaged in the same kind of
business, occupation, trade or profession with agriculture designations of livestock/for-
age or horticulture/specialty crop production.
Senior Citizens Advisory Council (ORS 410.210)
Five members serve three year terms and meet semi-annually to define the needs of
older adults, promote special interests and local community involvement, and represent
senior citizens as an advocate to the local, state and federal government and other or-
ganizations.
Southeast Area Commission on Transportation
Five members, plus one alternate, serve three year terms as Grant County representa-
tives. The alliance provides a forum for local government agencies and the private sec-
tor to discuss, understand and coordinate long range transportation issues affecting the
south east Oregon region including Grant, Harney and Malheur counties. The alliance
acts as the Area Commission on Transportation. Daytime meetings are held monthly or
as needed, rotating among the three counties.
Wolf Depredation Advisory Committee (OAR 603-019-0015)
Five members include one County Commissioner, two who own or manage livestock
and two who support wolf conservation or coexistence. These members agree upon two
business representatives to serve as additional members. The committee oversees the
procedure established by Grant County for its Wolf Depredation Compensation Program.
The current vacancy is for a business representative.