GO! EASTERN OREGON MAGAZINE | INSIDE
THINK PINK! | PAGE A11
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
154th Year • No. 41 • 18 Pages • $1.50
Cashing out
MyEagleNews.com
Tony Chiotti/Blue Mountain Eagle
After being closed on Fridays since June,
county offi ces in the Grant County Court-
house are now open fi ve days a week.
Grant County
workers back
to full time
By TONY CHIOTTI
Blue Mountain Eagle
“I still got grandkids in high school and
they’re playing sports,” he said. “I defi -
nitely want to go see them. They’re juniors,
so I only have a couple years left.”
Along with seeing more of his grand-
children, Boyer is also anxious to see where
life will take him following 42 years of run-
ning Boyer’s Cash Store.
“I’m kind of curious to see what my next
chapter in life will be,” he said. “Some-
thing besides retail. It’ll be fun; we’ll just
see where it leads.”
Another factor that played into Boyer’s
decision to sell: His son declined to take
over the store and and decided to get into
the fi rearm business instead.
“I really wasn’t planning on selling
it,” Boyer said. “I thought my son was
going to take it over. He’d worked with
me for 20 years and he said, ‘You know,
Dad, I don’t want to do that.’ So he is part
of a gun shop. He is doing something he
really wants to do.”
CANYON CITY — The Grant County
Court voted on Wednesday, Oct. 5, to rescind
a previous resolution that had decreased hours
for 17 staff ers.
Resolution 22-19 took eff ect July 1, end-
ing an impasse and allowing the passage of the
budget for the current fi scal year. The result
was a drop in hours for full-time employees
from 40 to 32 per week in all departments but
the sheriff ’s offi ce, the road department and
the fairgrounds.
One eff ect was the closing of county offi ces
in the courthouse on Fridays. By rescinding
Resolution 22-19, the hours can immediately
be restored, although through a message to all
departments following the meeting, Commis-
sioner Jim Hamsher clarifi ed that it might be a
rolling start. Departments were given discre-
tion as to whether they should open on Friday,
Oct. 7, because staff might have plans based
on the reduced schedule, and, in fact, most
county offi ces remained closed to the pub-
lic on Friday morning. All departments were
expected to be back at the full 40 hours start-
ing the week of Oct. 10.
The vote was 2–0, with County Judge
Scott Myers not in attendance. Commission-
ers Sam Palmer and Jim Hamsher both fol-
lowed the vote by expressing their gratitude
to the county staff .
“They could have probably jumped ship
and went to work other places and receive
even more money,” said Hamsher, directly
addressing the county employees in the
room. “The thing we need to remember too
is that, yeah, their hours were reduced, but
their workload really wasn’t reduced. So
they were having to … really bust their butts
to get all this work done and still serve the
public. So I would like to thank them at this
time, and I’m glad we can get you guys back
to work.”
The money to pay for the restored hours
will come from the recently announced fed-
eral Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency
Fund, part of the fi rst COVID relief act, which
will make available a total of $4.36 million in
aid to Grant County over two years. Hamsher
noted that the money comes with relatively
few strings attached to how it can be spent,
even allowing it to be socked away to guard
against future budgetary shocks.
See Store, Page A18
See Hours, Page A18
Justin Davis/Blue Mountain Eagle
Jerry Boyer stands behind the service counter at Boyer’s Cash Store in Monument on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022. After three generations of family
ownership, the store is up for sale.
After 95 years in business,
Monument’s only store is up for sale
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
oyer’s Cash Store has been a con-
stant in Monument since 1927.
But now, after three generations of
Boyers have stood behind the till,
the business is up for sale.
The store was started by current owner
Jerry Boyer’s grandfather, J. Dempsey Boyer,
before being passed down to Jerry’s father,
John Stanley Boyer, and eventually to Jerry.
Hanging on the walls are pictures of the
establishment’s previous owners as well as
photographs of the store from the 1930s and
‘40s. The business was originally named the
Red and White Store and was part of a national
association of independent grocery stores that
carried Red and White-brand products. Some
small independent grocers still use the Red and
White Store name today, according to Boyer.
“I think Boyer’s Cash Store was hope-
ful thinking on (J. Dempsey’s) part that peo-
ple would pay cash,” Boyer said of the name
change, “because back then people would only
B
Justin Davis/Blue Mountain Eagle
The only store in Monument, Boyer’s has
been a fi xture in the Grant County communi-
ty since 1927.
pay when their crops came in, so there was a
lot more credit at that time.”
Today Boyer’s, the only store in Monu-
ment, carries a little bit of everything, from
canned foods and dry goods to snacks, cold
beer and soda, a small selection of hardware
and electronics, a liquor aisle, gas pumps and
an ATM. The decision to sell the business
coincides with Jerry Boyer’s desire to retire
and “chase grandkids.”
State seeks climate change feedback
By DAKOTA CASTETS-DIDIER
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — The state of Ore-
gon wants to know what Eastern Ore-
gonians are experiencing in regards to
climate change.
The state Department of Land Con-
servation and Development is hosting
six three-hour interactive workshops
throughout October — including
one this week in John Day — to bet-
ter understand the tangible eff ects of
climate change on Eastern Oregon
residents.
Christine Shirley is the DLCD cli-
mate change resilience coordinator
and an organizer of the workshops.
She said the workshops stem from the
climate change adaptation framework
the department published in January
2021.
“One of the outcomes of that
framework was that we needed more
information about local eff ects of cli-
mate change on people,” she said.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
East Oregonian, File
A motorcyclist rides along Airport Road in Pendleton on June 24, 2021, as heat
waves shine across the surface.
“We have information on waterfall
and rainfall, scientifi c data that’s eas-
ily collected, but we don’t have a lot of
information on people.”
The DLCD brainstormed several
climate change adaptations and initia-
tives, Shirley explained, but realized
it lacked a method to analyze how
these projects would aff ect people and
an economy that climate change ever
increasingly disrupts. By focusing
on individual communities through
workshops, Shirley said the depart-
ment hopes to build a more detailed
understanding of how climate change
is changing life in Eastern Oregon.
“We want to start with steady
warming, we know it’s an issue that
See Climate, Page A18
The Department of Land Conservation
and Development wants to locals to
report how climate change aff ects
them. The department is holding the
following series of free, public, interac-
tive workshops across Eastern Oregon
to hear from residents:
Burns
Oct. 13, 4:30-7:30 p.m. at the Harney
County Community Center
John Day
Oct. 14, 1-4 p.m. at the Grant County
Regional Airport
Madras
Oct. 15, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Madras
Aquatic Center
Baker City
Oct. 24, 4-7 p.m. at Churchill School
Ontario
Oct. 25, 6-9 p.m. at the Four Rivers
Cultural Center
Pendleton
Oct. 26, 4-7 p.m. at the Pendleton
Armory, 2100 N.W. 56th Drive