NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
A9
Cross the Divide elk hunt protects hay, serves veterans
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA COUNTY — Once
again, Wallowa County has served as
a place wounded warriors can get out
in nature and heal — in particular, to
hunt big game.
On Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 17
and 18, a father and son from Salem
were taken to the Zumwalt Prairie,
where they each bagged a cow elk.
Frank Wasson, an Army infan-
try veteran of the 101st Airborne,
brought his 15-year-old son, Jack-
son, to take part in a hunt led by Andy
Marcum, outdoor director and chief
hunting guide for Cross the Divide.
The ministry
Cross the Divide transitioned Dec.
31 from the longtime veterans-sup-
port organization Divide Camp into a
similar one that has a stronger focus
on the Gospel message, its executive
director, Emile “Mo” Moured, wrote.
“The cross (in the name) reminds
of Jesus — our Creator, our Savior,
the Author and Finisher of our faith
and the only One who can provide
true power for real inner change,” he
wrote in a newsletter announcing the
change late last year.
He emphasized that the change
was just a subtle one from the direc-
tion Divide Camp Director Julie
Wheeler had for her organization.
“Julie’s deepest conviction
has been that Divide Camp focus
more and more on God in its ongo-
ing future growth,” Moured said.
“My goals and desire are absolutely
aligned with hers.”
That’s what Frank Wasson felt in
the experience.
“It’s a great opportunity to get out
in Wallowa County,” he said. “Espe-
cially when you’re able to bring your
son and experience it. We’re pretty
fortunate to meet people like Andy
and the new director (Moured), and
the community is pretty involved.
It’s a pretty unique opportunity.
We’re blessed to be here.”
The injury
Wasson served in the Army from
2003-13, and deployed for 15 months
to Iraq followed by six months to
Afghanistan.
It was the latter deployment
that proved most fateful in a night
ambush by the Taliban.
“I took a rocket-propelled gre-
nade through my leg,” he said.
Frank Wasson/Contributed Photo
Andy Marcum, a hunting guide for Cross the Divide, left, and Jackson Wasson scout an elk herd on the Zumwalt Prairie
early Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022.
Andy Marcum/Contributed Photo
Frank Wasson and son Jackson Wasson show off the cow elk Jackson shot
Monday evening, Oct. 17, 2022, on the Zumwalt Prairie.
He lost his left leg below the knee,
but added that if he was going to lose
a limb, what he lost was minimal.
“It was just a paper cut,” Wasson
said.
Jackson doesn’t remember his
father prior to the injury.
But one thing he’s sure of: it
doesn’t seem to be a handicap, cer-
tainly while hunting.
“Nothing slows him down,” the
youth said. “Not at all.”
Frank has a prosthetic limb and
only a barely perceptible limp.
The hunt
As he’s done many times, Mar-
cum scouted ahead so he’d know
where best to take his veteran
charges. He works with the Ore-
gon Department of Fish and Wild-
life and with local landowners, many
of whom are farmers with crops the
elk raid.
Marcum said the elk, which have
a taste for alfalfa, are prone to gob-
bling up the crops that are just now
undergoing their last harvest of the
year.
“That’s why we do what we do
where we do it because I work with
various landowners in the county
and try to schedule hunts and give
people good opportunities to harvest
an elk while at the same time help-
ing landowners keep the elk out of
their alfalfa fi elds,” Marcum said.
He said the ODFW a couple of
years ago created the antlerless dam-
age tags any hunter can buy over the
counter and use from Aug. 1 to Nov.
30 in areas deemed prone to wildlife
depredation on crops.
“It’s a general season, antler-
less damage season in these areas
where the elk are harming our farm-
ers’ crops — mainly alfalfa,” Mar-
cum said.
He said the state created such
damage areas in 19 units statewide.
“In Wallowa County, it’s from
Little Sheep Hill up around Fer-
gie to the Forest Service boundary.
That’s our southern and western
boundary all the way to Minam. It
follows Whiskey Creek and comes
in on Leap. It goes through several
units,” he said.
Wasson was appreciative of Mar-
cum’s prehunt eff orts.
“Andy had a couple places
scouted. We drove out there and
took the side-by-side to the end of
the road, jumped out and started
walking up the ridge,” he said.
“There was a spot Andy wanted to
get to we could sit and watch. We
didn’t even make it halfway there. It
only took 30-45 minutes.”
That was the morning hunt on
which Frank Wasson scored.
Jackson’s hunt had taken a little
longer — but not much — the previ-
ous evening.
“Both of them were pretty
quick,” Marcum said. “Last night,
we walked probably about a mile
and we got the wind right and
worked our way around. We glassed
them from a few miles away from
the west and they were way up on
a ridge to the east. We drove the
side-by-side up around the ridge,
walked about a mile to get the wind
right and snuck down over the top of
them. Last night, it was an hour and
a half maybe.
“Then this morning, I had been
watching this group in the evenings
coming out of a draw headed to the
alfalfa so I fi gured they’d be going
back to the same spot this morning.
We went up this draw to try to get
in front of them and like Frank said,
we didn’t even make it to where I
wanted to get to and they started
coming over the hill. So we laid
down and Frank made a great shot.”
Frank Wasson has hunted with
Marcum before. A couple of years
ago he and his elder son, who is now
19, went on a hunt. Frank also has
a 5-year-old daughter he hopes will
want to hunt when she’s old enough.
But this was Jackson’s fi rst elk,
though he’s taken deer before.
“I was so nervous,” Jackson said
of his reaction to dropping the ani-
mal. “It’s such a big animal, com-
pared to the deer. It was just so big.
It felt good to know that it was down
and I could just walk over and see it
fi nally.”
Marcum said that not only does
the experience help veterans, it helps
the local landowners whose crops the
elk feast upon.
“As I always say, without the sup-
port and the access the landowners
give us, we obviously wouldn’t be
able to do what we do,” he said. “We
really appreciate the landowners’
willingness to let us on (their land).
We’re helping them, too, because
they’re at the tail end of the year with
their farming and getting their crops
in, so we’re trying to help keep those
elk out of there, out of the alfalfa
fi elds, also.”
Grant Union
Volleyball Team
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