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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 16, 2020)
NEWS A10 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2020 Hermiston woman donates 142 quilts By JADE MCDOWELL NEWS EDITOR Bonnie Engle has given the gift of warmth to a lot of people over her 22 years in Hermiston. Engle, a 90-year-old res- ident of Desert Sage Manor, makes dozens of quilts each year for donation to local nonprofits. “A conservative guess for her, personally, would be she’s made about 2,000 quilts, and given them all away,” said Darleen Nel- son, manager of Desert Sage Manor. This year Engle, with help from Nelson and another resident, donated 142 handmade quilts to the Hermiston Police Depart- ment’s Christmas Express to give to families in need for Christmas. They also donated about 60 more earlier in the year to Made to Thrive and Uma- tilla Morrow County Head Start, and residents of Des- ert Sage made and gave away more than 9,000 cloth masks this year. Engle said she makes quilts in a variety of pat- terns, colors and sizes depending on what cloth is donated by community Darleen Nelson/Contributed Photo Bonnie Engle stands by some of the quilts she made for the Hermiston Police Department’s Christmas Express. members or picked up on clearance sales. “We make baby ones all the way up to twin size,” she said. Over the years, some people who have received a quilt have sent thank you notes, and one year the police department presented Engle with a plaque thank- ing her for her service to Christmas Express over the years. She said she first started quilting after she retired from the restaurant industry. She moved into Desert Sage Manor in 1999 and decided to start donating her work then. Desert Sage Manor is part of the Retirement Hous- ing Foundation, a faith- based housing organiza- tion for low-income seniors and people with disabili- Darleen Nelson/Contributed Photo Bonnie Engle shows off a quilt she made for Hermiston Police Department’s Christmas Express. ties. Nelson said Engle isn’t “great at bragging about her- self,” but she wanted people to know how much she has put out into the community this year and in the past. “She’s worked super hard,” Nelson said. ODA pulls back state hemp plan as Congress extends deadline By GEORGE PLAVEN CAPITAL PRESS The Oregon Department of Agriculture has with- drawn the updated state hemp plan it submitted to USDA in August after Con- gress voted to delay imple- mentation of new produc- tion rules through Sept. 30, 2021. That means ODA will continue regulating hemp growers under the current pilot program established in the 2014 Farm Bill for at least another year. Sunny Summers, Ore- gon’s cannabis policy coor- dinator, said the move allows extra time to ensure compliance with USDA requirements. “All in all, I think it ben- efits the industry to wait and see if we can smooth out some of those bumps along the road,” Summers said. USDA issued its interim final rule for hemp produc- tion on Oct. 31, 2019, giv- ing states one year to sub- mit plans for approval before the law went into effect. But Summers said they were struggling to meet the original deadline. For example, hemp growers applying for a license cannot have any felony convictions on their records, though ODA does not have the statutory authority to conduct back- ground checks. Bills to fix the situation in the Oregon Legislature failed after the last two sessions ended in Republican walkouts. “We decided to pull back our planned submis- sion from USDA and wait,” Summers said. “We just wanted to take advantage of that opportunity.” Hemp industry mem- bers were also concerned about the deadline, primar- ily because it would change regulations in the middle of harvest season. “We don’t want our farmers interrupted in the middle of harvest,” said Courtney Moran, presi- dent of the Oregon Indus- trial Hemp Farmers Asso- ciation, in a previous interview. “These people have worked so hard. They have invested a significant amount of capital. To have regulatory overreach in this commodity ... it breeds a lot of concern, and a lot of confusion.” Ultimately, Congress pushed back implemen- tation of the interim final hemp rule in October as part of a continuing resolu- tion to fund the federal gov- ernment through Dec. 11. On Dec. 2, ODA announced it would with- draw its updated plan. Sum- mers said the withdrawal will not change Oregon’s requirements for testing total THC versus Delta-9 THC. By rule, hemp cannot have more than 0.3% THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the compound in marijuana that gets users high. Oregon previously tested simply for levels of Delta-9 THC, which is the intoxicating form of the compound. However, there is another component in standing hemp plants known as tetrahydrocan- nabinolic acid, or THC- A, that converts to Delta-9 THC when heated. In its interim final rule, USDA states it will test for total THC in hemp plants. In response, ODA announced in 2019 that it too would test for total THC in hemp. The change went into effect this year. “We are not changing that going into 2021,” Sum- mers said. “While it’s been hard on growers, that is the level that we’re anticipat- ing they’re going to have to meet. ... 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