Andrew Bryan, a Baker City businessman and city councilor, has been named the county’s marketing director.

Bryan replaces Kari Whitacre, who resigned to take a new position with a community development organization in Corvallis.

Bryan began his duties Monday. He will be paid $42,000 per year.

To take the job, Bryan resigned from the board of directors for the Baker County Development Corp., a non-profit group that supervises the marketing director and channels transient room tax money to attract visitors to Baker County.

The remaining board members then hired Bryan, who’s also an education consultant.

Oregon has 18 electrical cooperatives, and a handful of public utility districts and city-owned utilities are scattered throughout Oregon and Washington. Many are eager to be partners with Baker City-based Oregon Trail Electric Consumers Cooperative, or OTEC.

Why?

Because the era of plentiful and cheap energy provided by the Bonneville Power Administration is coming to a close, and smaller utilities across the Northwest have decided it’s better to pool their risk if they must develop other sources of electricity — including renewables — themselves.

OTEC is a popular potential partner for other utilities, said the utility’s general manager, Werner Buehler, because it’s large and growing slowly.

Harvest Festival Saturday at Geiser-Pollman Park

Autumn is here, but Baker County gardens and farms are still bursting with vegetables and fruit.

“It was such an incredible bumper crop season,” said May Heriza, who has been busy preserving food and has sold produce all season at the Baker City Farmers Market.

This Saturday celebrates the season at the market’s Harvest Festival, with live music by Johnny Starr and a gourmet meal featuring local produce.

The market will be extended by one hour, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The location, as always, is in the northeast corner of Geiser-Pollman Park.

The menu will include roasted squash soup with garlic baguette and apple cider for $4; a side of Sexton Ranches lamb sausage for $1; caramel apples made with certified organic apples from Eagle Creek Orchards for $2.50; and pumpkin bread for $1.50.

Deli manager Oma Jane Davidson prepares a box of fried chicken.(Baker City Herald/Kathy Orr)

Little Susie refers to Susie Stout, whose family, including husband Doug Stout, and his parents Del and Ann Stout, recently purchased Reynolds Custom Meat Cutting in Baker City from Tim Reynolds.

“We purchased the meat business in May and have been doing a lot of cleaning up, fixing up and repairing equipment,” said Susie Stout.

The business is at 2970 H St.

While the core business remains focused on custom cutting and wrapping of USDA-inspected beef, pork and lamb, as well as custom processing of local ranch animals and wild game, Susie said hiring Oma Jane Davidson to manage the new deli proved to be a good move.

Davidson previously worked for the Stout family as deli manager at Wilson’s Market in the 1990s, and as manager of the bowling alley.