baker City Herald file photo/ S. John Collins

“We’ve laid off 50 percent. We are down drastically,” said Clint Morrison, Behlen plant manager.

Prior to the layoffs that have taken place gradually over the past six months, Morrison said the plant in Baker City employed just under 100 people.

“It’s the economic downturn. It has affected sales of all of our products,” Morrison said, adding that the company’s primary products built at the Baker City plant include gates, panels and chutes and other products for the livestock industry and residential and commercial metal fencing and railings.

Baker City company turning logging waste into firewood, and other viable options might include making landscaping mulch

From left, Lane Perry of Elkhorn Biomass in Baker City, Chuck Gambil of Forest Capital and Rick Wagner, biomass coordinator with the Oregon Department of Forestry, talked about the potential market for bundles of firewood split and wrapped at Elkhorn Biomass.

“We are seeing some of the lowest log prices we have seen in many years,” said Bob Parker, forestry agent with the Oregon State University Extension Service in Baker County.

As an example, Parker said 18-inch diameter ponderosa pine logs sold to Boise Cascade in La Grande this time last year brought $550 to $650 per 1,000 board-feet, depending on grade.

Today, similar logs are worth $300 to $350  per 1,000 board-feet — and buyers are scarce.

Gregg Miles says artificial insemination is cheaper, and can produce better calves

Gregg Miles of North Powder had a booth at Saturday’s Cattleman’s Workshop in La Grande, where he touted the benefits of artificial insemination for cattle breeding. (Baker City Herald/Ed Merriman)

The first benefit Miles mentioned to those who paused at the booth he and his father, Myron Miles, set up as two of the sponsors of the workshop is the ability to quickly improve herd genetics and the calf crop by impregnating cows with semen from top bulls costing as much as $100,000.

Most ranchers can’t afford to buy such bulls as herd sires.

Gregg Miles cited published research showing that AI, using top-rated bulls, costs about $40 to produce a calf, while the average cost using bulls that aren’t quite as highly rated ranges from $13 to $20 per calf.

Don Killingsworth was one of the speakers at Saturday’s Cattlemen’s Workshop in La Grande. (Baker City Herald/Ed Merriman)

“This workshop has grown every year, but this is by far the largest crowd we’ve ever had,” said Ron Rowan, an organizer of the Cattleman’s Workshop who works as the marketing manager at Beef Northwest Feeders headquartered in North Powder.

“I think we had 250 last year, and this year we had about 350,” Rowan said. “This workshop is gaining a reputation as one of the best. We have nationally recognized speakers, and people in the cattle business recognize they can come to La Grande and not have to go all over the country to hear these guys.

“People are seeing that they can come here and get value to take home to their ranches,” Rowan said.

Several speakers talked about the benefits of cross-breeding programs, including recommendations on what breeds of bulls and cows add the most value to calf crops.

Tom Brock, right, accepted the Man of the Year award from last year’s co-recipient, Gregg Hinrichsen, far left, and Debi Bainter of the Baker County Chamber of Commerce. (Baker City Herald/Ed Merriman)

“Not many in Baker County know of Tom and his amazing capacity to give. Tom is just a quiet volunteer; he is a silent volunteer,” said Ginger Savage of the Baker 5J School Board in a nominating letter.

She described Brock as “one of those volunteers that is working to keep kids out of the News of Record section of the newspaper” by helping keep kids off drugs and alcohol.

“Tom works with kids who do not go out for football, basketball or scouts,” she said. “Tom doesn’t give up on them and he gives them a reason to go to school.”

One of the things Tom does is helps kids build wheelchair ramps and do home improvement projects for low-income residents of Baker County through the Baker Middle School Builders Club he founded five years ago, according to a nominating letter from Shandra Lee.

Rising production costs hurt Baker County potato growers last year. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

Most of the county’s 2008 potato crop was grown under contracts paying growers $5.75 per hundredweight (cwt) delivered.

But after enduring rising costs for fuel, fertilizer, labor and other production costs last year, growers negotiated a higher contract price of $10.08 for their 2009 spud crop, said Cory Parsons, Oregon State University Extension agent for Baker County.

Parsons said potato contracts are negotiated nearly a year before potatoes are harvested, so growers know what they’ll receive before the crop is planted.

That provides farmers some security and avoids the uncertainty of selling on the open market.

Raising cattle, like these on the Forsea Ranch near Richland, is the topic of Saturday’s workshop. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

Ron Rowan, beef marketing manager for Beef Northwest feeders headquartered in North Powder, said the workshop has become one of the larger and more popular venues for renowned speakers to share their expertise in the cattle business.

This year will be another “must see” event if you are involved in the cattle business, Rowan said.

“We’re expecting more than 300 ranchers,” he said.

The theme for this year’s free workshop is “Opportunities in a Changing Beef Industry.”

Rowan expects ranchers from Northeastern Oregon and across the Pacific Northwest will attend Saturday to keep abreast of changes in the cattle industry.

Rowan said cattlemen will profit from the speakers’ expertise, and will have a unique chance to listen and interact with some of the industry’s well-known experts.

Tommy Beall, former director of market research for Cattle-Fax, will lead the discussion on cattle marketing trends and keys to success in the current economic climate. Beall helped create the “Cattlemen’s College” program that Cattle Fax has hosted for several decades.  He is a former executive at ContiBeef and owns a beef and cattle consulting firm in Colorado.

Store owners attribute strong sales numbers to several factors, including cooporation among merchants and shoppers choosing to stay close to home

The Christmas season proves to be fruitful for Audrey Hindman, owner of Aud’s and Ends beauty salon, with increased sales of products she offers at the Baker City shop. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

“We advertised a Christmas sale and we had a really good turnout,” said Shirley Hayes, a bookkeeper at D&B Supply. “We’re excited. We did better than we ever have.”

“I think with all the concerns about the economy, people were looking for bargains,” Hayes said. “We had a lot of merchandise discounted 20 percent and more, so it made it easy for people shopping for Christmas to get something nice, inexpensively.”

She said the arctic weather that arrived the second week of December helped make the Christmas sale such a big success that D&B sold out of some cold weather gear.

“The cold weather really brought people out,” Hayes said. “Before that, it was rather slow. After it snowed and got cold, sales picked up.”

Cold weather gear also flew off the racks at Flagstaff Sports and Kicks Sports Wear, both on Main Street.

 Ryan Chaves, an owner of Kicks Sports Wear, said Christmas sales were better than he expected.

He attributes this largely to residents shopping locally, partly out of a sense of community support fostered by the “Shop Local” campaign, and partly due to periodic closures of Interstate 84 and other roads.

Baker City Herald/John Collins

Schauer, member services manager for the Oregon Trail Electric Consumers Cooperative, hasn’t really made any recent television appearances — at least of the traditional variety.

But four spots — three in which he was a star — have found their way to the Web site YouTube and are posted on the OTEC Web site, www.otecc.com.

While Schauer is featured prominently — he’s the only human in a spot called “Cattle Fountain” — the real star might be a horse that belongs to Pat and John Leonard.

As Schauer is busy at the Leonards’ ranch telling his YouTube audience about an OTEC rebate program for helping them buy a product called the cattle fountain, which helps water livestock during the winter months without having to use electricity to  heat the trough, the Leonards’ horse is stealing the scene, sniffing something unseen in Schauer’s pocket.

What the audience doesn’t see, said Michael Howe, OTEC’s communication specialist, is the two takes that OTEC couldn’t use. In both of those takes, the horse tried to nibble Schauer’s ear.

Bob Butler has had mixed success renting his Main Street building

Bob Butler has had mixed success with renting space in his building on Main Street. (Baker City Herald/Kathy Orr)

Butler, who’s now 39, remembers Baker City as a magical place where log trucks shared the wide streets with cars and bicycles.

He was in awe of downtown’s tall buildings made of brick and of stone quarried at Pleasant Valley.

Butler recalls how the ranch hands wearing cowboy hats and boots, and loggers in their steel-toed boots and hacked off pants held up with suspenders seemed larger than life as they climbed in and out of the pickup trucks, shopped in downtown stores, ate in downtown restaurants and exchanged stories of their day felling logs, breaking horses and mending fences.