A plan for a new park along the Powder River, between Valley Avenue and Washington Street, still is in the works, according to Jennifer Watkins, assistant city manager and project developer. Also the smaller park on Court Street between Main and Resort streets is in planning stages. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

Jennifer Watkins, assistant city manager, told members of the Rotary Club of Baker County Monday that nearly $9.5 million in federal and state grants, as well as donations from charitable groups, have all come together to allow the city to complete or break ground on several projects.

That $9.5 million includes money for a trio of projects that were done last summer, including the extension of D Street across the Powder River and improvements to the Dewey Avenue underpass.

This year the city’s focus is on connecting two sections of the Leo Adler Memorial Parkway, the pedestrian path along the Powder River, Watkins said.

She told the Rotarians that a groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled April 5 for the Parkway extension between Washington Avenue and Madison Street at Geiser-Pollman Park.

The Washington Avenue bridge over the Powder will be modified to better accommodate foot and bicycle traffic, Watkins said.

Laurie Wittich takes multi-tasking to new heights as she directs activities at the YMCA’s fitness center and pool.

This spring she’s spending Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons helping 31 eager young swimmers improve their skills. The group includes all ages and abilities, kindergarten to eighth grade.

“Last year we just decided that the YMCA wanted to introduce what it’s like to be on a swim team,” Wittich said during a recent practice while supervising her swimmers and fielding interview questions.

“If you didn’t take a shower, take a shower,” she booms with a voice that easily carries to the far end of the pool. “Then get your equipment and slide into your lane.”

To qualify for the mini swim team, participants must demonstrate their ability to swim one length of the pool.

“That’s 25 yards whatever way they need to do it,” she said.

And there is a $25 fee for members and $50 fee for nonmembers. Otherwise participants need only arrive in a swimsuit carrying a pair of goggles. Many also choose to wear swim caps to protect their hair from the chlorine content of the pool water and to keep it out of their faces.

When Eileen Monti opened her e-mail to discover a contest with a fast-approaching deadline one day last fall, she sat down and pounded out the 100-word essay required to enter.

“I wrote the essay 15 minutes before lunch,” she says. “One of those times when you throw something together and hope.”

Her hopes were realized earlier this month when the Pine-Eagle School District at Halfway was notified that it had won $50,000 in equipment and software as a first-prize winner in the contest.

Monti, who lives just across the street from the school, is the district’s technology coordinator.

Pine-Eagle was one of 21 schools named as finalists in the nationwide competition. Thirteen were awarded the $50,000 first-place prizes and five schools will receive second-place prizes of $10,000.

Three schools will continue to compete for the $210,000 grand prize to be announced March 31 in New York City. The two that are not named grand-prize winners also will receive first-place awards.

That’s Brian Siefkes, a 1997 Baker High School graduate and the son of Sig and Cathy Siefkes of Baker City.

He attended the film’s premiere in New York City last week.

“That’s pretty weird, to see yourself on the big screen,” he said.

Siefkes, 30, lives in Beaverton where he works in marketing for the software company Axium.

He served with the U.S. Army from 1999 to 2003, and in that last year of service he was part of a mobile exploitation team in Iraq.

“Our task was to conduct a search for chemical weapons,” he said.

He was there for about six months, then returned to the U.S. and was honorably discharged two months later and enrolled at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

Five years later, in 2007, he was sitting at his desk when he answered a call from Michael Bronner, co-producer of “Green Zone.”

He asked if Siefkes would be a consultant for the film.

“Of course I said yes,” Siefkes said.

ENTERPRISE — Rumors are running rampant in Wallowa County about the identity of the mother of the newborn baby found dead near Minam State Park Monday, but officials are remaining mum.

Wallowa County Sheriff Fred Steen said that he can neither confirm nor deny a rumor that the mother is a 21- year-old woman who lives in La Grande but has ties to Wallowa County.

The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest will begin spring prescribed burning as snow melts and warmer, drier weather arrives.

Forest workers light prescribed fires to accomplish a variety of goals, including:

• Reduce dead and down fuels

• Selectively thin understory trees in dense forest stands

• Stimulate fire-resistant plant species

• Enhance forage and browse

• Reduce the risk of large stand-replacement fires

• Restore fire, under controlled conditions, to areas where natural fires happened often in centuries past

Prescribed burns can range from a few acres to several hundred acres.

In most areas, prescribed burning is the last of a series of treatments that include logging and cutting of trees too small to be sold to mills.

A 19-year-old man is in custody today on a nationwide warrant charging him with statutory rape in North Carolina after Baker High School officials became suspicious when he attempted to register for classes.

Baker City Police arrested Brenton Lynch of Spring Lake, N.C., at 2:30 p.m. Thursday as he was walking at First and Madison streets, Sgt. Kirk McCormick said today.

A 19-year-old man is in custody today on a nationwide warrant charging him with statutory rape in North Carolina after Baker High School officials became suspicious when he attempted to register for classes.

Baker City Police arrested Brenton Lynch of Spring Lake, N.C., at 2:30 p.m. Thursday as he was walking at First and Madison streets, Sgt. Kirk McCormick said today.

The annual carnival of the Baker City Kiwanis Club happens from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday at South Baker Elementary, at Third and Grace streets.

This event is a fundraiser for the Kiwanis Club and K-Kids, a Kiwanis-sponsored service club for sixth-graders.

Jennifer Lint reviews information gathered during her research into health risks associated with pregnant women who smoke. She is a third-year medical student at OHSU. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

“One of the most staggering statistics I found was women who smoked during pregnancy,” she said.

Lint is a third-year medical student at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland, and this week she finishes her four-week rural rotation at Eastern Oregon Medical Associates in Baker City.

Part of that rotation is to design a project focused on the community.

In those health statistics she found that, in 2007, Baker County’s rate of pregnant smokers was 30 percent, as opposed to 12 percent for Oregon. The county figure is a little lower for 2009 — 25 percent according to the DHS Tobacco Fact Sheet — but Lint still saw it as a huge public health issue.