By ED MERRIMAN

Baker City Herald

Tyler Brown, left, owner of Barley Brown's Brew Pub, and brewmaster Shawn Kelso peruse the copy of Maxim magazine in which Barley's Tumble Off pale ale was picked as one of the top 25 new beers in America.

Barley Brown’s Brew Pub’s Tumble Off pale ale was picked as one of the 25 best new beers in America in the latest issue of Maxim magazine.

The six-page feature includes a map of the United States covered with labels from the 25 beers chosen by the magazine’s editors and staff.

“They wanted us to send along some of our logos. Luckily, we just got a brand new logo for our Tumble Off pale ale,” said Tyler Brown, who owns Barley Brown’s and crafted Tumble Off along with brewmaster Shawn Kelso.

The logo features a scenic illustration from Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort in the background, with a foreground drawing of Moose Stephens, a regular fixture for years at Anthony Lakes and Barley Brown’s, holding a pair of skis.

“It’s a cool logo,” Brown said.

By LISA BRITTON

Baker City Herald

The Baker City Farmers Market may look a little different this season as a result of the 2009 turnout for vendors.

In January, the board and vendors met and voted to drop the Saturday market, and instead have one market a week, on Wednesdays from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

The reason for dropping Saturday, says Ramon Lara, is that there just weren’t enough vendors signed up for the whole season.

“We weren’t getting the vendors to cover the cost of managing the market,” he said. “It wasn’t even close.”

However, that decision is up for discussion at the next board meeting, at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 17, at the Baker County Library, 2400 Resort St.

Though the agenda includes a few items, including vendor fees, “the big one is getting everybody to put in their two cents on Saturday market or no Saturday market,” Lara said.

Crossing guard duty each morning at Brooklyn Primary is in the hands of Rachael Nickens of Baker City.(Baker City Herald/S.John Collins)

Nickens is volunteering as a crossing guard to escort children across Washington Avenue at Ash Street.

It’s not that she has spare time on her hands that she doesn’t know how to fill.

Nickens works at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, but she’s rearranged her work day to fit in the crossing-guard duty.

She was prompted to volunteer after her son, Garrett, who’s a Brooklyn third-grader, was nearly hit by a teenage speeder traveling down Washington.

Like a mother hen protecting her chicks, Nickens was propelled to action.

She called the school.

She called the police.

She called the Brooklyn Parent-Teacher Organization and she met with the Baker County Traffic Safety Commission researching ways to protect her son and his Brooklyn schoolmates.

Nickens believes children and adults in the community need to be better educated about the 20-mph speed limit in school zones. Signs posted around the school inform drivers that the school-zone speed is in effect from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. when classes are in session.

On her first day of crossing-guard duty, Nickens said a driver actually drove around her while she was crossing with children.

Steven A. Uptegrove, 52, of Unity, was killed on Aug. 20.

He and another Forest Service worker were loading trash into “sling loads” that were hauled by a Chinook helicopter away from the site near the Monument Rock Wilderness, about nine miles southwest of Unity.

Investigators believe “rotor wash” — the wind generated by the helicopter’s two rotors — toppled the dead tree that hit Uptegrove, said Randy White, area director at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration office in Portland.

The tree broke near its base, White said.

Tom Knappenberger, a spokesman at the Forest Service’s regional office in Portland, said agency officials had no comment about the OSHA citations.

OSHA investigators wrote in their citation report that “the employer (the Wallowa-Whitman) did not identify and remove danger trees prior to employees working in the immediate area.”

On Aug. 19, the day before Uptegrove was killed, workers pushed over some dead trees by hand, White said.

Lt. Cmdr. Marni Colvin chose to follow a family tradition of military service when she joined the Navy, enrolled in medical school and fulfilled her dream of becoming a surgeon.

On Sunday, seven months after completing her surgical residency at the University of Arizona Medical School in Tucson, Colvin, a Baker High School graduate, shipped out for the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, operated by the U.S. Army and Department of Defense in Germany.

There Colvin will treat soldiers who were wounded in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Colvin is the daughter of retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Cliff Colvin, 82, and his wife, Connie, of Baker City.

Marni Colvin had worked as a nurse in private practice for 12 years when she went to San Diego to see a hospital ship.

She was thinking of enlisting as a nurse with the rank of ensign, but she really wanted to be a physician.

She decided to fulfill both dreams by joining the Navy.

Part of her medical residency was completed at Georgetown University, where Connie had earned her bachelor’s degree in the 1950s.

In order to earn extra money for Valentines, my sister Alma and I offered to throw wood into basement for a neighbor. The box end pieces were smooth and easy to grasp without gloves. We each earned 15 cents.

Armed with new riches, we went immediately to the F.W. Woolworth store on Main Street. As we entered the store we spied Valentines on our left. We only glanced at the unaffordable chocolate hearts on the right.

Valentines were spread loosely in a flat bin, kept in place by a smooth glass bumper. As we stood at the counter sorting Valentines and making decisions, we felt the heat of one single overhead light diffused by a green metal shade.

We pondered the small slick Valentines priced two for a penny. These would be fine for classmates, but we reserved a double fold for teacher. We hoped she would  like the apple and slate design.

Masculine designs featuring sailboats and football figures would definitely be given to Billy, Bobby and Tommy, while feminine designs of  dolls and cats were chosen for classmates Betty, Jean and Dorothy. Other Valentines had general subjects.

Student Richard Baird helps keep the displays organized at ‘Marla’s Mall ‘ at Baker High. (Baker City Herald/Kathy Orr)

She died of breast cancer on Jan. 19, 2007, at the age of 45.

But Cavallo’s memory and influence continue to linger in the space where she taught for nearly 20 years.

These days that room, in the back of the small gym across the hall from the high school’s large gymnasium, houses the Youth to Youth program that works to create a positive climate for students on campus and in the community.

Another element was added to the room during the holiday season, which will stand as a memorial tribute to Cavallo.

Known as “Marla’s Mall,” the room is filled with a collection of clothing, accessories and even personal hygiene items donated to the school for free distribution to students and their families.

The concept of the clothing center in honor of the late physical education/health teacher came about in conversations between several of Cavallo’s friends and fellow teachers.

Kim Virtue says the idea started as a “community brainstorm” session. Virtue teaches students in the BHS Learning Opportunity Center, an in-house alternative program to help students who’ve fallen behind in their work gain the credits they need to graduate.

Cynthia Newman is surrounded by beautiful art every day — and as an artist herself, that’s a pretty good place to be.

Newman is the new community art director at Crossroads Carnegie Art Center. Her position was created from two grants — one from Trust Management and one from the Oregon Community Foundation (Dant Family Fund and Robert W. Chandler Fund).

“They’re the ones who came up with the money for us to try this the first year,” said Ginger Savage, Crossroads executive director.

Savage said she wanted to create this position soon after she began her job, which included overseeing the monthly art shows.

“I knew nothing about hanging art,” she said.

Fortunately Newman does, which frees Savage up to focus on the business part of Crossroads — policies, procedures, volunteers and book work.

“We are ultimately an art organization,” Savage said. “For us to take the next step as a regional art organization, we needed someone with the art credentials.”

But Travis Bloomer figures winter has barely begun.

He hopes so, anyway.

He is quick to note that he’s talking about winter in the mountains, lest anybody accuse him of rooting for their valley gardens to remain snowbound until April.

Bloomer works for the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service in Baker City.

One of his duties is to keep track of the mountain snowpack.

Which, besides being fun to ski or snowmobile on, is the source of the water that irrigates the county’s crops and slakes the thirst of everything from cattle to coyotes to, well, you.

So far, Bloomer is not especially pleased with what this winter has delivered.

“Those (snowpack) values up there in the Elkorns are lower than we’d like,” he said Monday. “But I’m an optimist, and it’s still pretty early in the winter.”

Now, more than a year and a half after the 24-year-old soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, a new scholarship in her honor will help a Central Oregon Community College student work toward his or her own medical career.

This fall, the college will be one of more than 50 institutions around the country that will offer a scholarship in the name of a member of the military killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The effort is organized by the Yellow Ribbon Support Center, an Ohio-based organization founded by the father of a soldier who died after being captured in Iraq in 2004.

Ellis, a 2002 graduate of Lakeview High School, attended COCC for two years before joining the Army. She was on her second deployment to Iraq with the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) when she was killed in May 2008.

Ellis’ parents, who live in Baker City, were recently notified that Jessica had been selected for one of the scholarships, which are given in honor of one fallen member of the military from each state.