Baker outscored North Bend 25-7 in the fourth quarter to claim its second Class 4A state football championship in the past three years with a 52-22 win Saturday afternoon at Hillsboro Stadium.

Baker also won the state title in 2010.

Check www.bakercityherald.com on Monday for complete coverage, as well as Monday's edition of the Herald.

S. John Collins / Baker City Herald Jamie McClaughry, right, uses a hot iron to melt two holes in the tops of bags, while David Caviness staples cardboard across the top of each stack of bags.

By Terri Harber

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A Baker City nonprofit company is prepared to bag a large share of a growing market: Dog waste pickup.

Step Forward Activities Inc. already supplies its customers with plastic bags in a multitude of sizes and styles. Their bags are seen stuffed with garbage along highways and were used to carry away debris that landed on Oregon’s beaches after last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Many parks department managers specifically provide the dog poop bags so dog owners will more likely remove any droppings left by their pets.

A few glitches with the Baker City Herald's website have been fixed.

Users can now use the site's search function, submit comments, and access the extended weather forecast and ODOT highway cameras.

We're still working on an issue with submitting letters to the editor, weddings and other news.

In the interim, you can send that information to the Herald directly by email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  

By Terri Harber

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Baker City Councilors opted Tuesday against awarding a bid for installing an ultraviolet light system to deactivate microscopic parasites that might make their way into the city’s water supply.

Some of the councilors continue to be apprehensive about investing in the system. The Council will hear more about the bids during their next meeting, scheduled for Dec. 11.

“I can’t buy into this in any shape or form,” Councilor Roger Coles said. “Who knows if the equipment is going to be obsolete?” 

Coles also is concerned about the difference in price among the three bids, which varied from $448,000 to $1.2 million.

Total cost to construct and start operating the UV system is expected to run somewhere between $2.4 million and $3.8 million.

“The variance in price bothers me as well,” Councilor Beverly Calder said.

Calder brought up the idea of installing a membrane filter instead.

That would cost an estimated $15 million.

By Jayson Jacoby

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The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest’s controversial plan to ban motor vehicles from certain forest roads stalled eight months ago, and it’s not likely to amass much momentum soon.

In fact, the only deadline that forest officials need to heed is more than three years away.

Based on the national travel management rule, the Wallowa-Whitman must have its Travel Management Plan (TMP) in place by the end of 2015, said Jodi Kramer, the forest’s public affairs officer.

Right now, though, forest officials don’t have a timeline for when they’ll announce the decision, Kramer said, nor are they being pressured by the Forest Service’s regional or national offices to accelerate progress on a project that was supposed to be finished this spring.

“Things aren’t going to happen fast,” Kramer said on Tuesday.

S. John Collins / Baker City Herald Making family trees provides Jennifer Baeth and her daughter, Emma, 8, with a record of family history in a colorful project at one of the five Fun Day stations Friday.

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Fawn Carey didn’t seem to mind kneeling on the floor to give lessons in gaming Friday at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.

In fact, it was hard to tell who enjoyed the games more, Carey or the children.

The Trail Tender volunteer said she hoped to help the youngsters get a better idea of what it was like for children traveling the Oregon Trail with their pioneer parents.

“To give them an understanding that toys were different and had to be easily packed and that they only had one or two toys,” she said Friday morning during the Trail Center’s annual Family Fun Day.

By Jayson Jacoby

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This week’s storms weren’t generous enough with their snow to allow Anthony Lakes ski area to open on Thanksgiving weekend.

But things looked promising for a while.

“We had the potential, but the storm didn’t produce as much snow as we hoped,” said Peter Johnson, general manager for the ski area in the Elkhorn Mountains about 34 miles northwest of Baker City.

The innovative program that helps kids is coming to Baker City

By Lisa Britton

For the Baker City Herald

Isabella Evans giggles as the string of zucchini — cut to resemble spaghetti — gets longer and longer.

She stretches her arm as high as she can, attempting to fill a cup before the mixture spills over the side.

This participation, this ownership of a prepared dish — she shredded the carrots and dished up portions — is part of the philosophy of KIDS-HEAL, a program coming to Baker City in January with the mission “to improve the physical and creative health of children in Oregon and Southwest Washington.”

And it’s coming because of Isabella.

Photo by Lisa Britton Vintner Travis Cook is bottling wine made from grapes grown near Keating, in Baker County.

For the Baker City Herald

The crash of glass makes you cringe and look for shards, but no one seems fazed.

In fact, not one member of this volunteer crew looks toward the sound — they’ve bottled wine before, and they’re used to every noise.

Including the clank that comes when 12 empty bottles are shaken out of a box.

On this sunny, cold November day, Travis Cook and his crew are bottling a 2010 Syrah to be sold under the MotherLode Cellars label.