Fred Riggs was so sure he’d never draw a tag to hunt bighorn sheep that he dallied a good long while before even trying for one.

Until he was 83, in fact.

But he only had to wait til he was 84 to get lucky.

Riggs, who has lived in Richland since 1937, and been hunting in Baker County almost as long, will have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to kill a bighorn ram.

His hunt, in the Lookout Mountain unit south of Richland, runs from Aug. 28 through Sept. 8.

To say Riggs beat long odds to obtain this coveted tag is to engage in egregious understatement.

Last year, the most recent for which statistics are available, 414 hunters applied for the first of the two annual Lookout Mountain bighorn hunts (the second hunt, also limited to a single tag, is set for Sept. 11-26).

“That’s not too good odds,” Riggs said.

Chris Dudley (standing, at right), Republican candidate for Oregon governor, visited Baker City Monday afternoon. (Baker City Herald/Ed Merriman)

By listening to people in all parts of the state and working with lawmakers from all parties to change policies that discourage business development, Dudley said he will create jobs and restore a balanced statewide economy.

During a campaign stop Monday afternoon in Baker City, Dudley said his top priority as governor will be private sector jobs.

“We cannot have the quality of life without private sector jobs,” Dudley told a small crowd of supporters gathered on the lawn outside the Baker County Courthouse.

Dudley accused his Democrat rival, John Kitzhaber, who served two terms as governor from 1995-2003, of instituting policies that decimated natural resource industries, worsened the rural/urban divide and left Oregon’s economy overly dependent on high-tech businesses.

“There’s no reason we should be 14 percent below the national per capita income,” Dudley said. “There’s no reason we should live in a state where 66 percent of high school seniors are not going to graduate on time, where we’re 43rd in education funding and 47th in hunger.”

Taylor Thamert’s job is to help bury the men and woman who died serving this nation.

 It is a weighty responsibility for a young man who had dreamed of becoming a soldier since he was 4.

“When I saw my dad come home in his uniform, I knew I wanted to do that,” the 2009 Baker High graduate said.

Pfc. Thamert, 19, joined the U.S. Army after graduating high school.

“I didn’t want to go to college, but I didn’t want to work in a trade factory,” he said. “The military had more to offer: travel, $80,000 toward school, a constant paycheck, and a great career.”

Taylor is a fourth-generation soldier.

His father, Jeremy, the owner of Oregon Power Solutions in Baker City, served for 14 years as an Army flight engineer.

That list includes all four of the incumbents whose terms end Dec. 31: Beverly Calder, Dennis Dorrah, Clair Button and Gail Duman.

The other potential candidate for one of the four positions is Roger Coles.

Only those five have filled out the necessary paperwork and picked up signature sheets from City Hall, City Recorder Becky Fitzpatrick said Tuesday afternoon.

To qualify for the Nov. 2 ballot, candidates must gather at least 41 signatures from people registered to vote in city elections.

The Baker County Clerk’s office will check each signature to ensure it’s valid.

The deadline for verifying signatures is 5 p.m. on Aug. 24.

Experts say that providing intensive drug and alcohol treatment, education and job training are the keys to reducing crime and recidivism in the United States, which has the highest prison incarceration rate in the world.

In this country, 748 people out of 100,000 were serving time in prison in 2009.

Based on figures reported for that year in the World Prison Brief, U.S. Bureau of Prisons, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, and The Sentencing Project, no other nation comes close to the United States.

The second-ranked Russian Federation’s incarceration rate was 598 per 100,000 population; followed by Rwanda at 593.

Among Western nations, Spain ranks 80th with a rate of 165 of every 100,000; England and Wales combined rank 87th at 154; Scotland ranks 91st at 152; Canada 121st at 117; and Germany 152nd at 87.

In the U.S. the incarceration rate doesn’t tell the whole story, though.

Some of the men incarcerated in the minimum-security prison in Baker City will help New Hope for Eastern Oregon Animals retrain rescued dogs for future adoption.

New Hope, in conjunction with Powder River, is overseeing the Powder Pals program, which will start this fall.

About 30 percent of stray dogs are euthanized, said Dick Haines, who helped to establish the nonprofit New Hope for Eastern Oregon Animals this spring.

Most abandoned dogs have behavioral problems, often resulting from abuse or neglect, that prevent them from being adopted.

“Many were homeless or in a situation that it was not able to stay in balance with its owner or experienced violence as discipline,” Haines said.

Marvin Brisk guides his horse-powered binder through a wheat field near Halfway. (Baker City Herald/Kathy Orr)

And listen.

Instead of black smoke from a rumbling diesel-powered tractor there is the tawny dust of chaff and the rhythmic thump of horse hooves.

Brisk, who farms near Halfway, still uses horsepower of the old-fashioned variety.

And, just as his predecessors did a century and more ago, he relies on horses for virtually every part of the wheat-harvesting process.

That process starts by using a horse-drawn binder to cut the wheat.

Next is the thresher, which separates the wheat kernels from the chaff.

Last week’s congressional approval of a $10 billion bill aimed at helping school district’s avoid teacher layoffs did not ease Superintendent Walt Wegener’s future financial concerns for the Baker School District.

The legislation, known as the Edujobs bill, is expected to send $117 million to Oregon schools, including more than $400,000 to the Baker School District.

But Wegener says that even if all goes as planned, schools won’t know how much money will be coming their way until at least October, long after the first days of the 2010-11 school year. Most Baker students return to classes on Aug. 30.

According to the Oregon Department of Education, the Baker School District’s share of the funding would be $420,839.44, based on distribution through Oregon’s school funding formula. Pine-Eagle School District at Halfway would receive $51,648.24; Burnt River School District at Unity, $18,075.11; and Huntington School District, $29,780.87.

“Operationally, we’re trying to move forward like it’s not coming,” Wegener said Friday.

The process calls for Gov. Ted Kulongoski to apply for the money by Sept. 9, Wegener said. The final allotment is expected to be announced by Sept. 23.

Inmates at the Powder River Correctional Facility in Baker City dismantle and repair toner cartridges as part of a job training program. Robert Chance air blasts residue. In background is Troy Mitchell. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

At Powder River, Chance and other inmates get drug and alcohol treatment through New Directions Northwest, which provides those services under contract with the Oregon Department of Corrections.

“The other night I had a client inmate come in and thank us for the program we have at Powder River. He said it had saved his life, and he went on to say that his children want to thank us too, because now they have their dad back,” said Shari Selander, incoming director of New Directions Northwest.

Selander said the intense drug and alcohol treatment program typically lasts about six months and is designed to give inmate clients the skills and knowledge to break out of the cycle of addiction and crime, and go out into the community to be successful.

“Going through the intense program allows them to look deep inside themselves and look at the choices they’ve made in life, and where those choices have got them today,” Selander said.

Rep. Greg Walden warned a group of about 30 people attending Wednesday’s Baker County County Chamber of Commerce meeting he will continue to push the Environmental Protection Agency to loosen the noose it holds on the Ash Grove cement plant in Durkee and other industries across the country.

“Clearly EPA has given Ash Grove a tiny bit of relief with their sidebar statement that they may let the Durkee plant operate a little longer” than 2013, when the agency’s strict new limits on mercury emissions are scheduled to take effect.

On Aug. 6, the EPA adopted new mercury rules without a subcategory sought by Ash Grove allowing slightly higher mercury emissions for plants like the one in Durkee that make cement from limestone with higher levels of naturally occuring mercury.

However, EPA officials sent a letter to Ash Grove officials essentially saying that since the company just completed installation of a $20 million mercury system that reduced mercury emissions by around 90 percent, the EPA might let them operate for an unspecified period of time beyond the date the new mercury emission limits take effect, as long as the company continues to strive to reach the target 98 percent reduction in mercury emissions.

“Unfortunately, we are not sure what their sidebar letter really means,” said Walden, R-Oregon.