Baker City will have to correct an omission in the annual water quality report it mailed to its 4,400 customers this summer.

But the city apparently won’t be punished for failing to tell residents that two  water samples collected during 2010 contained cryptosporidium, a microorganism that can cause diarrhea and vomiting in healthy adults, and in rare cases can prove fatal for people with severely weakened immune systems.

A local business owner is teaming up with teenagers to feed residents on Thanksgiving Day.

John Osborn, owner of Charlie’s Ice Cream Parlor, will cook up enough turkey soup to feed 150 people.

Fresh roasted turkey noodle soup, to be specific.

And with the hearty holiday soup will be bread or a roll, pumpkin pie and a hot beverage. 

It’ll all be free, of course.

By TERRI HARBER
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Improvements to the Baker City Municipal Airport are complete.

The project adds taxiway lighting to the main strip for safer aircraft landings; creates less cumbersome, paved access from the taxiway to parking and fuel pumps; provides pavement, electricity and some infrastructure for more hangars to be built on the south side of the facility; and, secures the hangar area with a gate and security code system.
 

By TERRI HARBER
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Baker City councilors on Tuesday night opted to move forward with a Resort Street design that would provide parallel parking on both sides of the street and allow for bicycle lanes. It has been referred to as Option 1.

By CHRIS COLLINS
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Alberta Darlington has been praying for help to transform the Rachel Pregnancy Center into something different for years.

The 74-year-old Darlington has served as the Center’s executive director for the past nine years.

BY TERRI HARBER
BAKER CITY HERALD

The Third Street side of the Baker County Courthouse is beginning to appear slightly different — and in what most consider an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Two tall arbor vitae were removed last month. The old shrubs were about 40 feet tall with poorly shaped tops and had been there for decades.

A Baker County woman who suffered severe burns in a Halloween night accident, just two days after she was married, was scheduled to undergo skin grafts today at a Portland burn center.

Heather Hunt, 34, of Pleasant Valley, was working over a woodstove in Baker City, using the heat to make ear forms for a taxidermy project.

The long, flowing skirt she was wearing as part of a gypsy costume caught on fire and Hunt was burned.

Oregon Department of Education officials have determined that there was no cheating on state tests at Baker Middle School in 2009-10.

The ruling is based on information provided to the state by C.J. Gray, the Baker School District’s testing coordinator.

She investigated allegations of cheating on eighth-grade Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (OAKS) reading/literature tests.

Although the ODE investigation has been concluded, an ongoing investigation regarding allegations of cheating against BMS Principal Mindi Vaughan is being conducted by the state Teacher Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC).

TSPC will consider that case, which involves the same test results, in February, said Superintnendent Walt Wegener.

In the midst of a persistent bad spell for whitebark pine populations in Northeastern Oregon, 2011 stands out as a pretty good year.

Whitebarks, which grow at higher elevations than other conifers in the Elkhorn and Wallowa mountains, are suffering from a two-pronged attack: white pine blister rust, and mountain pine beetles.

That combination has killed a significant number of whitebarks in the region over the past 20 years or so, said Sabine Mellmann-Brown, who is the Forest Service’s ecologist for the three Blue Mountains national forests: Wallowa-Whitman, Malheur and Umatilla.

Baker High School juniors Trent Taylor (left, in purple shirt) and Danny O’Neal (center, in gray/red sweatshirt) danced along with adults, including teacher Adriene Bachman, right, during Monday’s Challenge Day event.

By LISA BRITTON
For the Baker City Herald

This looks like one big dance party, adults and kids movin’ to the music blasting in this gymnasium.

And it is a party — but one with a serious goal.

This is Challenge Day, a six-hour workshop held Monday that brings together students and adults to instigate change in their school.

Two leaders, Ev Villaseñor and Gina Pernini, came from Concord, Calif., to lead Challenge Day with 76 juniors from Baker High School and 19 local adults representing BHS, service clubs, MayDay, and parents of students.

They need one adult for every four to five students.