Ross West continues a grinding task in the Baker High School metal shop, where students build and put together big projects from farm-use trailers to car bumpers. West’s latest creation (above) is a glass-and-metal table that features an intricately carved scene with two wolves. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

But one look at the ornate coffee table he’s created from a pile of metal will leave most observers begging to differ with the young man.

The table features an intricately carved design of two wolves standing in the woods, one baying at a brass moon brazed to the background. Trees cut from silver metal and transformed by a heated torch to shades of blue and gold adorn the table’s edges.

The size of the project was dictated by a piece of glass West salvaged from an old desk. He found the wolf scene in a catalog and put his creative talents to work bending and smoothing metal to make a table that incorporated the glass top and the metal etching.

West, an 18-year-old senior at Baker High School, along with his welding teacher, Randy Newman, both said they would be out of luck if they had to draw the images themselves.

But the two have used their own brand of creativity to add and subtract from designs available on the Internet or images adapted from photographs to produce unique designs.

This is the second table West has produced in Newman’s advanced welding class. The other features a mountain scene complete with a waterfall, trees and elk.

Kathy Spence is the new postmaster at the Baker City Post Office. She has worked at the post office here since 1996. (Baker City Herald/Kathy Orr)

Kathy Spence, who lives outside of Haines, began as postmaster Jan. 16.

She first took a test to qualify for a job with the U.S. Postal Service in 1994 — an exam that tests memorization skills when it comes to addresses, and other talents that come in handy when delivering the mail.

But USPS jobs depend on openings, and she didn’t get an interview for two years.

Then, in August 1996, she was hired as a part-time flexible clerk.

She worked her way up through the ranks from there, to distribution clerk at the retail window to head window clerk to customer service supervisor, a management position that required four months of training in Portland.

She did have her sights on a postmaster position, “but there has to be an opening,” she said.

City councilors will start planning the city’s financial future Tuesday evening.

They will have some help.

The seven councilors will be joined by the seven other members of the budget board for the work session that starts at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 1655 First St.

The session is open to the public.

The seven other members — all appointed by the City Council — advise councilors on matters related to the budget.

The City Council, however, has the final say in adopting the spending plan.

The agenda for Tuesday’s work session calls for a general rather than specific discussion.

This is necessary, since the city staff won’t complete the proposed budget until mid May. That budget will cover the 2010-11 fiscal year, which starts July 1.

The budget board’s first official meeting, during which members will review that proposed budget line by line, is scheduled for May 19.

First Lutheran Church

1734 Third St.

• Feb. 17 — Prayer vigil from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Ash Wednesday Service at 7 p.m.

On Wednesdays through Lent, from Feb. 24 to March 24, a soup supper will be offered at 6 p.m., followed by a midweek Lenten service at 7 p.m.

• March 28 —  The Passion of Our Lord Service at 11 a.m.

• April 1 —  Maundy Thursday Service at 7 p.m.

• April 2 — Good Friday Service at 7 p.m.

• April 4 — Easter Breakfast at 9:30 a.m., followed by the Resurrection of Our Lord Service at 11 a.m.

United Methodist and First Presbyterian churches

On Feb. 17, Baker United Methodist and First Presbyterian churches will have a joint Ash Wednesday service, beginning at 7 p.m. at the Methodist Church, 1919 Second St.

Brian Vegter of Baker Loves Bikes volunteered to clean up and repair both of the bikes prior to the raffle held Feb. 5.  

“The bikes took several hours to bring back to life, but were riding  smooth as butter by the time I finished,” he said.

New cables were installed and fine tuning to the brakes and gears was done on both bikes.

Plastic bags in various sizes are one of the main products produced at Step Forward Activities in Baker City. From left are Tim Smith, Bill Selves, Maelene Brisco and in background is Dorothy Graham. (Baker City Herald/S.John Collins)

“We now have a bag that will dissolve and fade away to vapor in just 60 days,” said Gene Button, executive director at Step Forward Activities in Baker City. “These biobags clearly are our future.”

Step Forward Activities is a nonprofit corporation that employs 47 full-time staff who operate five group homes for people with developmental disabilities,

Step Forward also has a manufacturing plant in Baker City that provides jobs to residents of the group homes and others with developmental disabilities in manufacturing, packaging and shipping trash bags, recycling ink and toner cartridges for computer printers, and other ventures.

“We just bought the bag manufacturing machine (last) Monday from Green Bay, Wisconsin. That will be dedicated to biobags,” Button said.

Sales of standard trash bags will continue as usual, with biobags available for a slightly higher price to city, county and state agencies, as well as businesses and individuals.

Overall, the state’s ag sales, including crops and livestock, totaled $4.1 billion, a drop of almost 15 percent compared with 2008.

It was the biggest one-year decline since 1976, according to a report released this week by Oregon State University.

Baker County farmers and ranchers, meanwhile, recorded a minuscule increase, less than half of 1 percent, in gross sales in 2009 — $66 million compared with $65.9 million.

Average prices dropped for three of the county’s four biggest agricultural commodities: beef cattle, alfalfa hay and wheat.

Baker County’s agricultural sales in 2009 were led, as usual, by beef cattle.

Ranchers sold beef cattle worth $41.5 million in 2009.

That was up about 3.8 percent from 2008’s total of $40 million in sales, according to the OSU report.

Both years’ totals fell short of the two previous years, however. Gross sales amounted to $47.5 million in 2007, and $42.9 million in 2006.

To make sure this is the case, the schools and Baker County Health Department work together to determine which children need shots, or need their records updated.

The deadline is always the third Wednesday in February — Feb. 17 this year. The date is known as Exclusion Day, when all children who need immunizations are pulled out of school and sent home until their shots are current.

“That’s the absolute cut-off time that parents have to get documentation that their children are up-to-date,” said Stacy de Assis Matthews, school law coordinator at the Oregon Public Health Immunization Program.

There are two exemptions parents can claim for why their children aren’t immunized — religious reasons or medical reasons.

In this case, “religion” is “any system of belief, practices or ethical values,” de Assis Matthews said.

In Baker County, there are 89 students with a religious exemption, and two with medical, said Becky Sanders, nursing supervisor at the health department.

Lloyd “Bud” Pohl, 89, of 2845 Hughes Lane, No. 2, and Leonard “Bus” Pohl, 91, of 1830 Church St., were reported missing about 1 p.m. Wednesday by Leonard’s daughter, Sherry Swafford, Police Chief Wyn Lohner said.

Searchers also talked with Lloyd’s wife, Donna.

Lloyd Pohl walked out to Highway 7 near Union Creek Campground about 11 a.m. Thursday and was picked up by a passerby who saw him standing by the road waving his hat, Lohner said.

The brothers had driven Old Auburn Road west to Union Creek Road, and they were about a mile north Highway 7 Wednesday when Lloyd’s 1992 Ford Explorer became high-centered after it slid off a groomed snowmobile trail, Sheriff Mitch Southwick said Thursday afternoon, after the men had returned home safe.

The Union Creek Road is not plowed during winter, and the Old Auburn Road is kept open for vehicles to a point about a mile west of the state’s elk-feeding station.

Oregon turned 150 last year, and the entire state joined the celebration, prompting quite a few news stories.

While cruising the Oregon 150 Web site for information, I noticed a link where people could share “My Oregon Story.” I clicked through and noticed that none was from Eastern Oregon.

As a native of Baker, I’m always quick to give voice to our side of the state.

So I opened a submission box and, in about five minutes, typed up a story about my love of the Elkhorn Mountains, and my favorite spot on westbound I-84 each time I’d get my first glimpse of them when returning home from college.

I attached a photo, titled it “My Mountains,” hit send and didn’t give it a second thought.

Well.

About a month later, we got a late-night phone call from my brother-in-law, who lives in Salem and had heard part of my story read on the radio.

My husband, Jayson, answered the phone, and he couldn’t quite follow because I hadn’t told him about the story I’d submitted. Also, I didn’t know there was any chance of it being used for Oregon 150 programs.