July 05, 2010 09:27 am
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 Richard Weigel of the Island City Lions Club pilots the Pig Train in Haines during the town's Fourth of July Festivities. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins) Around 11 a.m. on Sunday a casual onlooker may have taken note of
the band playing the Johnny Cash song “Folsom Prison Blues” at the
Haines Fourth of July Barbecue in the Park.
The same onlooker might also have noticed a train of a different sort rolling round the bend.
Though maybe not until the conductor, Dick Weigel, shouted his version of the typical “All aboard” call.
“Pig train ride. SUWEE!” he called to the eight children, and several parents, eager to jump in one of pigs.
The song went on with the lyrics, “I hear the train a comin.’ It’s rollin’ ’round the bend ... ”
As if on cue, Weigel announced, “Pig train ride is off and running
like a herd of pigs,” as he began making loops in the center of Front
Street. “SUWEE!”
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July 05, 2010 09:24 am
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Molly Ragsdale has been dancing in the street for almost 30 years.
Except for last year.
Because of budget constraints the annual Miners Jubilee Street Dance did not happen in 2009.
This bothered Ragsdale, who owns the Chamealeon Cafe on Main Street in downtown Baker City.
“The one thing we remember from the Miners Jubilee is the street
dance,” she said. “It’s been going on since I was 11 and probably
before that,” she said.
She didn’t realize last year that there wasn’t going to be a dance.
Until there wasn’t one.
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July 02, 2010 10:13 am
BLM uses state grants to add parking area at popular riding site just east of Baker City
 Bureau of Land Management employees begin one of the improvement projects Monday at the All Terrain Vehicle area east of Baker City. One large cattle guard and gate will replace two smaller guards. From left to right are Kate Vaughan, Mike Freeland, Bill Owens and Paul Barber in the Bobcat. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins) The BLM has spent more than $25,000 in state grants over the past
year to make improvements at the Virtue Flat Off-Highway Vehicle area
about seven miles east of Baker City.
The money, from ATV permit fees, was part of the total of $34,624
that the BLM received from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department
for the fiscal year that ended Wednesday.
BLM contributed $21,000 to leverage the state grants, said Kevin McCoy of the BLM’s Baker Field Area office in Baker City.
Although the Baker Field Area extends all the way north to Asotin
County, Wash., McCoy said the BLM spent the bulk of its state grant
allotment this past fiscal year at Virtue Flat due to the volume of
people who ride motorcycles and four-wheelers there.
The 3,500-acre area, between Ruckles Creek Road and Highway 86, is also open to hikers, mountain bikers and full-size vehicles.
BLM employee Kevin Hoskins said Virtue Flat “is unique on the east
side of the state in that it allows open riding and rock crawling for
Class I, Class II and Class III ATVs.”
On Tuesday, BLM seasonal employees under Hoskins’ supervision used a
grader to spread pit-run gravel on a new parking lot near the main
staging area just north of Ruckles Creek Road.
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July 02, 2010 10:10 am
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Andrew Bryan, a Baker City businessman and former vice mayor who
served on the Baker City Council for 3fi years before resigning on May
28, has been appointed to the Baker School Board.
Bryan, 45, who has worked as an educational consultant for the past
20 years, applied for the seat after the call for volunteers was
extended.
The two other applicants are Michael Howe, communications and
government affairs specialist for the Oregon Trail Electric Consumers
Cooperative, and Will Benson, Baker County Parole and Probation
supervisor for the Baker County Sheriff’s Office.
The school board interviewed all three men during a special noon board meeting Thursday.
After the interviews the board voted unanimously, 4-0, to appoint
Bryan to the year-long seat vacated by Deon Strommer, who resigned in
June.
Although director Lynne Burroughs cast her vote along with fellow
board members, she expressed reluctance to support Bryan, who had been
in the minority of a 4-3 split between councilors during part of his
City Council term.
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July 02, 2010 10:09 am
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The setting has changed, but the challenges remain the same for Walt
Wegener as he settles into his new home in Baker City and his new
office as the Baker School District’s new superintendent.
“I stepped out of one pan and into another and the heat was still
on,” he said in a Wednesday interview at the Baker City Herald office
between moving chores.
He spent four hours at the district office Tuesday and another hour
there Wednesday. Thursday, July 1, was his first official full day on
duty.
The board chose Wegener from three finalists who traveled to Baker
City for interviews this spring in their bid to replace Don Ulrey, who
served the district as superintendent for nearly eight years before
retiring in April.
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July 02, 2010 10:07 am
Reader board at Baker City lists the right road, but fears remain that travelers might be misled by the mileage
Misconceptions over which road in eastern Baker County is closed due
to flood damage has caused problems for at least one business in that
area.
In early June, flood-swollen North Pine Creek destroyed a 500-foot
section of the Wallowa Mountain Loop Road north of Highway 86.
The Loop Road, also known as Forest Road 39, connects Highway 86 with Wallowa County.
A reader board at the Interstate 84 and Highway 86 junction in north Baker City reads “Forest Road 39 Closed 60 Miles Ahead.”
The dilemma, said Debi Bainter of the Baker Chamber of Commerce, is
the possibility that some travelers, on seeing the reader board, assume
that Highway 86, which leads to Oxbow and Hells Canyon Dam, is closed.
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July 02, 2010 10:03 am
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So your faithful half-ton pickup truck has lately seemed, well, a trifle wimpy.
You could upgrade to a heavy duty one-ton model.
But why not dispense with such half-hearted measures altogether and just get yourself a dump truck.
A real dump truck.
One that can haul five cubic yards of whatever it is you need to haul.
Which is enough to pretty much bury your garden-variety pickup.
Or, speaking of gardens, enough topsoil to start a plot of
sufficient size to keep your whole neighborhood in vegetables all
summer.
Baker City has the truck.
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July 02, 2010 10:01 am
Only one vendor was interested in setting up on Saturdays, too
Due to a lack of vendor interest, the Baker City Farmers Market will not be happening on Saturdays this summer.
But you can still find fresh vegetables, fruit, art, handmade soaps
and more at the Wednesday markets, held from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at
Geiser-Pollman Park.
Rather than spread a few vendors over two markets, the board decided to consolidate all into one market.
They tried to keep Saturdays.
“We advertised for five weeks for vendors,” said Ellie Feeley, market manager.
But no one responded.
Their plan is to make the Wednesday market an event, with lots of
vendors, live music and special events throughout the summer, including
the annual watermelon giveaway, a salsa festival, a pie contest and a
harvest festival to end the season.
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July 02, 2010 09:59 am
Bob Parker of the OSU Extension Service says tactics used in Austria, Slovenia could be applied in Baker County forests
Bob Parker had to travel quite a distance from his Baker City office to attend a conference of foresters last month.
To Slovenia, to be specific.
Parker, who is the Oregon State University Extension Service
forester in Baker County, participated in the weeklong conference of
the International Union of Forest Research at Bled, Slovenia.
But that was only part of his journey.
Before the conference Parker also toured forests in Austria and Hungary.
He returned with ideas on how the Europeans are working to become more energy independent and tips on safety.
And one experience that left him stunned.
Parker said that in the first part of the 20th century the Slovenes
heavily logged their forests, leaving areas looking more like deserts.
Then, about 100 years ago, a group of Slovenes set out to fix this
problem. They walked through the forest, dug holes and planted millions
of trees.
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June 30, 2010 01:16 pm
Angel Flight volunteer pilots take children for non-emergency hospital appointments, hundreds of miles from home, for no charge
 Sierra Bingham, 10, disembarks from a plane at the Baker City Municipal Airport Saturday. Bingham, who had a heart transplant four years ago, was returning from a checkup at a hospital in Palo Alto, Calif. She was folwn free of charge by Angel Flight pilots Joe and Rosemary Pelissier. (Baker City Herald/Russell Vineyard) Imagine a child, stricken with leukemia, who needs to travel to a hospital hundreds of miles away for treatment.
Now imagine that she needs to do this as often as twice a week.
The cost for each round-trip could top $100 for fuel alone.
But what if an angel offered this child a free ride?
An angel disguised as a single-engine airplane.
The idea isn’t unheard of.
It isn’t even uncommon.
In 2006 Sierra Bingham, then 6, was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.
The condition caused the Haines girl’s heart to grow too fast,
weakening that vital organ.
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