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GO! Magazine
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
November 11, 2015
Your guide to events happening around the region
>N >H>s aD>i'>oN:L ocal • Business @AgLife • Go! magazine $ <
Commissiondelistswolves
QUICIC HITS
Good Day Wish To A Subscriber A special good day to Herald subscriber M.L. McKinnis of Baker City.
By Pat Caldwell VVesCom News Service
BRIEFING
4®
Food drive is Thursday, Friday One big food drive is planned this month by several local groups working together. The main focus is filling the Thanksgiving boxes distributed by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Afterthose boxes are full, any extra food will be distributed to the food banks in Baker City. Empty bags will be distributed throughout town on Thursday and Friday. The community is encouraged to fill those bags with nonperishable food items, and then the groups will head out to gather the bags at1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15. All food will be delivered to the Seventhday Adventist Church, where it will be sorted, boxed and delivered on Wednesday, Nov. 25, from 9 a.m. to noon.
Orchestra plans fall concert The Baker Community Orchestra will perform a mix of classical and popular music, moviethemes and Christmas tunes during its fall concert Nov. 20. The public performance will begin at 7 p.m. in the gymnasium of South Baker Intermediate School, 1285Third St. There is no admission charge Kelly Brickman directs the orchestra. The fall program will feature Beethoven's "Egmont Overture," "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music," a twist on "The First Noel" called"Flourishing Noels" and more. "A jingle horse may even be urged to pick up its feet," a press release announcing the event stated. The Baker Community Orchestra is made up of volunteer community members who have a passion for making music. The orchestra is open to any community member who can play a band or orchestra instrument. There is no audition requirement.
WEATHER
Today
43/17 Partly cloudy
Thursday
43/25
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Wolves are now delisted in Oregon.
The ruling Monday by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to remove the modest wolf population from the state Endangered SpeciesAct ignited criticismfrom conservation groups but in terms of management of the animals not much is going to change. "The decision doesn't have any immediate chang-
Plan, a blueprint constructedin 2005 to design a sensibleapproach towolf management. The Wolf Plan outlined the considerationofa delisting procedure when Eastern Oregon boasted a wolf population of four breedingpairs ofthe animals for three consecutive years. That objective was reached in January.
es onwolfmanagement in Oregon. People need to realizethat wolves are still protected in Oregon," Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy said. The Fish and Wildlife Commission voted 4-2 to push ahead with delisting but only after a marathon 10-hour public meeting in Salem. The delisting proposal is tied into the state Wolf
SeeWolveslPage 6A
Air Forceveterandidn'timaginenuclear war By Jayson Jacoby llacoby©bakercityherald.com
Dan Labonte didn't believe nuclear war would ever break out between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. But he had to pretend that itwould. It was his job. His duty, in fact. Labonte, 71, of Baker City, served for 30 years in the U.S. Air Force, from 1962 to 1992. His military career coincided with some of the hottest periodsofthe Cold War. In fact Labonte, who grew up in Dover, New Hampshire, enlisted in the Air Force on July 20, 1962, just three months before the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the two superpowers as close as they ever came to war. Many years later, as Labonte progressed in rank, he was assigned, among other tasks, to help prepare war plans — in effect, what would the U.S. military need, in terms of personnel, weapons and supplies, given a host of potential conflict scenarios. Even during the 1970s, when the notion of the Americans and the Soviets launching nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles at each other seemed, if not as likely as during the 1950s and early 1960s,then atleastplausible, Labonte said he was optim istic thatleadersfrom both
S. John Collins/ Baker City Herald
While stationed on Okinawa in the Pacific during the Vietnam War, Dan Labonte watched damaged B-52 bombers land after returning from raids over North Vietnam. countries realized the folly of such an exchange. Political and military strategists called it MAD — Mutually Assured Destruction. The way Labonte saw it, neither power would use nuclear weapons for the simple reason that even though the warheads were aimed thousands of miles away, the inevitable retaliation in effect
meant that by bombing the other side you would ensure that your own civilians would also be annihilated. "Everybody knows, no matter what you've got for weapons, that the other side has the same, so nobody wants to use nuclear weapons," Labonte said. Just a couple years before Labonteretired asa chief
Agencies continue cougar search By Chris Collins
Cougars that travel throughforested residential The phone at the Baker areas where livestock are city 0$ce of the Oregon kept are probably taking Department of Fish and advantage of easy prey, he Wildlife has been unexpectsald. edly quiet regarding cougar The cats are drawn to the sightings in the past week Goodrich and Pine Creek and a half since six sheep areas because of the abunwere attacked and killed by dance of white tail deer and wild turkeys in the area, a big cat. Brian Ratliff, ODFW disRatliff said. It's not surpristrict biologist, said Tuesday ing that penned sheep would that his agency has not had also attract them as they any reportsofa cougar sight- travel from the mountains ing in the area of Goodrich down into the valley. Creek Lane about 10 miles Cougars that move northwest of Baker City through an area aren't as since the sheep were killed much of a concern as those that grow up in the vicinity between Nov. 1 and 2. "At this point we haven't of people, he said. Still, ODFW and the U.S. had asingle report,"he said. cWe've had no reports prior Department of Wildlife Serto or after the event." vices are interested in any That's probably a good sightings and are working to find the cougar responsible thing, he says. ccollins©bakercityherald.com
forthe sheep attacks. They were owned by Samantha Kozlowski and Frank Ramsey. The couple live in Baker City and rent the Goodrich Creek Lane property where they kept 15 sheep, a goat and a guard donkey. Ratliff encourages anyone who sees a cougar in the area to call his offrce at 541-523-5832, especially if the animal poses a safety concern. In the case of an imminent threat, call 9-1-1, he advises. Livestock depredation, on the other hand, should be reported to Curt Mattson, the USDA Wildlife Services agent, who serves the Baker City and La Grande areas. His number is 541-963-
7947. SeeCougarslPage 6A
master sergeant — the highest enlisted rank in the Air Force — the Soviet Union disintegrated. And the wall that divided Germany into West and East, a wall that was in place during the four years Labonte was assigned to an Air Force base in Fr~ , We s t Germany, was hammered into chunks of concrete.
During a career bookended by momentous events — the Cuban Missile Crisis and the collapse of the Soviet Union — Labonte saw more of the world than most people will in a lifetime. cThe Air Force motto then was 'join the Air Force and see the world,'and by God I saw the world," he said. See Labonte/Page 6A
AldertssnsIssking atHaggenstores Albertsons has submitted bids on 36 Haggen stores, including the Baker City location and three others in Oregon. In May, Haggen took over the Baker City storefrom Albertsons and later announced a closure date of Nov. 25 afterHaggen filed bankruptcy. An auction for 95 Haggen stores this week is ending today. After Albertsons' merger with Safeway earlier this year, the company was required by the Federal Trade Commis-
sion iFTCl to sell 168 of itsstores to keep the grocery markets competitive. The also was
ordered to prevent a grocery store monopoly in areas where there was a Safeway and an Albertsons. Haggen, which earlier this year bought 146 grocery stores,including the former Albertsons store in Baker City, announced in September that itwas going to close 100 of those stores. In August, Haggen sued the newly formed grocerygiant for more
than $1 billion in damages alleging bad faith actions that were designed to eliminate Haggen and other competitors ina five-state area. See Haggen/Page 6A
Partly sunny Full forecast on the back of the B section.
T ODAY Issue 80, 24 pages
Business...........1B & 2B C o m i cs.......................4B De a r A b by...............10B Ne w s of Record........2A Sp o r t s ....... Calendar... .................2A Community News .. ..3A Horoscope........BB & SB Obituaries..................2A Sudoku Classified............. 5B-9B C r o ssword........6B & SB L e t t ers........................ 4A O p i n ion......................4A We a t her ....
.....5A .....4B ... 10B
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