By MIKE FERGUSON

Of the Baker City Herald

This months Festival of Trees will be a fun and glittering event organizers, whove been planning the event for more than a year, have seen to that.

But it also will help the St. Elizabeth Health Services Foundation off on a $1 million fund-raising campaign to pay for a new helical scanner installed recently.

And if the foundation can raise that sum over the next two years, St. Elizabeths Jerry Nickel said, the hospitals parent organization, Catholic Health Initiatives, has pledged an additional $6 million and $7 million in hospital improvements over the next four years.

Those plans for improvements which the public helped initiate over the summer through the hospitals master plan process include a new birthing room and remodeling in the emergency and surgical units.

The first-ever Festival of Trees 19 of them are being prepared for auction is set for Friday, Nov. 30 from 6:30 p.m. through 9:30 p.m. at the Oregon Trail Regional Museum, 2480 Grove Street.

The trees are each sponsored by physicians, hospital employees and area businesses.

Tickets, at $25 each, are available at the hospital and at Ryder Brothers Stationery, Sycamore Tree and Pioneer Bank.

The trees set to be auctioned are so painstakingly decorated, Nickell said, that each individual light is wired to a branch so that the tree can be more easily delivered to the successful bidder. And each tree has at least 10 strings of lights.

Each tree also has a theme. A Cowboy Christmas tree will have handcut ornaments; its trunk will be robed in a leatherette tree skit. Christmas in the Garden will sport tiny watering cans and snowman shovels.

And if area tree-bidders somehow arent persuaded to pull out their checkbooks merely by the quality of the decorations, they might be when they lower their eyes to see whats under the tree. Tree sponsors have added value by including presents to go underneath each tree. One, for example, has a pair of binoculars valued at $900.

I hear one tree will have $2,100 worth of gifts under it, said Denise Van Artsdalen, the hospitals communications director and the festivals co-chair, along with Pioneer Banks Zane Lockwood. I went to Pendletons event last year, and one tree there went for $1,800.

Besides the trees, 12 decorated wreaths all donated by members of departments within the hospital will be auctioned silently. Gala-goers can also have their photographs taken courtesy of Baker City Photographic Services.

Helical scanner

Whatever the festival raises will go to help the hospital pay for its new helical CT scanner. The new machine scans two to five times faster than its predecessor, provides a three-dimensional reconstruction of skeletal and vascular structures, and helps physicians make rapid treatment decisions on their trauma patients.

Already, hospital employees have made inroads on the $1 million goal: 65 of them have contributed $9,000 toward the campaign.

Our employees have really taken the initiative, Van Artsdalen said.

The Nov. 30 event will be followed by a family day celebration from 10 a.m. through 2 p.m. Dec. 1 at the museum. The ticket price for that event is a can of food.

Musical entertainment will be offered up by the South Baker Choir, Churchill Singers, the Treble and Bel Canto choirs from Baker High School, the Blue Mountain Old Time Fiddlers, and more.

Pictures with Santa Claus will be available, and a bazaar is planned.

In fact, all the weekends activities are planned, Van Artsdalen said. The festival of trees and the family day following are designed to tie in with the weekends Christmas parade and Historic Baker Citys Parlor Tour.