50 YEARS AGO

from the Democrat-Herald

July 30, 1971

Oregon Game Department workers were at the Baker airport yesterday loading fish into an airplane. The brook trout were loaded into a special tank in Don Doyle’s Cessna for transport of 54 pounds of fish, or nearly 14,400 fish, to five lakes.

25 YEARS AGO

from the Baker City Herald

July 29, 1996

“Nanook,” the infamous AA fuel altered dragster will be one of the featured attractions during the Thunder Mountain Motor Sports races Aug. 25.

The races, at the Baker City Airport, will be held in conjunction with the 1996 Memory Cruise and Show and Shine Aug. 24-25 at Geiser Pollman Park and downtown Baker City.

The racing competition is open to all vehicles. Gates open at 8 a.m.

10 YEARS AGO

from the Baker City Herald

July 29, 2011

Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative customers will pay more for power starting Oct. 1, but the rate hike won’t be as steep as one earlier estimate.

Here’s why: The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), from which OTEC buys almost all of its electricity, isn’t boosting its wholesale price as much as it had projected.

This spring, BPA officials said during a public meeting in Baker City that the wholesale cost hike could be as much as 15 percent.

But this week the federal power marketing agency announced that the actual increase will be 7.8 percent.

ONE YEAR AGO

from the Baker City Herald

July 30, 2020

Superintendent Mark Witty isn’t ready just yet to change plans for reopening Baker schools, with limited in-person classes.

But based on recent trends in the number of COVID-19 cases in Baker County, the new state requirements that Gov. Kate Brown unveiled Tuesday could force school district officials to revise their plans before classes start, likely on Sept. 8.

The school district plans to offer in-person classes for elementary students in Grades K-6 Monday through Thursday. Students in Grades 7-12 are to be divided into two groups to rotate through in-person and online instruction every other day, Monday through Thursday. Families who preferred total online instruction for their children, regardless of grade, also would have that option.

Under Tuesday’s guidelines as announced by Dr. Dean Sidelinger, state epidemiologist, schools can have in-person instruction, including the hybrid model Baker has proposed for grades 7-12, in counties where the weekly COVID-19 infection rate is 10 or fewer per 100,000 population for three straight weeks.

The county’s rate of positive tests must also be 5% or below for three consecutive weeks, and Oregon’s statewide positivity rate must also remain at 5% or below for three straight weeks.

“Each of these metrics must be achieved for three consecutive weeks in order to roll out our 20-21 instructional plan,” Witty stated in a press release Tuesday.