A champion mom: Both mom and daughter cried tears of joy when the Powder Valley Badgers won the state 1A girls basketball title in March. Candra said her mom was her biggest fan, always cheering loudly from the balcony of the Powder Valley gymnasium. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO).

Lisa Britton

WesCom News Service

NORTH POWDER Brian Kotter wishes he’d taken notes about his wife’s flowers that bloom in the yard and overflow hanging baskets.

"This flower garden is a community project this year," he says. "I should have paid more attention."

And Candra Clark is making sure to keep every plant well-watered just like her mom would want.

"She loved plants. If you didn’t water the plants, you were in trouble," Clark, 16, says with a smile.

Stories like those, though, are slow in coming.

Both Kotter and Clark are a bit reserved when asked to describe the woman they lost on April 4 when Lori Leigh Hayes-Kotter was murdered in the parking lot behind the David J. Wheeler Federal Building, where she worked as a customer service supervisor.

She was 49.

Lori was born in Enterprise on Jan. 14, 1957, and she grew up on the family farm near Hurricane Creek.

Carol Chrisman, a juvenile court judge in Sacramento, Calif., lived on a neighboring ranch.

"I pretty much knew her from very early," Chrisman says. "As a kid she was very fun. She was my pipe-changing partner."

Though she tends to leave out the specifics "there’s a little mischief in a lot of things," she says with a chuckle Chrisman remembers floating down the ditch in an inner tube, making mudpies, sleeping outside in the fields.

And reading Archie comic books.

"In my family, we weren’t allowed to have comic books, so I’d go down to the Hayes’," she says.

Lori, she says, was into all activities in high school basketball, volleyball, track, 4-H, FFA.

"She was into everything," Chrisman says.

Though time and distance separated these two in their adult years, Chrisman said their friendship never faded.

Christy Davis of Powell, Wyo., also remembers lugging sprinkler pipes with Lori’s help. She recalled memories from long-ago in a note she mailed to Lori’s mother, Ann Hayes.

"How fondly I remember walking out to the fields to set sprinklers with Lori," Davis wrote. "We found a rhythm working together in the wet fields, unlatching lengths of pipe, tilt, drain, carry, slip and lock into place again repeated over and over!"

Ann Magill of Ashland was living near the Hayes house in Wallowa County when she met Lori.

"She’d just graduated from high school, and she was a single mom," Magill says.

That’s Lori’s son, Joshua Power, 29, who lives in Arkansas with his wife, Summer, and son, Keithen.

Though she never knew Lori well, Magill says the young woman made quite an impression.

"I remember her because she was just a free spirit, very smart, and very devoted to her child," she says.

Lori graduated from high school in 1974, and she later moved to Pendleton to attend Blue Mountain Community College.

"Then she ended up staying in Pendleton," Brian says.

While there, Lori worked as an assistant manager at the Grizzly Bear Pizza Parlor.

"What a fun-loving good person she was. Always a smile on her face," says Michelle Bullock, who now lives in Boise and worked at the pizza joint during the late 1970s. "Through her whole life, so many people loved her she touched more lives than her family can ever imagine."

Sharon Bailey also met Lori during her Grizzly Bear days, and the two became fast friends as teammates on the Lead Nickel Saloon girls softball team.

"We had a good time. We never won anything, but it was a good way to meet people," says Bailey, who now lives in Bend. "We eventually became roommates. I could tell some funny stories about that but I won’t."

Bailey remembers nights of disco dancing, walks when both women were too keyed up to sleep, and the wooden spool that took four guys to haul into their apartment.

"We had plants hanging off it, all these herbs. She could grow anything from an itty-bitty seed," Bailey says. "She had a green thumb up to her elbow."

"When Candra was born, it just lit up her life," Bailey says. "She was so proud of that little girl."

And Lori, she says, laughed "from her toes."

"We always tried to find the funny part, even with sad things," Bailey says. "I told John God has got his hands full. He has the most fun-loving energetic angel he could have."

Thanks to her mom, Candra knows a whole lot more about childbirth than the average 16-year-old.

"The first time I didn’t know what to think I must have been about 2," she says, recalling one of the many home births she attended with her mom.

Lori had always been interested in natural remedies, and when she became pregnant with Candra she decided to see a midwife.

That’s when she met Sherry Dress of John Day.

"I delivered Candra, and Lori and I have been friends for 17 years," Dress says.

After Candra was born, Lori began attending births with Dress, and sometimes was the first to arrive if the expectant mother lived closer to North Powder than John Day.

About three years ago, Dress remembers calling Lori at work to request help with a birth in Halfway.

"I said, ‘Lori, you have to take time off. I’ll be there in an hour and a half I need your help,’ " Dress says.

She’s still adjusting to life without Lori.

"When I’d drive through Baker, I’d always call her and we’d go have lunch or something," Dress says as she wipes away her tears. "No matter how long it’d been between seeing each other, we’d just pick up where we left off. We were kindred spirits, and that’s hard to find."

Lori began her 16-year career with the U.S. Postal Service in May 1991 in Pendleton.

"Somebody talked her into taking the test one day," Brian says.

Her first job was to sort mail in the backroom, then she advanced through the postal ranks and worked in offices at Joseph, Nyssa and Baker City.

Lori was the officer in charge at Joseph when Cindy Sloan made her acquaintance.

"I did my one-and-only short-term career with the post office. (Lori) was really good and showed you how to do things right," says Sloan, who still lives in Joseph.

That was in the fall of 2002 when Lori spent about a year in Joseph "on detail" to fill in on a temporary basis.

Though Sloan only worked at the post office for six months, she and Lori stayed close, walking dogs at night and staying in contact after Lori returned to her permanent position in Baker City.

Their last contact was the week before Lori’s death. Sloan was preparing to run a marathon on Whidbey Island in Washington, so Lori sent her some arnica and calcium.

"She just knew when to send something or call," Sloan says.

It’s her smile that Baker City postmaster Michael McGuire first recalls when asked about Lori.

"She was always smiling, always optimistic," he says. "Her world revolved around her daughter, that was her passion. Everything her daughter did, we heard about it."

Lori transferred to the Baker City post office as a clerk in July 1994, and became supervisor in February 1999.

Though Baker City was her permanent location, Lori worked several details, filling in at Joseph in 2002 and Nyssa from June to October of 2003.

Her stint in Nyssa was to fill in for Maguire, who was that city’s postmaster but on detail in Portland.

Maguire transferred to Baker City in September 2004.

"I knew (Lori) very well from work," he says. "She was an excellent supervisor the best I ever had."

She worked, officially, from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

"There were a lot of times she worked until 5 or 6 and other times we let her go at noon so she could go watch a game," he says.

Claire Eckrich, supervisor at the La Grande post office, met Lori in 1994.

"Being out here in Eastern Oregon, we were each other’s support network, I guess you could say," Eckrich says.

The women both held the same position at their respective post offices, so they shared countless ideas and frus-

trations.

"We would talk at least once a day, if not five, six or seven times a day," she says. "And, of course, we all have our bad days."

Lori’s work ethic is what Eckrich recalls as she talks about her colleague and friend.

"Lori has worked hard her whole life, and she expected her employees to do that too," she says.

Eckrich spent several weeks in Baker City following Lori’s death.

"I told the employees, ‘Lori would want me to be here for you guys.’ I think Lori and I had the same style of management."

She misses those daily talks.

Lori’s flowers continue to bloom, a fragrant and cheerful reminder of this woman well-known in North Powder, where she lived, and Baker City, where she worked.

And stories about her laughter and flowers and good deeds go on and on.

Just ask North Powder postmaster Kylene Huffman about Lori, the shovel and the big black dog.

"I’d see her when I came to work or headed home, walking under the underpass to those empty fields," Huffman says. "A few days later I saw her walking with a shovel and her big black Lab, and I had people come in and say, ‘Who’s the lady with the shovel?’"

Curiosity finally prompted Huffman to go ahead and ask.

"One day I hollered at her ‘Lori, everyone’s wondering what you’re doing with that shovel.’ She just smiled and said, ‘I took him out there to run and saw all these thistles and nasty weeds, so I thought I’d bring a shovel and dig them up.’ " Huffman says with a laugh. "It’s one of my favorite stories to tell about her and her smile when I told her everyone was asking about her."

This is how Brian describes Lori’s loves: "Her flowers and her family. And anyone else who needed help."

As Brian tells stories, Candra suddenly walks away, then returns to slip a piece of paper on the table.

Writing has been her release.

"About a month ago, I went through something I didn’t think I would have to go through until I was at least 60 I lost my mom at 16 and she was only 49," she wrote. "Mom wasn’t famous or anything, but she did have a lot of qualities that the world needs. She was fun, caring, a great mom, friend and wife:

"My mom was my hero. I used to say to myself I am really lucky to have such a great mom. ? I just hope that someday that I can be the mother she was for me. To put it plain and simple, she was awesome!"

"She supported me in everything, no matter what," Candra says.

She and her mom were planning a trip to Mexico during her senior year at Powder Valley High School.

"So we’re going to Mexico to scatter her ashes," Candra says, "where the sand is white and the water’s crystal clear."