From the editor’s desk
Published 8:00 am Saturday, August 6, 2022
- Cassiopaia Smith’s son, Raiden, posed with Star Wars cosplay characters during the first Color the Blues Autism Walk on April 30, 2016. This year, attendees can expect cosplay characters dressed as Ghostbusters.
In a way, extreme temperatures shouldn’t surprise us, but they do.
These past two weeks has delivered some pretty high temps and we are probably not out of the woods yet in terms of the baking climate.
Still, there are number of things we can do to stay cool. First, and probably foremost, is staying hydrated. That means drinking lost of water. Another step is to stay out of the heat if possible and, if not, make ample use of shade.
Another good step is check out some of the places around our towns to get into the cool water. In La Grande, there is the always popular Veterans’ Memorial Swim Pool. The Elgin Community Center Pool is a good place to beat the heat.
These two venues are excellent places for youth and adults to go to beat the heat. There is also the old standby of taking a trip into our great scenic areas where cooler temperatures are usually the rule not the exception. Be wise, however. There are fire restrictions in place across the entire region and while taking a trip into the woods may beat the heat, no one wants to see a major fire erupt because of carelessness.
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If you missed one or more issues of The Observer this week, here are a couple of stories you might have missed.
Reporter Shannon Golden looked at the upcoming Color the Blues for Autism Walk, scheduled for Aug. 13. The walk is an annual, family-friendly community event hosted in collaboration with the Autism Society of Oregon.
A Union County jury came back this week with a guilty verdict for second-degree murder for Ronald Lee, La Grande, for the murder of his wife, Loretta Williams, in November 2018 in Cove. The jury took about three hours of deliberation to return its verdict.
The debate over psilocybin continues in the county. This week, Union County and La Grande each took steps to refer the issue to voters in November and Cove announced it will hold a special meeting next week on the issue.
Coming up next week, look for a story from Dick Mason on Gerald Hopkins, of the Elgin Lions Club, who received the 2022 state Lion Leadership Award.
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As always, I want to take this opportunity to thank our subscribers for their support of The Observer. We can’t do this work without you.
