We started the week with coverage on the La Grande High School girls cross-country team winning the first state title in program history. Quite an accomplishment for the program and with it came questions about The Observer’s sports coverage.

I’ve touched on this in print columns before but I will mention again here that the effect COVID had on The Observer and our parent company, EO Media Group, can’t be overstate. It forced our hand on a few fronts and accelerated some timelines into decisions that — at the time — seemed unthinkable, and one of those changes is in our ability to cover sports like we did before the pandemic. Post-pandemic we are doing the best we can with the limited resources we have on staff.

We currently don’t have a sports reporter on staff. Prior to the start of the fall sports schedule, we partnered with EasternOregonSports.com to provide nightly game coverage for our website. We’ve also utilized a pair of former reporters — Ronald Bond and Davis Carbaugh — in our sports coverage. Ronald has provided features and profiles, while Davis is handling our Eastern Oregon University game coverage.

Not having a full-time sports reporter on staff can be a formidable challenge, but I think we were able to develop a resourceful, short-term plan.

These changes to our sports coverage continue to evolve and will take a little getting used to for all of us, but it offers the best of what The Observer provides — timely coverage and unique local stories in print and online.

We went from there right into Election Night. Among the highlights:

La Grande voters elected Justin Rock over Mathew Miles as mayor to replace outgoing Mayor Steve Clements, who announced in February he would not seek another term.

Voters in Union County overwhelmingly passed a measure to ban psilocybin product manufacturers and psilocybin service center operators from doing business in unincorporated portions of Union County.

We also had coverage of the annual 73rd Farmer Merchant Banquet. The event, put on by the Union County Chamber of Commerce, returned this year after being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

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