A JOB WELL DONE: 2008 EOLS President Ray McDaniel awards Queen Kymee Braseth a plaque commending her outstanding commitment. The Observer/AMBER GLAZE

Kymee, 18, won the title Queen of the Eastern Oregon Livestock Show, 2008. She sold $28,312 worth of tickets — that’s 2,476 tickets. She sold more than any other queen in the 101 years of Stock Show.

With two competitors, Kymee won all three court competitions: speech/performance, horsemanship and ticket sales.

Back when I was a college student and stayed up at all odd hours of the night, I caught part of a short, small budget documentary following a longtime family in the Appalachians.

Five new, officially-certified OSU Master Gardeners joined an elite group of five other official Master Gardeners residing in Union County during a graduation ceremony and celebration dinner at Stange Manor in La Grande Nov. 7.

To officially be recognized by Oregon State University as Master Gardeners, Union County students attended classes at the OSU Extension Office in Island City, completed a final exam and performed 40 hours of community service. Previous graduates who chose to continue in the program were re-certified as Master Gardeners through their attendance at a minimum of two classes this past year and performing 10 hours of community service.

TREE FARMERS OF THE YEAR: Ted and Mary Brown and their family, who run Wisdom Creek Tree Farm near Union, won the 2008 Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year, presented by the Oregon Tree Farm System at a ceremony in Portland Monday. From left to right: U.S. Forest Service Deputy Regional Forester Cal Joyner, State Forester Marvin Brown, Ted Brown, Sandy Brown and Mary Brown. Submitted photo

The Oregon Tree Farm System on Monday recognized Ted and Mary Brown during a ceremony at the World Forestry Center in Portland.

Ted and Mary Brown purchased the Wisdom Creek Tree Farm in 1957 and expanded in 1978 to the farm’s current size of 756 acres.

BRAINSTORMING: Lisa Mahon, manager of the Union Soil and Water Conservation District, discusses a current landowner project with the district’s engineer, Layne Lindley. Mahon began her position last April. The Observer/ETHAN SCHOWALTER-HAY

That background comes in handy today, as she interfaces daily with Northeast Oregon landowners concerned about the productivity and health of their spreads.

And Mahon’s in a good position to assist them. In  April, she became manager of the Union Soil and Water Conservation District.

Cove 4-H instructor Tammi DelCurto was recently named Union County 4-H Leader of the Year after heartfelt nominations from peers, parents and club members.

DelCurto has led the Cove 4-H Livestock Club for some nine years, and is also the secretary with the Union County 4-H Leaders Association and coach of the Union County Livestock Judging Team.

Members of La Grande High School’s FFA chapter examine a prickly lettuce plant. The students were responsible for identifying prickly lettuce and much more at a FFA recent weed, seed and crop identification contest. The LHS students shown are, from left, David Ridder, Blake Partney, Misha Sigurdson, Kelsey Johnson and Jake DeLong. The Observer/DICK MASON

Identifying seeds, crops and weeds is much harder, but in

La Grande it can be as easy as finding a student wearing an FFA jacket.

f you start today, your apple monsters will be dried just in time for Halloween. These freshly-made owl and eyebrow monsters have a couple days to go. - Photos/EDEN KRUGER

As much as I liked gluing cotton balls to construction paper for Santa Claus’ beard when I was a kid, my siblings and I reserved a special enthusiasm for the evening my parents pulled the Halloween box down from storage.

THE 4-H EXPERIENCE: Brittanie Crook, a 4-H sewing member, works on a project. Her experiences with sewing in 4-H will serve her well studying apparel design at Oregon State University. Submitted photo

October marks the beginning of a new 4-H year. We officially started the season by celebrating National 4-H Week (Oct. 5–11) with the coming year’s theme, Keeping It Green.

In keeping with the theme, 4-H members across the United States will begin making plans to help raise awareness about environmental issues and will initiate projects to make a positive difference in their communities.

Plans are in the works to install a Global Positioning System base station in Wallowa County. The station would provide reference points to compensate for the GPS locational offset. - Photo/ODOT

The Eagle Cap Resource Conservation and Development Council is a non-profit organization focused on natural resource conservation and community development in Baker, Union and Wallowa counties.