Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf coordinator, with the 97-pound male wolf collared Feb. 12. Photo/ODFW

Collaring the wolves will help wildlife managers better track and understand the pack’s movements, ODFW said.

Last Friday a 115-pound wolf believed to be the alpha male was fitted with a GPS collar, which allows ODFW to track the wolf daily.

ENTERPRISE — The Wallowa County Board of Commissioners has agreed to initiate the process for a fairgrounds tax district.

This puts the Fair Board one step closer to its goal of asking the voters of Wallowa County to help fund the fairgrounds

Though the schedule has been shortened, the “Steelhead Spectacular” fishing excursions run by the Wallowa Union Railroad and the Minam Motel will take place again this year.

Union County Tourism said this week that the motel met the WURA’s requirement to buy liability insurance, and so can carry on with the excursions.

The Friends of the Joseph Branch, the non-profit support group for the excursion train side of the railroad business, located and is paying for a policy in order to ensure the fish train runs this year,” said Janet Dodson, UCT executive director.

The Union County Board of Commissioners will hear a recommendation from the Court Facility Task Force during a regular session board meeting Thursday.

The board-appointed task force is studying options for building a new Union County court facility in La Grande.

The current facility, in the Joseph Building at Fourth Street and K Avenue, has been deemed inadequate.

Union High School science teacher Greg Poor, right, and eighth-graders Coby Joseph and Jeffree LaTurner demonstrate how a fluorescent light is used to detect a harmless solution that represents germs. DICK MASON/The Observer

Still, germs can spread at an extraordinary rate, one which recently gave Union students a good reason to “tweet” their friends.

They wanted to tell their friends about an experiment that will have many students washing their hands more frequently with hot water and soap.

Two woolly mammoth tusks were located Jan. 20 on farm land in the southern portion of the Grande Ronde Valley. The tusk being excavated is about 4 feet long. April Van Tassell photo

The tusks and other animal bones were found during the excavation of local farm land Jan. 20.

“A heavy equipment operator working for a local construction company was excavating about 15 feet below the original ground surface when he noticed white in the brown sand,’’ said Professor Jay Van Tassell of Eastern Oregon University’s Geology Department. “When he stopped to investigate, he found a large white bone.”

HORIZON WIND ENERGY, owner of the Elkhorn Valley wind farm at Telocaset (pictured above), hopes to build a second facility, the Antelope Ridge wind farm, near Union in 2011. The company says the two wind farms combined will provide revenues between $2.7 million - 6 million to local governments. The proposal to build the Antelope Ridge wind farm has met with stiff local opposition. - BILL RUATENSTRAUCH

Not only that, the two winds farms combined will account for more than 300 construction jobs and more than 90 direct, indirect and induced jobs.

But not everybody is buying it.

Elgin community members and students signed hundreds of footprints pledging their support for a drug-free community. The footprints are displayed in the high school’s gym. The footprints were signed as part of a drug awareness program led by Elgin High School students Rachael Jones, Lauren Sauers and Taylor Luse. - Submitted photo

This is why news of the three drug-related murders in the Elgin area last summer left the EHS students determined.

News of the Liberty Theatre renovation plans is an exciting possibility to those of us who once attended movies there, at the elite movie theatre in town.

That was where I watched all of the Shirley Temple movies and marveled over the little girl of the golden curls and cute dresses. I had all of her paper doll cut-outs until they ended up in our furnace by an over-zealous father in clean-up mode.

“You can buy more,” he encouraged as the last of the Dionne quintuplets followed suit as part of the moving to another house clean-up had progressed to almost all of the paper dolls standing on a ledge around the back porch, my failing for not having put them away in shoe boxes when play was last ended.