I got an email recently from a regular reader of this newsletter, a Vietnam-era Air Force veteran who lives in Florida. Unlike many people who follow the Eagle online, he’s not a current or former resident of Grant County, but he does have a personal connection to the area, and I’d like to share it with you.

It seems this gentleman was receiving treatment at a VA hospital in Florida that made free craft kits available to veterans. He picked up a leather-working kit. While the kits were free, the recipients were asked to fill out a postcard thanking one of the sponsors whose donations made the kits possible.

There was also a checkbox to indicate if the veteran would be willing to become a pen pal with the sponsor.

He checked the box.

From that simple, fateful act, a long-distance friendship blossomed between this veteran and Helen Bogart, a longtime John Day resident. They exchanged letters at first, then phone calls. Sometimes she would send him articles from the Blue Mountain Eagle.

About five or six years ago, the veteran told me, they lost touch. Given Helen’s age, he suspected she might have passed on, but he’d been unable to find an obituary in our online archives. I did some checking and discovered that his suspicions were correct: Helen Bogart died in Dec. 2020 at the age of 97.

While I’m sure her old friend was saddened to learn of her passing, I know from what he told me he has many fond memories of their friendship, and he has continued to keep tabs on the community she told him so much about through our online edition.

And that brings me to my point: One of the things I love most about newspapers is their ability to knit people together through a shared sense of community. In between bringing you the news of the day, we also try to tell the “softer” stories that make up the full mosaic of life in John Day and Grant County. I want to thank this gentleman for reminding me that this, too, is part of our purpose.

If you didn’t get a chance to read last week’s paper, we had plenty of news to report, including stories on the Blue Mountains Intergovernmental Council and its recommendations for managing national forest land in Northeast Oregon, the John Day City Council’s reaction to the Grant County Court’s police funding proposal, a survey on plans for a new aquatic center and the search for a new Grant Union School District superintendent. We also had features on how Grant Union High School students fared in a business competition and a Pendleton cat with 28 toes.

Coming up this week, you’ll find stories on plans for a Grant County addiction treatment center that have failed to materialize, high rates of COVID-19 in Eastern Oregon prisons and coverage of local prep sports, among others.

As always, I want to take this opportunity to thank our subscribers for their support. If you’re not subscribing already, I hope you’ll pay a visit to https://www.bluemountaineagle.com/subscribe-now/ to check out our latest offers.