If it’s summer, it must be road repair season, and that means delays on area highways for motorists who run up against crews chip-sealing cracks or laying down fresh asphalt on county roads and state highways. To help you plan your trips to avoid those hassles as much as possible, in last week’s edition we published a roundup of road projects on the docket this summer for the Grant County Road Department and Oregon Department of Transportation. We hope you found it helpful. Happy motoring!

Other highlights of last week’s paper included stories on Dayville’s Fourth of July festivities, new rules at Grant County subsidized housing complexes, a Dayville rodeo queen competing for a national title and a profile of a pair of local craft brewers.

Coming up this week, look for stories on a John Day startup company looking to turn wood waste into marketable products, the future of a fire-gutted building in the heart of the city’s downtown, rising fire danger levels (live now on our website) and a call for volunteers to officiate high school sports competitions. 

Don’t forget our community open house coming up this Wednesday, July 19, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Blue Mountain Eagle office, 195 N. Canyon Blvd. in John Day.  Come check out our remodeled digs, meet the people who produce your newspaper every week and join us for hamburgers, hot dogs and cold drinks. We’d really love to see you there!

If you’d like to help support our independent local journalism, please consider subscribing to the newspaper. And if you’re already a subscriber, please accept our heartfelt thanks — we can’t do this work without you!

— Bennett Hall, Editor