If you noticed a bump in business activity in John Day last weekend, you can thank the High Desert League Basketball Tournament. Hosted by Prairie City High School, the 1A district tournament for both boys and girls teams is held annually at Grant Union High School. In addition to the Panthers, this year’s participants included Jordan Valley, Adrian, Four Rivers, Harper, Crane and Huntington high schools.

Each school sends a busload of players and coaches, accompanied by a caravan of parents, siblings and diehard fans, who spend one or two nights (depending on how far their teams go in the tournament) in the John Day area. According to Prairie City athletic director Billy Colston, the tournament’s co-director, the event draws something like 400 to 500 people to the area over the course of three days — and all of them spend money on things like food, lodging and gas.

So if you bump into a bunch of folks togged out in team gear that says Mustangs or Falcons or Antelopes or Locomotives, smile and nod and make them feel welcome — they’re providing a nice midwinter boost for our local economy.

We’ll have full coverage of the tournament in this week’s edition of the Eagle, along with stories on the latest developments in the John Day mayor saga, the arraignment of a Forest Service burn boss, new candidate filings in a couple of county races and more. 

In case you missed it, last week’s paper featured stories on the Forest Service’s response to the burn boss indictment, a training academy for volunteer firefighters, a water crisis in Dayville, the closing of Grant County’s U.S. Bank branch, the growth of online education in Eastern Oregon and an alleged pistol-whipping incident in John Day.

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— Bennett Hall, Editor