News Briefs

Dental care

People in Veneta, Mapleton, Junction City, Cottage Grove, Florence, Creswell, Dexter, and the McKenzie area have benefitted from an outreach program for oral health care. Every second Tuesday of the month, the Tiny Dental Van stops in at the Orchid McKenzie River Clinic in Rainbow.

Sponsored by the Rural Oregon Outreach Program, a first visit will include a patient assessment, intraoral photos, teeth cleaning, charting, and X-rays. To schedule new patient appointments or teeth cleaning, people can call 360-449-9500 or 800-525-6800. The program provides services to members of the Oregon Health Plan, working with the State of Oregon and Oregon’s Coordinated Care Organizations.

Fair Lady

“I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” and “The Rain in Spain” will be among the memories being rekindled from August 11th to the 14th in Eugene. That’s when Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady will take to the stage at the Hult Center,

Director Bartlett Sher’s production has been praised by the New York Times for bringing to life the tale of Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney girl who earns a living as a flower seller before being discovered by linguistics professor Henry Higgins. Tickets are on sale now for a show that addresses “who is teaching who.”

CWD

The 2024 state legislative session supported an additional $1.9 million to the Oregon Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory for monitoring and testing for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW) also received $795,000 for more staffing in the Wildlife Laboratory and several seasonal positions to increase sample collection.

Previously, when suspected hunter-collected samples were sent to labs outside the state, results were sometimes delayed by up to a month.

First detected in northern Idaho in 2021, CWD is always fatal to deer and elk. There is no vaccine or cure, and herds are devastating in other states, where prevalence rates among tested animals have exceeded 50 percent in some areas.

If the disease is detected, ODFW can implement a response to contain the spread of CWD, so a timely discovery is crucial.

Securing additional funding to fight CWD was a two-year process led by Amy Patrick, the Oregon Hunter Association’s (OHA) policy director.

“This is a huge win,” said Patrick, for the OHA, the sportsmen and women of Oregon, and most importantly, our wildlife.”