See Mountain Echo on the web at MountainEcho.com Published every Tuesday Vol. 43, No 7 February 19, 2019

The leader in local news and sports coverage throughout the Intermountain Area

Winter Ag meeting set for Monday

The 2019 Cattleman of the Year’s passion, besides his family, has always been ranch-ing with cattle and horses.

Tom DeForest was born November 20, 1948 in Alturas, joining his older sister, Cheryl. Their parents, Ches and Grace DeForest, were working for the Flournoy family in Likely.

When Tom was 5 years old

they moved to Oregon House, east of Marysville, to work for Warren Flournoy’s father-in-law, Tom Richards, Sr.

While growing up, Tom loved helping his dad care for the Richard’s Ranch cat-tle in the steep foothills along the Yuba River. Showing 4-H steers at the Yuba-Sutter Fair SEE DeFOREST, A-3

Clifford met his wife, Kris-tin, in 1966 at a rodeo. They were married in 1967. In 1970, their son, Carson was born. Clifford & Kris have two grandsons.

Clifford joined the Army and was in the 82nd Airborne Division. After getting out, he worked in the logging indus-try, and at any odd jobs he could find, including working for different ranches here. His desire always leaned towards the western way of life. He rode bareback horses in local rodeos and was very active in the local roping club and in

“roping” in general.In 1970, Clifford accepted

a life-changing job, he went to work for the Knoch Ranch. They hired him to work on their home ranch in Fall River, but also be their ranch manag-er on their winter range, the Diamond Ranch, located west of Red Bluff, to take care of the cattle. That 1st winter was a learning experience. From that time on, he & his family worked on outfits located as far north as Oregon, to ranch-es as far south as Shandon, California.

SEE CLIFF, A-2

BURNEY — A 13-year-old 8th grader who Mountain Echo is currently withholding thr name, is reportedly pick-ing fights to prove she’s the toughest girl in town.

Saturday night during an adult bowling tournament, the newcomer to Burney rep;ortedly attacked another 13-year-old without provica-tion, allegedly mistaking her for her earlier victim who she had knocked down and kicked in Burney High School and then tried to take on again at a local pizza parlor a couple of weeks ago, after which the school allegedly refused to tell the victim’s parents, them to transfer their daughter to an-other school..

The fight in front of the bowling alleywas broken up before anyone got hurt. The deputies allegedly have also refused to give any informa-tion to the victims parents.

The father of the victim says the deputies won’t tell him the girl’s parents names, which he says is probably a good thing because he is fed up with the authorities refus-ing to do anything.

The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office and the Office of Emer-gency Services continue to monitoring the impacts from the snow storm that recent-ly hit Shasta County. Due to events stabilizing in our area and a majority of the electri-

cal power being restored the American Red Cross shelter and a warming center have been closed has been open at the Redding Public Library The public is reminded that utility and road crews may still be out removing debris from

roadways and working to re-pair infrastructure which was damaged. Please, if you see their crews working along the roadways or in your neighbor-hood to slow down, move over and follow their instructions as needed.

Crews from Pacific Gas and Electric Company continued to restore power Saturday af-ter low-elevation snow and heavy rains swept across the North Valley starting Tuesday night, causing outages impact-ing 60,000 customers including portions of the Intermoun-tain Area at the peak on early Wednesday morning.

As of 1 p.m. Thursday, about 31,000 PG&E custom-ers were without power in the North Valley. About 27,000 of those customers are in Shas-ta County, which had heavy snows, including considerable low-elevation snow. PG&E is utilizing Sno-cats to access locations in remote mountain areas and has brought in more workers to supplement local crews.

Crews made considerable progress Friday, restoring power to thousands of custom-ers in Cottonwood, Anderson, rural Redding, Palo Cedro and Millville. Some outages re-main in those communities, as well as in Montgomery Creek, Round Mountain, Lakehead, Keswick, French Gulch and other mountain communities.

PG&E expects more cus-tomers to be restored by this evening. Crews have found considerable storm damage, including 18 broken poles, much of it due to fallen trees impacted by the low snow and heavy rains. Debris, deep snow and flooded roads con-tinue to pose access challenges for crews.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company continues restoring power to thousands of custom-ers each day in the North Val-ley and has brought in addi-tional workers and mutual aid crews from Oregon to help lo-cal crews restore power more quickly.

More than 250 PG&E work-ers and partner utility workers are in the North Valley, where heavy, low-elevation snow and heavy rains on Wednesday fell trees and damaged power lines and poles. The extensive dam-age to PG&E equipment, cou-pled with blocked roads and snowy terrain, impacted 60,000 PG&E customers at its peak on early Wednesday morning. As of 4 p.m. Friday, about 22,000 customer remain without power, most of them – or about 19,000 – are in Shasta County, which was hit especially hard

by severe weather. Nearly 3,000 are without power in Te-hama County communities of Cottonwood, Lyonsville, Min-eral, Mill Creek and Manton.

PG&E has established a small base camp at the Shasta County Fairgrounds in Ander-son to stage materials and sup-port crews.

With adverse weather this weekend, there may be fresh power outages. PG&E crews and its partner crews are working to assess and repair damages to electric equip-ment.

Even if customers don’t see crews in their neighborhood, crews are often working on another part of the system that needs repairs before their power can be restored. Power lines don’t always follow roads and often span fields, forests and rough terrain where ac-cess can be difficult in wet con-ditions.

PG&E knows extended elec-tric outages pose significant challenges for our customers and apologizes for the incon-venience. Power outages can sometimes affect gas applianc-es as they require power to op-erate.

The Lassen County Sher-iff’s Office is investigating a body found in the Big Valley area on Friday.

Authorities say they re-ceived a report of a missing person on Thursday around 10 a.m. The missing person was identified as Daran Myers, 70, of Adin.

Myers had reportedly been working on a weir/dam to reg-ulate water levels on Willow Creek when he went missing. Cal Fire, the Lassen Coun-

ty Sheriff’s Office and a crew from the Intermountain Con-servation Camp searched the area on Thursday but could not find him.

On Friday, the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office, Cal Fire, Intermountain Camp, Search and Rescue and the swift-water rescue team from the Susanville City Fire De-partment found Myers’ body around 1 p.m.

The cause of death is still under investigation.

The Winter Ag meeting has been rescheduled to Monday, February 25. The workshop will be held at the Intermoun-tain Fairgrounds in George In-gram Hall McArthur, CA. The session will begin at 9:00 am and will conclude by 3:00 pm. This meeting is sponsored by the McArthur Farm Supply, Helena Chemical Company, Copps Irrigation, Zoetis (for-mally Pfizer Animal Health) and Golden State Farm Cred-it, Shasta County Ag. Depart-ment and University of Cali-

fornia Cooperative Extension.Topics and speakers at the

workshop include:The morning program will

include: Spray Rig Mainte-nance and Calibration, Adam Davy Shasta Co. Dept. of Ag-riculture and Thomas Getts, Lassen Co. UCCE, Nutrient Management in Hay Crops, Dan Putnam, UC Davis Spe-cialist, and Managing Weeds in Grass and Alfalfa, Thomas Getts, Lassen Co. UCCE

How much mineral con-sumption is necessary to main-

tain Se Blood Levels? Josh Davy, Tehama/Glenn/Colusa UCCE, Understanding CA New Antibiotic Regulations, Dr. Mike Poulus, CA Dept. of Ag-riculture, and, Do ionophores result in better gain? Larry Forero, Shasta/Trinity UCCE.

There is no cost for this meeting and lunch is included. To help plan for food we are requiring advance registra-tion. Please call Larry Forero or Sara Jaimes at the Shasta County Cooperative Extension office at 530-224-4900.

70 Year-old Adin man’s body found

Cattleman & Top Hand for 2019 named

PG&E works to repair storm damaged lines

New to area13-year-old out to prove how tough she is?

Storm situation appears to have stabilized

Winter Ag meeting set for Monday Feb. 25

Top Hand Cliff Cunningham

The 2019 Cattleman of the year Tom DeForest

Photo by Jennifer Leighton

Fall River Bulldogs Advance in Championship TourneyFall River’s Rayleeawna Venegas gets ready to pass as Jazmine Royal runs toward her. Raiders (front to back) Kylie Tiran, Ashley Davies and Ava Bellino move in. (See Sports, Pages 5 and 6.

Downed Power Pole

Clifford CunninghamTom DeForest