100 Years Ago

From the East Oregonian

Feb. 20, 1921

“That’s pretty stiff,” said George Travis. “I’ll just add six months to that,” said the judge. Travis was inspired to his remark when Judge T. M. Schannep, in county court this morning, imposed a fine of $200 for a conviction on the charge of having liquor in his possession unlawfully. The judge was inspired by Travis’ seeming impertinence. The jail sentence was later reduced to three months. Travis fell for the hold game. He took $7.50 from a state prohibition officer, bought him a pint of whisky and delivered it. He was arrested and taken to the county jail. Before getting behind the bars, Travis broke and ran through the jail yard and behind the Oregon Lumber yard. The officer and deputy sheriffs Lavender and Ridgway surrounded Travis and with two guns pointed at him he “reached for the moon.” He started serving time today.

50 Years Ago

From the East Oregonian

Feb. 20, 1971

He handed me a dry, forked branch of a mulberry bush. “Try it yourself,” he said. The stick bent lightly when I held it near a streaming faucet. Then the water witch placed his hands on mine and the forked stick almost yanked itself out of my hands. The world is full of water witches, and Umatilla County is no exception. Here are people who do routinely what appear to be almost acts of magic, although none of them think of it as magic. Many of them locate wells. Others can find water, metal or lost objects of any kind, including people. “Witching” for wanted things “is as old as time,” said the Pendleton man who introduced me to the power his hands could generate in the dry mulberry branch. How does witching work? “An ionic field,” says one water witch. “Extra sensory perception,” says another. “Static electricity? Electromagnetic force? I don’t know, but it works,” says William Jordan of Stanfield, who uses a pair of brass welding rods to find not only water but metal.

25 Years Ago

From the East Oregonian

Feb. 20, 1996

Several days a week Pat Struthers wheels his light blue pickup through the twisty back roads of Eastern Oregon wheat country making house calls. “It’s virgin territory pretty much,” says Struthers, during a drive from Heppner to Hardman. “I’d say every other home probably has one.” That would be a personal computer. Struthers and partner Steve Amsberry serve some of Eastern Oregon’s most rural households as well as its small cities. The two own Eastern Oregon Computer Consulting, a Pendleton-based business that takes computer know-how where it’s needed. Business has tripled each of the last three years from about $15,000 in part-time gross sales to $150,000 last year. The company’s services are extensive, from hooking up a new computer to designing web pages for the Internet and teaching classes. Computers have been a hobby for Struthers since high school and Amsberry’s skills began with a home-taught crash course. “You can’t go to school to learn this,” Amsberry said. “You have to have it in your hands.”