100 years ago

Karl (Junk) Walters, local boy, has returned from Rockford, Illinois, where he played this season with that city in the Three I League.

Walters made a good record, leading the first basemen in fielding, making only seven errors the entire season. He batted better than 300, making fourth place in the average. He was the only player in the league to play every inning, there being 135 games in all. Rockford finished second in the pennant race.

Walters, who with Mrs. Walters and baby are guests of Mr. Walters; mother, Mrs. Tillie Walters, plans to spend the winter here if he can find suitable employment. He doesn’t know where he will play next season as faster company has made bids for his services.

50 years ago

E. Howard Hunt Jr., saying his memory has been recently refreshed, today testified that Charles W. Colson approved the general campaign intelligence scheme that led to the Watergate wiretapping.

Hunt also said that former special White House counsel Colson directed him in 1971 efforts to discredit the Kennedy administration with fake diplomatic cables and instructed him to collect derogatory information about Pentagon papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg.

Hunt, who has confessed his own role in the wiretapping, said previously that, so far as he knew, Colson was ignorant of the specific advance plans to bug the Democratic headquarters last year.

Colson has denied prior knowledge of the break-in. Last week he declined to answer the Senate Watergate committee’s questions on grounds that he might incriminate himself.

25 years ago

Oregon Department of Transportation officials were in Pendleton Tuesday asking local residents how they want the agency to spend money on statewide transportation projects.

They left knowing the people in this area want their fair share of state funds and more local control.

“If there’s any rap I hear about ODOT, it’s this proportionality thing,” Umatilla County Commissioner Dennis Doherty, referring to the perception that Eastern Oregon is cut short on highway funding at the expense of Western Oregon projects. “We need the latitude to regionalize a little bit” in the way funding is spent and distributed.

“In Eastern Oregon, we’re more interested in the highway plan,” Doherty said. “On the west side, they’re a lot more interested in the alternative modes, so they’re driven more by how much money we can rake up for some of those other modes of transportation — and Eastern Oregon just gets lost.”