25 years ago this week — 1999An inmate at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution has been arrested for the attempted murder of a fellow inmate.

On Feb. 28, Anthony Duane Powell, 22, allegedly entered a housing unit he was not assigned to and attacked inmate Ronald Lee, 33.

Powell attacked Lee for “personal reasons,” said Jim Van Atta, investigating detective with Oregon State Police.

Van Atta said Powell had fashioned a weapon from a toothbrush. He noted homemade weapons are sharpened by rubbing them on concrete flooring. Powell allegedly approached Lee from behind and stabbed him in the side of the neck, Van Atta reported. When Lee put his hand up to resist, Powell then allegedly stabbed Lee in the hand.

“The doctor said if the weapon hadn’t been of flexible material, the first stab wound would have likely killed him,” Van Atta said.

When the chair in which Lee was sitting broke, guards were able to intervene and prevent Powell from further injuring Lee. Stopping the incident sooner could have endangered the guards, Van Atta said.

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Peggy Sauvie was only 16 when she discovered she would likely never bear children. The revelation came after she passed out at school one day. Doctors confirmed Sauvie was suffering from severe endometriosis.

The condition causes bleeding and scarring in the uterus, Suavie said.

As a nurse, Sauvie has an insider’s understanding of her condition, which is why she is doubly awed by the recent birth of twin sons Joshua and Jeremy.

They are not her first successful pregnancy – she has two older daughters, Ashleight, 9, and Amanda, 4. Suavie considered the birth of her daughters just as miraculous.

Getting pregnant was never a problem for her. Carrying a baby to term is what’s difficult for someone with a scarred uterus like Sauvie’s. She had three miscarriages by the time she was 26, 10 years after her initial diagnosis. She’d undergone procedures to scrape off the problematic tissue, but it always grew back.

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It may never cross the minds of Elaine Ramos’ three grandaughters to ask how studious the Echo High School industrial arts class construction crew may have been when it built their entertaining play house. But Al Olson knows.

“This is a really motivating project, because they have been able to put so much of their own personality in it,” said Olson, the school’s industrial arts instructor. “We are trying to simulate industry so when they get done they can go out and get a job.”

Olson and nine students in the last weeks of building an 8-foot by 8-foot playhouse. Each class member has assignments from an original draft, through a cost estimate to final construction.

“We do the full course, just like the real world,” Olson said. “We lay the floors and the walls up to the shingles with professional tools, according to the correct pattern.”

The completed house will be paneled and contain a stairway, carpeted balcony, kitchen sink with cabinets, table, chairs and a vinyl floor.

50 years ago this week — 1974The desolate face of the Boardman Bombing Range is going to change again.

When the emigrants arrived in Eastern Oregon more than 100 years ago, the range was a sea of grass. Artifacts found along watercourses indicate that the range — now all sand and sagebrush — once supported a large variety of life, human and animal.

Livestock growers made heavy use of the bunchgrass that rippled on the sandy plain, and they were followed by men who tried to turn the land to grain production.

They failed, old timers say, because they didn’t know how to combat the wind and shifting sand.

Now, with the prospect of a cluster of nuclear power plants that will make millions of gallons of coolant water available for irrigation, the bombing range is expected to bloom like a garden.

“There were lots of homesteads here,” William Kilkenny, Pendleton, said of the bombing range on a visit there last spring.

His brother, John Kilkenny, Portland,who was born at the Carty homestead at Tub Spring, said the land was ideal for stock raising. John Kilkenny now is senior circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, and is a former resident of Pendleton.

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Oregon feedlot operators warn that high prices of feed may cause a shortage of choice beef in Oregon this summer and boost the price.

Ron Baker, who operates the state’s largest feedlot near Hermiston, said the number of cattle being fattened has dropped 15 to 20 percent.

“There could well be a shortage in U.S. choice beef, for which the Oregon consumer has shown a preference,” Baker said.

Carroll Rhoades, another Oregon feedlot operator, said he has been relying on corn from Minnesota. Rhoades said corn cost him $3.90 a hundred pounds last May, but that this month he paid $6.60.

“Normally I buy and sell 500 cattle a month,” Rhoades said. “I sold my 500 this month, but I bought only 158.”

He said he will continue to buy fewer feeder cattle until the cost of feed drops or the price he gets for his fattened cattle goes up.

Don Ostensoe, executive vice president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, said Oregon feedlot operators have lost $5 million since September.

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The disease that caused the potato famine in Ireland in 1845 has been found in a shipment of spuds that came to Lamb-Weston’s Hermiston french fry plant from Washington, reports the Oregon Dept. of Agriculture.

George Moose, administrator of the department’s plant division, said the blight poses a potentially serious threat to the potato industry in Northeast Oregon and Southeast Washington.

Moose said circle irrigation — which has made big-scale potato production possible — apparently alters the soil climate enough to encourage the blight.

The disease is called phytophthora infestans — late blight. The shipment in which it was found arrived at Lamb-Weston last October but it took until now to prove beyond a doubt that the damage was caused by the late blight organism, a fungus that is harmless to humans.

The State Dept. of Agriculture said the fungus is known to have existed in the Pacific Northwest for many years. But it’s never been a problem. State shipping standards, in fact, allow up to two per cent of a shipment to contain late blight.

100 years ago this week — 1924Two athletic attractions claim the attention of Pendleton’s sports fans this evening, two attractions that have been so timed that they will not conflict with each other. The first which will start promptly at 7:30 in the high school gymnasium, is the game between the Helix team, champions of the Umatilla county basketball league, and an all-star aggregation from the other teams in the league. The contest should prove a good one for Helix has a powerful scoring machine that is hard to stop, while an excellent five is bound to take the field for the rest of the league.

The second attraction is the wrestling card to be staged in the rooms formerly occupied by the George Baer Hardware company. Two numbers are scheduled on the card. A preliminary event will bring together Roger Webb of Pendleton and Bull Hall of La Grande. The curtain raiser is scheduled to go for 30 minutes. Both boys are in the heavyweight division. The preliminary will commence at 8:30 while the main event between Sam Clapham, British light heavyweight champion, and Ray McCarroll of this city, will probably get under way shortly after nine.

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The Pendleton High School debate team won the championship of the Umatilla district by defeating Hermiston and Helix in a triangular debate last night and is now ready to compete with winners from other districts for the state championship.

Allen Boyden and Hope In’ow, representing the negative side of the question, “Resolved that the United States should recognize the Soviet government of Russia,” got a unanimous decision at Helix, while Irene Hartsell and Verne King, of the local affirmative team, defeated the Hermiston team by a two to one decision.

The state question, which will be the subject for debate between district champions, is: “Resolved, that the principle of federal subsidies to the state accompanied No debates with districts have been scheduled. Pendleton has several state debate championships to her credit and the school hopes to win again this year.

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The prize list for the third annual Cowboys’ Convention, which will be held at Ukiah this year, has already been under-written and guaranteed, and plans for the holding of the show are well under way, according to statements from residents of that district will be held Friday and Saturday, July 4 and 5 this year.

The convention was first given in 1921, and another show was put on in 1922. Last summer the management decided not to hold the convention in order that the celebration on Blue mountain when President Harding was in attendance might have the unanimous support of all communities. It will be resumed this year, and the Ukiah people are anticipating the most successful show they have ever given.

Ukiah is in the mountain, near both Lehman and Hidaway springs, and the popularity of the show heretofore has always crowded the mountain hamlet with people eager to see the western sports which are exemplified at the convention.