25 years ago this week — 1999

The governor toured Columbine High School today and emerged saying that investigators were all but certain that the two gunmen had help from others. Police said security cameras may provide crucial evidence of a conspiracy.

“There are backpacks with bombs in there everywhere,” Gov. Bill Owens said. “The officers in there are convinced there had to be more people involved. There’s just too much stuff in there.”

Time-lapse security cameras mounted throughout the school do not run continuously and each tape goes back about a week, said Sheriff’s Lt. John Kiekbusch. He said authorities had not yet reviewed the tapes and did not know if the cameras were running during the shooting.

“Ideally they would show the movement and also the actual placement perhaps of some of the explosives decided, prior to the incident,” Kiekbusch said. “If that’s the case we have got just very important evidence.”

Officials returned to campus today to continue scouring for hidden explosives a day after the discovery of a powerful bomb made from a 20-pound propane tank heightened suspicions that Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, intended to destroy the school, and could have had help in assembling their arsenal.

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Refugees are as diverse as the motives behind the conflicts they flee from, yet they all share a common bond of bewilderment and loss.

That’s the case for Kosovo exchange student Ridvan Aliu, although he didn’t realize he soon would be a refugee when he registered at Ukiah High School earlier this school year.

The 16-year-old may be safely sheltered in the tiny mountain town 50 miles south of Pendleton, but he faces a deadline that may send him back to the war-torn Yugoslav province — just as the 20,000 Kosovar refugees the Clinton administration is committed to harboring begin arriving in the United States.

“I have filed a petition for asylum to get me beyond June, after my visa expired,” Aliu said. “I don’t know what will happen, but I don’t want to go back. Everything is getting destroyed. I want to be an architect but there will be no schools or colleges.”

Ridvan and his 17-year-old brother, Irman, left their parents, two younger sisters and their grandfather behind in Gjilan, a city of 80,000 about 30 miles southeast of Pristina, in January. Imran is attending school in Paisley.

In the wake of the NATO bombings, the brothers have lost contact with their family. Prior to escalation, the boys received work their family had received orders for their induction into the Serbian army.

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They argued about it after children fell in Jonesboro, in Paducah, in Springfield and in Edinboro. They agonized after gunfire ended lives in San Ysidro and Stockton, in Killeen and on the Long Island Rail Road.

Now, after the massacre last Tuesday in Littleton, souls are being searched and hands wrung once more.

But this time, both sides of the gun lobby see something different. Whatever the cause – the gunmen’s ferocity, the sight of dead children, the firepower involved or just the excruciating repetition — Columbine’s bloodshed may have changed the terms of the argument for good.

“We probably turned a corner last Tuesday,” said Allegra Haynes, president of Denver’s City Council.

“It’s turned the debate around 180 degrees,” acknowledged Dudley Brown, executive director of the 5,000-member Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, an advocacy group.

Vice President Al Gore heard the emotion. As he walked down the street toward Columbine after Sunday’s memorial service, someone in the crowd shouted at him: “Stop the NRA!”

50 years ago this week — 1974

Former Sen. Wayne Morse, now 73, brought his senatorial campaign to Umatilla County Monday sounding alarms on dollar inflation, the petroleum industry and campaign financing.

The bushy-browed former law professor and government arbitrator spoke at Blue Mountain College, a Pendleton Rotary Club luncheon and to the news media in an effort to gain his party’s senatorial nomination in the May 28 Democratic primary.

Morse was met with questions about his age. He served four terms in the Senate, from 1944 to 1968, when he was defeated by Bob Packwood, who is now up for reelection. Morse said many Republicans and Democrats had asked him to make this race, and quoted some as having said that his age was one of the reasons they thought he should run – that his government experience would be a plus in Congress.

“I think what counts is a candidate’s vigor, mental awareness” and grasp of the issues, said the Lane County Democrats.

Morse said he thought his adamant stand against continued U.S. participation in the Vietnam war had caused his defeat by Packwood in 1968.

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A festival of thanksgiving is planned this weekend at the Indian Community Center at Mission, when Indians gather from throughout the North-west for the Indian Root Festival of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

Dancing, memorial services for the dead, exchange of gifts and the traditional root feast are planned for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The history of the root feast dinner, scheduled for Sunday afternoon, is steeped in Indian religion. “It’s like your Thanksgiving,” Carrie Sampson, head root digger, points out. The celebration is in thanks to God for the food furnished the Indian throughout the year.

The root festival food is as traditional as turkey is in November. A group of root diggers spends day in the woods and fields, digging up the choice delicacies. Close to home they did the coush root and the sawitk. The latter they eat like a carrot. The coush root, similar to a potato, is adaptable to many uses. Bread cereal, pudding, gravy, the root is a substantial part of the traditional Indian feast. The Tribes’ official diggers, headed by Mrs. Sampson, have worked diligently searching out enough roots for the Sunday feast.

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About 10 years ago Umatilla County voters defeated a proposal for a home rule charter by a narrow margin.

“Maybe people have changed their opinions,” said Tammy Green, Pendleton, who spoke at the Pendleton Chamber of Commerce luncheon Friday.

Mrs. Green is heading the nine-member committee that is drawing up a new charter proposal that will be placed on the November ballot.

She told the nearly 50 luncheon guests how the charter will change the current form of county government. She emphasized, though, that it is still in a rough draft form and the committee is still looking for suggestions.

The major change if the charter is adopted is that the present three-member, full-time board of commissioners would be enlarged to a five-member, part-time board with an appointed county administrator.

The elected positions of county clerk, sheriff, assessor, treasurer and surveyor would become appointive.

“We have no quarrel with any department,” said Barabra Lynch, Hermiston, another committee member. “We are just trying to get a chain of accountability,” she said. Mrs. Lynch is a candidate for the county commission board.

100 years ago this week — 1924

Billy Edwards, the Kansas City tendon puller, will be seen in action in Pendleton again provided that he doesn’t lose his belt to Ira Dern of “airplane spin” fame in their match at the Heilig theatre tonight. After the match here in which Edwards secured a decision over Ray McCarroll by virtue of the one fall secured the K. C. Butcher Boy states most emphatically that he would not return here for a match with the local man. Evidently he thought better of it later as he wired McCarroll Monday that he would come up for a $500 guarantee.

McCarroll journeyed down to Portland last night and this morning received Edwards’ name to a contract for the night of May 2, according to a telegram received from him.

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That production of grain in Umatilla county does not promise now to be up to normal, unless there is a real rain within a short time, is the prediction made here by H. W. Collins, buyer and miller.

“We haven’t had any precipitation except little showers since February 1,” he said, “and the wheat is badly in need of moisture. The crop may be damaged some by reason of the heavy freezes of the past two nights, but whether such damage really materialized, the crop is not in good condition now because of this lack of moisture.”

Farmers would like to see warm days with real sunshine and two or three good showers that would be hard enough to spoil a baseball game or make a picnic a failure, they admit.

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Verification of the report that Umatilla county will have a Fourth of July celebration this year at Ukiah where the Camas Prairie Cowboys’ convention is to be held was given by the visit of a number of the directors of the show to Pendleton today. The association heads were here arranging with Hamley & Co. for saddles to be offered as prizes for the riders.

Two days, July 4 and 5, will be given over to the show this year, as in the past, and Ukiah will put its best foot forward during the time of the show to give visitors their money’s worth. Twenty good horses with lots of energy and no idea of having that energy directed by men have already been provided by the management and plenty of steers have been secured for the show.

An even greater attendance from Pendleton than in the past is expected by the Ukiah people this year, due to the fact that there will be macadam road more than one-half of the way out to the mountain town. The remainder of the road is being put into good shape for travel.

This is the first show since 1922. The 1923 show was not presented due to the fact that President Harding was welcomed at Meacham in the celebration that was held there last July 3.