25 years ago this week — 1999

Every fifth-grade student in the Pendleton School District knows Officer Kreg Hawkins by names, as do the majority of kids at both Sunridge Middle School and Pendleton High School. But even the ones who can’t remember his name know Hawkins as “that D.A.R.E. guy.”

This month Hawkins retires as school resource officer after 27 years of service with the Pendleton Police Department. He’s still working under a short-term contract while he trains his replacement, Officer Glenn Hamby, and finishes out the school year.

Meeting earlier this week with a group of students in Carol Kaiser’s fifth grade class at McKay Creek Elementary School, Hawkins asked, “What is the purpose of the D.A.R.E. program?” (It stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education.)

“To teach kids not to do drugs,” one attentive listener replied.

“What’s one right you have?” Hawkins continued.

“The right to say ‘No’ to drugs!” a chorus of kids called out.

“That’s right,” Hawkins said with an approving smile.

Hawkins knows kids yearn for approval and acceptance. So he’s quick to offer a smile or a word of affirmation. Instead of instructing students to hurry up with their answers, he whistles the Jeopardy show tune. The kids whistle along with him. His humor is self-deprecating, never directed at others.

“Kreg’s biggest attribute is his compassion and sense of humor,” said Pendleton Police Chief Ed Taber.

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At first glance, folks might think a school district in rural Oregon doesn’t need an “Outdoor School.”

But Pendleton’s 28-year tradition begs otherwise, and shows that Mother Nature can be a particularly inspiring teacher.

“We learned that trees are coniferous and deciduous and stuff like that,” said Sunridge Middle School sixth grader Kelli Westlund. “It was cool.”

“There’s everything to learn about, from aquatic insects to water rights,” added Janette Fugere. “It’s been rather hard.”

That’s the whole idea behind Outdoor School: fun but challenging, and way different from days inside city classrooms.

“When we go to the dining hall we have to stand there and sign before we sit down and eat,” Trevor Wurtz said. “It’s just like a family kind of thing, only you’re with your friends.”

All of the students in Pendleton’s Outdoor School have a story. Some are poignant — others unprintable. For many it’s their first time away from home and parents. For all of them it’s a rite of passage that passes all too quickly.

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As a local group works to develop a plan to bring the Umatilla River into compliance with federal clean water standards, many people in the area are concerned about– and have misconceptions of — how the water management plan will affect them.

Those misconceptions were a main topic of discussion at the TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) Stakeholder Committee meeting in Hermiston Wednesday, according to Tracy Bosen, coordinator of the Umatilla Basin Watershed Council.

The committee is working to come up with a basin-wide water quality management plan to submit to the EPA hopefully by early next year.

“We’re really concerned about the input, the beliefs and the reaction of the public on this whole process,” said Bosen. “That’s why this stakeholder committee has been developed, so we can get the pulse of the community and get people involved.”

The stakeholder committee is made up of 19 community members from all over the river basin. From that committee five work groups were formed to address water issues from different interest groups in the basin, including agriculture, urban and industrial, transportation, forestry and water quantity.

50 years ago this week — 1974

Robert J. Elk, Pendleton, for many years the medicine man in Happy Canyon, died Sunday at Pendleton Community Hospital. He was 63.

Mr. Elk was born at Thornhollow and lived in Umatilla County all his life. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Red Elk. His mother’s side of his family came from Chief Joseph’s warriors from Wallowa County, and from his father’s side of the family were Dr. McKay, early physician of Umatilla County, and Donald McKay, a famous Indian scout. Mr. Elk participated in Happy Canyon and the Pendleton Round-Up most of his life.

Survivors are a stepson, Bryson G. Liberty, Tempe, Ariz.; daughters, Karen Elk, Pendleton, and Mrs. Jerry (Sharon) Weathers, Adams; sister, Aurelia Shippentower, Adams; and six grandchildren.

A prayer service will be at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Community Center at Mission. The funeral will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Community Center. Burns Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

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Where have all the pennies gone?

That’s the song heard in banks and stores in much of the nation today as Americans hoard pennies at a record rate.

Two things started the great penny rush — a statement by the U.S. Mint that it might have to mint pennies from aluminum because copper costs too much, and the rising costs of copper.

Hoarders expect to be able to either sell the copper cents to collectors, or to sell the coins for metal at more than face value. It’s unlikely either will happen, Treasury officials say.

The Mint has declared that consideration of aluminum pennies has been dropped. And the price of copper has held steady lately at 80 ½ to 82 cents a pound, not enough to make any money selling pennies for their metal. Besides, it’s illegal to melt down U.S. coins.

The penny crunch hasn’t squeezed very hard in Eastern Oregon. Banks have difficulty getting large quantities of new pennies from the Federal Reserve, but the normal flow of coins through banks has been enough to allow banks to supply their business customers.

Area banks, have, however, generally stopped sales to collectors, an informal survey revealed Tuesday.

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The Boardman Bombing Range should be developed in small farm units and not at one whack by a big corporation, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Robert Straub said today in Pendleton.

“We need to think about this development before the Navy moves” from the range, Straub said. He is on a four-day campaign swing through Eastern Oregon. He visited Hermiston Wednesday afternoon and today will go on to La Grande. Saturday he will run in a marathon at Spray.

“My sympathy is with the small farm unit because it is more efficient,” said Straub, himself a rancher. He is a former state treasurer and spent four years in the Oregon Senate as well.

Straub said small farm units will result in lower food prices, “Bigness in anything chokes off competition and injures the consumer,” he said.

His broad experience in both government and business, including ranching, makes him more qualified to be governor than the other candidates, Straub said. He said close attention to management should be able to reduce the number of state employees — now 32,000 — by butting out what he called “busy work.”

100 years ago this week — 1924

Plans have been completed by the Pilot Rock Commercial association for the fourth annual school and community picnic which will be held in the south end of town all day Saturday night. The program will start at 9:30 o’clock in the morning, and some interesting features have been arranged to fill every minute of the day thereafter.

Diplomas to those pupils who have graduated this year from the eighth grade in the schools located in the south end of the county will be presented as a part of the day’s activities.

The Pendleton School band of 30 pieces has been engaged to furnish music for the day, and a concert will begin at 9:30 o’clock. At 10 o’clock a program will be given in the park with Rev. E. W. Warrington as the chief speaker. This will be followed by a big basket lunch in the park at 11:30 o’clock.

A ball game between the Mission Indians and the Pilot Rock nines will be played at 1:30, and following this event field sports will occupy the crowd. A dance starting at 8 o’clock will conclude the day’s entertainment.

The picnic is an annual affair and attracts people from all over the county. J. Arneson, publisher of the Pilot Rock Record declared yesterday afternoon that plans are being made to accommodate the largest crowd that has ever attended one of the community picnics.

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With massive scenery constructed, 3200 performers enlisted, administrative details complete and advance reservations indicating an attendance which will exceed last year’s 30,000, everything is in readiness here for the presentation of the second Pioneer Pageant, “How the West Was Won,” May 28 and 29.

The pageant was written by Dr. S. B. L. Penrose, president of Whitman College, as a tribute to the pioneers who conquered the west, and as a review of Northwest history from the coming of the Lewis and Clark exploration party in 1805 to the building of the first western railroad here in 1875. The cast includes actors, singers, musicians and dancers– many of them the descendants of the pioneers.

Complete performances will be given on both days of the pageant, on a field said to be the largest ever used in American pageantry, and before a “mountain scenery” background 350 feet in length, 60 feet in height, and of sufficient strength to support hundreds of actors and animals.

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The first tryouts of both horses and riders in preparation for the Camas Prairie Cowboys’ convention, which is to be held at Ukiah, July 4 and 5, will be conducted at Ukiah tomorrow, according to a statement by George Caldwell, Albert Peterson and A. F. Schlarbaum, directors of the show, who were Pendleton visitors today.

Some tough horses that chafe at the restraint of saddle and bit have been procured by the management of the show from out of the heart of the range country, and cowboys whose business is it to ride the range will try their luck at riding the four food demons in the trials tomorrow. The tryouts will be carried on for at least 30 days. The horses were procured from Morrow, Grant and southern Umatilla counties.

The management of the show expect the biggest attendance this year they have ever had. They did not hold their show last year out of deference to the celebration on top of the Blue mountains in honor of President Harding. The roads are in the best condition they have ever been, and more work is still in contemplation.

“Only 20 miles of the road between Pendleton and Ukiah remains ungraveled,” the visiting directors said, “and the Hidaway Springs road is in excellent condition.”

Arrangements have been made by Pendleton merchants to put up the best all round cowboy prize. Concessions have been sold to people in Heppner, North Powder, Walla Walla, Pendleton and Long Creek.