25 years ago this week — 2000

WASHINGTON — When Sen. Ron Wyden used a rare maneuver to block passage of an anti-physician assisted suicide bill, he showed how far he will go to protect the nation’s only law allowing sick people to die with a doctor’s help.

Wyden voted against the Oregon law twice but realizes Oregonians — a stridently independent bunch — don’t like the idea of Congress overturning a directive the state’s voters settled in two ballot issues.

So before the Senate Judiciary Committee was able to take up — and likely approve — the bill, Wyden objected Thursday to the normally routine unanimous consent request to conduct committee business more than two hours after the Senate convened for the day.

“The people of Oregon have spoken,” Wyden, D-Ore., said after the action. “This is a matter that has historically been left to the states.”

The move was reminiscent of headier days for the Oregon delegation, when powerful senators Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood wielded clout for the state of only 3 million in tax, appropriations and environmental policies.

Wyden is the state’s senior senator after just four years in office, having been elected 10 months earlier than Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore.

But Oregon’s victory might only be temporary.

The bill, which would revoke the licenses to prescribe drugs of doctors who deliberately use federally controlled substances to aid a patient’s death, is being pushed by the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, Don Nickles of Oklahoma.

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GIBBON — When it comes to horses, Bill Grable admits he enjoys their company — a lot.

As an endurance rider, Grable often spends up to four hours a day in the saddle and rides at least three or four times a week.

“It’s basically like training a human being for a marathon,” Grable said. “It’s a great sport for people who like to spend a lot of hours training and riding.”

If it wasn’t for his love of other sports, such as baseball and racquetball, the 53-year old cabinet maker would spend even more time riding.

“As an endurance rider, you spend so much time with your horse, you’re attuned to how they’re feeling,” Grable said. “Unlike a motorcycle, it takes a mutually shared attitude to get something done.”

Grable attended his first endurance ride of the season on April 1 and placed first in a 25-mile competition near Moses Lake, Wash. He plans to compete in three more endurance rides this year.

After growing up in Sherwood Heights in Pendleton, Grable moved away from the area for a time before developing a need to live on the land. He now owns 250 acres along the Umatilla River near Gibbon.

“Even when I was a little kid, I wanted a horse,” he said. “One of the reasons I moved back here was to own a horse.”

With grassy bluffs to the north and pine-covered Gibbon Ridge to the south, Grable’s property is an idyllic setting for raising and training horses.

Grable and his wife, Michele, are members of Pacific Northwest Endurance Rides, an organization that has 300 to 400 members and sponsors about 30 rides a year in four states and British Columbia.

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HELIX — They have no illusions about competing with the Pendleton Round-Up, but Helix Chamber of Commerce members plan to let’er buck at the first Helix Hear of the Country Rodeo next month.

According to Merv Swearingen, who has been helping organize the rodeo, while there are some people in Helix who question whether it can be pulled off, enthusiasm for the rodeo is growing.

“The interest is unreal, really,” Swearingen said. “Everyone is just thrilled to death and says, ‘Yeah, we’ll donate to that. Can’t wait.”

Chamber president Dave Goodwin said that so far the chamber has taken in nearly $7,000 in advertising revenue. “We’ve gotten a lot of support from the local businesses,” Goodwin said. “I think it’s going to be a really fun event.”

The idea to put on a rodeo came up in January when the chamber members were trying to figure out a way to bring in more money for scholarships for Helix High School graduates.

“Milt Patterson is a rodeo guy, a typical cowboy, and he suggested we hold a rodeo,” Swearingen said. “And we all said, ‘Oh yeah, sure — Helix hold a rodeo?’”

But the more the chamber members talked about it, the more they began to believe it was a great idea.

50 years ago this week — 1975

State Sen. Mike Thorne is introducing a bill in the legislature this week to allow the City of Walla Walla to build a 200-foot-high storage dam on Mill Creek, near Milton-Freewater.

The Umatilla County legislature said Saturday Walla Walla officials had asked him to introduce the bill. Oregon law requires legislative approval before any Oregon water may be diverted out of the state. The Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee agreed today to let the measure be introduced.

The Washington city gets its surface water supplies from Mill Creek now, and also relies on eight wells for supplies.

City Engineer Norm Skiles of Walla Walla said today the city wants to build the dam five miles into Oregon and a mile up Mill Creek from the Tiger Canyon Road. He said plans call for an earth-fill structure, about 850 feet across, to impound 6,000 acre feet of water with potential in the future for storing 12,000 acre feet.

Skiles said the water table in the city’s wells has been dropping, and officials want to be sure the community has adequate water in the future.

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The Board of Trustees of the Confederated tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation has already received one warning regarding a zone change to permit commercial development at the Mission Interchange of Interstate 80-North.

Monday night the board received another.

C. John Markel, marketing director for the Lincoln Companies of Denver, a firm that owns 13 acres at the interchange, said unless the board decided to change the farming zone to C-2, commercial tourist, the firm has two alternatives left.

He said the board must either approve or deny the zone amendment. If it does not, then the tribe must purchase the land from the Lincoln Companies for a “far and reasonable price.” and if not then a class action suit would be filed.

“If they deny it we have little decision left,” Markel said. “Either we sell it for a reasonable price or we have to file suit. We have no other way to recover the value of our land.”

Although the land is zoned agricultural, Markel said his firm has been paying taxes on land deemed commercial tourist. He said the current value of the land, once it had a well and septic tanks system, would be worth upwards of $135,000. He said the land was only worth $700-$800 an acre for agricultural purposes.

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UMATILLA — The Umatilla School Board had its first lesson in Alumnax education Thursday night and immediately reached one conclusion — the hardest part of the course will be passing the final exam.

The board heard George Tamblyn, Alumax representative, outline his role in helping communities adjust to the influx of over 1,000 workers plus their families. In the Umatilla School District enrollments could double within three years, he said.

Alumax plans to build a $300 million aluminum reduction plant at the Port of Umatilla. The plant would be located in the Hermiston School District, although many of the worker’s children are expected to attend Umatilla schools.

“The effect on this school district would be economic disaster unless we can get an increase in evaluation,” said Supt. Irving Borchert.

He told the board that without any Alumnax assessment in the Umatilla district, the tax base in the town would go from $18 per $1,000 true cash value to near $25. The Hermiston district rate would drop, he said, from $17 to $7. Direct tax benefit to Hermiston would be about $7 million, Borchert said.

“You can see the disparity it would immediately lead to between the two communities,” the superintendent said.

Tamblyn said a socio-economic study, which is being prepared for a conditional use permit from the county, indicated 50 new people would be in the over-all area by October, 1975, if all permits are granted on that schedule.

100 years ago this week — 1925

A little more than $1,000 was deposited this morning to the credit of Boy Scout work in Pendleton as a result of the first day’s drive which was conducted in the city yesterday by teams of workers, according to J. A. Murray, chairman of the general committee in charge of the drive.

The results of the first day’s work were declared to be very satisfactory to the workers by Chairman Murray, and by striking the same pace of industry today and tomorrow, the big part of the quota of $2500 for the city is expected to be in the middle of the week.

Several big contributions remain to be secured, due to the inability of the teams to see everyone the first day, and a sizable list is expected to be turned in this evening when the second day’s solicitations have been completed.

Responses have been liberal and cheerfully given in practically all cases, according to workers, only a few rebuffs being met in the rounds made by the committees.

Opportunity has been extended to practically all fraternal bodies in the city, and reports from these organizations are expected to be secured during the week as meetings are held. Some have already authorized their contributions.

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Dissatisfaction with the sanitary conditions found in the county jail and commendation of the manner in which the county poor farm is being conducted were expressed by the grand jury in the report submitted by that body after its four day session which came to an end Thursday evening, Several true bills and three not true bills were returned by the body.

The true bills returned in which the indicated men have already been arraigned in court are against Shorty Fields and Bishop Wisdom who are jointly indicted on two counts for the alleged giving of intoxicating liquor to minors, and Pete Harris, charged with non-support of his wife and two children. The indicated men have been given until Monday to plead in court.

Not true bills were brought in the cases of Porter Royce, charged with larceny by bailee, Jake Helmick, charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and Albert Loeding, charged with giving away intoxicating liquor to a minor.

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A quartet of Pendleton young people, two men and two girls, who left here a week ago last night to see the world came to the end of their jaunt yesterday in Seattle when they were apprehended by by deputy sheriffs from Umatilla county, according to a message received last night by Sheriff Cookingham.

William Ayres and “Red” Jackson were the two young men, and the girls who went with them were Florence Weaver and Elsie Smith, both of Pendleton, 15 and 16 years old respectively.

The arrest of the two couples was effected after Deputy Sheriffs Bennett and Stokes trailed them from The Dalles to Yakima and thence on to Seattle. The officers were on the train twice, and the first time they had to given over the chase to bring back a prisoner to Pendleton who had been apprehended at Portland. They left Pendleton a second time Thursday morning and had the four young people under arrest Friday afternoon at 5 o’clock. The officers are en route home now with the quartet.

The young people are said to have left Pendleton in a car and drive to Arlington. There they boarded a passenger train and “beat” their way to The Dalles. They were put off the train at The Dalles when the train crew discovered them. They are said to have crossed the Columbia at The Dalles and to have gone to Yakima.