25 years ago this week — 2000

PENDLETON — If you pass Nelson Hurse in the hallways of Blue Mountain Community College, she’ll give you a friendly smile and remind you that the Multicultural Club meets Tuesdays at noon.

“That’s what I do when I’m walking down the hallway — talk, talk, talk,” she says.

Hearse is the new BMCC Associated Student Government president and began her leadership duties this week. One of her foals is to open the doors of opportunity for her fellow classmates.

“I want to get students in the loop of what’s going on around campus,” Hurse says. “I want to generate some inspiration.”

Taking on the responsibility of student president is a “character building experience” Hurse is eager to explore.

“A lot of students want to be involved but don’t know how,” she says. “Students can create opportunities that are not here. For me it was diversity, My way to resolve that was a multicultural club.’

Hurse is a first generation Samoan American. Her parents moved to the “mainland” shortly before she was born.

After growing up in a number of neighborhoods around Tacoma, Hurse moved to Umatilla County 10 years ago and has worked for the Port of Umatilla, Wildhorse Casino Resort and Masonite Corp.

Now 31, Hurse says she’s more focused on what she wants out of life than she was 10 years ago.

She is completing her first year of an associate transfer degree and plans to use a university degree in psychology to help disadvantaged children.

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PENDLETON — High school students who work at the grocery store still call her Mrs. Baumgartner when she does her shopping.

Some traditions are hard to break.

When Janet Baumgartner retires from Sherwood Elementary in June, she’ll end a 30-year teaching tradition.

Seated in her Sherwood classroom, where she has taught second grade for 21 years, Baumgartner looked at ease as she worked through students’ files from parent conferences last week.

Everything in her classroom is small — the tables, the desks, the chairs. It’s sort of like going back in time to sit at a grade-schooler’s desk and chat with the teacher.

“It’s been a really good 30 years,” Baumgartner said. “I know I’m going to miss the children. That’s my biggest concern.”

But retirement will have its rewards as well.

“I’m going to take it easy at first,” she said. “I’ll have time to do all those things that I haven’t been able to do.”

Except for two six-week long maternity leaves following the births of her now-adult son and daughter, Baumgartner, 52, has been a steady presence in the Pendleton School District for three decades.

She was recruited straight out of the Oregon College of Education in Monmouth, which is now Western Oregon University, The first seven years of her career were spent teaching special education to students with learning disabilities at Hawthorne Court.

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PENDLETON — At a meeting on Monday night, Gene Allen voiced what has become a common notion: The decision to breach the dams won’t be based on science or common sense.

“The decisions will be, and have always been, made on the basis of politics,” said the Boardman City Council member. Allen decried the fact that people living on the Columbia and Snake rivers have no voice in the process.

Though about 50 people were expected, less than a dozen came to the meeting sponsored by Portland State University, causing some to wonder about growing apathy regarding the tumultuous issue.

Some, like Allen, said the dams have become “an icon” for a perceived solution, since many seem to think removing the dams would solve all problems of the endangered salmon species. He and others said few people are seriously considering the drastic effects of breaching. Breaching is the term for removing the earthen portions of the four lower snake river dams, which would allow the river to revert to its original level and current.

The meeting, though cordial, boiled down to the same old question: Who is more important, salmon or humans?

The issue has polarized the region. Several agencies are studying the health of the fish and the probable results of breaching, and Congress should decide on the issue sometime next year.

50 years ago this week — 1975

A $394,000 grant has been awarded the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation for the first-phase development of a recreation area at Indian Lake.

The money, made available through the Economic Development Administration, will be put into the development of 50 to 75 tent and trailer campsites, water and sewer facilities, day-use facilities, a boat ramp and dock, access roads and a comfort station.

A small caretaker’s residence and manager’s store, which will serve as an administrative building, also will be constructed at the 85-acre man-made lake, located 16 miles southeast of Pilot Rock.

Total development will be made allowable by the near $400,000 will involve approximately 15 acres on the north side of the lake, said Tom Hampson, reservation planning director.

Hampson said the actual design that the recreation area will take will be thoroughly reviewed over the next month and a half, and then let out to competitive bidding with construction of the first phase anticipated to begin by mid-August.

“We are hoping to go in by the middle of July and dig a well,” he said, adding that the area will be left open until major construction starts sometime later.

Construction should be completed in October, allowing for total use of the new facility the following summer, Hampson said.

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Salary adjustments for Umatilla County employees may not reach the 12.2 per cent level anticipated, especially for those workers already making over $10,000 annually.

Meeting for the first time Tuesday, the county budget committee, began working with tentative wage increase guidelines for 1975-76 that would limit the raises an employee would be eligible for based upon the salary classification he was currently in.

Faced with a proposed county budget that is $423,978 over the six per cent limitation, the committee began looking for areas to cut.

Agreeing with committee Chairman John AmortS analysis, that “it is pretty obvious that there is a lot of excess in this budget,” F. K. Starrett, county commission chairman, said that the 12.2 per cent salary increase should not apply to those employees earning over $10,000 a year.

The 12.2 percent wage hike figure was derived from a salary survey made last year and is based upon keeping county salaries in line with cost of living increases, Starrett said.

“I think that basic rent and food costs are in the $10,000. After that, the cost of living is not a valid argument.

“Those who are making $10,000 and lower need the cost of living increase more,” he said. “A $28,000 salary doesn’t need a 12.2 per cent increase.”

“A $ 28,000 salary doesn’t need any increase at all,” said Charles Wingett, budget committee member.

Offering what he said would be a “valid formula for this year and this year only,” Starrett suggested that a 12.2 per cent increase apply in the first $10,000 an employee makes, that an eight per cent increase be allowed on the next $5,000 (up to $15,000), a four per cent increase on the next $5,000 (up to $20,000), and a two per cent increase on the next $5,000 (up to $25,000).

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There are still unresolved issues which could block or alter a request by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation for legal self-jurisdiction.

Sen. Mike Thorne, D-Pendleton, who has sponsored legislation in the Oregon Senate allowing the return of jurisdiction to the tribe, Thursday restated his opinion of two weeks ago, that “there are questions that still aren’t answered.”

Thorne said in his efforts to gather public opinion regarding tribal self-jurisdiction, he has talked to individuals who are still unsure of the impact of the Indians’ request.

Thorne had previously said that unless he had some assurance that all parties to be affected by Indian legal jurisdiction were in agreement, he would be wary of further promoting passage of the Indian legislation, Senate Bill 338.

Based upon Thorne’s demand a public hearing was held last Friday on the reservation to answer questions from the public and government agencies. About 65 persons attended the hearing. No concerted effort was presented in opposition to Indian self-jurisdiction.

Even with the hearing and the fact that the request for self-jurisdiction came from the tribal General Council, which is composed of all legal-age tribal General members, Thorn said he still isn’t satisfied.

“The thing that is most frustrating for me is that this decision has to be made in Salem, and I find it confounding that when I get on the phone and start calling I find that there are mixed feelings,” about SB 338 on the reservation.

100 years ago this week — 1925

A beautiful lavender and gold banner, awarded the second division of the O. W. R. & N. for its record in safety first work among employees during 1924, was displayed here today by W. Bollins, superintendent of the division, when he was here in his special car. He will leave tonight for Umatilla and then go over the division with the supply train to give all the employees of the division a chance to see the award which was made for the record in safety work.

The Union Pacific System leads all railroad systems in the United States in the low record for injury to employees, but the second division of the O. W. R. & N. unit of the system which operates under the most hazardous conditions of any division in the system, due to mountain grades and long trains, always stood low in the list prior to last year. In 1923, out of 14 divisions, the second ranked 12th with 18.7 per cent of injury per mission man hours. In 1924 the percentage was reduced sharply to 8.2. per cent per million man hours.

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“Nata, nata, who has the natatorium?”‘

That is the question that looms today as a result of the action taken last night by the city council when it was voted to turn the natatorium over to the city water commission to operate. By the gesture the council waved aside responsibility for the modern swimming hole, and there seems to be a desire on the part of the commission to waive all control of the natatorium.

The matter was brought to an issue when T. B. Swearingen, chairman of the natatorium. committee, asked what the city is to do with the swimming place. Since the overflow water, pipe through which the nat has heretofore been served with water was hooked up with the storm drainage inlets on Bluff street, that source of water was contaminated, and the water commission ruled that if the city wished to operate the nat ,the water would have to be purchased under meter.

It would be impossible to operate the natatorium at any profit if the water has to be paid for, according to statements of members of the council in discussions that have been conducted in the council sessions.

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An interesting bit of history which may have a close connection with the naming of Pendleton contained in a letter from Philip Pendleton, of Winchester, Kentucky, written by his grandmother, Mrs. Clara Pendleton, to Harriett Hansen, little daughter of Mrs. Fred Hansen, in response to a letter which the latter had published in the Comfort magazine.

Says the letter:

“My grandma was always interested in the Oregon country and this is why.

“About 90 years ago a party of young men, among them three of my grandfather’s great uncles, namely Champoeg, Chesley and Presley Pendleton left Clark county, Kentucky, to see their fortunes in the ‘gold country.’

“The story, as the family has always heard it, was that the party drifted ever westward, spending some time in what is now St. Louis. They joined other young adventurers and a large party went on with ‘friendly’ Indian guides. Little was known of the country but the report says they traveled on over plains, crossing rivers and climbing mountains, coming at last to an immense abyss or chasm in the earth, deen and dark with a roaring river below.

“The guides said the travelers must be let down with ropes to cross to get to the ‘gold country.’ Then the party divided, for some were unwilling to try the route and several among them Presley Pendleton, turned back, bidding goodbye to his brothers. After some years Presley, who had been in St. Louis, returned to Kentucky.

“Nothing of the other two brothers was heard of for years. There were no mail routes in those days. Letters were sent by hunters, prospectors, etc. At about the begin-i ning of the great Civil War a letter came to some of the Pendleton family in Kentucky signed G. E.

Pendleton saying the brothers had found a place to suit and “This place is named Pendleton.’”