100 years ago

Nov. 6, 1921

Playing straight football and showing the good effects of many weeks hard coaching and training in the smooth way in which plays were run off, Pendleton high school’s team smacked the game Athena aggregation to tune of 47 to 7 in a contest on Round-Up field. As far as football was concerned the game was a one-sided affair and so rather uninteresting, but the Athena lads kept the respect of the fans by their willingness to meet the Buckaroos all of the time with hard fighting. Coach Hanley took no chances on spilling any of the good stuff which is being worked up for the hard game here next Friday when Baker high will invade the local camp in an effort to grab off the championship of Eastern Oregon. The Baker coach was here on the sidelines, and all the information he secured about the extras in the Buckaroo collection of plays could be placed in his eye without impairing his sight.

50 years ago

Nov. 6, 1971

Plant scientists are keeping a close watch on a new grain disease. It’s called “take all” and has shown up in Western Oregon and some irrigated areas, says Dr. Warren Kronstad of Oregon State University. He told Umatilla County wheat growers about it during their annual meeting Tuesday in Pendleton. “It scares us because our grains have no resistance to it at all,” he said, although one wheat in test plots seems to be tolerant of the disease. Disease research is just one of the many avenues followed by plant scientists in their efforts to develop new and better varieties of wheat and barley, Kronstad said. Stripe rust is one of the grain enemies about which scientists want to learn more. The disease threatened enormous losses when it showed up in force here in 1960. But wheat breeders were ready and replaced susceptible Moro with Omar.

25 years ago

Nov. 6, 1996

The City Hall siren that has heralded noon hour in Pendleton for decades will continue wailing its lunch-bell call. City council members gave the go ahead to Jim Sewell, the new owner of the old city hall building, to continue the traditional, building-shaking blast. It was installed in the 1950s as a sounding device to alert reserve and volunteer firefighters that extra manpower was needed at a fire scene. Its original purpose long gone, it has since become a fixture in town, with residents even in outlying areas able to hear its piercing shriek every day except Sunday. Sewell said he had received hundreds of phone calls and letters asking that he continue the old air raid siren, including a packet of letters written to him by Hawthorne Elementary School fourth grade students. “One kid said it was annoying, the rest wanted it,” Sewell said.