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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 2016)
Race for President Trump leads late Tuesday night Blue Mountain Eagle As of publication time Donald Trump had secured 254 electoral votes compared to Hilary Clinton’s 215, according to Fox News. CNN reported that Clinton had 209 while Trump had 238. Clinton won Califor- nia, Washington and Or- egon, according to CNN, while Trump took Flori- da, Texas and North Car- olina, according to Fox. Palmer wins bid for re-election • Gov. Brown leads Pierce in early results Early election results show Gov. Kate Brown leading her GOP challenger Dr. Bud Pierce. Ac- cording to early election returns. Page A10 Blue Mountain Eagle Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer won a close race for re-election Tuesday evening. Final unoffi cial results released by Grant County Clerk Brenda Per- cy showed Palmer earned 2,208 votes, while challenger Todd McKin- ley earned 2,065. Palmer was fi rst elected to offi ce in 2000. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening. Palmer faced scrutiny from some for meeting in John Day with some of the people who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Ref- uge in Burns earlier this year. Although some pleaded guilty to conspir- ing to impede federal employees, the leaders of the occupation, Am- mon and Ryan Bundy, and fi ve others were recently found not guilty of the crime by a jury. Palmer is still the subject of an ongoing state Department of Justice investigation into complaints fi led after he met with the occupiers. Palmer lives in John Day with his wife, RoseAnn, and the couple host an annual Christmas dinner for the community. W EDNESDAY , N OVEMBER 9, 2016 The More Election results • N O . 45 • Voters rejecting Measure 97 in early results Voters appear to be rejecting Measure 97, the controversial corporate sales tax measure, according to early vote totals. Page A10 • Pot in Long Creek Long Creek residents overwhelming voted to prohibit commercial marijuana operations within city limits, with about 75 percent in favor. Final unofficial results Tuesday eve- ning showed 79 votes for prohibition and 25 against. Sheriff Glenn Palmer • 20 P AGES • $1.00 www.MyEagleNews.com Grant County’s newspaper since 1868 Blue Mountain EAGLE Dick Ray served in the Navy from August 1943 to March of 1946. The Eagle/Angel Carpenter, from the collection of Dick Ray ANSWERING THE CALL Ray leaves logging to repair World War II submarines By Angel Carpenter Blue Mountain Eagle R The submarine on which Dick Ray taught new Navy recruits. Here the submarine is at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittey, Maine, near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The Eagle/Angel Carpenter, from the collection of Dick Ray Van Voorhis cooks with C4, delivers baby during Tet Offensive By Rylan Boggs Blue Mountain Eagle F or a sparsely populated area, Grant County is home to a high rate of veterans. Of the roughly 7,200 res- idents, more than 10 percent have served their country — 809, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. One of those veterans, Ret. Army Staff Sgt. Bob Van Voorhis, said rural Grant County residents have always answered the call to serve. “This county and Eastern Oregon in general has con- tributed an awful lot to the freedoms and everything else in this country,” Van Voorhis Ret. Army Staff Sgt. Bob Van Voorhis said. “This county has always been one of the fi rst to step up when there’s been a call. It says something about the way we’re raised and the way we do things.” Van Voorhis was born and raised in Grant County and enlisted in the Army as an infantryman in January of 1967. During his service, Van Voorhis received two bronze stars, a purple heart and an air medal. Van Voorhis typically carried C4 while in Vietnam, something he said greatly increased his quality of life. A hot meal was never far away when he could light a thumb-sized piece of C4 to heat his breakfast or coffee. “I lived pretty good,” Van Voorhis said. He explained C4 will only explode if there is an internal explosion, which is why a cap is used to detonated it. He said it was import- ant to let it burn out and not stomp it out because it would burn a hole in the bot- tom of your boot — some- thing they’d tell a new guy if they liked him. See TET, Page A7 epairing submarines in Hawaii during World War II was quite an “about- face” from Dick Ray’s logging back- ground. The John Day resident served in the U.S. Navy from August 1943 to March 1946, achieving the rank of motor machinist third class. Growing up during the Great Depression, Ray’s family moved from place to place, follow- ing logging jobs and living in logging camps. Ray was attending Coquille High School when WWII broke out. He took a pickup load of seniors to Portland to the air base to regis- ter for the Air Force. “I was the only one who didn’t pass — because I was colorblind,” he said. He went back to working in the woods with his dad, but one day called the recruit- ing offi ce to ask why he hadn’t received any Dick Ray draft papers. “They said my dad requested a six-month deferment to work,” he said. “I wasn’t having any of that. The next day, I received my draft notice.” Ray joined the Navy with boot camp at Farragut Naval Training Station in Bayview, Idaho, and die- sel mechanic school at Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa. “I volunteered for submarine service and was sent to school in New London, Connecticut,” he said. He later traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii, ship- ping out from Treasure Island Naval Training Sta- tion in San Francisco Bay, California. There were 5,000 soldiers and 100 sailors as well as Coast Guardsmen on board, he said. “Most were heaving before they got out of San Francisco Bay,” he said. “I kept my lunch.” He said some of them were sent to Majuro Air- fi eld, others to Midway and the rest to Honolulu, which was his stop. There, he worked on a subma- rine base for a year. His high school classmate went on three successful war patrols in the Navy. See RAY, Page A7