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