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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 4, 1984)
Oregon wine before it's time See Page 1B Oregon daily emerald Friday, May 4, 1984 Eugene, Oregon Volume 85, Number 148 County approves memorial to wrestlers From Emerald and Associated Press Reports A pedestal in memory of Jed Kesey and Lorenzo West, the University wrestlers who died after a traffic accident Jan. 21, will be erected on Mt. Pisgah as a result of a vote by the Lane County commissioners. The commission voted in favor of a sighting pedestal with a relief map atop Mt. Pisgah. The rock pedestal, with a bronze cap to aide hikers in identifying major landmarks, will be financed by the $5,000 already collected in memorial con tributions for Kesey and West. "You can see the entire valley from the peak of Mt. Pisgah," said Ken Kesey, Jed's father. "It is where the pioneers saw and laid out the valley. "The mountain's name came from the r site where Moses was buried,” Kesey said. "That means the Willamette sym bolizes the Jordan River and our valley is the 'promised land.' "Jed grew up climbing the mountain," he said. Jed Kesey and West died of injuries after an accident in which the wrestling team van slid off an icy highway in southeastern Washington. The pedestal will be made from the mountain's stones and cast bronze, said Commissioner Jerry Rust. A view encom passing the Three Sisters to the Coast range can be seen from the mountain's peak, he said. "A marvelous idea has come from the Kesey family to place a sighting pedestal similar, in a scaled-down fashion, to the one that's on the McKenzie Pass," Rust said in asking for the commission's en dorsement of the project. "Pisgah is a mountain that wants to be climbed — it is Lane County's best kept secret. I think that the summit along with this pedestal would make a fitting tribute to led and Lorenzo -and a living memorial,” Rust said. Going out and climbing the mountain is the best way to remember the athletes, Rust said. The two-hour climb would be a physical memorial appropriate to the two men "who died in the prime of their lives doing what they liked best," he said. the project shouldn't run into legal problems because the land belongs to the county, Rust said. He said it should be completed by the end of this summer. Sue Kesey, the dead youth's aunt, represented the Keseys' before the commissioners. "One of the things that I think we would like to make clear is that we really don't so much want this pedestal on Mt. Pisgah a*s a memorial to Jed and Lorenzo but more as a donation from them to the community," she said. "We'd really like it thought of that way, as something that everyone can enjoy." Rust's motion "to approve this gift con ceptually, subject to legal counsel ap proval, a determination of site and a refinement of the design" was unanimously adopted by the five commissioners. County Administrator Steve Ickes said a formal board order will be prepared for adoption prior to the start of construction. University draws state high schools Chancellor Bud Davis welcomed 3,500 of “the smartest high school students in Oregon” to the University for the sixth annual foreign language day Thursday. Davis addressed the students gathered in McArthur Court before they scattered to attend sessions in cuisine, dance, travel and history taught by 50 University faculty members, said University language Prof. David Curland. “In a way, it's kind of like preaching to the choir," Davis told the students, who came from 60 Oregon high schools. Davis said he called the students the "smartest in the state" not for their ability to throw paper airplanes from Mac Court balconies, but for their decision to study a foreign language. "Some 90 to 95 percent of the group sitting in this room will be entering the University," he said. By 1985, University entrance requirements will include two years of a foreign language, he said. "It's a mark of an educated man or woman to be able to speak an additional language," Davis said. In Thursday's sessions on campus, stadents had the chance to taste Italian cheeses and recipes from Native Americans, learn Sevillanas and Scandinavian folk dances, watch slide shows from France and Germany and learn about Chinese calligraphy. Photo by Michael Clapp Senate committee passes wilderness package By Brooks Dareff Of the Emerald Sen. Mark Hatfield's Oregon wilderness bill, a 935,500 acre package approved by a Senate committee Wednesday, received the endorsement Thursday of two of the three sponsors of the House bill. In a joint statement, Democratic Reps. Les AuCoin and Ron Wyden, both of Portland, announced their support for Sen. Hatfield's bill, and urged "the House and Senate to pass it and the president to sign it." Rep. Jim Weaver, D-Eugene, the third sponsor of the House bill, had no statement as of Thursday evening. AuCoin and Wyden called the bill a compromise from the 1.2 million acre House bill which passed last year, but said that Hatfield had also compromised, vir tually doubling the wilderness acreage the senator had set aside in his 1979 bill. "It's a tribute to Sen. Hatfield that he has been flexi ble enough to change," they said, adding, "it's a better bill than almost anyone thought possible." The 935,000 acre bill sets aside about 850,000 acres for wilderness and about another 85,000 acres for recreation and fisheries. It is about 20,000 acres less than Hatfield's subcommittee bill, but reserves about 80,000 acres more for wilderness than the subcommit tee bill, which emerged in March. AuCoin and Wyden said they agreed with Hatfield's decision not to submit the bill to a House-Senate con ference committee, due to time, political and legal pressures. Hatfield said Wednesday he wouldn't submit the bill to a conference committee because of the June recess, which is followed in quick succession by the na tional conventions — which in turn will virtually dominate all of July and August. AuCoin and Wyden also said some of the carefully formed compromises in the bill might be put at risk by a conference committee's consideration. They said quick completion of a bill is vital, because they do not want a lawsuit filed last December by the Oregon Natural Resources Council — which would be made moot by a completed bill — to continue tying up development of all of Oregon's 3 million acres of roadless area. Andy Kerr, associate director of Oregon Natural Resources Council, was not happy with the committee's bill, which on Wednesday he likened to Schubert's un finished symphony. “It's very good, what's there, but there should be more. “Hatfield's bill is severely inadequate, both in terms of lack of areas, and boundaries," Kerr said, citing the Waldo Wilderness, which was expanded from 23,700 to 39,200 acres. It is still well short of the 90,000 acres sought by ONRC and other Waldo proponents, he said, and still does not go up the lake shore on the western side. Not included in the bill was a 7,500 acre Hardesty Mountain Wilderness proposed by ONRC. Kerr is particularly disappointed that a House Senate conference committee may not get a crack at the bill. "We think public land issues ought to be decided publicly, and not in back rooms," Kerr said. New release language, which directs how roadless areas not set aside as wilderness are to be managed, was also agreed on by the committee. The Forest Ser vice must now review wilderness options for these areas every 10 or 15 years. Kerr said release language, which was the issue that tied up the package of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arizona and Arkansas bills in the Senate committee un til a compromise was reached Tuesday night, is not an issue in Oregon. "It all means the same thing in Oregon," he said. "Whether it’s hard or soft, or in this case medium." The Forest Service moves so fast on cutting timber, he said, that in 10 or 15 years down the road, "it's too late."