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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."