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About La Grande observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1959-1968 | View Entire Issue (June 2, 1959)
, ; ' Observer Livestock Edition, Tues., Juno 2, 1959 Pnge 6' Union County Agent Tells Story Of Struggle With Barberry Bush (Editor's not: Th following rticlo tolls Hi story of Union county's campaign aaginst the common barberry bush th ob ject of an organised effort last autumn. Th program was ' carried out under the direction of the Union County Extension Office of Oregon State college in conjunction with several other community agencies.) By,. TED SIDOR Union County Extension Agent Many " timet during the past year we have been told by various speakers, radio programs and edi , torials that what we need is a re turn to the thinking of our pioneer forefathers, who", when confronted with a problem worked it out for themselves or with the aid of their neighbors. Union county people found last year that the old community spirit is not d?ad and they do have the ability to solve their own prob lems. They put on a county pro gram that would make the old fashion threshing bee and the com munity barn raising look like a royal tea party. Union county in 1957, as in most areas of the state, had a very mild winter and whn the warm sun of spring renewed the growing vigor of our grain .-crops, farmers stood and gazed -over 'their fields with smiles on their faces and felt a tug at the nearly empty mon-y pocket for It looked like a bumper crop. Spring, however, turned out to be a moist affair that slowed down spring plantings- and produced the most favorable condition for fun gus growth in this mountainous valley for many years. Farmers were soon finding black specks on grain stems, heads of partially mature grain stopped their growth and shriveled These scentists of the soil found at har- vest time that instead of 40, SO or 60 bushel yields of goldn grain, some fields produced mere trickles of dark and shriveled, rock-like seeds that splashed Into waiting bins. Stem rust has done a thor ough job. In field aft?r field, farmers made one round, took their combines back to barn and opened the gates for livestock to pick what they could of the devastated crop.. Wheat was hit the hardst and by the time harvest was over and the results totalled, Union county had lost almost a quarter of a million dollars to stem rust. Farmers, feeling like the pro verbial Casey who had struck out, began looking for a bigger bat and a weaker pitcher. The county agents office In the meantime had diagnosed the fun gus and pointed a finger toward the common barb?rry bush as the pitcher that had to be returned to the "bush league." The Extension agents working with the advisory board of the Union county weed control dis trict and state dnpartment of agri culture officials and County Court embarked on an educational pro gram that furnished material for hours of radio time and seemingly endless inches of newspaper space. Grang"8, farm bureaus and ser vice club meetings were not con sidered complete unless a common' burberry bush was exhibited, a movie shown, or a speech tilling of the dangers and the damage, of the common barberrv bush were told. A boolh exhibiting the bar berry bush and th- r sults of stem rust was also created ut the Union county fuir. Business people alarmed at the loss of revenue from the second largest .industry in Union county, put up window displays, talked about the bush and asked for more material. Local chambers of com merce were being contacted and asked to help coordinate an effort to eradicate the bush. After two months of this, the action-program was undertaken. The first area to be cleared was the town of Union. The Union Commercial Club under the guid ing hand of president J. A. B. McArthur, director of the Union Experiment Station, met with doc tors, lawyers, shopkeepers, mill managers, city employes and Ex tension agents . the morning of Oct. 14, and the drive waa on. Success of the educational pro gram was immediately apparent. Housewives met the men at the gate and showed them plants they had had for years or showed them ' where other plants were located. In a few liours, several dozen of the shrubs had been removed from the town. Union was clear now for the rest of the county. Union county's farming area was then divided into nine equal parts; team captains .usually a weed ad visory board member was assigned to each of the areas. A member of the Extension Ser vice staff, Ron Boatman, county weed ' supervisors, or Lloyd Ger man of the A S.C. office met with the farmers on the appointed eradi cation day, gave them branches of the doomed bush, packages of donated chemical, gave additional pointers on identification and jumped aside. It was a determined band of farmers that searched stream banks, backyards, hills and valleys for this bush that hit them when they weren't prepared. November 10, the City of La Grande joined forces with the rest of the county. On this day, under Determining Nation Champ Plagued Rodeo For Years Come To The Eastern Oregon Thurs., Fri., Sat. June 4-5-6 UNION. OREGON Lives tod Show! Daily Show Starts At 1:30 RONDE VALLEY LUMBER CO. Union, Ore. Bring Your Friends And Family! One of the problems thai pla gued rodeo from the beginning was how to determine a national champion. Although rodeo is now some eighty years old, the prob lem wasn t completely solved tin til as recently as ten years ago. In 1945 the Rodeo Cowboys' As sociation, Inc., established their point award system, by which each cowboy is given one point for everydollar won at a profes sional rodeo approved by the RCA. Although the method sounds simple it was years in developing In the old days cowboys were con sidered champions if they won at Cheyenne, and later, if thv won both at Cheyenne and Pen dleton. With the coming of larg er purses in the big eastern ci ties, however, the faults of this methods soon became apparent. Competition was as tough and a cowboy could win more in the eastern rodeos than at the old well-established western ones. And, of course, there was always the possibility that a top hand would have . a better record of winnings through the year than : 1 the Cheyenne winner, and be pre vented by injuries from compet ing at Cheyenne or rendleton. Other rodeos picked up cham pionship label in their advertis ing, and for a while the sport was threatened with being as over populated with world's champs as wrestling is today. In 1929, the Rodeo Association of America, an organization of rodeo managements, instituted a point award system similar to that now used by the RCA, and named world's champions for all around cowboy and for each com petitive event. The system came in for a certain amount of criti cism, however, since it was based on tabulations only from Rodeo Association rodeos, which were a small minority of those worked each year by most of the top cowboys. The RAA system is still follow ed and each year the Internation al Rodeo Association, a successor organization of management, still names its champions. Recognizing that only the RCA system repre- ents all professional rodeos, the IRA recently dropped the title "World's" champion, however. Giving points for the nioiiry won is the only practical method of determining a champion in ro deo, where there are no leagues, teams or playoffs. Other method; have been considered from time to time but were discarded as be ing unrealistic. , One such method was counting the average total times in timed events and the total number of points marked to each contestant by the judges of the riding event The major objection to this meth od is that there is a great varia tion in the the amount of head start given the stock in timed ev ents, which usually depends prin cipally on the size of the arena. Weather conditions also make r big difference. There are similar problems in the riding events. For example, at the first rodeos in the spring and at the first performances of large rodeos during the season, . the stock is frcblicr and harder to ride. The answer was reasonable. simple and dependable on a nat ional scale. The best man at any rodeo is the man who wins the most money. It is as logical that the man who wins the most mon ey 1n an event at several rodeos through the year is the best man in that event that year. That is exactly how the system works out in practice. Last year Don McLaughlin, who won the I954 world's calf roping champion ship, lost his prized roping horse in a highway "accident early in the spring and won no money for the rest of the seasom But he had piled up a big enough lead by the end of February that he was nev er overtaken.' .. On the other hand, all around champion Buck Rutherford and his friend Eddy Akridge were en gaged In a tooth and nail hattla for the bareback riding champion ship all through the season. First one would edge ahead of the oth er, then in the next semi-monthly posting of the standings, their positions would be reversed. The competition wasn't settled until the last rodeo- of the year at Kingman, Arizona. Akridge, who was 104 points behind, won $111 more than Rutherford and took the championship. You'll still see rodeos all over the country billed as "World Championship." They have every right by the rules, strictly inter preted, to be caueaitnat. ror u a rodeo has the -approval of the Rodeo Cowboys' Association, ev ery dollar of prize money won at it will count in the 'face for the world's championship. And no rodeo is bie enough . that a man can win a world's championship at that rodeo alone. , y - r Y " CROSSBRED Dorothy Peterson, 11, will show her Crossbred sheep at the livestock show at Union this weekend. She's a member of the Island City Variety 4-H Livestock club. (Observer Photo) BEST WISHES TO OUR UNION NEIGHBORS ON THEIR 51ST ANNUAL EVENT) Hitch Up The Wagon ! . . Load Up The Gar . V. LET'S HEAD FOR THE -V if-, t 1 EASTERN OREGON LIVESTOCK SHOW! WHEN YOU NEED Quality Auto Paris Top Name Sporting Goods Expert Machine Shop Work SEE US! : Have You Tried "STP"? "STP" has exceptionally great adhesiveness and cohesiveness, with the result that it gives old as well as new cars INCREASED POWER . . . LOWER OIL CONSUMP TION . . . HIGHER OIL PRESSURE . . . CLEANER ENGINE . . . SMOOTHER RUN NING PERFORMANCE! Ask for STP at your gas station! ROY FARNAM SUPPLY 1414 Adams LA GRANDE W0 3 2123 the local guidance of Don Demp sey, a local funeral director, and Clint Bellows, advertising director (or radio station KLBM, led mem bers of the La Grande Rotary, Lions Kiwanis, Chamber of Com merce and Jr. Chamber of Com merce on a drive. To add to the form-merchants re lationships, members of the South Forty Clu, a Union county young farmers organization, joined the touring businessmen in the outing. After the blisters were counted and th thorns extracted, seven huge pickup truck loads were carted off to be burned, with many more spotted and to be taken out later. This, of course does not com plete the story. Dr. Frank Ben- n"tt, president of Eastern Oregon College, hadt held a drive with college staff members on the EOC campus a week previous and Nor man, Koopman, La Grande High School FFA instructor, using his RRD . classes had removed the stick menace from around all pub lic schools in the La Grande area. The eradication still continues. Hunters and fishermen spot the bush and are reporting it to the Extension office; home that had bushes that wers mised in the drives are calling they want the bush removed. Follow-up work will continue for several years utilizing the talents of the county weed supervisor and state depart ment pathologists. Come To The 5 1st Annual EASTERN OREGON LIVESTOCK SHOW! . I, . JUNE 4-5-6 . . . Union, Oregon THE FOLLOWING UNION AND LA GRANDE MERCHANTS URGE YOU TO ATTEND THIS EVENT . . . Lloyd Moore's Texaco LaGrande Baleman's Dept. 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