STATE/NATION
6A — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2021
Beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary dies at 104
By HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer
NEW YORK — Beverly
Cleary, the celebrated chil-
dren’s author whose mem-
ories of her Oregon child-
hood were shared with
millions through the likes
of Ramona and Beezus
Quimby and Henry Hug-
gins, has died. She was
104.
Cleary’s publisher
HarperCollins announced
Friday, March 26, that the
author died Thursday in
Carmel Valley, California,
where she had lived since
the 1960s. No cause of
death was given.
Trained as a librarian,
Cleary didn’t start writing
books until her early 30s
when she wrote “Henry
Huggins,” published in
1950. Children worldwide
came to love the adven-
tures of Huggins and
neighbors Ellen Tebbits,
Otis Spoff ord, Beatrice
Vern Fisher/The Monterey County Herald via AP, File
Beverly Cleary signs books on April 19, 1998, at the Monterey Bay Book Festival in Monterey, California. The
beloved children’s author, whose characters Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins enthralled generations of
youngsters, died last week at her home in Carmel, California. She was 104.
“Beezus” Quimby and her
younger sister, Ramona.
They inhabit a down-
home, wholesome setting
on Klickitat Street — a real
street in Portland, the city
where Cleary spent much
of her youth.
Among the “Henry”
titles were “Henry and
Ribsy,” “Henry and
the Paper Route” and
“Henry and Beezus.”
Ramona, perhaps her
best-known character,
made her debut in the fi rst
“Henry Huggins” title, with
only a brief mention.
“All the children
appeared to be only chil-
dren so I tossed in a little
sister and she didn’t go
away. She kept appearing
in every book,” she said
in a March 2016 telephone
interview from her Cali-
fornia home.
Cleary herself was an
only child and said the
character wasn’t a mirror.
“I was a well-behaved
little girl, not that I wanted
to be,” she said. “At the age
of Ramona, in those days,
children played outside. We
played hopscotch and jump
rope and I loved them and
always had scraped knees.”
In all, there were eight
books about Ramona
between “Beezus and
Ramona” in 1955 and
“Ramona’s World” in
1999. Others included
“Ramona the Pest” and
“Ramona and Her Father.”
In 1981, “Ramona and
Her Mother” won the
National Book Award.
Cleary wasn’t writing
recently because she said
she felt “it’s important for
writers to know when to
quit.”
“I even got rid of my
typewriter. It was a nice
one but I hate to type.
When I started writing I
found that I was thinking
more about my typing than
what I was going to say, so
I wrote it longhand,” she
said in March 2016.
Although she put away
her pen, Cleary rereleased
three of her most cherished
books with three famous
fans writing forewords for
the new editions.
Actress Amy Poehler
penned the front section
of “Ramona Quimby, Age
8;” author Kate DiCamillo
wrote the opening for “The
Mouse and the Motor-
cycle;” and author Judy
Blume wrote the foreword
for “Henry Huggins.”
Oregon brothers accused in
Some green groups oppose
U.S. Capitol siege ordered held Snake River dam removal plan
Associated Press
PORTLAND — Two
brothers arrested last
week in Oregon on federal
charges of participating in
the U.S. Capitol insurrec-
tion will be held in custody
pending trial on six felony
charges.
Matthew Klein, 24, and
Jonathanpeter Klein, 21,
appeared separately on
Friday, March 26, before
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia
M. Faruqui in the District
of Columbia court via video
conference from Portland,
The Oregonian/OregonLive
reported.
Both are expected to
remain detained at least
until their next court
hearing scheduled for April
1. The brothers are being
held at the Multnomah
County Detention Center in
Portland.
The federal magistrate
judge who presided over
the brothers’ hearings cited
a ruling out Friday from a
U.S. District of Columbia
Circuit Court of Appeals
panel regarding a Tennessee
mother and son charged in
the Jan. 6 riot who chal-
lenged their pre-trial
detention.
The appeals panel wrote
that in its view “those who
actually assaulted police
offi cers and broke through
windows, doors, and barri-
cades and those who aided,
conspired with, planned or
coordinated such actions,
are in a diff erent category
of dangerousness than those
who cheered on the vio-
lence or entered the Cap-
itol after others cleared the
way.”
The Kleins were among
the fi rst group to breach
the Capitol about 2:16 p.m.,
after Matthew Klein helped
others climb a wall to gain
access to a stairwell leading
to the Capitol’s Upper
West Terrace, prosecutors
have said. Prosecutors also
alleged they wrenched open
a door on the north side
of the U.S. Capitol after
having already entered and
exited the building.
Jonathanpeter Klein
has described himself as
a member of the far-right
extremist Proud Boys
group, which calls itself
a politically incorrect
men’s club for “Western
chauvinists.”
He was photographed
on Jan. 5 with his brother
while wearing a Proud
Boys shirt. That helped law
enforcement identify the
brothers, the FBI has said.
Matthew Klein also
faces charges in Multnomah
County where he is accused
of carrying a loaded fi rearm
in a truck after Portland
police stopped it leaving a
Proud Boys rally in Sep-
tember, according to court
records. Those charges
were pending when he par-
ticipated in the insurrection
at the U.S. Capitol, the pros-
ecutor said.
The brothers have not
yet entered pleas to the fed-
eral charges, including
conspiracy to defraud the
United States, obstruction
of an offi cial proceeding,
obstruction of law enforce-
ment during a civil disorder
and destruction of govern-
ment property.
Jonathanpeter Klein’s
defense lawyer Michelle
Sweet urged for her client to
be released pending trial.
She said he could if
released continue to work at
a ranch in Eastern Oregon.
Nanci Klein, the brothers’
mother, wrote a letter to the
court saying they could stay
at her home.
The Kleins are among
hundreds charged in the
insurrection.
The attack temporarily
delayed certifi cation of the
presidential election.
STATE NEWS BRIEFS
Rocket debris lights up skies
over the Pacifi c Northwest
SEATTLE — Burning debris from
a rocket lit up Pacifi c Northwest skies
Thursday night, March 25, the National
Weather Service in Seattle said.
“The widely reported bright objects in
the sky were debris from a Falcon 9 rocket
2nd stage that did not successfully have a
deorbit burn,” the service said in a tweet
about the astral occurrence that the Seattle
Times reported was seen shortly after
9 p.m.
There were no reports of damage or
other impacts on the ground.
The rocket delivered Starlink satellites,
built in Redmond, Washington, into orbit
earlier this week, the Times reported.
SpaceX said Wednesday the Falcon 9’s
fi rst stage returned to Earth and landed as
planned on its ocean-going barge off the
coast of Florida.
Portland Children’s Museum to close,
citing loss of revenue in pandemic
PORTLAND — A Portland landmark
announced it will close at the end of June,
citing a loss of revenue brought on by the
COVID-19 pandemic.
The Portland Children’s Museum and
the Opal School — a charter academy
inside the museum — will be shuttered
June 30, museum offi cials announced
Thursday, March 25.
Offi cials said in a statement said that the
museum experienced “devastating atten-
dance and revenue losses” from the pan-
demic and resulting shutdown. Coupled with
new cleaning protocols, limited capacity
rules and nearly 50 staff positions that
needed to be refi lled after layoff s, the muse-
um’s board determined it was not possible to
keep the museum running.
“Children’s museums across the country
are reporting average losses of more than
70% of the income they had received in
years past, and relief from public sources
has not been adequate to relieve the
impacts of the pandemic on cultural institu-
tions,” Laura Huerta Migus, the executive
Roman Puzhlyakov via AP
In this image from a video, debris from a SpaceX rock-
et lights up the sky Thursday evening, March 25, 2021,
behind clouds over Vancouver, Washington. The rem-
nants of the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket left
comet-like trails as they burned up upon reentry in
the Earth’s atmosphere, according to a tweet from the
National Weather Service.
director of the Association of Children’s
Museums, said in the statement.
The museum featured rotating exhibits
highlighting an array of scientifi c and cul-
tural themes.
Prior to the pandemic, the museum had
been averaging about 250,000 visitors per
year. It is currently “temporarily closed,”
according to its website.
Teen shot in back at Salem
elementary school dies
SALEM — One of two 17-year-old boys
shot in the back at an Oregon elementary
school has died.
The shooting Wednesday, March 24, in
a parking lot at Four Corners Elementary
School in Salem left one youth critically
injured and the other with non-life-threat-
ening injuries.
The more seriously wounded teenager
died Saturday, according to the Marion
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce.
A teenager found after the shooting
has been charged with fi rst-degree rob-
bery, unlawful possession of a fi rearm,
unlawful use of a weapon and fi rst-degree
theft, KOIN-TV reports. None of the youths
has been publicly identifi ed. The shooting
remains under investigation.
— Associated Press
Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho — A
coalition of 17 environ-
mental groups is speaking
out against a key part of a
sweeping plan to remove
the Lower Snake River
dams to save salmon and
steelhead.
The groups said in a
letter to Democratic sena-
tors in Oregon and Wash-
ington that the 35-year
moratorium on fi sh- and
dam-related lawsuits
included in Idaho Repub-
lican Rep. Mike Simpson’s
proposal in exchange for
dam removal was too high
a price to pay, the Idaho
Statesman reported Sat-
urday, March 27.
A years-long ban on
lawsuits will make fed-
eral and state laws on clean
water standards and spe-
cies protections harder
to enforce, the groups
said in the letter to Wash-
ington Sens. Patty Murray
and Maria Cantwell and
Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley
and Ron Wyden.
The groups urged the
lawmakers to oppose the
proposal “as written,” but
said they generally sup-
port the idea of breaching
the dams and helping
impacted communities.
The letter argues that the
reason salmon aren’t yet
extinct on the Snake River
is because of lawsuits to
protect their habitat under
environmental laws that
were enacted after the
dams were already built.
“The Clean Water Act
and the Endangered Spe-
cies Act are critical to
protecting wild salmon
and protecting water
quality, and when you are
removing the enforce-
ment of those for many
years, you could actually
be doing more harm than
the dams are causing,”
said Kurt Beardslee,
executive director of the
Wild Fish Conservancy.
Nicholas K. Geranios/Associated Press, File
In this April 11, 2018, photo, water moves through a spillway of the Lower
Granite Dam on the Snake River near Almota, Washington. A coalition of
17 environmental groups are speaking out against a key part of a sweep-
ing plan to remove the Lower Snake River dams to save salmon and steel-
head.
Simpson last month
released his $33 billion
legislative concept to
breach the dams and mit-
igate aff ected industries
and communities through
a wide range of invest-
ments. It includes funding
to replace power pro-
duced at the dams, to help
farmers get wheat and
other grains to market, and
to help communities like
Lewiston.
To address what some
in the region see as the
“slippery slope” of dam
removal, the concept
includes a 35-year morato-
rium on ESA, Clean Water
Act and National Environ-
mental Policy Act lawsuits
on most of the remaining
dams in the Columbia
River Basin and it would
extend federal licenses at
those dams for 35 years.
It would also set up
regional watershed part-
nerships between agri-
cultural interests, conser-
vation groups and Native
American tribes aimed at
improving water quality.
Farmers participating in
the voluntary partnerships
would be shielded from
Clean Water Act lawsuits
for 25 years.
Some environmental
groups such as the Idaho
Conservation League,
Trout Unlimited and the
Save Our Wild Salmon
Coalition support Simp-
son’s proposal. But the
congressman has also
faced stern criticism from
agricultural groups, state
legislators and county
commissioners from both
Idaho and Washington.
Todd True, an attorney
from the environmental
law fi rm EarthJustice who
has represented many of
the salmon advocates who
support Simpson’s concept,
said he sees it as the type
of comprehensive pro-
posal that could help save
the fi sh. But he sees Simp-
son’s proposal as a starting
point instead of a fi nished
product.
“It’s not perfect. There
are diffi cult issues that it
raises. We are ready to
have the hard conversa-
tions to fi nd a way for-
ward and resolve those
issues,” he said.
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