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4 CapitalPress.com November 16, 2018 New book documents a newspaper family Company is owner of the Capital Press By ERICK BENGEL EO Media Group Journalists try to avoid be- coming the story, but a new book about the East Orego- nian and The Daily Astorian puts these sister dailies on the front page. “Grit and Ink,” by histo- rian William F. Willingham, is about the Aldrich-Forrest- er-Bedford-Brown family’s devotion to community jour- nalism. The book focuses on the East Oregonian Publish- ing Co. (now the EO Media Group), taking readers from the rugged early years of Oregon newspapering to the present — from the dusty frontier to the digital frontier, from agrarian Pendleton to riverine Astoria. EO Media Group is the The Daily Astorian Portland historian William F. Willingham pores over 1950s company history in the Astorian-Budget Publishing Co.’s minutes book in 2014. A new book by historian William F. Willingham illustrates the his- tory of the publishing company that would eventually become the EO Media Group. rough, risk-laden period in the state’s history. “Along with schools and churches, a newspaper pro- vided an important measure of civilization and order,” he writes. Having a newspaper “was a way of proclaiming that a town was real and here to stay.” Willingham explains how small-town papers survived uncertain early years, how they weathered crises — such as the 1922 Astoria Fire and the Great Depression — Alex Pajunas/The Daily Astorian parent company of the Cap- ital Press. The book’s subtitle is “An Oregon Family’s Ad- ventures in Newspapering, 1908–2018,” but Willingham opens with the East Orego- nian’s founding in 1875, a why some papers succeeded and others folded, and why they aggressively promot- ed the development of their towns. “If the paper’s going to thrive, the community has to thrive, and vice versa,” he said. EO Media Group CEO Steve Forrester, The Daily Astorian’s former editor and publisher, asked Willingham to write the company’s histo- ry back in 2014. Though “Grit and Ink” is a book about the compa- ny, published by the compa- ny, Willingham said it isn’t an “authorized biography.” The ground rules for re- search were “wide open,” he said. “I had a totally free hand to go wherever the research took me, and I had no inter- ference whatsoever with the process,” he said. The book will be distrib- uted by Oregon State Univer- sity Press. Willingham read through East Oregonian records, dug through documents at the Or- egon Historical Society and researched secondary sourc- es. He studied the company’s two daily papers, handful of weeklies and 20 years of on- line editions. He also interviewed com- pany executives and stock- holders, including Kathryn Brown and Mike Forrester — Steve’s older brother and former editor and publisher of the Capital Press. What will make the big- gest impression? “The fierce commitment of that family over three generations — four generations now — to succeeding in community journalism, to really do what it took and make the sacrific- es to keep those newspapers alive,” Willingham said, “be- cause they felt the value they were adding to the communi- ty and the importance of what they were doing.” WDFW seeks to save farmer support for fish projects By DON JENKINS Capital Press Farmer support for salmon recovery in north Puget Sound will be jeopardized if a trou- bled fish project isn’t fixed, according to the Department of Fish of Wildlife. The department and two tribes removed a section of a dike and let Wiley Slough flood 157 acres of farmland and hunting grounds in the Skagit River delta a decade ago. A new dike was built farther inland to protect other farmland on Fir Island. The dike, however, has proven too short. Water ran over the top during a storm in March 2016. The levee is damaged and saltwater seeps through. If not fixed, the dike eventually will fail, according to Fish and Wildlife. The fail- ure would flood some of the best farmland in Washington and harm community support for estuary restoration, accord- ing to the department. “Wiley Slough is really about doing the right thing by farmers,” said Amy Windrope, Fish and Wildlife’s North Puget Sound director. “It’s critical people trust us,” she said. “Citizens can slow projects down.” Fish and Wildlife and the Army Corps of Engineers have plans to convert thousands of acres in north Puget Sound into fish habitat over the next 10 to 20 years. The agencies plan to swamp government-acquired land, but the flooding requires altering the dikes, ditches and tidegates that keep adjacent private land dry. While the primary goal of the projects is to increase the number of salmon, a sec- ondary goal is to not harm farmland. “In the case of Wi- ley, it just failed,” said Allen Rozema, executive director of Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland. “The Wiley project is the poster child of what not to do.” Fish and Wildlife has sub- mitted a $3.85 million bud- get request to raise the Wiley Slough dike. That’s about the same amount state and federal agencies spent on the original restoration project. In its pitch to lawmak- ers, the department stresses that the dike must be fixed to maintain public support for FLAT CARS- THE BETTER BRIDGE • Lower Cost • Custom Lengths up to 90’ • Certified Engineering Services Available • Steel Construction LEGAL PURSUANT TO ORS CHAPTER 87 Notice is hereby given that the following vehicle will be sold, for cash to the highest bidder, on 11/30/2018. The sale will be held at 10:00am by MAIN A.B / LOVEGROVE COLLISION 1230 HOYT ST SE SALEM, OR 2017 NISSAN SENTRA 4DR VIN = 3N1AB7AP9HY383556 Amount due on lien $6806.06 Reputed owner(s) STEPHEN C LOVING SANTANDER CONSUMER USA STEPHEN LOVING 46-2-1/999 Contractor License # 71943 46-1/100 P.O Box 365 • 101 Industrial Way, Lebanon, OR 97355 Office: 541-451-1275 Email: info@rfc-nw.com www.rfc-nw.com future projects. “That is 100 percent the case,” Rozema said. “There is landowner fatigue on the land- scape.” Wiley Slough was an ear- ly project of its kind in north Puget Sound. Fish and Wildlife collaborated with the Skagit River System Cooperative, a consortium of the Sauk-Suiat- tle Indian Tribe and Swinom- ish Indian Tribal Community. The project has had more problems than an inadequate dike. New tidegates failed immediately and had to be re- placed, according to Fish and Wildlife. The department also built a pump station because of drainage problems. The storm that surged over the dike on March 10, 2016, damaged the levee and flooded farmland. It also flooded a boat launch parking lot. Fortunate- ly, according to Fish and Wild- life, the early morning flood did not occur during waterfowl hunting season. “In our minds, this project is not yet completed,” said Brandon Roozen, executive director of the Western Wash- ington Agricultural Associ- ation, a Skagit County farm group. “Wiley Slough was not done correctly, and we’re now paying the price.” Don Jenkins/Capital Press File Washington State University plant pathologist Lindsey du Toit, shown here in 2014 at the college’s Mount Vernon research station, caught a mistake by an Iowa seed-testing laboratory that could have damaged the reputation of Washington’s seed industry. Seed tester errs; Washington actually still free of black leg WSU scientist finds mistake By DON JENKINS Capital Press Washington’s vegetable seed industry has regained its status as free of black leg, a plant-killing pathogen wrongly thought to have been found at a radish seed farm in Island County last month. Iowa State University’s seed-testing laboratory mis- took a harmless fungus for black leg, a misdiagnosis that was caught by Washington State University plant pathol- ogist Lindsey du Toit. At du Toit’s urging, the lab in Ames, Iowa, re-examined the seeds and acknowledged its error. If not corrected, the finding could have harmed northwest Washington’s seed-producing reputation. “We’re testing thou- sands of samples and once in awhile one slips through, and it’s a bad deal,” the lab- oratory’s testing coordinator, Charles Block, said Friday. “I don’t expect to have it hap- pen again.” Black leg infects cru- ciferous crops and renders seeds worthless. An outbreak damaged Washington’s seed industry in the 1970s. To prevent another outbreak, the state Department of Agri- culture requires crucifer seed farms in Eastern Washington and six Western Washington counties to use seeds tested for black leg. Black leg has shown up in the Willamette Valley and Idaho in recent years, but not Washington. That appeared to change in October when the Iowa lab purportedly found black leg in a seed lot from the northwest Washing- ton farm. The discovery was reported in the Capital Press and elsewhere. Du Toit said Friday that she was surprised that she couldn’t find evidence of black leg in the farm’s fields. She took seeds from the same lot that was tested in Iowa and put them under a micro- scope. She said she found a fun- gus that resembles black leg, but is not identical. The fun- gus lives on the seed’s dead coat, but does not affect the embryo, she said. The laboratory re-exam- ined the seeds and confirmed du Toit’s finding. “We found the same thing that she did,” Block said. 46-4/HOU
