6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JULY 30, 2015
Ranch transformed from cult
compound to Christian camp
By KATHY ANEY
EO Media Group
ANTELOPE — Hannah
Boozer inched her way along a
narrow cable, her eyes worried,
her jaw set.
The Pendleton teenager wore
a harness and a lanyard that slid
along an upper wire, so she
knew she wouldn’t fall far. Still,
a dizzying 50 feet stood between
the yearold and terra ¿rPa.
Boozer, a caPper at the
world’s largest Young Life fa-
cility near Antelope, was tack-
ling the ropes course — a web
of cables and ropes attached to
utility poles set into a hilltop.
The ¿nal station reTuired a si[-
foot horizontal leap to a trapeze
bar before she would be gently
lowered to the ground.
Had Boozer felt Pore re-
la[ed, she Pight haYe taken
a few PoPents to gaze at the
scenery froP her lofty position.
The Yiew encoPpassed
Young Life’s :ashington )aP-
ily Ranch, a 64,000-acre Chris-
tian youth caPp with a Pan-
Pade lake, OlyPpic-size pool,
three zip lines, go-kart track and
an ,000-sTuare-foot sports
center. About a Pile away, in the
Piddle school section, younger
kids slid down tube slides at the
caPp’s water park. EYery week,
about ,00 new caPpers arriYe
at the ranch.
The oasis is surrounded by
high desert Àora and fauna. A
graYel road leading to the caPp
slices through country rich with
sage, juniper, greasewood and
riProck. The locals, Pany of
theP cattle ranchers, are rugged
indiYiduals who haYe weathered
baking tePperatures, Piddle-of-
the-night calYings and the big-
gest irritant of all — the Bhag-
wan Shree Rajneesh.
Spiritual leader
The Bhagwan, a spiritual
leader froP ,ndia, in estab-
lished a coPPune on the land
now occupied by the Young
Life caPp and what earlier was
a large sheep and cattle concern
called the Big Muddy Ranch.
,n the 00s, a farPhouse still
standing on the property serYed
as a stagecoach stop.
The Bhagwan bought the
rePote property for 5.5 Pil-
lion and inYested Pillions Pore
to build RajneeshpuraP as a
spiritual retreat for thousands
of his red-frocked followers. ,n
news clips froP the 0s, Ra-
jneeshees line the road for the
Bhagwan’s daily driYe-by in a
Yehicle froP his Àeet of Pore
than 0 Rolls Royce autoPo-
biles. Rancho Rajneesh, as soPe
called it, had its own newspaper,
¿re departPent, night club and
Pall.
The Rajneeshees clashed
with locals oYer land use. The
utopian desert coPPune col-
lapsed after Rajneeshees were
conYicted of infecting four sal-
ad bars with salPonella in The
Dalles, the Wasco County seat,
in order to haPper Yoter turnout
and swing an election. Other
criPes included attePpted Pur-
Terry Spivey/Wikimedia Commons Photo
Pandora moth.
Pandora Poths
return to forests
Associated Press
Kathy Aney/EO Media Group
The Washington Family Ranch in Central Oregon hosts about 1,100 campers every week.
The Christian youth camp sits on the site of the former Rajneeshpuram.
Kathy Aney/EO Media Group
The Washington Fami-
ly Ranch, near Antelope,
was once a huge sheep
ranch and later a spiritual
retreat for followers of the
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
The Christian youth camp,
owned by Young Life,
opened in 1999.
der, arson, election fraud and
wiretapping. About 10 followers
were iPprisoned. The Bhagwan
was deported for iPPigration
Yiolations.
Montana billionaire Dennis
Washington bought the seized
property for a cool .65 Pil-
lion as a destination resort, but
ran into zoning problePs. The
Washington faPily donated the
property to Young Life in 16
and has continued support with
additional donations.
Patty Read, adPinistratiYe
systePs assistant at the Wash-
ington )aPily Ranch, said the
caPp is a Pi[ture of new con-
struction and rePodeled Ra-
jneeshpuraP buildings. The ho-
tels were repurposed into dorPs.
The nightclub and Pall are now
a residence for workers.
Ironic
The transforPation to a
Christian caPp is nothing short
of ironic, said Pendleton Young
Life leader Chris Thatcher. He
and three other leaders shep-
herded a contingent of 28
Pendleton teens all last week.
Thatcher stood in the sports
center where kids scraPbled
up cliPbing walls and thudded
basketballs off the hardwood.
Once a place where thousands
of Rajneeshees worshiped the
Bhagwan, the center is a hub of
recreational actiYity.
He described the caPp as a
place where the gospel is pre-
sented, but not pushed. Seeds
are planted during nightly Peet-
ings as kids sing and fellowship
in a Posh pit-esTue setting in-
side a building a short hop froP
the swiPPing pool. A pastor
zings a short but pithy Pessage.
Thatcher said Puch of the
faith building happens one on
one.
³We belieYe soPething real
happens when you journey with
a kid,” he said.
,f the caPper isn’t interested
in faith?
³We Peet people where they
are — we don’t force God on
people,” Thatcher said. “We
proYide space for eYery caPper
to respond to the good news. We
don’t stop journeying with kids
if they don’t choose hiP.”
CaPper Andrew ThoPas, a
recent Pendleton High School
graduate, described the caPp as
engaging, non-threatening and
“insane fun.”
“The brochures say this will
be the best week of your life and
they’re not lying,” ThoPas said.
“,t is kind of like an escape
froP reality,” said Makya Theis,
of Pendleton, “,t’s a place where
you know you are loYed.”
Fascinating wrinkles
Read is one of 40 year-
round ePployees at the ranch.
She serYes as caPp tour guide
along with her other duties. The
caPp’s recent history includes
soPe fascinating wrinkles. God,
soPe say, sanded down soPe of
the rough edges in the planning
process.
Early on, Read said, planners
discussed creating a PanPade
lake, but ran into a big probleP.
“Consultants said the pond
would eYaporate about 10,000
gallons a day,” she said. “They
needed soPe kind of natural wa-
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ter source.”
The lake went on hold until
a crew digging the swiPPing
pool hit a natural spring with
a Àow of — you guessed it —
10,000 gallons per day.
When planners couldn’t de-
cide what to do with the Bhag-
wan’s house, a 1 range ¿re
decided Patters. A ¿nger of the
¿re raced down the ridge and
torched the residence, the only
one of 00 RajneeshpuraP
buildings to burn.
The caPp’s huge grassy
¿eld, a place for soccer, Yolley-
ball and other actiYities, reTuired
seYeral inches of sand to Piti-
gate for Puddiness. SoPeone
on a four wheeler e[ploring the
property discoYered a huge sand
deposit that proYided the e[act
aPount of sand needed.
“This place is a gift,” Thatch-
er said.
Hannah Boozer, once she
conTuered the ropes course, said
she thinks the setting is a perfect
place for getting close to God.
“Young Life is a week full
of eye-opening PoPents,” she
said. “God’s grace de¿nitely
changes liYes at Washington
)aPily Ranch.”
BEND — Pandora Poths
haYe taken flight again in
the pine forests of Central
Oregon.
Andy Eglitis, an ento-
Pologist for the Deschutes
National Forest, has been
getting calls about Poth en-
counters in the woods and
in Bend, The Bend Bulletin
reported.
He belieYes there has
been a resurgence in their
population this suPPer, but
it hasn’t yet reached out-
break leYels.
The last big outbreak
was in the 10s, when hun-
dreds of Poths crowded on
buildings around Bend.
People who called Eg-
litis reported seeing about
50 Poths each. The reports
haYe coPe froP Yarious lo-
cations, including in the De-
schutes National Forest near
the LaYa Cast Forest and at
a bank building along U.S.
Highway 20.
Pandora Poths are easy
to recognize because of
their size and appearance.
At rest, the Poths forP
about a 1 1/2-inch triangle,
Eglitis said. ,n flight, they
haYe a wingspan of about
inches. Those gray wings
haYe jagged black lines on
top and pink on the bottoP.
The fePales haYe thin yel-
low antennae. The Pales
haYe feathery antennae of
the saPe hue.
“They look like ferns,”
Eglitis said.
NatiYe to Central Ore-
gon, the pandora Poth has
a two-year life cycle de-
pendent on pine trees. They
Punch the trees’ needles
like Pad while they are cat-
erpillars, but they do not
cause deadly daPage like
gypsy Poths and other inYa-
siYe insects, Eglitis said.
EYen during the 10s
outbreak, the Poths did
not dent Central Oregon’s
woods.
“,t was really hard to find
any trees that were killed by
these things,” he said.
The Poths ePerge froP
the ground and fly around
this tiPe in odd years. The
caterpillars are out eating
pine needles in spring and
suPPer of eYen years.
What triggered the
10s outbreak, which
lasted about a decade and
PoYed through different
parts of Central Oregon,
is unknown, said Stephen
Fitzgerald, a forestry pro-
fessor at Oregon State
UniYersity in CorYallis.
But scientists do know
it was a Yirus that ended
the outbreak around Bend
and brought the nuPber of
Poths back in check.
TIMBERLANDS CLOSED
DUE TO HIGH FIRE DANGER
E ffective im m ed ia tely, the
Lew is & C la rk Tim b erla n d s
a re closed to a ll pu blic en try a n d w ill rem a in
in effect u n til fu rther n otice.
F or u p-to-d a te in form a tion
plea se ca ll ou r
REC REATION AL
HOTLIN E
5 03 -73 8-63 5 1 Ex t. 2
TIMBERLANDS CLOSED
“Th e entire office
h as becom e like
fam ily”
My visit was great. I always enjoy the
communication before an
appointment. And the care is always
excellent.
The entire office has become like
family. Dr. Jeff explains everything.
The dental staff are kind and
experienced. I would highly
recommend.
JOE Z.
JEFFREY M. LEINASSAR,
DMD, FAGD
503/325-0310
1414 MARINE DRIVE,
ASTORIA
www.smileastoria.com