DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2016
144TH YEAR, NO. 3
ONE DOLLAR
Coastal star-spangled Fourth
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
The new welcome pole carved by artist
Guy Capoeman .
Spirits of
the past
bid you
greeting
Welcoming pole
recalls tribal heritage
at NeCus’ Park
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
Isabella Churchill, 4, reacts to the parade during Warrenton’s Old-Fashioned Fourth of July Parade on Monday .
‘The colors, the music, the excitement,
the sense of pride in our nation’
The Daily Astorian
T
he North Coast was alive with rousing music,
fl amboyant colors and noisy festivities Monday.
In Warrenton and Seaside, annual Fourth of July
parades wound through the downtowns. ¶ As the day
faded away, fi reworks regaled the skies in Astoria,
Seaside and the Long Beach Peninsula.
Seaside celebrates
Hundreds of spectators lined the
sidewalks from Holladay Drive,
down Broadway, to Columbia Street
and across First Avenue to watch the
parade .
Four drum and bugles corps —
the Santa Clara Vanguard, Oregon
Crusaders, Spokane Thunder and
the Battalion from Salt Lake City —
were spaced among other fl oats and
vehicles to contribute a high-caliber
musical performance to the tradi-
tional event.
Parades are a highlight of Fourth
of July festivities, not only in Sea-
side but in towns across America.
James Maki, of Kirkland, Wash-
ington, noted how parades are tinged
in nostalgia because the concept of
marching or proceeding through a
city “started as a projection of mil-
itary power.” Historically, parades
were used after victorious mili-
tary confl icts to celebrate the home-
coming of troops. Today, they are a
quintessential festivity reminiscent
of earlier decades, a tradition passed
down through generations.
Maki was visiting Seaside along
with his brother and sister-in-law
and their three school-aged daugh-
ters. Traveling to Seaside to com-
memorate the Fourth of July and
vacation over the holiday is, for
them, a family tradition. The girls
said they enjoy watching the parade
because of the music, the distribu-
tion of candy and the opportunity
to “see the cool things,” which this
year included children riding uni-
cycles, pageant winners, singing
pirates, roller derby skaters, Sas-
quatch on wheels and a bevy of
other colorful sights and sounds.
For Seaside’s Jeremy Mills it is
the pageantry — “the colors, the
music, the excitement, the sense of
pride in our nation” — that draws
people to parades on the Fourth of
July.
His wife, Misty, agreed, add-
ing she enjoys coming to Seaside’s
parade and seeing the amount and
diversity of people in attendance,
both participants and spectators, and
“the pride they’re taking in our town
and our country.”
Seaside’s parade stands out
because “of the effort they put into
their fl oats” or other parade entries,
Misty Mills said.
See FOURTH, Page 10A
CANNON BEACH — NeCus’ Park wit-
nessed a revival of a vanishing culture with
the arrival of a welcoming pole designed by
sculpture artist Guy Capoeman.
“The spirits of the old ones are in the
trees, waiting for the old ones to start sing-
ing,” Richard Basch, the vice chairman of
the Clatsop-Nehalem tribe, said at the cer-
emony Friday. “I am sure they are here
today.”
As the sun draped over the scene by a
tucked-in cove in Cannon Beach and vis-
itors formed a circle around a campfi re,
it wasn’t diffi cult to imagine the Native
Americans who gathered at this site hun-
dreds and even thousands of years ago.
The area, bordering Ecola Creek, once was
the location of a Clatsop-Nehalem village
known as NeCus’. The sculpture was a col-
laboration between the Clatsop-Nehalem
tribe and the city .
“There were permanent residents, but it
was always a place of welcoming strang-
ers and travelers,” Basch said. “So this wel-
coming pole is here to welcome everyone
now.”
See POLE, Page 10A
Jeff Ter Har/For EO Media Group
This parade-goer had a cozy surrey seat in Gearhart.
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Kids grab candy thrown from fire trucks Monday during
Warrenton’s Old-Fashioned Fourth of July Parade .
Ag groups
gear up
to fi ght
corporate
sales tax
Supporters unmoved
by claims of hardship
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
Oregon man considered
‘The Willy Wonka of Pot’
The Wizard of
Weed stays low,
waiting changes
in federal law
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — In the mari-
juana world, cannabis breeder Dan-
iel John “D.J.” Short gets rock star
raves while simultaneously keeping
to the shadows.
The Pendleton marijuana man
started tinkering with canna-
bis genetics about 40 years ago in
Eugene and has crafted some of
the most creative and well-known
strains, including one that smells of
fresh blueberries.
Short’s seeds and pot -breeding
skills earned him a spot in the High
Times Seed Bank Hall of Fame,
which commemorates “brave pot
pioneers and trailblazers.” He was
spotlighted as “The Willy Wonka
of Pot” in a 5,000-word tome for
the website Grantland, and wrote
the 2003 book “Cultivating Excep-
tional Cannabis: An Expert Breeder
Shares His Secrets.”
See D.J. SHORT, Page 10A
Image by Ralf Schuetz/Mushroom Dreams
D.J. Short is an icon in the
world of cannabis breeding
stock, but he is still something
of an enigma.
SALEM — The Oregon agricultural
industry is gearing up for battle against
a campaign to pass a corporate sales tax
measure on the November ballot by shed-
ding light on how the tax will affect indi-
vidual companies and
farmers.
Under
Initiative
Petition 28, the Mt.
Angel-based
Wilco
farm supplies and fuel
cooperative faces a
1,388-percent increase
in its state corporate
income tax bill, from
$168,000 to $2.5 mil-
Doug
lion per year, CEO
Hoffman
Doug Hoffman said.
The tax would
apply only to the $100 million in sales at
Wilco Farm Stores in Oregon; direct sales
to the cooperative’s 3,000 members are
exempt, Hoffman said.
See AG GROUPS, Page 10A