THE FINNISH BROTHERHOOD PRESERVES HERITAGE COAST WEEKEND • INSIDE
DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2017
144TH YEAR, NO. 145
ONE DOLLAR
AP Photo/John Minchillo
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Military personnel walk along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Wednesday
alongside vendors’ merchandise ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration.
Kit Ketcham, center, and other organizers for Saturday’s Women’s March dis-
cuss details for the event in Astoria.
Trump believers
celebrate inauguration
many did not foresee
Women’s March hints
at more activism in
North Coast politics
Hope, and a few
prayers, for the
new president
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
T
erry Johnson stood watch behind
the Clatsop County Republicans’
table at the 2015 county fair. At
the time, 17 candidates were vying for the
Republican presidential nomination.
To Johnson’s surprise, he heard Don-
ald Trump’s name uttered repeatedly.
So he decided to take a poll. Once the
roughly 90 votes were counted, he said,
Trump received 45 percent.
“That’s about the time I started getting
on board with the possibility of Trump
becoming the nominee,” he recalled.
On Friday, the 41 percent of Clat-
sop County voters who marked Trump’s
name on their ballots in November will
get to enjoy his inauguration.
Just as they did during the real
estate magnate’s acceptance speech
at the Republican National Conven-
tion in Cleveland in July, conservatives
will gather at BJ’s Pizza Palace in Sea-
side at 6 p.m. to watch inaugural events.
Prior to the election, most national polls
pegged former U.S. Secretary of State
See TRUMP, Page 7A
‘I really underestimated his appeal. I didn’t
think he had a snowball’s chance in hell.’
Local event in
solidarity with
national march
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
O
ne week after the November elec-
tion, protesters who opposed the
Dakota Access Pipeline stood
in the rain outside the Clatsop County
Courthouse in Astoria. Despite the
weather, more than 50 people showed up
to join the protest, which was organized
in a matter of days.
“If we could do this,” some of the
organizers thought out loud, “what if we
had much more time to plan?”
Since then, some of those same lead-
ers have been planning a Women’s March
in downtown Astoria for Saturday — one
day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as
president. The march is in solidarity with
hundreds of others against the Republican
real-estate magnate around the nation,
including the main one in Washington,
D.C.
As more and more votes were counted
on Election Day, Joyce Hunt said she
became angry and fearful. But both she
and other organizers said they converted
their initial anger into a desire for action.
See MARCH, Page 7A
‘I wasn’t anywhere near as pissed
about the election once I had a plan.’
George Warren
Kit Ketcham
farmer, speaking of Donald Trump’s presidential election win
one of the organizers for Saturday’s Women’s March
Cannon Beach widow blames Trump nominee for foreclosure
Woman lost her
home after her
husband died
Lisa Fraser, a
Cannon Beach
widow, is fea-
tured in a TV
ad opposing
President-elect
Donald Trump’s
nominee for
Treasury secre-
tary, Steven
Mnuchin.
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
CANNON BEACH — A Can-
non Beach widow, who lost her
home to foreclosure shortly after
Submitted Photo
her husband died, is the subject of
a TV ad opposing President-elect
Donald Trump’s choice for Trea-
sury secretary.
Lisa Fraser’s husband, John,
died last winter after a long bat-
tle with cancer. She said OneW-
est — the bank Steven Mnuchin,
Trump’s nominee, led as chairman
and CEO from 2009 to 2015 —
foreclosed on the home where the
couple lived for almost 25 years.
As Lisa Fraser explains in the
somber 30-second spot: “We did
everything the bank asked. They
lied to us and took our home any-
way. John spent his last days ter-
rified I’d be homeless. And then
they kicked me out right after the
funeral.”
The commercial — funded
and produced by progressive
See WIDOW, Page 7A
Pillar Rock skeleton is missing Seattle man
‘My luck has
run out,’ final
text reads
By NATALIE ST. JOHN
EO Media Group
CATHLAMET, Wash. —
Richard Donald Arneson’s last
known words came in the form
of an ominous text message.
“My luck has run out,”
Arneson, 62, told a friend
on Feb. 5, 2016. After that,
his loved ones had no idea
what became of him until law
enforcement delivered bitter-
sweet news: A Texas forensic
lab used DNA to confirm that
Arneson was the man discov-
ered on the bank of the Colum-
bia River near Altoona in May.
Wahkiakum County Prose-
cutor and Coroner Dan Bige-
low was still trying to wrap his
head around the unexpected
news about the mystery man at
Pillar Rock. Over the past sev-
eral months, he’s put consid-
erable thought and effort into
trying to find the man’s name.
“All that detective work.
All that ‘2 a.m.-ing!’ Dr.
(Kathy) Taylor was giddy
when she told me,” Bigelow
said, referring to the Wash-
ington state forensic anthro-
pologist who helped Bigelow
prepare the remains for DNA
testing, and hired the forensic
artist who drew the likeness of
the man that was released to
the public just last week. “I did
a little happy dance.”
Against
diminishing odds
It might seem odd for Bige-
low to be happy about such a
thing, but he doesn’t intend
any disrespect. It’s just that a
great many missing persons
and unidentified remains cases
never get solved, and the pros-
pects definitely weren’t great
for this one. It was dubious
whether the man’s weathered,
partial skeletal remains would
yield any usable DNA. Even
when there is DNA, it often
takes months or even years
before labs get any results.
Leads in the case had all
come to nothing. After seven
months of searching, Bigelow
and Taylor thought that if they
got any new leads this month,
they would come from the new
drawing, not the Texas foren-
sic lab.
“This came out of the blue.”
Bigelow said. His last uniden-
tified remains case involved
another skeleton found on
the banks of the Columbia in
February 2013. It took almost
exactly two years for the same
Texas lab to confirm that the
bones belonged to Molly Wad-
dington, a 44-year-old Kelso,
See SKELETON, Page 5A
Westseattleblog.com
Richard Donald Arneson of
west Seattle went missing
nearly a year ago. Thanks
to DNA and a tenacious
Wahkiakum County coro-
ner, his remains have now
been identified as a skeleton
found on the Columbia River
shoreline near Pillar Rock.