A2
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2021
IN BRIEF
Astoria man dies in
crash on Highway 26
An Astoria man died Monday afternoon in a sin-
gle-vehicle crash on U.S. Highway 26.
Kenneth Rislow, 77, was heading eastbound when
he traveled off the road. Police believe he had a medi-
cal emergency prior to the crash.
Emergency crews arrived to the crash near mile-
post 17 at about 12:40 p.m. Several bystanders had
performed CPR on Rislow.
Police investigate
stabbing in Astoria
Police are investigating a stabbing that occurred
Monday evening in Astoria.
Offi cers received a report at about 7 p.m. of a stab-
bing on the Astoria Riverwalk side of the Motel 6 on
W. Marine Drive.
One of the people involved walked away from the
area and was found near the Astoria Library being
treated for three stab wounds to his arm.
Police say witnesses and all others involved stayed
near Motel 6, along with another man who had facial
injuries.
Witnesses or anyone with video of the altercation
are asked to contact Detective Nicole Riley at 503-
741-6118 or nriley@astoria.or.us.
OHSU to offer free weekly
virus testing in Astoria
Oregon Health & Science University will offer
free weekly coronavirus testing in Astoria beginning
Monday.
The Portland hospital’s community outreach testing
program will set up from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Mon-
day at the Clatsop County household hazardous waste
facility off of Williamsport Road.
Testing will be available to people 2 months and
older. To register, visit www.ohsu.edu/COVIDVans or
call 503-494-4911.
The Clatsop County Public Health Department will
continue to offer its own testing at the household haz-
ardous waste facility on Tuesdays and Fridays. For
more information, visit the county’s website.
Annual Goodding
remembrance goes virtual
SEASIDE — The fi fth anniversary of the fatal
shooting of police Sgt. Jason Goodding takes place
Friday with a ceremony beginning at 6 p.m. on the
city’s YouTube channel.
Goodding was patrolling downtown on the night of
Feb. 5, 2016, when he was slain while attempting to
serve a warrant on a felon.
Goodding was 39 at the time of his death. He is sur-
vived by his wife and two daughters.
The remembrance will include a posting of the col-
ors, comments from two recipients of the Jason M.
Goodding Scholarship, a table of honor and comments
from police staff.
— The Astorian
In Brief
Death
Feb. 1, 2021
WEEKS, Lee Merrill, 82, of Gearhart, died in Port-
land. Caldwell’s Luce-Layton Mortuary in Astoria is
in charge of the arrangements.
ON THE RECORD
Burglary
inal mischief in the third
On
the Sanftle-
Record
• Benjamin
degree.
Criminal trespass
• Dorothy Olsen, 35,
was arrested on Third
Street in Astoria for crim-
inal trespass in the sec-
ond degree, resisting
arrest and aggravated
harassment.
Hit-and-run
• Gregorio Abundiz
Garcia, 23, of Astoria,
was arrested Friday on W.
Marine Drive in Astoria
for hit-and-run and reck-
less driving.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
THURSDAY
Maritime Memorial Committee, 2 p.m., City Hall, 1095
Duane St.
Seaside Parks Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., (electronic
meeting).
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Died last week at 74
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Astorian
Thane Tienson, a promi-
nent environmental, fi sher-
ies and human rights attor-
ney from Astoria, died from
a heart attack on Jan. 28 . He
was 74.
Tienson is survived by
his brother, John; son, Erik;
daughter, Julia; and grand-
son, Gavin. He was preceded
in death by his mother, Dor-
othy; father, John; and broth-
ers, David and Donald.
Julia Tienson said her
father, an avid runner who
was still a practicing lawyer
with the fi rm Landye Bennett
Blumstein, called her while
driving himself to the hos-
pital after experiencing sud-
den chest pains Jan. 27 . He
died of a heart attack while in
transport to another hospital
for surgery, she said, but not
before his family was able to
gather and spend some time
with him.
“We got to really say our
goodbyes,” she said. “I was
doing voice memo record-
ings of my dad. He was just
such an excellent storyteller
and had decades of life, and
activism, and friendships and
stories to share.”
Erik Tienson described
his father as a Type A per-
sonality who loved help-
ing people, from represent-
ing them in the courtroom to
teaching law and the C onsti-
tution classes in local high
schools. Tienson’s children
also described their father as
an unabashed liberal fi ghting
for environmental causes,
with a client list including the
Sierra Club, Columbia Riv-
erkeeper and the Wild Fish
Conservancy.
“He changed water rights
on the John Day River in
Thane Tienson, a prominent lawyer from Astoria, has died.
central Oregon,” Erik Tien-
son said. “He was just a free-
dom fi ghter for the Pacifi c
Northwest. His life goal was
to have The Dalles Dam be
blown up, and restore Celilo
Falls.”
Tienson’s family moved
away from Astoria to the
Bay Area when he was a boy .
Tienson attended Santa Clara
University in California
before serving in the Vietnam
War, where Erik Tienson said
his father earned two Purple
Hearts for injuries sustained
in battle.
After serving in the mil-
itary, he attended Lewis &
Clark College in Portland,
becoming a lawyer in 1977.
John Tienson, his only sur-
viving brother, said he
wanted to become a lawyer
in honor of his father.
Tienson’s family said
his heart was always on the
coast. He represented the
Chinook Indian Nation in its
fi ght for federal recognition,
Warrenton when its water fi l-
tration system malfunctioned
and even members of the Fla-
vel family.
“He did a ton of pro bono
work for Astoria,” Erik Tien-
son said. “He just loved the
people and the commercial
fi shermen of Astoria.”
Tienson represented the
Port of Astoria on several
occasions, most recently in
negotiations with oil compa-
nies to clean up historic fuel
contamination.
“I worked closely with
Thane over the last couple
of years, most notably on the
environmental cleanup along
the Astoria waterfront,” said
Will Isom, the Port’s execu-
tive director . “Thane loved
Astoria and he would often
begin our conversations by
probing for information on
the recent happenings within
the community.”
Tienson
represented
numerous fi shermen and
was counsel for Salmon for
All, an association repre-
senting the Columbia River
salmon-fi shing industry. He
won a federal court ruling on
behalf of both fi shermen and
environmental groups that
required changes in the way
dams are operated to protect
endangered salmon species.
Steve Fick, a seafood pro-
cessor, fi sherman and mem-
ber of Salmon for All, said
Tienson was always an advo-
cate for fi shermen and a sus-
tainable West Coast fi sh-
ery. He sued to stop a mine
near Bristol Bay, Alaska, and
for the right of gillnetters to
fi sh on the main stem of the
Columbia.
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“Truly, never forgot where
he came from,” Fick said .
In the 1990s, Tienson
handled several high-profi le
cases of sexual assault at sea,
helping improve standards
for women aboard fi shing
and processing vessels. Anne
Mosness, president of the
Women’s Maritime Associa-
tion, said Tienson stepped in
— often pro bono — to rep-
resent women who had been
assaulted at sea.
“He was so dedicated to
safety, to helping vulnerable
people,” Mosness said.
State Sen. Betsy Johnson,
a Democrat from Scappoose,
described Tienson as a per-
sonal confi dant.
“Thane Tienson was
as close as anyone in my
acquaintance to a R enais-
sance man, a decorated Viet-
nam Veteran, global traveler,
convivial companion, a capa-
ble and compassionate law-
yer —frequently on the side
of the little guy,” Johnson
said.
Tienson’s family said his
heart was always in Astoria,
where his mother had lived
since 1976 until her death in
October. He was planning to
retire in the coming year and
move back to the coast.
“I’m saddened for him
that he didn’t make it to
retirement, and that he didn’t
make it to some fi ner plea-
sures in life on the other side
of COVID, getting to be a
grandpa,” Julia Tienson said.
“We’ve got a 6 month old
who always smiled at him,
and I really wanted him to
know my dad.”
The family is planning
a number of smaller virtual
and in-person tributes over
the next several months.
They suggested donations in
Tienson’s honor be made to
Columbia Riverkeeper and
the Chinook Indian Nation.
Locals remember founder of Gearhart Facebook pages
Furnish was a
critic of local
government
By R.J. MARX
The Astorian
DEATHS
ben, 49, of Woodburn,
was arrested Saturday
for burglary in the sec-
ond degree after report-
edly breaking a window
at Deals Only in Astoria
and taking items from the
store.
Assaulting an offi cer
• Patricia Marie Hill,
33, of Seaside, was
arrested Monday on U.S.
Highway 26 for assault-
ing a public safety offi cer,
resisting arrest and crim-
Tienson was a prominent
lawyer from Astoria
GEARHART — James
“Jim” F. Furnish, who lived
the last years of his life as
the founder of the Gearhart
Facebook pages “A Million
Friends of Gearhart” and the
“Pacifi c Way Group,” died
Saturday morning. He was
70.
“This morning we have
lost a father, brother, grandfa-
ther, and above all a friend,”
his son, James, wrote in
announcing his death.
Furnish was born Sept. 8,
1950, in Portland and moved
to Gearhart at age 9.
His mother, Elna Fur-
nish, was a longtime colum-
nist for the Seaside Signal,
writing “Let’s Talk Food”
for decades. His father, Wil-
liam Wallace Furnish, a for-
mer World War II pilot, was a
rancher and insurance broker.
Furnish was a 1968 grad-
uate of Seaside High School.
He lived in Gearhart for
most of his life and worked
as a commercial fi sher-
man, an able hand on fi shing
boats and a professional clam
digger.
He worked as a drug and
alcohol counselor in Seaside
for many years.
A self-described “fi sh-
monger,” he was a famil-
iar face at Bell Buoy of
Seaside , Country Traveler
Online wrote in a 2015 pro-
fi le. “Behind the counter, the
retired fi sherman’s energy
and enthusiasm for the job
belies his age. One minute he
is outside tidying up the park-
ing lot, the next minute he’s
bringing someone a taste of
something new at the little
eating bar by the window and
then he’s popped back behind
the counter helping and jok-
ing with a customer he hasn’t
seen for a while.”
Furnish was a man of
many talents and a wealth
of local and other knowl-
edge, Jay Pitman, of Clat-
Rudy Krueger
Bell Buoy in Seaside remembers Jim Furnish.
sop County Sons
Furnish dedicated
of Beaches, said.
his online social
“He was a member
media pages to fond
whom I’ll never for-
memories of Gear-
get, a great outdoors-
hart days gone by, as
man with respect to
well as pointed dia-
our commercial and
logues on city policy
Jim Furnish
sportsman culture of
and personalities.
the fi shing industry,”
The private group
he said. “He will be greatly Million Friends of Gearhart,
missed on our beach therapy created in 2011, now has
sessions.”
1,500 members.
Furnish was an encyclope-
“Can’t help to think about
dia of information about the the founder of this site and
North Coast, with a knowl- how he has been the voice
edge of the characters of days of truth in Gearhart,” wrote
gone by.
Kathleen Piner Zimmer-
As an inveterate beach- man on the Million Friends
comber, he was often fea- of Gearhart page. “Love him
tured in The Astorian for his or hate him he is a voice of
tsunami debris fi nds, like the reason, common sense and
large upside down boat dock love for ‘keeping Gearhart,
with writing on the tires in Gearhart.’”
Japanese from Japan’s March
Like others in numerous
2011 tsunami or the very large tributes online, Zimmerman
U.S. Coast Guard navigation described Furnish as “the best
buoy he found on a Gear- Gearhart historian I know and
hart beach. He could discuss a true icon in the community
at length Rimas Meleshyus, and not afraid to stand up for
the wayward sailor who only what he thinks is the right
knew how to drift, the long thing.”
history of Terrible Tilly or
The Pacifi c Way Group,
“Batman” actor Adam West’s started by Furnish in 2019,
summers in Gearhart .
took over conversations con-
sidered too political for the
Million Friends of Gearhart
page. It now has 241 mem-
bers. The page has become
a heated repository for dis-
cussions of all topics relating
to Gearhart, often no holds
barred.
Jack Zimmerman, a co-ad-
ministrator of the Pacifi c Way
Group page, said Furnish was
very private during his last
few years and determined to
keep his health challenges
from interfering with his
Facebook efforts .
He said Furnish’s social
media presence was driven
by his ability to critique city
government, which kept him
from running for offi ce.
He was a good friend to
all, lifelong Gearhart resident
Helen Dawson-Leach said.
“He loved Gearhart as all of
us old-timers do,” she said.
“He stood up to the pow-
ers that be for the town he
loved.”
Furnish fought cancer
for the p ast decade, accord-
ing to a fundraising site orga-
nized by his friend, Stewart
Schultz, and went through
surgeries and several bouts of
chemotherapy and radiation,
including a botched surgery
that required a lengthy and
painful recovery.
A year-and-a-half ago,
Furnish was diagnosed as
cancer-free and in good
health, Schultz wrote. His
symptoms
returned
in
November.
After two weeks in a Port-
land hospital, he was diag-
nosed with new metastatic
cancers in his liver and pel-
vic bone.
“He would give whatever
he had to help people even
though he didn’t have much,”
his son, James, said.
“I remember setting up his
Yahoo email account in 1998,
not realizing I helped create
the greatest internet scourge
the world would ever know.
“He loved, laughed and
lived a life too complex for
one person to detail. I don’t
know what the afterlife holds,
but I know the greatest Clat-
sop County clam digger is
now a part of the whole.”