Page 6A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Thursday, January 1, 2015
TOP 10 STORIES OF 2014
Continued from 1A
6
Barreto defeats Turner.
John Turner had the
blessing and the endorse-
ment of retiring District
58 state senator Bob Jenson. But it
was not enough to hold off Union
County outsider Greg Barreto, who
easily won the Republican primary
in May and the general election
in November. Barreto, a Cove
businessman who has never held
free-market, constitutional princi-
ples to the next legislative session
in Salem. He marks the end of a
decades-long run of the Pendleton
area being the seat of power in
District 58.
7
Craigen sentenced.
George West Craigen was
sentenced Oct. 7 to 27
years to life in prison for
the 2011 murder of Cecil “Rob”
Carter in Milton-Freewater. A
week earlier, jurors deliberated
Staff photos by E.J. Harris
No. 6 Republican candidate John Turner, center, reacts to the Umatilla
County election results in his race against Greg Barreto in the Repub-
lican primary for House District 58 last May in Pendleton. Turner lost
to Barreto by a two-to-one margin in the Republican primary.
County in nearly a decade.
EOTEC breaks ground.
envisioned a new fair and
rodeo grounds outside of
Hermiston, that dream became a
reality on Dec. 4 at the ground-
breaking of the Eastern Oregon
Trade and Event Center. The start
to construction came after the
EOTEC authority board unveiled
detailed plans in April, letting
exactly what they were getting for
events starting in 2016, leaving
the old fairgrounds in the center
of town as room for the rapid-
ly-growing Hermiston School
District to expand.
9
Craigen guilty of shooting and
killing Carter, despite arguments
by Craigen’s attorneys that he
suffered delusions and was insane
at the time of the murder. The
trial, which started Sept. 15, was
8
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
No. 10 An excavator tears down a wall on a century-old farmhouse
overlooking the 5,000-gallon diesel spill cleanup site last April off
Highway 37 north of Pendleton.
Staff photos by E.J. Harris
No. 7 Defendant George West Craigen pleads his case to Malheur
County Circuit Court Judge Lung Hung during a motions hearing last
February at the Umatilla County Courthouse in Pendleton.
their money. The result was mixed
reviews from the general public
but a show of support from a va-
riety of community partners who
stepped up with in-kind donations.
The project will provide a home
for the Umatilla County Fair,
Farm-City Pro Rodeo and other
Pendleton launches UAS
Range. With city money
on the line, Pendleton
charged ahead with
opening a test range for unmanned
aerial vehicles based at the
Eastern Oregon Regional Airport.
Pendleton was approved by the
Federal Aviation Administration
to conduct testing on drones Dec.
30, 2013. Shortly thereafter, the
city entered a contract with Peak
3 Technical Services to develop
a range at the airport. While the
Pendleton UAS Range would
city as a test site, a bright future
isn’t a guarantee. An Oregon State
University study projected more
economic impact, but the city has
already invested $535,000 and is
yet to see any revenue.
10
Diesel Spilled.
Almost 5,000 gallons
of diesel spilled
Feb. 28 after a fuel
trailer broke loose and tumbled
down an embankment onto land
belonging to Hill Ranches, just
north of Pendleton. The driver
of the Maverik truck reportedly
swerved to avoid a deer while
driving on Highway 37. The spill
touched off a massive Oregon
Department of Environmen-
tal Quality cleanup of one of
the largest diesel spills in state
history. By the time soil samples
tested clean, workers had razed
a century-old farmhouse, capped
two wells and hauled away
32,094 tons of contaminated soil.
Maverik, a convenience store
for endangering groundwater and
several million dollars for the
cleanup.
SHOOTING: ‘Even our victims refuse to talk to us, stating they will take care of it later’
Continued from 1A
trauma center.
Roberts also said the in-
vestigation into a shooting
that happened minutes before
remains hot.
Pendleton police Dec. 23
at 11:48 p.m. rushed to the
1400 block of Northwest De-
spain Avenue in response to
several 9-1-1 calls reporting
-
ed ex-con Gregory Tinnell,
43, in connection with that
shooting on a weapons vio-
lation. Police also found two
.45 caliber rounds in the front
door of 1112 N.W. Furnish
Ave., Pendleton.
Roberts said that shooting
is connected with a Nov. 23
shooting that left bullet holes
in a residence in the 300 block
of Northwest 14th Street.
“What we have is a couple
of groups of 20-somethings
that have been involved in
incidents over the last few
months,” he said, “The ma-
jority of which have resulted
in subjects being stabbed.”
But when police arrive,
he said, no one talks. Roberts
said some of the individuals
profess gang membership
and will certainly be a hot
issue in the coming years.
EOTEC may have broken
ground this year, but has
been an idea for more than
30 years and won’t open for
another two. Hermiston’s
football team sure didn’t win
the state football title with
one season of hard work,
and Greg Barreto didn’t win
a seat in the Oregon House
just on the strength of a
good election day — and his
story certainly isn’t over.
Because news stories,
like the clock, don’t have a
beginning and an end. We
report on the parts that affect
us, but can never gather up
all the strands that lead to an
event or estimate its impact.
That’s what the history
books are for.
Instead, we try to explain
the moments as they come.
We give the context that
Sureños, which is associat-
Most couchsurf from place to
place and support themselves
though illegal activities, Rob-
erts said, but when they get
together to drink and party,
someone offends someone
Roberts said the situation
is frustrating on several lev-
els, from a lack of sanctions
that could keep the offenders
behind bars to the code of si-
lence they live behind.
“Even our victims refuse
to talk to us, stating they will
take care of it later,” Roberts
said “It’s that kind of mental-
ity.”
That silence also makes it
impossible for police to pre-
dict what these groups will
do next. At least so far the
bloodshed and violence has
been among group members
general population, Roberts
said, but there is no doubt
these groups are a public
safety problem.
———
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0833.
NEW YEAR:
Continued from 1A
resources, health and police,
the economy and education.
upcoming community
events and photos of what
the day looked like and what
happened. Tick, tick, tick.
bigger picture, which is
being painted each day as
the people of the Eastern
Oregon go about their lives.
As you read the top 10
stories list on today’s front
page, you’re again getting a
snapshot. They’re incredibly
brief blurbs on the complex
And most of the stories
of 2014. The planned coal
export facility planning
began well before Jan. 1
reporters are given inch
counts and deadlines, and
know that their task isn’t to
tell everything every time.
We want our readers to be
able to pick up any given
newspaper and know what’s
happening on a given day.
But we hope by reading the
newspaper every day, even
the seemingly mundane
stories, you’ll come away
with a better view of the
clock — and the world.
Daniel Wattenburger is
the managing editor of the
East Oregonian. Contact
him at dwattenburger@
eastoregonian.com, 541-
278-2673 or on Twitter @
DWattenburger.
NEIGHBOR: Was teaching at college by age 23
Continued from 1A
scholar who works at the
Columbia Basin Agricultural
Research Center in Pendle-
ton.
-
ters grew up in a Nepalese
farming village near the base
of Mount Annapurna, the
world’s 10th highest moun-
tain. His family grew rice,
corn, millet, bananas, gua-
vas, cowpeas, soybeans and
pumpkins on land terraced
into the side of a hill. He
walked up a 50-60-percent
slope to get to school each
day.
In eighth grade, Ghimire
decided to become a soil sci-
entist.
“We learned that we lose
22 tons of soil a year,” Ghi-
mire said. “If we kept losing
this amount of soil, Nepal
will become a mountain des-
ert.”
At the Tribhuvan Univer-
sity Institute of Agriculture
and Animal Science in Ram-
cow and mango orchard.
Ghimire earned his under-
graduate and master’s de-
grees and was teaching at the
college by age 23. He also
met his future wife, Prakriti
“From my home in
Nepal, I could see
a whole mountain
range, but I never
touched snow.”
— Rajan Ghimire
Bista, an agriculturist who
also works at the agricul-
tural center. Their family
now includes 3-year-old son
Prasam.
The soil scientist’s jour-
ney to Pendleton included
several months in the Neth-
erlands, where he researched
years at the University of
Wyoming in Laramie, where
he worked his way up from
graduate assistant to post-
doctoral research associate.
Oddly, it was in Wyoming
that Ghimire experienced
snow up close and personal
“From my home in Nepal,
I could see a whole mountain
range,” he said, “but I never
touched snow.”
In Pendleton, Ghimire
and Bista looked at home
in their University of Wy-
oming T-shirts, which bear
a logo strikingly similar to
the Pendleton Round-Up
cowboy. The family experi-
enced the Round-Up, where
their little boy discovered he
loved watching horse racing
and bull riding, but had to
turn his head during the rop-
ing.
Ghimire and Bista speak
three languages — their
native Nepali, English and
Hindi. Prasam speaks mixed
Nepali-English.
At work, Ghimire spends
his days studying soil organ-
ic matter in different man-
agement systems for pro-
ducing dryland winter wheat
and doing other projects that
keep his brain engaged. One
draw of the research station,
he said, is its history of 80
years of continuous research.
“There is one research
plot started in 1931 and an-
other in 1940,” he said.
Nepal stays in Ghimire’s
thoughts. He hopes to learn
as much as he can about in-
creasing productivity and
sustainability to help Nep-
alese farmers improve food
production and conserve soil.
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
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