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FIXING UP
NORTHSIDE
PLAYGROUND
REGION/3A
HEPPNER
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FOOTBALL/1B
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015
140 Year, No. 21
Your Weekend
Rain is here, but farmers remain cautious
El Niño forecasts warmer, drier winter
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
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One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Brighton Beach Memoirs
at Bob Clapp Theatre
Holiday bazaars
around the area
Fall Festival and Quilt
Show in Stanfi eld
Recent rainstorms over
Eastern Oregon have been
a welcome sight for dryland
wheat farmers after enduring
a particularly hot, painfully
dry summer and early fall.
But growers will need to
see more — a lot more — to
feel like they’ve busted
through a three-year drought
that has stiÀ ed production of
the region’s dominant crop.
Winter forecasts are
calling for an extremely
powerful El Niño in the
tropical Paci¿ c, which
typically means warmer
For times and places
see Coming Events, 5A
Sat
Sun
62/47
62/44
49/36
in recent weeks, with .91
inches of rain since Oct.
28. Don Wysocki, soil
scientist
with
Oregon
State University Extension
Service in Umatilla County,
said farmers aren’t getting
too excited yet, though it’s
a start.
“I think everybody would
be happy to see it continue,”
Wysocki said.
Most ¿ elds that will
be harvested next year
have been seeded by now,
Wysocki said, though wheat
farmers usually prefer to see
this kind of rain earlier in the
fall — around late September
and early October — so they
can spray for weeds before
planting.
See RAIN/10A
PENDLETON
Weekend Weather
Fri
weather and below-av-
erage precipitation for the
Northwest. All of northeast
Oregon remains mired in
extreme drought, according
to the U.S. Drought Monitor,
and Pendleton’s overall
precipitation for the year has
fallen more than three inches
below normal.
Conditions appear to
have turned around some
Watch a game
vs.
Reedsport vs. Heppner
$TXDUWHU¿QDOV
Saturday, 1 p.m.,
at Heppner
Oracle sues
Gov. Brown
for not
providing
Kitz emails
PORTLAND
(AP)
— Oracle Corp. is suing
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
for violating the state’s
public records law by failing
to turn over the contents
of email accounts used by
former Gov. John Kitzhaber.
The complaint was ¿ led
Thursday in Marion County
Circuit Court. It says Brown
failed to provide in a timely
manner documents related
to Oracle’s April 6 public
records requests. Oracle
further narrowed down its
request in June.
Instead, Oracle says
Brown allowed Kitzhaber
and his lawyer to decide
which emails are subject to
public disclosure and passed
on those chosen emails
to Oracle. Brown did not
retrieve or review the emails
herself.
The controversy stems
from a legal battle between
Oracle and the state
over the troubled Cover
Oregon health insurance
exchange. Oracle is seeking
See ORACLE/10A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Sophomore Cameran Miltenberger, playing Virgil Blessing, sophomore Jessie Patterson, playing Bo Decker, and sophomore Savanna
Newsome, playing Sheriff Will, act out a scene from the 1950s classic “Bus Stop” on Tuesday at Pendleton High School. All three female
actors are playing the role of men in a Shakespearean reversal, due to low male student involvement in the theater program.
Let’s hear it
for the girls
High school play features all-female cast
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
The cast of “Bus Stop” will try to
show Pendleton that sometimes the
best man for the role is a woman.
The play, written and performed
in the 1950s, is awash in traditional
gender roles. Set entirely in a Kansas
City, Mo., diner, the story centers
around a group of bus passengers
forced into the restaurant after a
blizzard closes the road.
“Bus Stop”
Nov. 12-14, 6:30 p.m.
Pendleton High School Auditorium
$6 for adults, $4 for students
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
One of the reasons Pendleton
High School teacher Shannon
O’Rourke decided to revive the play
was because its roles were divided
equitably between male and females.
But when “Bus Stop” opens at the
Senior Deshan Dick, right, playing Dr. Lyman, kisses the hand of
senior Doria Summerfi eld, playing Elma, while rehearsing for the
1950s classic “Bus Stop” on Tuesday at Pendleton High School.
high school auditorium on Thursday,
all seven characters featured in the
play — from swashbuckling cowboy
Bo Decker to troubled philosophy
professor Gerald Lyman — will be
played by girls.
See PLAY/10A
Echo students honor veterans with parade
By SEAN HART
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Echo fi rst graders wear homemade outfi ts to look like Marines
on Thursday during a Veterans’s Day parade in Echo.
Echo veteran Joe Hammer
removed his hat and held it in front
his chest in reverence as elementary
students paraded through the center
of town Thursday morning dressed as
service members, carrying American
À ags and signs, chanting, “U.S.A.”
Hammer, originally from Herm-
iston, served in the Air Force from
1991-1995 and said the parade was a
welcome tribute for the sacri¿ ces of
veterans.
“It was pretty awesome,” he said.
“It’s nice to see they are instilling
patriotism back in the schools.”
Sixth-grader Ryan Clark was
dressed as his great-grandfather,
Elmer Henry Sears. Clark said he
was a pilot in the Army before the
Air Force was created. His classmate,
Xander Harsh, was dressed as a more
recent veteran, Capt. Michael Brian
Daake, who served in the Army in
2004-2005. Both said they learned a
lot about veterans preparing for the
parade and an afternoon assembly,
in which the middle school students
acted as a wax museum of veterans
from different eras and explained
their character’s service.
“Veterans are nice to our country,”
Harsh said. “They are awesome. They
have cool guns, and they protect the
U.S.A.”
For the parade, each elementary
grade honored a different branch of
the military. First-graders dressed
See PARADE/10A