35/32
Happy Canyon
introduces
princesses
Pilot Rock
grad battles
cancer
REGION/3A
SPORTS/1B
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2015
140th Year, No. 45
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
HERMISTON
EOTEC needs $2M in donations
Has four months to do so, or cuts begin
the goal will mean cutting planned
features from the EOTEC project.
“I’ll just be frank with you, we
The fundraising committee need your resources,” Hermiston
for the Eastern Oregon Trade and Mayor David Drotzmann told
Event Center needs to raise $2 community members in attendance.
Drotzmann sits on the fund-
million in private donations in the
QH[WIRXUPRQWKVWR¿QLVKWKH raising committee with Hermiston
Energy Services director Nate
million project on schedule.
That goal — and a plan for Rivera, accountant Dennis Barnett
reaching it by April 1 — was and Threemile Canyon Farms
approved by the EOTEC board manager Greg Harris.
If the committee raises $625,000,
at the end of a public meeting
Wednesday night. Falling short of the third of three planned livestock
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
barns will be built. If another
$600,000 is brought in, it will pay
for 2,000 permanent seats in the
rodeo arena. The next $700,000
brought in will build permanent
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$75,000 will go to extending water
and electricity to the “extended
stay” area where exhibitors can
park RVs.
Drotzmann said if the money
isn’t raised, the Umatilla County
Fair and Farm-City Pro Rodeo will
have to rent temporary pens, seats
and other items each year.
“What it does is it hurts operation
and maintenance costs,” he said.
He said the committee is happy
to take any donation, no matter
how small. Drotzmann even said
there are volunteer opportunities
available, such as laying out sod
or unloading chairs, for those who
want to help but cannot give mone-
tarily. For those planning larger
donations, the committee unveiled
a sponsorship plan.
The plan includes eight levels
of fundraising, starting with recog-
nition in the 2017 fair and rodeo
programs for a $100 donation and
ending with a custom-engraved
bronze plaque on a sponsor
recognition wall for a donation of
$250,000 or more.
The $2 million the committee
is seeking is in addition to $11.8
million the board already had in its
coffers, $600,000 recently pledged
by the city of Hermiston, $600,000
from Umatilla County, $450,000
from the fair’s “moving fund” and
$1 million pledged by hoteliers via
an increase to the bed tax.
In order to allow donors to spread
out their donations across as many
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EOTEC board to meet its planned
July 2017 completion date, the
See EOTEC/8A
Land and
Water Fund
renewed
$3 million will go
to Wallowa Lake
preservation project
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
A local land trust is in
line to receive $3 million to
protect the East Moraine of
Wallowa Lake after Congress
agreed to renew the Land and
Water Conservation Fund for
three more years.
Created in 1965, the
LWCF collects fees from
offshore oil and gas drilling
and uses the money to help
state and local governments
buy, preserve and improve
recreation on natural lands.
The fund was allowed to
expire Sept. 30, but will be
revived as part of the federal
omnibus spending bill sched-
uled for a vote Thursday or
Friday in Washington, D.C.
Should the bill pass, it
would allocate $450 million
to the LWCF in 2016 — a
major boost over the current
level of $300 million. The
Wallowa Land Trust has
already applied for funding
through the Forest Legacy
Program to buy 1,533 acres
of East Moraine Wallowa
Lake from a private land-
owner in order to shield the
property from development.
The
Forest
Legacy
Program ranked the proposal
10th nationally and awarded
the land trust $3 million. But
the success was overshad-
owed by uncertainty over
whether the LWCF would
survive.
Kathleen Ackley, execu-
tive director of the Wallowa
Land Trust, said it is a relief
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
What college is really like — and how to get there
Samantha Bixler speaks about her experiences attending college at the Oregon Institute of Technology on Wednesday at Pendleton
High School. Six former Pendleton High School students returned to their alma mater to speak on a panel about their initial impressions
of college life and the challenges they face. For the full story see page 3A
Taking control
of the final days
Death with Dignity law lets
terminally ill die on own terms
See LWCF/8A
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Former Pendleton resident Betsy Moss now works for
Compassion and Choices Oregon in Portland, where she
has attended the deaths of dozens of people who chose
to use Oregon’s Death with Dignity law.
Betsy Moss has always had an easy
relationship with death.
As a little girl, she picked up dead
birds in her little red wagon. She took
them home, performed funeral services
using her Episcopalian prayer book and
buried them in the back yard.
When her husband Frank served as
minister at Pendleton’s Episcopal Church
of the Redeemer and previous churches,
she comforted dying parishioners as they
drifted from life.
These days, she volunteers with
Portland-based Compassion & Choices
Oregon, an advocacy group for the
terminally ill that helps people under-
stand Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act,
passed in 1994. When someone chooses a
drug-assisted exit, end-of-life consultants
like Moss provide options and often
attend deaths. The most oft-used drug,
Seconal, acts swiftly after the powder is
mixed with water and the person drinks
it down.
“It’s basically a massive overdose of
Photo courtesy of Compassion & Choices
This undated photo shows Brittany
Maynard, a terminally ill woman,
who died after taking lethal
medication in November 2014.
barbiturates,” Moss said. “You fall asleep
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and you die.”
Ultimate death comes in minutes or
hours, but it always comes. From 1997,
when the law came into effect, until the
end of 2014, 859 people chose peace over
pain using the law.
In 2015, a 29-year-old California
woman with brain cancer moved to
Oregon to die. Brittany Maynard spoke
candidly about her brain cancer in videos
See DEATH/8A