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OLD OREGON HOME 3C
OLYMPICS/1B
SERVER ‘A MISTAKE’ 10A
AUGUST 13-14, 2016
140th Year, No. 216
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WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
In this together
Lehnert
demoted
in 2009,
calls it a
‘blessing’
Pendleton corporal
running for Umatilla
County sheriff
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Dan, who was familiar
with bipolar mood swings,
hadn’t witnessed his wife of
nine years in such a state, but
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the crisis and getting back to
safe psychological ground.
Dan and his mother-in-law
convinced Vanessa to go to
the Yellowhawk Tribal Health
Center the next morning
to try and get a counseling
appointment, and she agreed
to go. Vanessa texted him from
the clinic waiting room about
10 a.m. Later, he learned she
hadn’t been able to schedule an
Umatilla County sheriff’s
candidate Ryan Lehnert lost
his sergeant rank with the
Pendleton Police Department
in June 2009 for not doing his
job.
Lehnert, who is chal-
lenging incumbent Terry
Rowan for sheriff, explained
the drop in rank came when
he was strug-
gling
with
the transition
from living
in a combat
zone in Iraq
to life back
in
Eastern
Oregon. The Lehnert
demotion, he
said, turned out to be better
for the citizens of Pendleton,
better for the police depart-
ment and better for him and
his children.
“Yeah, it was a demo-
tion,” he said, “but I call it a
blessing.”
The East Oregonian
requested and received a copy
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Lehnert. The 98 pages include
his ranks and pay over his 15
years with Pendleton police
and several evaluations. It also
revealed the department disci-
plined him in 2009 for insub-
ordination,
unsatisfactory
performance,
unbecoming
conduct, inattention to duty
and improper radio use.
Pendleton Police Chief
Stuart Roberts said that
See LOGMAN/14A
See LEHNERT/14A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Vanessa Logman, top left, and her husband, Dan, with their four children, bottom from left, Cam’ron, 11, Curtis, 5, Craig, 5, and Christopher,
10, at their home in Pendleton.
Family, friends show support after delusional woman attacks good Samaritan
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
T
wo months ago, Vanessa Logman’s
mind jumped the tracks.
The Pendleton woman has
bipolar disorder. Until everything blew
up on that day in June, Vanessa (with
the help of doctors) had controlled
her symptoms with medications. Dan
Logman describes his wife as a private
person and a kind and loving mother to
their four young sons. Except for running
a stop sign four years ago, he said, she
had never run afoul of the law.
Then, on June 4, she cut a man’s throat.
PAT DAVIS
OF STANFIELD
Visit the Pendleton Chamber
of Commerce for a free
charm trail starter bracelet
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Vanessa was in trouble came a
couple of days earlier.
“I knew something was
wrong,” she said. “Things
were not clear. There were
gaps in time.”
On June 3, she awoke in
the wee hours of the morning
certain that someone had
broken into the family’s
apartment and was under the
bed. Frightened, she dialed
9-1-1 as her husband slept,
then shook Dan awake.
“She woke me up and told
me to get dressed and that the
police needed to search the
apartment,” Dan recalled.
Dan, 44, said he and the
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her unstable behavior that his
31-year-old wife was having
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left, Vanessa pleaded with Dan
to believe her.
“When you have a delusion,
you totally believe it,” she said
recently. “I was mad at him.”
Luxury lodge rising deep in the wilderness
More inside
Supplies that were
once carried in by
PXOHVQRZÀRZQ
in by helicopter
How do you get to the
Minam Lodge? You can
hoof it, or fl y in on a bush
plane. Page 1C
By TIM TRAINOR
East Oregonian
When the Minam River
Lodge was built in 1950,
livestock hauled in most of
the equipment.
A sawmill was constructed
on site to build the lodge and
cabins, but mules provided
the muscle when a 400-pound
refrigerator needed to travel
up and down the mountains
to its new home deep in the
woods.
Now, 56 years later, as
the crumbling lodge and
old refrigerator are being
replaced, some things have
changed but many have not.
The helicopters are new.
Construction manager Ben
Gates, of UP Architecture in
Portland, conscripted copters
to make 97 supply drops into
the 127-acre inholding that
is surrounded entirely by
the Eagle Cap Wilderness.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Crews work on rebuilding the Minam River Lodge in the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area
east of La Grande.
Everything from timber to
glass touched down at a small
DLU¿HOG ZLWKLQ VLJKW RI WKH
main lodge. At a cost of more
than $2,000 an hour to rent
a helicopter, just bringing in
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said lodge owner Barnes
Ellis.
Ellis is a former reporter
for The Oregonian turned
investment banker who lives
in Portland. He vacationed
at the property growing up
and purchased the property at
auction in 2011.
“There is no forgetting
this place,” he said.
But it needed work. Lots
of it. Decades of erosion
had rendered the main lodge
unsalvageable, and a smat-
tering of cabins and outbuild-
ings needed major renovation
or outright replacement.
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work has slowly progressed.
But this spring, after the slow
melted, it hit high gear. The
business has been closed for
all of 2016 as the main lodge
was destroyed and a new one
erected.
“This has grown into a
major, major project. If I
knew when I started how
much work it would take
I’m not sure I would have
started,” joked Ellis. “But
now we’re into it and we’re
going for it.”
The plan is to build a
4,000-square-foot
luxury
lodge in the middle of the
Eagle Cap Wilderness, where
visitors can enjoy high-
quality food, running water,
showers, electricity and
numerous amenities. Elec-
tricity is currently supplied
by a combination of solar
power and gas generators,
though Gates said when
construction is complete,
solar could supply nearly all
See MINAM/12A