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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 8, 2017)
WOLF PLAN ENTERS NEXT PHASE 48/42 MEET THE NEW DIRECTORS HAPPY CANYON/7A OREGON/2A WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2017 141st Year, No. 102 One dollar WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD “You can’t play an instrument on a horse that’s jigging and jogging. That can be dangerous to your health ...” Convention center will get full-time manager — John Groupe, Cowboy Mounted Band By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian The city of Pendleton will add a high- ly-paid employee to its payroll. The Pendleton City Council unani- mously approved the re-creation of a full- time manager position for the Pendleton Convention Center. City manager Robb Corbett said he made the request because new tourism events like Pendleton Bike Week and Pendleton Whisky Music Fest were creating the type of demand that required a full-time employee. Steve Chrisman, the city’s economic development director and airport manager, has been serving as the convention center director. Pat Kennedy was the last full- time director, but he worked on contract basis between 2013 and 2016, the year Chrisman took over. “This is a great community to visit and enjoy yourself,” Corbett said. “It’s because of what this community has done for 100 years with Round-Up. We want to replicate that over and over again.” Councilor McKennon McDonald said EO fi le photos Members of the Pendleton Cowboy Mounted Band perform during the Dress-Up Parade on Court Street at the 2014 Pendleton Round-Up in Pendleton. See COUNCIL/6A PENDLETON Crop dusting pilot denied use of airport Call for calm horses (musical talent not required) Safety concerns raised over drone range near runway Mounted band relies on easygoing steeds for smooth ride as drums, brass instruments play By GEORGE PLAVEN East Oregonian By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian The owner of a local crop dusting business says the city of Pendleton will not let him operate at the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport over safety concerns at the adjacent Unmanned Aerial Systems Range. Andrew Kilgore, who runs K2 Aerial Application, already fl ies out of Hermiston and Boardman and wants to add Pendleton to that list. But he said the city will not give him permission to load his aircraft with fertilizer and herbicides at the airport, citing a confl ict with the nearby UAS test range. Kilgore’s attorney, Michael Schultz, said he is optimistic they can fi nd a solu- tion. Traditional crop services and drones need not be exclusive, he added. “We’re not asking for special treat- ment,” Schultz said. “We just want (Kilgore) to have the opportunity to use a public facility. In a letter sent March 6 to Pendleton See AIRPORT/10A For the Pendleton Cowboy Mounted Band, the limiting factor is not musical talent — there’s plenty of that. Instead, the bigger worry is having enough horses to carry the musicians during performances. Not any horse will do. The animals must remain unruffl ed as a cacophony of sound swirls around their sensitive ears. “They need to be calm, gentle horses that don’t get startled by things,” said organizing director John Groupe. “They get along with other horses in close proximity. They aren’t prone to biting or kicking other horses. They aren’t bothered by lots of people and commotion.” Greg Dennis, the band’s livestock and transportation director, tells a story about the importance of calm equine demeanor. At the Reno Rodeo, band members sat on 30 easygoing horses borrowed from stock contractor Cotton Rosser. The band slowly circled the arena, performing a variety of numbers. Suddenly, a bucking horse burst prematurely from a chute and dashed EO fi le photo Peter Walters plays the saxophone with the Pendleton Cowboy Mounted Band during the Pendleton Round-Up in 2015. wildly around the small arena. Several outriders who accompany the Pendleton band worked to head off the bronc. “The horse was running around being crazy,” he said. “The band members just kept playing, they never stopped. It was like Titanic without the sinking. Through it all, the band played on.” Fortunately, the musicians’ mounts stayed steady. The bronc was eventually ushered unceremoniously from the arena. Back in Pendleton, the horses generally have similar nerves of steel. They call these horses “bomb-proof,” Dennis said, but really it’s more a function of a horse having lots of life experiences such as parades and rodeos and multiple owners. “A good horse is a horse that’s been places and done things, an all-around horse,” Dennis said. “It hasn’t just hung out in a barn.” The band has a rich history that started in 1910 when the musicians on horseback played for the fi rst Pendleton Round-Up. Some speculate the group was the only band on horseback in America at the time. See HORSES/10A HERMISTON PENDLETON Campaign asks for help spreading the love Alleged offender cleared in marijuana odor feud By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian More Hermiston resi- dents are joining forces with the “I Love My City” campaign. The volunteers, clad in distinctive red shirts, will be spread throughout town again on April 8. Their day of service, which organizers expect will draw 400 to 500 volunteers, will include free car washes, cleaning up downtown Hermiston, picking up garbage along the railroad tracks, helping run the city’s annual spring recycling day and going door to door with offers to help clean up yards. Municipal judge fi nds insuffi cient proof to levy fi ne By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian Contributed photo by Clayton Haight Dillon Spencer hands out candy canes at Wal-Mart during an I Love My City event in December. “It will be a spring cleaning for the city,” Clayton Haight said. Haight is a staff pastor at Hermiston Assembly of God, which began the I Love My City concept last See LOVE/10A Pendleton resident Jake Sierra was found not guilty of creating a marijuana odor at his business that wafted into a neighbor’s shop. But just by a feather. In the second marijuana odor case between neigh- boring businesses Elite Guns & Bows and Citadel Studios, Pendleton Municipal Court judge Will Perkinson ruled Tuesday that Sierra, Citadel’s owner, did not violate a section of Pendleton’s nuisance ordi- nance specifi cally pertaining to “the unlawful release of marijuana odor.” Perkinson’s ruling came after a trial that lasted more than an hour as each side testi- fi ed about issues like mari- juana odor’s ability to migrate and the thickness of the shared wall of the businesses, which are next door to each other on the 200 block of Southeast Second Street. Behind the complaint were See ODOR/10A