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THE NEW
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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