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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 13, 2017)
KLAY JENSON GIVES TIGERS THEIR ROAR 1B WEEKEND EDITION ECHO RANCH ENAMORED WITH ONE BREED PHILIPPI PARK REOPENS LIFESTYLES/1C FOR SECOND YEAR 8C MAY 13-14, 2017 141st Year, No. 150 $1.50 WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD CATTLE BARON LEGACY AWARD WINNERS Daniel Wattenburger Comment What we owe our mothers other’s Day brings with it a strange M twist of irony that is downright frustrating for us children. The very nature of a mother — a selfl ess giver of life and love — repels the notion of repayment. In the process of giving up so much of herself to make sure we don’t turn out as reprobates or degenerates, she left behind the need and desire for gratuity. It goes against the fi ber of her being to expect such tokens. So by her nature, which deserves heaping loads of appreciation made manifest, she shuns the mere idea of receiving said bounty. It leaves the rest of us, the benefi ciaries of these marvelous women, in quite the predicament. Somehow we fool ourselves each year into thinking a shopping trip in early May will yield that perfect item to express our hearts. In short, it will not. There is no boutique, fl ower shop or chocolatier that has the gift on the shelves that will encapsulate what you hope to say. There is no Hallmark card that has the words or artwork that can pay your debt of gratitude. Amazon. com, while offering endless scrolling pages of “mother’s day gifts” with two-day shipping, will not save you. In our culture of consumer holidays, where the purchasing and bestowing of gifts has become ritual, it is hard to break the mindset that the mere transaction is good enough. A warning. If you are See MOTHERS/12A Staff photo by E.J. Harris Debby and Terry Anderson stand on a ridge overlooking their summer ranch in the Blue Mountains southeast of Pendleton. Looking to buy a starter ranch? Start saving Couple goes all in on ranching life, enthusiastically raising cattle on family estate southeast of Pendleton By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian By ERIC MORTENSON EO Media Group J oy rises in Terry and Debby Anderson like the continuous upwelling of bubbles in a water cooler. That’s not to say their life raising cattle and breeding bulls is an easy one. The operators of Anderson Land & Livestock, like others in the cattle industry, face slim profi t margins in an More inside ultra-competitive market. Success It’s Cattle Barons depends on fi rmly weekend in Pendleton. grasping technology, See coming events genetics and on Page 6A. economics. It’s a physical, nonstop, multiple-balls-in-the-air existence that could threaten their sanity if they didn’t love it so. This month, the Anderson family got a new reason to smile when the ranch received the Legacy Award for this weekend’s Pendleton Cattle Barons event. Cattle Barons president Andy Vanderplaat told Terry and Debby about the award as they sat in their pickup, listening via speaker phone, their jaws dropping at the news. Later, Terry said, tongue in cheek, “I couldn’t speak for two days. I was stunned.” Those who’ve spent even fi ve minutes with the gregarious cattleman will be skeptical of that much silence, but Terry’s gratitude at winning the Legacy Award is real. “You don’t think people are paying attention,” he said. “It is a true honor.” See CATTLE/12A Contributed photo Marvin “Red” Anderson and his grandson Corey Anderson pose for a photo on their ranch southeast of Pendleton. Staff photo by E.J. Harris Debby Anderson bottle feeds a steer as her Australian shepherd drinks excess milk from the steers lips on the Anderson’s ranch southeast of Pendleton. Diane Daggett remembers the conversation with the woman who had just purchased the Daggett family’s 440-acre cattle ranch in Wallowa County, land that had been in the family for four generations. The buyer said she had called her husband, who was aboard their yacht in the Cayman Islands, to share the news. “Honey,” the woman said she’d told him, “I just bought the most amazing birthday gift for you.” And the land, sold by Daggett’s stepmother for what Daggett fi gures was three times what it could generate as a cattle ranch, slipped from the family’s grasp. Now it lies behind a locked gate. Variations of that story are playing out across Oregon and other states as farm and ranch land changes hands, sometimes by thousands of acres at a time. Some buyers are fellow farmers who are expanding their operations under the mantra of “get big or get out.” But other buyers include invest- See RANCH/10A PENDLETON City competes with private businesses for storage space By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian Staff photo by Kathy Aney The owner of a strip of industrial land just north of Inter- state 84 is engaged in a dispute with the city of Pendleton. It has never been a better time to be in the recreational vehicle business. According to The Economist, the RV industry sold 430,000 units in 2016, a 40-year high. Thor Industries, the parent company of RV manufacturing brands like Keystone RV, has seen its stock rise by 43 percent in the past year. The effects of a resurgent industry are visible at the Pendleton Keystone plant, too, where storage lots near Interstate 84 are teeming with RVs waiting for transpor- tation companies to pick them up and take them to dealerships around the country. The past year could have been a boon to storage lot owners like Gale Marshall, but he isn’t celebrating. Marshall runs an industrial storage business on 24 acres just west of the See STORAGE/10A
