OFF PAGE ONE
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 9A
SHOOTING: Major crimes team called to investigate
Continued from 1A
if a weapon had been found.
Police initially taped off a
large portion of the apart-
ment complex, the street and
a nearby field on Highland
Ave., which they combed
for evidence on Saturday
morning.
Police have identified
Tyree Houfmuse, 34, as
a person of interest in the
death and have asked to
speak with him. Houfmuse is
African-American, 6-foot-1,
200-240 pounds and has
several tattoos including a
large rose on the left side of
his neck. Anyone with infor-
mation about Houfmuse’s
whereabouts is encouraged
to call 541-567-5519.
Houfmuse has been
arrested for several other
violent disputes in Hermiston
and Tri-Cities, most recently
for a shooting in November
2014 outside a Kennewick
bar that left another man
paralyzed. He was arrested
by federal agents in Herm-
iston shortly after, but a jury
in 2015 ruled that Houfmuse
acted in self-defense.
In 2005, Houfmuse
pleaded not guilty to an
attempted murder charge,
in which he had allegedly
fired shots into a moving
vehicle with three people
inside. No one was injured
in the incident. The charge
of attempted murder was
Staff photo by Tammy Malgesini
Police from multiple agencies investigate a fatal shoot-
ing Saturday at Viewcrest Apartments, 525 S.W. 13th
Place, Hermiston.
Staff photo by Tammy Malgesini
Members of the major crimes team gather Saturday morning after a man was fatally
shot in the vicinity of Southwest 13th Place and West Highland Avenue, Hermiston.
dismissed, but Houfmuse
was charged in that incident
with menacing, assault in
the third degree, unlawful
use of a weapon against
another, criminal mischief
and unlawful possession of a
firearm.
Friends have set up a
GoFundMe account to assist
Cragun’s family with a
funeral and other expenses,
at
www.gofundme.com/
helpthecraguns. Cragun was
a father to young children,
according to the page, but
attempts to reach Cragun’s
family and the facilitator of
the fundraiser were unsuc-
cessful.
Cragun had been charged
several times in the past few
years for assault, including in
November 2016 for assault
in the fourth degree, stran-
gulation and harassment. In
March he was sentenced to
180 days of probation for that
crime.
———
A pair of women, who
live in units just across the
parking lot from the Viewcrest
building that was surrounded
by crime scene tape Saturday
morning, said they were jolted
awake by the sound of yelling
and gunfire. Both women,
who asked not to be identified,
said it was frightening.
Fearing that bullets could
come through the walls, the
RING: Found in an old cigar box in dresser
Continued from 1A
four decades later.
Four years ago, Daryl
Hamilton, of Willamina,
came upon the ring in a
cigar box full of knick-
knacks and jewelry inside
an old dresser that had
belonged to his mother. Ila
Hamilton died in 1998 and
her dresser languished in
Hamilton’s attic for years.
He initially gave the cigar
box contents only a cursory
glance, but finally inspected
the ring more closely. Odd,
he mused, he didn’t know
anyone connected with
Pendleton High School.
Hamilton put it back in the
box.
Two years ago, he came
across the ring again.
When his brother and sister
stopped by for a visit, he
showed it to them and asked
if they knew any possible
connection between their
mother and Pendleton High
School. They didn’t.
“I put it out of my mind,”
Hamilton said.
Finally, at the prodding
of his granddaughter, the
retired millwright decided
to try and find the ring’s
owner. Stephanie Rudolph,
who lives in McMinnville,
helped by doing internet
research.
“I love my grandpa,”
Rudolph said this week,
“but he’s not computer
savvy at all.”
She searched for schools
that had the letters PHS,
eventually identifying the
correct school after finding
the school’s buckaroo logo
that matched the one on
the ring. Rudolph gave her
grandfather the PHS phone
number and one day last
spring, Hamilton called.
Anita Lewis, the school’s
athletic secretary, answered
the phone.
“He explained he had
found a men’s class ring and
was interested in getting it
back to the owner,” Lewis
recalled. “He told me the
initials on the ring and the
Contributed photo
Kurt Kildow’s lost class ring is back on his hand 42
years after it went missing after he collided with an-
other skier at the Anthony Lakes Ski Area.
“No one’s sure why she
had it all these years.
I guess we’ll never know.”
— Stephanie Rudolph, helped find lost ring’s owner
year.”
Hamilton, whose vision
is fading, mistakenly told
her that the initials on the
ring were “R.R.,” instead of
“K.K.” Lewis hunted down
a 1975 PHS yearbook and
located two boys with the
initials R.R., but ran into a
wall when trying to track
them down.
During the summer,
Rudolph realized her grand-
father’s bad eyesight had
led him to misidentify the
No structures damaged in Boardman fire
BOARDMAN — The
Boardman Fire Department
battled a 60-acre blaze
Monday afternoon, and were
able to contain the flames
within an hour and a half.
Department officials said
the fire took place at Insitzu
Farms in Boardman, west of
the bombing range.
They said the fire started
when workers were trying
to burn the tops off carrots to
prepare them for harvest, and
the blaze got out of hand.
According to the depart-
ment, no structures were
damaged in the fire.
initials. Hamilton looked
closer with a magnifying
glass and concurred. He
called Lewis again with the
correct initials.
“I called her and told her
about the mistake,” he said.
“I figured she’d think ‘this
guy’s nuts,’ but she was real
nice.”
Lewis looked again and
found one male student
with the initials K.K. – Kurt
Kildow. By talking to a
local member of the class
and through Facebook,
she finally located Kildow
and sent him a Facebook
message. Lewis waited —
and waited.
Kildow was deep in the
Russian Arctic conducting
seismographic surveys, a
way of mapping the earth’s
crust with seismic waves for
oil exploration. He worked
five weeks at sea and five
weeks off in Norway.
“It was four or five
months before I noticed the
message,” Kildow said.
He
called
Lewis,
who connected him with
Hamilton. Last week, the
two men talked and tried
to figure out how the ring
came into the possession
of Hamilton’s mother.
Hamilton said his parents
had owned a restaurant eight
miles away from Anthony
Lakes in North Powder
at the time of Kildow’s
collision. They didn’t ski,
but often drove to Anthony
Lakes in the summertime to
relax.
“They used to take a
picnic lunch to Anthony
Lakes just to get away,”
Hamilton said. “They liked
to go for walks.”
Maybe they found the
ring on one of those walks,
he surmised, or maybe a
skier found the ring, ate
afterwards at the restaurant
and left it on the table.
“No one’s sure why
she had it all these years,”
Rudolph said. “I guess we’ll
never know.”
Hamilton sent the box
last Monday by priority mail
and Kildow opened it on
Friday, took it out of the box
and tried it on. It was tighter
than he remembered, but it
still fit. Kildow said he’s just
happy to get the ring back
after its four-decade hiatus.
“What are the odds?”
Kildow mused. “I can’t even
begin to figure that out.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
LET US MEAT
YOUR NEEDS
woman in the ground-level
apartment sprung to action
to ensure the safety of her
family.
“I grabbed the baby and
we went to the back of our
apartment,” she said.
Her upstairs neighbor said
the gravity of the situation
didn’t initially register. Other
than an occasional late night
drinking party, she said the
neighborhood is typically
calm and quiet. At first, she
thought the popping sounds
from the gun was someone
merely banging metal pans
together. Curious, she looked
outside from her second story
apartment.
“I saw everything from
my bedroom window,” the
woman said. “I didn’t even
want to step outside.”
She said she also saw a
couple of cars speed off from
the area.
“They were going so fast,
I couldn’t even tell what kind
of car it was,” she said.
In addition to the maze of
crime scene tape at the apart-
ment complex, police were
searching a vacant field at
the end of the block at South-
west 13th Place and West
Highland Avenue — which
is just east of an Ameri-Star
convenience store and gas
station.
———
Tammy Malgesini and
Jayati
Ramakrishnan
contributed to this report.
SCHOOL: Branding in the plan
Continued from 1A
creating classrooms without
borders; and instructional
excellence.
Although the initiatives
are broad, specifics are
already starting to form.
The
committee
identified solutions like
creating a branding mission
statement, overhaul the
district’s hiring process to
ensure best candidates are
hired, increase the district’s
mental health awareness
and services, and survey
student’s educational needs.
There are still steps that
need to be taken before the
plan can be adopted.
Like the city of Pendle-
ton’s recent goal-making
process, the district wants
to define measurables the
board and administrators
could use to keep track of
the districts progress toward
meeting the initiatives laid
out in the strategic plan.
McBee pointed toward
enrollment as a way to
measure the district’s prog-
ress.
“Do we see a turnaround
in enrollment?” she said.
“Do we see people that
have chosen to go to Helix
or another district decide
to come back? Or some
kids that have gotten online
classes choose to do things
back in the district?”
Yoshioka said adminis-
trators will be responsible
for finalizing the strategic
plan before the beginning of
the 2017-2018 school year
in late August.
This not only gives
administrators more time
to review the plan, but will
allow for more input from
incoming superintendent
Chris Fritsch.
Since he was selected
May 5, Fritsch has made the
trip from Longview, Wash-
ington to Pendleton several
times to meet with local
leaders and community
members.
Besides stints in Texas
and Ocean Shores, Wash-
ington, Fritsch has spent
almost his entire life and
career in Longview, 50
miles north of Portland,
rising from a longterm
substitute teacher to the
assistant superintendent of
Longview Public Schools.
Fritsch said he’s spent his
trips familiarizing himself
with the district, including
the strategic plan.
Fritsch said the issues
facing the district are
common across the North-
west.
“The challenges are
the same as what we’re all
facing, whether you’re on
the north side or the south
side of the Columbia,” he
said.
As a Longview adminis-
trator, Fritsch said he dealt
with issues of declining
enrollment and has already
worked on the type of
projects the district is
currently considering, like
establishing a district-run
online school.
Educators struggle with
promoting
themselves,
Fritsch said, and the district
will need to advertise Pend-
leton’s positive qualities to
bring more families to town.
With the state’s school
funding situation frequently
volatile, Fritsch said the
district will have to look
for new ways to develop
self-sufficiency and local
partnerships instead of
looking externally.
Fritsch anticipated the
strategic plan would be
a “living document” that
would continue to evolve
and stay involved in the
district’s activities.
Free Car Seat Check
M ay 31, 2017 • 1: 00pm - 4:00pm
St. Anthony Hospital Parking Lot
Farmers Market
June 2, 2017 • 4:00pm - 7:00pm
Don’t let Hearing Loss keep you
from enjoying life to the fullest!
Verna Taylor, HAS • Ric Jones, BC-HIS
Forrest Cahill, HAS
541-567-4063 • 405 N. 1st St., Suite #107, Hermiston
541-215-1888 • 246 SW Dorion, Pendleton
BBQ season in fast approaching. Call today
to order your X-tra thick steaks for grilling!
If you order in time you can even have them
for the weekends!
541.567.2011
253 W. Hermiston Ave.
Hermiston
7 out of 10 children are improperly restrained
for travel. Come and get your seat checked by a
Child Passenger Safety Technician and make
sure your child is as safe as possible!
For more information, call 541-278-2627
2801 St. Anthony Way
Pendleton, OR 97801
www.sahpendleton.org