WEEKEND EDITION
U.S. MILITARY “LOCKED
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AUGUST 12-13, 2017
141st Year, No. 215
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WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
UMATILLA COUNTY FAIR
UMATILLA
EO fi le photo
The Army Corps of Engineers refur-
bished 10 power units at the McNary
Dam in Umatilla in 2014.
Energy sec.
Perry to tour
McNary Dam
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Fairgoers brave the triple-digit heat to attend the Umatilla County Fair on Friday at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center
in Hermiston.
Heat, attendance up from last year
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Fair and rodeo attendance
is up this year, according to
organizers, but exactly how
much is unknown.
“Attendance is defi nitely
up each night,” Umatilla
County Fair sponsorship and
activities director Cyndie
Driscoll said in an email
Friday night.
Earlier in the day, she
said the fair’s organizers feel
“pretty amazing” about the
fair’s success in its new loca-
tion, and said people have
been saying they appreciate
the extra elbow room.
“That’s been a lot of the
comments, that there’s so
much more room that even
though patrons know there
are more people there they
don’t feel crowded,” she said.
On the rodeo side,
Farm-City Pro Rodeo board
member Dennis Barnett said
they didn’t have exact atten-
dance numbers, but based
on factors such as beverage
sales he would estimate
attendance Wednesday and
Thursday were up about 15
to 20 percent from previous
rodeos.
He said most years the
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Suzi LeBaron of Milwaulkie tells Maria Castro of Umatilla about different lip colors offered by Lip
Sense in a booth in the exhibit hall on Friday at the Umatilla County Fair in Hermiston.
Saturday rodeo sells out, but
thanks to an extra 2,500 seats
in the new arena all interested
fans will likely be able to get
a seat for the week’s fi nal
performance.
“If we sold out this
weekend you would see
me jumping up and down,
because we don’t expect
that because of the increased
capacity,” Barnett said.
More online
For video of the Umatilla
County Fair after dark
visit eastoregonian.com
See FAIR/13A
Rick Perry, the United States Secretary
of Energy, will be in Eastern Oregon for a
brief visit on Monday.
He will tour the McNary Lock and
Dam in Umatilla in the afternoon, one
of several visits to energy facilities in the
region early next week.
After his visit to McNary, Perry will
travel to the Pacifi c Northwest National
Laboratory and the
HAMMER Federal
Training Center in
Richland, as well
as several facilities
at Hanford. He will
visit the Hanford
site’s
Plutonium
Finishing Plant, the
2268 Building, the
WTP facility and the
AP Photo
PUREX tunnels.
Rick Perry
Perry will be
available to the press after each visit and
will be accompanied by Oregon Rep.
Greg Walden and Washington Sen. Maria
Cantwell and Rep. Dan Newhouse.
The Department of Energy owns the
Bonneville Power Administration, an
electric grid which draws power from
McNary Dam, the Energy Northwest
nuclear power plant, 30 other dams and
a handful of renewable energy projects.
Its service area covers about 12.5 million
people.
A proposal in President Donald
Trump’s budget would seek to sell the
BPA as a cost-saving measure, estimating
savings of $4.9 billion over a decade.
Fourteen U.S. senators from both
parties sent a written request to Perry,
who oversees the DOE, to oppose the
plan to sell the BPA and other national
transmission assets for fear of rate
increases and loss of future development.
Perry replaced George W. Bush as
governor of Texas in 2000 and won three
more terms before retiring in 2014. He
ran for the Republican presidential nomi-
nation in 2012 and again briefl y in 2016
but withdrew before the primaries.
He was nominated by President
Trump as the secretary of energy and was
confi rmed by the Senate in March.
PENDLETON
HERMISTON
Japanese students explore sister city
Videos lead police to
arrest in Fiesta theft
First day is full
of jitters and fun
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
By EMILY OLSON
East Oregonian
As Moe Kobayashi, 16,
emerged from a crowd gath-
ered in Pendleton’s Vert Club
Room, she let her excitement
show with a sprightly smile.
She was fi nally meeting her
American host family.
The Pattersons greeted
her with cheery hellos. But
as the introductions fi nished,
Kobayashi lowered her head
and admitted a secret.
See PENDLETON/13A
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Miku Saito, of Minamisoma, poses during a visit to
Happy Canyon on Tuesday, after donning costumes
and accessorizing with guns from the prop room.
Hermiston Police Chief
Jason Edmiston said
his
detectives
arrested
the
suspect
who
ripped off Fiesta
Foods for “tens
of thousands of
dollars.”
Key to the
investigation,
Edmiston said,
was
video Wood
evidence from
an Oregon State Police
traffi c stop linking Daniel
Lee Wood III, 27, with the
Hermiston theft.
Hermiston police on
Aug. 4 at about 7 p.m.
responded to Fiesta Foods,
1875 N. First St.,
on a report of the
theft of a bank
bag containing
a
signifi cant
amount
of
recently cashed
payroll checks.
The
theft
occurred about
two hours earlier,
Edmiston said,
See THEFT/13A