WILDFIRES: Local firefighters return home after nine days on Eagle Creek PAGE 2A WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 141st Year, No. 237 One dollar WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD HERMISTON Franchise fees hiked to pay for street projects Average resident will pay $48.72 annually to fund improvements By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian Hermiston residents will see an increase in their bills that will add more than $400,000 to the city’s street repair fund. The council voted Monday to raise franchise fees, part of an agreement that various companies selling electricity, natural gas, cable television, telephone landlines and internet have made with the city in exchange for placing cables and wires in the city’s right of way. Assistant city manager Mark Morgan estimated the increases — in most cases from 3 percent to 5 percent — will increase the average Hermiston resident’s electric bill by about $1.70 per month. Other impacts are harder to estimate, he said, because not all house- holds pay for things like cable or natural gas, but it should average out to about $2.36 a month per resident for everything else combined. Total, the impact will be about $48.72 per year for the average Herm- iston resident. The move will raise an estimated $413,000 per year for street projects. Currently the city’s total budget for street improvements is about $200,000 per year. At that rate, Morgan said, it would take the city 59 years to complete its top seven capital improve- ment projects if it stopped spending money on any maintenance. “Obviously, with inflation as it is, we would never actually catch up,” he said. With the extra money from the franchise fees, in addition to an antic- ipated $400,000 a year from the gas tax increase passed by the legislature this summer, Morgan said that timeline shrinks to more like 11 years. The city’s five-year capital improvement plan for streets, which the city council also passed Staff photo by E.J. Harris Calf roper Stetson Vest of Childress, Texas, says his parents’ choice for his name originated from their love of the Stetson brand. Destined to rodeo With names like Stetson, Tuf, Cash and Speed, it’s no wonder these men grew up to be cowboys Turns out yes, in most cases. They’re not stage names; they’re going by what their folks called them and what it says on their birth certificate. What’s in a name? That’s true of Stetson Vest, a tie-down A lot, depending on who you ask. Though it’s still widely debated, some roper from Childress, Texas, who will researchers swear that our names have compete Wednesday in the Pendleton an influence on the choices we make — Round-Up Arena. His name is a product everything from who we marry to what of his parents’ appreciation for the famous hat brand — a company that we wear to what careers we filed bankruptcy a year after pursue. Scientists call it the Stetson’s birth. implicit-egotism effect: We More inside “My parents sort of tend to gravitate toward the • Tough Enough didn’t want to name me that things that most resemble to Wear Pink, anymore, but they were stuck us. The Romans called it Children’s Rodeo with it,” he said. Ultimately, nomen est omen: Our name coming Thursday he’s glad. is our destiny. to Round-Up 3A Stetson grew up with a Old West celebrities and • Slack kicks off rope in hand, and people showmen may have been 107 th Pendleton always told him that with privy to that logic when they Round-Up 1B a name like his, he’d have shook their common names no choice but to become a for flashier, suggestive champion cowboy. aliases. Greats like Buffalo “It was kind of meant to be,” he said. Bill (William Frederick Cody), Black Bart (Charles E. Boles) and Calamity “Names go along with personalities and Jane (Martha Jane Cannary) replaced lifestyles.” Having come from a long line huge their honest monikers to attract attention, avoid the law or reflect a lifelong nick- tie-down ropers didn’t hurt. His grand- father, Clifton Smith, was a two-time name. So what about rodeo cowboys? Are National Finals Rodeo qualifier. His uncle those western-perfect names on your See NAMES/8A Round-Up program the real deal? By EMILY OLSON East Oregonian “It was kind of meant to be. Names go along with personalities and lifestyles.” — Stetson Vest, tie-down roper from Childress, Texas EO file photo Brooke Taynton of Canyon City signs her autograph on the inside of professional bronc rider Bobby Mote’s hat out- side of Hamley’s in Pendleton in 2013. End of the rodeo trail for Bobby Mote By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian After terrorists flew planes into the twin towers in 2001, Americans reeled in disbelief and shock. They struggled to get back to everyday life. For bareback rider Bobby Mote that meant climbing onto wild broncs for crazy, corkscrewing eight-second rides. A couple of days after 9/11 at the Pendleton Round-Up, the cowboy settled himself onto a restless brute named Broadway. He remembers Toby Keith’s “The American Way” coming through the speakers. Then came an ear-splitting roar that cut Toby off in mid-bar. “Two jets did a fly-over,” Mote recalled. “They flew in low and loud. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.” See MOTE/8A See FEES/6A Unique vendors look for Round-Up niche Zipline operator, antler artisan and cowboy masseuse try to lasso customers By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian Staff photo by Kathy Aney Lisa Porter cruises down a zip line operated by her family. The ride is located in a gravel lot on Southwest Court Place between Oxford Suites and Wal-Mart. During the second full week of September in Pendleton, the cowboy hats, leather boots and food carts come out in force. But amongst the legion of Western apparel booths and snack shacks, some vendors are selling a very different type of product. At one new pop-up business in an empty lot near Wal-Mart, country music blares over the loud speakers and some of the workers are wearing cowboy hats. But rodeo atmosphere isn’t the main draw. Late Monday afternoon, four customers pay Porter Family Entertain- ment for a chance to climb a ride a zipline from a 25-foot tower the business erected on the graveled lot. The customers bumped fists and took videos during their descent before gently landing at the bottom, gently jostling the tower as they wait to be unharnessed. Standing at the top of the tower, Caleb Porter joked that customers were getting an authentic rodeo smell, referencing the empty horse See VENDORS/8A