TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2017
The leaves
on the trees
overlooking the
Umatilla River
have begun
transitioning
into fall colors
Monday near
Rieth.
Staff photo
by E.J. Harris
142nd Year, No. 1
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Goodbye,
Susie
Arroyo
PENDLETON
Woman with rare
disease died after long
battle for access to drug
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Two competitors in one of the periodic kids’ bier stein
lifting contests battle it out at Saturday during Okto-
berfest. The last person holding their water-fi lled glass
aloft won.
T
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
A member of “Will Play for Beer” sports orange beer
socks while playing at the Oktoberfest on Saturday at
the Pendleton Round-Up Grounds.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Joe Ford, of Pendleton, sips his beer and listens to music at the Oktober-
fest on Saturday at the Round-Up Grounds.
Oktoberfest explores fl avors outside German borders
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
Winter may be closing in, but it
was hard to tell with the crisp blue
sky, sun and cheery atmosphere
at Pendleton’s third annual Okto-
berfest on Saturday. Held at the
Pendleton Round-Up Grounds,
the event drew beer vendors from
around the state, and some out-of-
town visitors as well.
Prodigal Son, one of the brew-
eries represented at the event, had
created a beer for the event, called
“A Beer Named Uter.”
“It’s a Kolsch, a German-style
beer,” said Jean-Luke Alexander,
the brewer at Prodigal Son. He
used Gold Rush Pilsner and
toasted malt, with barley grown in
Enterprise.
“It’s a real easy drinking, light
ale,” he said . “I used meridian
hops, so it’s more citrus-y. When
you put them in the whirlpool,
you get more of a hop aroma than
bitterness. It’s a Northwest take on
a kolsch.”
Tim Guenther, owner of Prod-
igal Son and a board member of
Oktoberfest Pendleton, said this
event was unique in its variety of
beers.
See OKTOBERFEST/10A
Local fi refi ghters deployed to California
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
A grueling fi re season that has
stretched resources thin across the
country isn’t over yet for Umatilla
County fi refi ghters deployed to
southern California.
A strike team including four
firefighters
and a brush
truck
from More inside
Pendleton Fire Houses spared
Department, by fi res bring
three
fi re- joy and sense
fi ghters
and of loss
a brush truck PAGE 9A
from Umatilla
County Fire
District plus personnel and equip-
ment from Union County headed
See FIRE/10A
AP photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
Sonoma fi refi ghters set a backburn along a hillside Friday in Glen
Ellen, Calif. Firefi ghters from Pendleton and Hermiston have joined
the effort, traveling to Southern California to assist.
he last time I saw Susie
Arroyo sticks in my mind.
Susie sat in her
wheelchair at St. Anthony
Hospital on that late-August day
after receiving an IV infusion of a
new drug, which
she had petitioned
the U.S. Food
and Drug
Administration
to approve. She
believed the drug
would eventually
help her live a
more normal
Kathy
life. Susie could
Aney
barely lift her
Comment
arms, but fl ashed
a dazzling smile
when I leaned down to give her a
hug.
“Next time,” she said, “I hope
to be able to hug you back.”
That hug would never come.
On Friday, Susie died at age 28.
The news hit me and other
Susie fans hard. Despite the
Pendleton woman’s severe health
problems, we just fi gured she
would continue to beat the odds.
We had watched her cheat the
Grim Reaper for so long. We
had started thinking she had
superpowers.
Susie got a diagnosis of a
muscle-weakening disorder called
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
after her kindergarten teacher
noticed the little girl was easily
winded. The disease strikes one
out of every 3,500 boys, but few
girls. Susie estimated she was one
of 20-or-so females in the country
with Duchenne. The disease
seemed to stabilize in her teens,
but in 2009, she got up from her
living room couch after sitting for
an extended time and fell to the
fl oor, breaking her back.
“I fell back and felt a coldness
go from my spinal cord to my
legs,” Arroyo recalled afterwards.
She said she wore a full-
body cast for months, and by
the time her spine healed, an
echocardiogram showed her heart
was failing. Too weak to walk, she
was forced to use a wheelchair.
The BMCC student needed a
heart transplant but didn’t even
have enough money to pay for
preliminary testing. The normally
upbeat Susie fell into gloom.
The community rallied with
fundraisers and friends wore
tie-dyed T-shirts that said “Team
Susie.”
BMCC English professor
Shaindel Beers, who organized
one of the fundraisers, said the
See SUSIE/10A