CITATIONS PILE UP
FOR STANFIELD
PET FOOD PLANT
BACK
ON
TOP
REGION/3A
LITTLE LEAGUE/1B
ROE V. WADE
AND THE
HIGH COURT
FAITH/9A
FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2018
142nd Year, No. 190
Your Weekend
Fire burns to edge of Weston
Fire chief ‘knocked on
doors like crazy’ during
evacuation
•
•
•
Have a swell time at
Hermiston Funfest
Celebrate Scottish
roots in Athena
Old-time fun at
Heritage Days
For times and places
see Coming Events, 5A
Weekend Weather
Fri
103/64
Sat
95/63
Sun
101/65
Watch a game
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
By PHIL WRIGHT
and BRITTANY NORTON
East Oregonian
Firefighters from multiple agen-
cies contained a fire Thursday after-
noon that burned right up to back
yards in Weston.
The fire scorched a large swath
of land southeast of town, including
an unharvested wheat field, but did
not destroy any homes.
Tom Roberts, Umatilla County
emergency manager, said the blaze
prompted a level 3 evacuation for
residents on Hill and State streets,
meaning they had to be ready to
leave at a moment’s notice. Sev-
eral people took up garden hoses to
Staff photo by Brittany Norton
A fire Thursday afternoon burned fields and approached the city of
Weston, but crews stopped the blaze from damaging homes.
try to create a buffer between their
homes and the fire.
Weston resident Melanie Hearn
said she was at a doctor’s appoint-
ment in Walla Walla when she
started getting phone calls from
family members who expressed
concern about her house. She said
her daughter, who no longer lives
with her, got a call about the fire
around 2 p.m. and traveled to her
house to water down the back yard.
Hearn’s home was one of several
the blaze nearly affected with the
charred field coming right up to her
fence line.
“It’s kind of a wake-up call,” said
Hearn, who started worrying about
the insurance on her possessions.
Hearn said her family has seen
fires from their back yard in the
past, but nothing this close.
“Every year it’s kind of worri-
some,” she said.
Raeana Mikel was babysitting
at her sister’s home overlooking
the town from the top of West Mill
Street. She said gloom come over
the town and she went outside to
investigate.
“There was just smoke every-
where,” she said.
She said she watched as fire
engines and other emergency vehi-
See FIRE/10A
vs.
France vs. Croatia
World Cup Final, Sunday,
8 a.m., FOX/Telemundo
Initiative
would require
sixth graders
study firearms
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Gun rights
advocates have a filed an
initiative petition that would
mandate a firearms safety
instruction class in the sixth
grade at Oregon public
schools.
Initiative Petition 6
was filed July 11, by Ston
McDaniel of Prineville and
Jerrad Robison of Redmond
for the Nov. 3, 2020, state-
wide general election ballot.
Robison also is chief peti-
tioner for a gun rights initia-
tive in Deschutes County.
The Second Amendment
Preservation
Ordinance
would allow the county
sheriff to block enforcement
of local, state or federal gun
laws the sheriff deemed as
unconstitutional.
The proposal is the brain-
child of Kevin Starrett,
founder of the Oregon Fire-
arms Federation, said Rep.
Mike Nearman, R-Polk
County, who is helping out
with the initiative.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Rolling out the green carpet
A machine is used to roll out sod in the cattle chute on Thursday as crews ready the Pendleton Round-Up Grounds for the Pendleton Whis-
ky Music Fest. For more on preparing the arena for Saturday’s concert, see Page 10A.
PENDLETON
Deluxe packages could help cemetery cover costs
Gravesites by man-made river near mausoleum
would cost more, help parks department’s budget
See FIREARMS/10A
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
EO file photo
Willetta Powell and Tom Cooper use a backhoe to move a con-
crete grave liner while preparing a grave site Feb. 12, 2010, at
Olney Cemetery in Pendleton.
It took $263,350 to staff and main-
tain the Olney Cemetery last year, but
that wasn’t nearly enough.
Liam Hughes oversees Olney as
the director of the Pendleton Parks
and Recreation Department, and he
and his department are assembling
a business plan he hopes will both
boost the 50-acre cemetery’s mainte-
nance budget and decrease their reli-
ance on property tax revenue from
the general fund.
Hughes said the plan would intro-
duce some new ideas, but was mostly
about enhancing the features the
cemetery already has.
For instance, Olney established a
memorial garden north of the mauso-
leum several years ago.
The garden featured a fountain
with plots around it, an idea the parks
department wants to extend further.
Hughes said the fountain plots
sold like hotcakes, and under the
business plan the parks department
would build a man-made river in a
small canyon that runs through the
cemetery.
The canyon has steep sides and
shallow ground, making it unsuitable
for caskets, but the riverbanks could
“We’ve always had a one-size-fits-all approach,
but that doesn’t always fit what people want.”
— Liam Hughes, Pendleton parks director
See CEMETERY/10A