COFFEE BREAK
Saturday, March 2, 2019
East Oregonian
C5
OUT OF THE VAULT
Worm association profitable for junior high entrepreneurs
By RENEE STRUTHERS
East Oregonian
An octet of Pendleton junior high
school entrepreneurs in November 1967
made some serious bank with the ickiest
of businesses: worms.
In a room the size of a closet at Pend-
leton’s John Murray Junior High School,
eight students constituting the Round Up
Worm Association kept busy with the
main duties of their fledgling business
on a blustery November day: acquiring,
sorting, packaging and shipping night
crawlers to a worm distributor in Cali-
fornia. Larry Ables, Dennis Edgerly and
Bruce Cable, along with five other stu-
dents and adviser Bill Harris, thought up
the business as a way to make money for
school field trips.
Each Wednesday from 7:30 a.m. to
5:30 p.m., the boys bought worms from
other students and the junior high teach-
ers and staff for a half cent each. The
worms were packaged in boxes of 500
worms each, cushioned by a mixture of
damp peat moss, sawdust and leaf mold.
On Nov. 2, 1967, the Worm Association
shipped 2,500 worms to their buyer.
It was busy work. Harris said that the
boys learned bookkeeping and how to
apply other school subjects to their work.
Edgerly drew the association’s letter-
head, and designed advertisements and
posters for the organization. The group
also placed an article in the school news-
paper seeking worms, but warned, “Do
not use electric prods to get the worms
EO File Photo
Showing off their stock in trade on Nov. 3, 1967, are, from left, Larry Ables, Dennis
Edgerly and Bruce Cable, members of the Round Up Worm Association.
and get night crawlers only. Please bring
the worms in multiples of ten.”
It could also be frustrating. One boy
lost the bottom out of a box of worms he
was carrying into the building, scatter-
ing worms up and down the stairs.
In addition to buying worms, the
boys also foraged for their own. Bruce
Cable’s neighbor let him hunt for night
crawlers in her yard. All you needed, he
said, was a flashlight and a bucket, espe-
cially after a heavy rain. The worms
crawl to the surface and are “thicker
than blazes.” He collected 500 worms in
one night.
“You can get that many in one hour
— if they’re out good. You spot them
with a flashlight, then turn off the light
and grab them with your hands. I was
getting three at a time,” Cable said.
Ron Hathaway, a veteran worm
raiser, made a tidy sum several years
prior by selling night crawlers to local
fishermen.
They didn’t get many girls willing to
help them in their endeavors, however
— something none of the boys could
understand.
DAYS GONE BY
100 Years Ago
From the East Oregonian
March 2-3, 1919
“We had two big fires here last month and two hangers
and some flying boats and seaplanes were burned,” says
William Barnhart, who is in the naval air station Rockaway
Beach, Long Island, in a letter to his father, James Barn-
hart, at Pendleton. William Barnhart is a full blood Indian,
born on the Umatilla reservation. He enlisted in the navy in
December, 1917, and for some time has been in the aviation
service. He has had experience in flying, and is probably the
only pure-blood Indian who has served his country in this
way, though he failed to get overseas. He has told of flying in
previous letters.
50 Years Ago
From the East Oregonian
March 2-3, 1969
A young Hermiston farmer, John Walchli, 34, has been
named Oregon’s outstanding young farmer of the year by the
Oregon Jaycees. Walchli, who started farming in the Cold
Springs Reservoir district as a high school student, has built
the operation into an 840-acre irrigated farm, raising diversi-
fied crops. He is a major Eastern Oregon potato grower. Prior
to winning the state award the young farmer was named the
outstanding young farmer of the Hermiston area by the Jay-
cees. He will become a candidate in the national Jaycee spon-
sored competition, as the result of winning the state title.
25 Years Ago
From the East Oregonian
March 2-3, 1994
A tiny quarter-watt radio station broadcasting commu-
nity news, high school sports, Big Band and country music
to the 700 residents of Condon is illegal, a Federal Com-
munications Commission agent says. “The FCC takes an
extremely dim view of people just going on the air without a
license,” FCC agent Larry Stuker said Wednesday. Bill Rob-
erts, a 69-year-old retiree, claims his radio station, run out of
a spare bedroom in his home, is allowed under FCC regula-
tions that allow unlicensed low-wattage or “micro” broad-
casting operations. “There’s no such thing,” Stuker said. But
Roberts countered that his station is hurting no one. “A quar-
ter watt won’t even run a light bulb,” he said.
Universal Crossword
Edited by David Steinberg March 2, 2019
ACROSS
1 Floating in the air
6 Movie explosion FX
9 Word before “hole” or
“twist”
13 Dog walker’s need
14 A4 automaker
16 Previously chopped
17 Maximum absorption
20 Special ___ (SEALs’
missions, e.g.)
21 Mordor creatures
22 Many a first-time reader
23 Coming back from a
breakup
28 Dots of land
30 Odysseus’ rescuer
(hidden in “Minotaur”)
31 “Cortex” prefix
32 Opposite of pos.
33 Gaga or Godiva
34 Dubai’s land, briefly
35 Technique to
“slingshot” spacecraft
40 Say “Pretty please?,” say
41 Seth’s son
42 EGOT winner Brooks
43 Fannie ___
44 “Immediately!”
45 Subject to emotional
swings
47 Book stall?
51 Fair-hiring inits.
52 Hit with snowballs
53 Monk’s condition: Abbr.
56 Basketball feat hinted
at by the ends of
17-, 23-, 35- and
47-Across
61 Hairless on top
62 Sightseeing trip
63 Alcohol strength
64 Influence
65 Windy road curve
66 Bumbling
DOWN
1 Too
2 Jump
3 Breakfast grains
4 Tallahassee sch.
5 High chair?
6 Simple ball game
7 Semblance
8 Vow on the big day
9 Snapshot
10 Hawaiian garland
11 Totally dominate
12 Blaster’s palindrome
15 Is resolved (to)
18 Bachelor of ___
19 Mardi Gras
sandwiches, informally
23 Gymnast Korbut
24 Album-certifying org.
25 Sitting in the box
26 With precision
27 Female deer
28 Ready to roll
“BALL FOUR” By John Guzzetta
sudoku answers
29 Composer
Rachmaninoff
33 Fleur-de-___
36 Thin wood layer
37 Poker dealer’s question
38 Drags from behind
39 “Don’t worry about me!”
40 3 Series automaker
45 Loaf growth
46 Squids’ relatives
48 Huggable bear
49 89 or so, grade-wise
50 Stares at creepily
53 Double-reed instrument
54 Gallop sound
55 Agile
56 Most Super Bowl
MVPs
57 Motor City org.
58 Pie-mode connector
59 “The Cask of
Amontillado” author
60 Large tea container