Hermiston trapshooting team headed to nationals | SPORTS, B1
E O
AST
143rd year, no. 189
REGONIAN
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
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WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Family plans to reopen dairy
LEXINGTON
Government
‘now open
for business’
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
leXInGTOn — The city of
lexington reopened Tuesday night
after the city council voted unan-
imously to approve the 2019-20
budget.
“The town is now open for
business,” mayor Marcia Kemp
declared, prompting a round of
applause from the audience.
lexington’s city government lost
its authority to spend money on July
1 after three of the four city coun-
cilors did not show up to a planned
budget hearing on June 27.
Kemp consulted state agen-
cies and the league of Oregon Cit-
ies and under their advice locked
city hall on the first day of the new
fiscal year, laid off the city’s two
employees, held the city’s mail and
left a message on city hall voice-
mail stating the town was “closed
until further notice.” neighboring
fire departments in Heppner and
Ione were asked to be ready to pro-
vide the first response to fires in
lexington.
Myrna sieler was one of about
40 residents present Tuesday, and
said the shutdown was something
people had been talking about
“everywhere you go” for the past
nine days.
“There are a lot of different views
about what happened,” she said.
she said she was happy to see
the city’s government reopen and
its two employees, a city recorder
and maintenance person, go back to
work.
Tuesday’s meeting was much
more upbeat than a community
meeting Kemp called on Monday
to take citizen questions about the
shutdown. during Monday’s meet-
ing, which lasted about half an hour
and drew just under 50 people, par-
ticipants at times raised their voices
and talked over each other.
They seemed divided on who to
blame.
“What I want to know is why
you refused to make a simple phone
call that would have eliminated this
whole mess,” Will lemmon asked
the mayor angrily. “all you had to
do is make a phone call, Marcia, and
it would have prevented the whole
thing.”
Others joined him in blaming
Kemp for not trying harder to get
councilors to the meeting. They
pointed out that while one councilor
was out of town, two more lived just
a few blocks away.
Bill Beard, one of the councilors
who missed the meeting, said in the
past the city’s protocol was to send
out an agenda packet ahead of the
budget meeting and call councilors
easterday Farms
purchases former lost
Valley Farm
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
BOARDMAN — It’s been five
months since lost Valley Farm
closed and sold off its remaining
herd of dairy cattle. The facilities
have now been scrubbed clean, and
the massive free-stall barns await
their new tenants.
lost Valley’s owner had big
ambitions when he opened the dairy
in spring 2017 near Boardman. It
was supposed to have 30,000 ani-
mals at full capacity, making it the
second-largest in the state. Instead,
it became a high-profile disaster
as regulators cited more than 200
wastewater violations and its owner
declared bankruptcy within a year.
Cody easterday is aware of the
controversy. at the same time, he
believes the dairy will be successful
with the right management and the
right approach.
easterday Farms purchased the
property, including the buildings
and infrastructure, for $66.7 million
in February. The cattle had been
sold at auction separately. a new
corporation, easterday Farms dairy
llC, was registered with the state
on March 20.
On July 1, easterday Farms
dairy submitted an application to
the Oregon department of agri-
culture for a new Confined Animal
Feeding Operation permit, other-
wise known by the acronym CaFO.
The permit would allow easterday
Farms to reopen the dairy.
Based in Pasco, Washington,
easterday Farms is a fourth-gen-
eration, family-owned business
with 70,000 head of beef cattle and
25,000 acres of potatoes, onions,
grain and forage in the Columbia
Basin.
as president of easterday Farms,
See Dairy, Page A8
Riding for
Rick
Man honors brother by winning
championship buckle
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
endleTOn — Rod
Retherford gazed down
at his 17-year-old broth-
er’s coffin and felt
heartbroken.
a horse named Headlights
had kicked Rick Retherford in
the head as he somersaulted to
the dirt during the 1974 Oregon
high school state finals saddle
bronc competition. On the day
of the funeral, 15-year-old Rod
bent close and placed the cham-
pionship calf riding buckle he’d
won in junior rodeo gently on his
brother’s chest. He softly made a
promise.
“I’ll win a bronc riding title
for you someday,” he said.
life would take Retherford
far away from rodeo for a time,
but after 45 years, the Pendle-
ton saddle maker recently made
good on his vow.
In the aftermath of his broth-
er’s death, young Rod struggled
with the immensity of his loss.
The boys had been close. Rick, a
popular and handsome teen with
an easy smile, had demonstrated
a knack for rodeo until that
final ride. The two brothers had
formed a band that played rodeo
dances in which Rick played lead
guitar and sang, and Rod played
drums. They loved to cruise in
Rick’s electric blue Galaxy 500,
smoking swisher sweets and
dreaming of the day they would
road trip to professional rodeos.
In addition, Rick had served
as a protector to Rod, who stood
only 4-feet-11 and weighed 82
pounds as a freshman. Rod went
home from the funeral and found
a belt buckle nearly identical to
the one he had placed in Rick’s
coffin and wore it every day as
P
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Pendleton saddlemaker Rod Retherford recently won a saddle bronc competition to honor his brother
Rick, who died at age 17 in a rodeo. Retherford’s championship buckle includes the words “For Rick.”
a way to feel connected to his
brother.
He set about following Rick’s
example in rodeo, riding bucking
horses and bulls and later turning
pro. It seemed he was on his way
to winning that saddle bronc title
for his brother.
Then football got in the way.
Retherford played his senior
year in high school and proved to
be small but mighty at free safety.
His brother had also played foot-
ball, so it was yet another way to
feel close to Rick. In Rod’s last
year at Treasure Valley Com-
munity College, after a growth
spurt, he tried football again with
great success. The next year, he
walked on to the Washington
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
See Rick, Page A8
Rick Retherford holds the championship buckle he won at the Buckeye
Senior Rodeo in saddle bronc. At the bottom are the words “FOR RICK.”
See Shutdown, Page A8
Model T tour commemorates epic race
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
PendleTOn — More than two
dozen Ford Model Ts powered into
Pendleton on Tuesday as part of a
transcontinental tour. The teams
and drivers are commemorating the
1909 Ocean to Ocean automobile
endurance Contest that began June
1 in new york City and ended June
23 in seattle.
Henry Ford entered two Model
Ts in the race against four other
competitors. Ford No. 1 did not fin-
ish. Ford no. 2 won, although race
organizers later disqualified the
team because it replaced its engine
during the race. But that didn’t come
out until months later and the race
hoopla was done.
Kim Kramer of Richmond, Indi-
ana, said it has been a blast cruising
the nation in the replica of that 1909
no. 2 car, and that’s a bit surprising.
The replica, like the original, is
a sport version, weighing about 950
pounds. The car lacks a top, lacks
a windshield, has no fenders. you
look down, you see the road, she
said, but she has never been scared
while in the car.
Her husband, Jerry Kramer, is
one of the three men driving the no.
2. He has been having a good time
as well.
“It has been an absolute hoot,” he
said. “People go by and their eyes
bug out.”
The owner of the car lives in Flor-
ida, they said, and drove the replica
to Olathe, Kansas, where they and
fellow Indiana teammates Jamie
Maxwell and Benny young took
over. They are part of 28 cars mak-
ing the trip, plus a few more now on
See Tour, Page A8
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