OFF PAGE ONE
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
East Oregonian
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Auction: Hundreds of thousands of dollars goes to area youths
Continued from Page A1
hard it would be to say good-
bye to the lamb she raised
since birth. But she said she
comes back year after year
because she loves how much
confidence she gains from the
process.
Over the course of the
hourslong auction in the larg-
est barn at the fairgrounds,
hundreds of thousands of dol-
lars flowed from local busi-
nesses and individuals to area
youths. Many of them plan to
use the money for college, or
to reinvest it into more ani-
mals next year.
The check comes at a price,
however. Some of the animals
sold at auction will be used
for milk, for breeding or as a
pet. But every kid who raises
an animal for the fair also
knows there is a good chance
that the companion they fed
and watered and walked for
months is destined for some-
one’s dinner table.
Wyatt Harris, 11, from
Echo, said the money he got
from selling his sheep Smoke
would go into his savings
fund for college and a truck.
When asked whether he
was worried about parting
with Smoke, he shrugged.
“Not really,” he said. “I live
on a farm so I kind of know
what will happen.”
Macy Rosselle, 17, from
Pendleton, was also prag-
matic about what would hap-
pen to her grand champion
goat Maverick, who sold for
$12 a pound to United Grain
Corporation.
“His purpose is for meat,
and he will be fulfilling his
purpose,” she said.
Still, it tugged at her heart-
strings. Although Macy has
25 head of goats, Maverick
was her award-winner she has
traveled with to multiple fairs.
“He’s definitely my favor-
ite goat by far,” she said. “I’m
sad to see him go.”
Ayrin Davis 11, of Herm-
iston 4-H, had a harder time.
She cried in the pens behind
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Hunter Dyer herds his pig around a pen as the animal is auctioned off Saturday morning at the Umatilla County Fair.
Daytona Tracy, 16, said
for some, that lesson is harder
than others.
“You have to under-
stand the process and know
next year you’re going to get
attached to another animal,”
she said. “I know some kids
are in it for the money, and
then there are ones like me
who get really attached.”
She said she tells herself
each year that her animals
are just going to a new home
and “the worst is not going to
happen.”
Her goat Rowdy went for
$10.25 a pound to Nutrien
Ag Solutions on Saturday.
She put on a brave smile as
she entered the ring with the
76-pound brown and white
goat Saturday, but earlier in
the week she got teary-eyed as
she talked about their impend-
ing separation.
“He’s like my baby,” the
Hermiston FFA student said.
“When I first got him he
wasn’t really tame at all so I
had to hang out with him as
much as possible. I would eat
dinner with him.”
Sales results
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Daytona Tracy, 16, interacts with her market goat Rowdy at the
Umatilla County Fair Wednesday afternoon in Hermiston.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Ayrin Davis, of the Farm City Wranglers, stands with her sheep as
it is auctioned off Saturday morning at the Umatilla County Fair.
the auction arena after selling
PJ, her backup lamb. She had
already unexpectedly lost her
primary lamb a week earlier
when it got spooked by some-
thing and ran into a fence,
breaking its neck.
Rapidash,
she
said,
weighed much more than PJ
and might have won grand
champion.
“I cried for two and a half
days,” she said.
The experience was part
of the “circle of life” lessons
that raising animals teaches
youth who participate in
4-H and FFA.
This
year’s
auction
“smashed” the previous sales
record for the fair, accord-
ing to coordinator Marie
Linnell. She said the sales
gross was $610,000 com-
pared with the 2015 record
of $494,000.
The sale included 53
steers at an average of $3.89
a pound, 120 hogs averag-
ing $7.88 a pound, 60 lambs
averaging $8.79 a pound, 17
goats at $12.62 a pound, 13
turkeys at $475 each, 1 pen
of rabbits at $525 and one
pen of chickens at $400.
In addition to bidding
on animals, buyers can also
choose to “bump” the check
youths receive if their animal
drew a price on the lower side.
About 30 businesses partici-
pating in the UCF Bump pro-
gram added an extra $28,000
to sales for more than 130
FFA and 4-H exhibitors.
Newsome: Dead by his own hand
Continued from Page A1
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
The Pendleton Convention Center will host the 2019 Oregon GOP Platform Convention on
Aug. 23 and 24.
explained a stalking order
requires “protracted, unso-
licited and unwanted con-
tact” that includes elements
such as threats of harm. This
harassment did not meet that
standard.
Still, Pendleton officers
talked to Newsome, Rob-
erts said, and he told them
he would not cause more
problems.
Newsome ended up in
the Umatilla County Jail in
September 2018 on a post-
prison supervision violation.
State court records show he
wrote a letter to the Uma-
tilla County Circuit Court
seeking clarity on when he
could get off the supervision
and wrote another accusing
parole and probation officers
of bias against him and of
corruption.
Come November, Rob-
erts said, police records
indicated
Newsome’s
behavior prompted con-
cern from friends and even
his parole officer about his
mental state and the possi-
bility of suicide.
Newsome became the
recipient of a new complaint
at the end of January, when
the boyfriend of the woman
who reported the harassment
in 2018 told police someone
left a teddy bear and mes-
sage near her residence. That
led state police to contact
Newsome’s parole officer,
who issued a detainer for his
arrest. Pendleton police once
more booked Newsome into
the county jail.
The woman at the time
was in an ongoing rela-
tionship and wanted noth-
ing more than for the situ-
ation with Newsome to go
away, Roberts said, which he
described as “a fairly normal
response.”
The couple in February
reported someone slashed
a tire on their vehicle, and
Roberts said they believed
Newsome was the culprit.
Roberts said law enforce-
ment also had a strong suspi-
cion Newsome was responsi-
ble but had no solid evidence
he committed the vandal-
ism. Newsome remained
free until May, when he
again went to jail on a parole
detainer.
He stayed off police radar
until officers investigated
the shooting early Thursday
on the 300 block of South-
east Dorion Avenue. Cops at
the scene that night found no
evidence of gunfire, but offi-
cers returned during the day
and dug out a bullet from a
window sill.
Roberts said that win-
dow belongs to the home of
the woman Newsome was
harassing for more than a
year. Newsroom’s death,
however, means the investi-
gation can only go so far.
Newsome’s mother con-
tended her son was not the
person the Pendleton com-
munity thought he was.
“He spent the last two
years trying to prove that,”
Schertenleib said. “He was
unable to.”
into the summer and early fall.
The hope, Schultz said, is
to create the habitat to attract
beavers to move in and main-
tain the dams.
The best part, he said,
is the dams quickly create
desired results. Immediately
following the 2017 installa-
tion of a dam on Bear Creek,
a tributary to the lower stem
of the John Day River, Schultz
said water started backing up
and extended a wetted reach
almost 2 miles.
“It went from solid dry to
completely wetted. Within
a month, a side channel was
reengaged,” Schultz said.
Side channels, he said,
are crucial rearing habitat for
juvenile fish.
Herb Winters is the district
manager for Gilliam County
Soil and Water Conserva-
tion. He said he’s built bea-
ver dam analogs and passage
barrier removals in summer
steelhead reaches with the
funding.
A lot of the work Gilliam
County does is on 30 Mile
Creek, Winters said, a major
tributary to the lower John
Day River.
Umatilla County Soil
and Water District Manager
Kyle Waggoner said a lot of
his projects benefit fish indi-
rectly, like developing upland
water sources to encourage
livestock to spend less time
along streams. He listed plant-
ing along stream banks and
fencing waterways to prohibit
livestock impact as other proj-
ects he’s led funded through
the Watershed Enhancement
Board.
According to a press
release from Gard Commu-
nications, the Pacific Coastal
Salmon Recovery Fund has
invested nearly $237 mil-
lion in Oregon since 2000.
Together with state lottery
money, $603 million was
invested in habitat resto-
ration through the Watershed
Enhancement Board.
GOP: Oregon Republicans
from around the state will flock
to Pendleton Aug. 23-24
Grant: Salmon and steelhead to benefit
Continued from Page A1
tions himself, Oregon
Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Ath-
ena, said he’s maintained
a strong connection to
the GOP infrastructure at
the county level since his
time as a Umatilla County
commissioner.
When he attended a
state party platform con-
vention for the GOP, how-
ever, it wasn’t his cup of
tea.
“What I remember
was a lot of arguing and
in-fighting,” he said. “It
wasn’t something I was
particularly attracted to.”
With that being said,
Hansell said the nature
of the platform conven-
tions often “depends on
leadership,” and he’s been
impressed and appreciates
where state GOP chairman
Bill Currier is leading the
party.
This time around,
Hansell said he expects
the convention to be more
unified.
Away from the con-
vention, Danforth said she
and the Umatilla County
branch of the Republican
Party are hoping the dele-
gates get to enjoy some of
what the region has to offer
too.
“We want to showcase
some of what’s in Umatilla
County and Pendleton,”
she said. “There’s a lot of
people that are going to be
coming that maybe have
never been here.”
On Thursday before the
convention officially gets
underway, Danforth and
the party are hosting a wel-
coming event at the con-
vention center with a bar.
Attendees can also choose
between pre-registering
for the Pendleton Under-
ground Tour or a wine tast-
ing tour at the cost of $20.
Along with that, options
for single meals are avail-
able throughout the con-
vention’s two days so that
those with significant oth-
ers or children can plan
accordingly. Danforth said
she’s also been sure to
tell people about the var-
ious museums and parks
in the area along with all
that Wildhorse Resort and
Casino has to offer.
Hansell sees the con-
vention as another oppor-
tunity for others from the
state to see what Eastern
Oregon is like.
“I think it’s special
anytime we’re able to
attract people from across
the state to come out to
our neck of the woods,”
Hansell said.
From the convention
itself to the tourist attrac-
tions around it, Danforth
is hoping next weekend’s
convention is just the first
of many for the Oregon
GOP in Pendleton.
“I’m just so excited. I
hope for it to return again
in two years,” she said.
Continued from Page A1
third with federal money
and two-thirds with lottery
proceeds.
In Wheeler County, Chase
Schultz, the soil and water
conservation district man-
ager, said the grants he’s
received through the Water-
shed Enhancement Board are
used to cool stream tempera-
tures and improve water qual-
ity with streamside planting
and fake beaver dams.
“Beaver dam analogs are
a hot button topic,” Schultz
said.
Built from untreated
wooden posts driven perpen-
dicularly into the stream and
woven with willow whips,
the analogs simulate a beaver
dam by spreading a stream’s
water out into the floodplain,
benefiting adjacent wetlands,
Schultz said. The analogs also
increase stream flow later in
the summer, slowing water
down that is released longer