A6
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Painter: ‘I felt very elated
and very, very thankful I
live in the community I do’
Continued from Page A1
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
Protesters gather and hold signs outside of Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pend-
leton on Saturday, July 25, 2020. The group of about 10 were protesting against what they
assert are insuffi cient COVID-19 precautions in Oregon Department of Corrections facilities.
Prisoners: California, Washington
have released thousands of inmates
Continued from Page A1
attorneys she’s working
with, attempted to provide
Brown and her offi ce with
a list of up to 50 individ-
uals who fi t that very cri-
teria, including the often
challenging
requirement
of establishing a hous-
ing plan post-incarcera-
tion, but those attempts
were dismissed without
consideration.
In Washington and Cal-
ifornia, Democratic Govs.
Jay Inslee and Gavin New-
some have released thou-
sands of incarcerated indi-
viduals to mitigate risks of
the pandemic. In Herivel’s
eyes, Brown’s reluctance
to release more prisoners is
both dismissive of the risks
for those inside and ineffec-
tive at providing any mean-
ingful protections for them.
“While they certainly
impact the individuals,
which that’s incredibly
important for them and their
families, it will do abso-
lutely nothing for social dis-
tancing in prisons,” Herivel
said. “It will do nothing for
people being exposed to the
outbreaks now.”
Limited legal avenues
During the pandemic,
Herivel and a group of
attorneys have formed “The
Oregon Habeas Taskforce”
that is representing pris-
oners throughout the state
in habeas corpus claims
against the Oregon Depart-
ment of Corrections.
“There’s a claim now
that’s being raised across
that state that the Depart-
ment of Corrections has
failed to protect people
from the pandemic, and
they’re doing that by fail-
ing to implement known
measures, per the CDC,
that will curb contraction of
COVID,” Herivel said.
But when the depart-
ment has implemented
measures, those measures
have directly inhibited the
ability for prisoners to fi le
these claims.
In an email from prison
offi cials to the East Orego-
nian, the Oregon Depart-
ment of Corrections con-
fi rmed it limited access to
the law library in EOCI for
Top cop:
Continued from Page A1
Corbett stated in the release.
“In the end, there was over-
whelming support for an
internal candidate.”
According to the release,
Corbett also considered
Lt. Tony Nelson, who was
concurrently promoted to
that rank with Byram in
2017, but Nelson indicated
early in the process that
he wouldn’t be a candidate
due to family and personal
commitments outside of the
department.
Roberts announced his
retirement on Sept. 15 after
leading the department
since 2003. He cited both
family and personal rea-
sons for his retirement and
he will be transitioning into
a consultant role with City-
county Insurance Services
Oregon (CIS).
Roberts has been lauded
for the stability he brought
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
Barbara Dickerson, left, and Patty Youngblood protest in
favor of stronger COVID-19 precautions inside of Oregon’s
prisons across the street from Eastern Oregon Correctional
Institution in Pendleton on Friday, July 10, 2020.
“YOU CAN RELEASE PEOPLE
WITHOUT CREATING THE SPECTRE
OF MORE CRIME.”
Tara Herivel, attorney
nearly four months of the
pandemic.
According to the email,
the law library was closed
from July 7-15 as an emer-
gency
protocol
when
COVID-19 was fi rst iden-
tifi ed in the facility, and
then reopened with restric-
tions in place. From July 15
to Sept. 7, the email stated,
inmates were only allowed
access to the law library if
they had a “deadline with
the court system within 60
days of their request.”
“Limiting the num-
ber of (adults in custody)
that could access the legal
library was the only way
to ensure social distanc-
ing,” the email stated. “A
secondary
consideration
was the lack of available
and trained (adults in cus-
tody) legal clerks that were
quarantined.”
Without access to the
law library unless they
had an active court dead-
line, inmates were barred
from fi ling new lawsuits
like those represented by
Herivel, who took notice
of this potential obstruc-
tion when only a handful
of cases were fi led from
the Eastern Oregon prison
despite the facility report-
ing one of the largest work-
place outbreaks in the
entire state.
“I can’t say that they’re
trying to block it but they
certainly take actions that
do block it without appar-
ent concern for prisoner’s
access to law,” Herivel said.
“It’s the defendant who is
stopping those cases, and
that’s really nefarious.”
Those restrictions were
lifted on Sept. 7, prison
offi cials stated, and Herivel
said there’s been additional
cases fi led from EOCI
since.
Brown has directed the
Oregon Department of
Corrections to provide her
with potential candidates
for early release every two
months moving forward,
but for now Herivel and the
others are seeking the only
pathway they know of to
protect incarcerated people
from the risk of the virus
inside.
“You can release people
without creating the spec-
tre of more crime,” Herivel
said. “You can do it thought-
fully, you can do it with the
right people and you can
create social distancing for
the people that remain. And
there’s this complete refusal
that I don’t understand on a
real basic level.”
to the department, which
Corbett believes can con-
tinue under Byram.
“This community has a
reputation of being a safe
place to live. This depart-
ment has developed a cul-
ture of excellence that I
want to perpetuate,” Cor-
bett stated in the release.
“The support Lt. Byram has
of his fellow offi cers gives
me the greatest comfort that
this tradition will continue.”
Byram was born in
Klamath Falls but raised in
Pendleton after moving to
the city in 1980 and became
a “product of the Pendle-
ton school system,” gradu-
ating from Pendleton High
School in 1992. While serv-
ing as an offi cer with the
city, Byram has also earned
a bachelor’s degree in crim-
inal justice administration.
Byram is married with
two grown children, the
release stated, and he will
offi cially begin as police
chief on Dec. 1.
VISIT US ON THE WEB AT:
Doherty’s 50th year of
painting windows before
the rodeo was called off
too.
Instead, the Pendle-
ton Center for the Arts
arranged an exhibition as
unique as Doherty’s paint-
ings themselves to honor
the window painter. The
downtown-wide
exhibit
celebrates the artist’s work,
featuring images of past
windows and interpretive
information. Find a map
at
https://pendletonarts.
org/50-years/ showing 14
businesses with displays.
Doherty, 74, missed her
early morning sessions
painting Round-Up scenes
onto glass this year. She is
happiest with a paintbrush
in her hand. Doherty, who
has dealt with depression
most of her life, says paint-
ing is a form of therapy.
The daughter of a ura-
nium miner, she attended
nine grade schools and
three high schools grow-
ing up in Colorado and
Utah. As a child, she drew
cartoons, sometimes tack-
ing them to the walls of her
sleeping quarters inside one
mining cabin or another.
Eventually, she grew up
and landed in Pendleton,
where she has raised three
sons.
Her interest in paint-
ing windows was sparked
while watching “Big Tom”
Simonton create scenes on
windows around town. She
tried some of her own win-
dows with varied success.
She admits some of her ear-
liest efforts were washed
off by unhappy shop own-
ers, but she improved with
persistence.
Onlookers sometimes
offered tips. One intoxi-
cated voyeur startled her
with boozy advice about
how to improve the look of
her caricatures’ skin, which
came out as “fresh stones”
instead of fl esh tones. But
the advice was sound:
“Start with white paint
and a little orange, and add
browns and yellows in min-
ute amounts to vary the
skin tones and match the
caricature’s heritage.”
When a 10-year-old boy
mentioned that he’d seen
Doherty’s mentor Simonton
fi x his mistakes with razor
“THE WINDOW
PAINTINGS
LAURIE’S DONE
FOR OUR LOCAL
BUSINESSES OVER
THE YEARS ARE
AS MUCH A PART
OF ROUND-UP AS
THE MOUNTED
BAND AND
THE COWBOY
BREAKFAST.”
— Tiah DeGrofft Round-Up
director
blades, she stocked up on
them.
The amount of work
ebbed and fl owed. One
year, she painted 300 win-
dows. Another, she man-
aged only three. That was
the year she had a car wreck
at Deadman Pass and had
to paint from a wheelchair.
Doherty does other proj-
ects as well. In 2017, she
painted a special door for
the Juniper House Memory
Care unit. Some of the unit’s
16 residents were exhibit-
ing signs of Sundown Syn-
drome, getting agitated and
disoriented late in the day.
Some banged at the door to
get out. Doherty painted a
bucolic scene on the dou-
ble doors with a mountain,
a pond and animals as some
of the residents watched
her work. Afterward, the
nightly banging all but
stopped.
In 2010, Doherty worked
at the Oregon Historical
Society Museum in Port-
land, painting cartoon bulls
and broncs on the museum’s
large front windows. Inside
was an exhibit called “Tall
in the Saddle: 100 Years of
the Pendleton Round-Up.”
Round-Up Director Tiah
DeGrofft said she missed
seeing Doherty’s paintings
this year around the Pend-
leton downtown core.
“The window paint-
ings Laurie’s done for our
local businesses over the
years are as much a part of
Round-Up as the Mounted
Band and the Cowboy
Breakfast,” DeGrofft said.
“I grew up with them.
They’re iconic and they
truly capture the spirit of
Pendleton. She did a carica-
ture of me as a princess that
I adored.”
Arts Center Director
Roberta Lavadour said the
project honoring Doherty
was a natural.
“We wanted to give
people a safe and fun way
to celebrate Laurie and
her work,” Lavadour said.
“People can stroll from one
end of Main to the other on
both sides, taking detours to
the side streets and encoun-
ter all sorts of things along
the way.”
The Pendleton Center
for the Arts received fund-
ing from the Pendleton
Round-Up Association and
several other local donors
for the project.
Doherty was hum-
bled when she heard about
the exhibit of her window
work.
“I felt very elated and
very, very thankful I live
in the community I do ... I
have had many people tell
me how sorry they are that
I was not able to paint win-
dows my 50th year,” she
said.
“The staff at the Pendleton Convention
Center is ready to help you with your event
when it’s time to do it safely. We can’t wait
to welcome you back.”
PENDLETON CONVENTION CENTER
EastOregonian.com
10/2-10/8
Cineplex Show Times
Theater seating will adhere to social distancing protocols
Every showing $7.50 per person (ages 0-3 still free)
Possessor (NR)
1:40p 4:40p 7:40p
Hocus Pocus (PG)
1:20p 4:20p 7:20p
Tenet (PG13)
2:00p 7:00p
• Wear a mask in public
• Avoid indoor gatherings
• Stay 6 feet away from others • Wash your hands frequently
Kajillionaire (R)
1:00p 3:50p
Alone (R)
6:40
The Broken
Hearts Gallery (PG13)
12:40p 3:30p 6:20p
wildhorseresort.com • 541-966-1850
Pendleton, OR I-84 - Exit 216
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