Phs principal resigns to be closer to family | REGION, A3
E O
AST
145th year, No. 61
REGONIAN
Tuesday, March 9, 2021
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Legislative
redistricting
hearings set
this week
salem moving ahead
despite no maps, no data
and uncertain future
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
Oregon Historical Society/Contributed Photo
This 1869 photo shows the Goodwin Hotel at right and the home of Lot Livermore on the left. The man standing to the far right is believed to be
Moses Goodwin. The hotel stood just south of Goodwin’s toll bridge across the Umatilla River.
A CASE OF SERENDIPITY
Gift of land from Moses Goodwin marks the beginning of Pendleton community
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
P
eNdLeTON — happy 200th birthday, Moses
Goodwin.
Pendletonians might remember Goodwin as
the man who gave Pendleton its beginning by
deeding 2.5 acres as a townsite in 1868.
Goodwin might never even have settled in the area
if not for a bit of serendipity.
according to an account by late athena historian
and author Mildred searcey, a grizzled Goodwin, his
wife, aura, and two children were headed to Idaho
by wagon when they stopped for the night near the
umatilla river.
This was just another leg in the
“As Mayor of Goodwin’s life journey. They had
Pendleton I feel a traveled to the West on the Oregon
Trail to Vancouver where they had
direct connection to farmed and operated a hotel, but
the man who founded frightened by conflicts with Indi-
the couple headed to Idaho.
Pendleton, Moses ans,
On the way, they stopped at abram
Goodwin. So I thank Miller’s sod-roofed cabin looking
him for this legacy for a night’s rest. abram and Nancy
Miller invited them inside for a
and feel honored to meal. during the evening, Miller
follow in his footsteps told Goodwin he was unhappy with
place. When Goodwin offered
as we celebrate his his
a pair of matched mules for the 160
200th birthday.” acres, Miller accepted.
The cabin, sitting on the corner
— Pendleton Mayor John
of present-day Main street and
Turner, who proclaimed
court avenue, was known as
Goodwin’s birthday, Feb. 15,
Goodwin station.
2021, as Moses Goodwin day
“It wasn’t long before Good-
win’s place became known as the
cat ranch,” wrote searcey. “It was
said that it was not unusual to see 20 or 30 cats, all
tame, and all with pet names, following ‘uncle Mosey’
about the premises.”
Besides his fondness for felines, various accounts
paint Goodwin as a man with a head for business, as
well as a well-honed taste for liquor. he and aura
opened a hotel just south of the umatilla river on Main
See Redistricting, Page A9
eOu freezes
undergrad
tuition for
2021-22
East Oregonian
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
See Serendipity, Page A9
Moses Goodwin, who died at age 49, is buried at Olney Cemetery.
Retirement marks end of era for CUJ
Longtime editor Wil Phinney steps down after spending 46 years in the industry
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PeNdLeTON — Looking back
at his career, Wil Phinney tends not
to think of himself as a journalist or
reporter.
Instead, he prefers a far more
old-fashioned title: newspaperman.
For 46 years, Phinney helped
put out a newspaper on a regular
basis, the last 24 at the Confeder-
ated Umatilla Journal. In december
2020, he put out his last.
Phinney, 64, said he had been
trying to retire for a while, but the
confederated Tribes of the umatilla
Indian reservation, the owner of
saLeM — despite no redistrict-
ing maps or data to show voters, the
Oregon Legislature is moving ahead
this week with hearings on plans for
redrawing 2020 political districts.
Ten hearings are planned, two
for each congressional district. First
up is the 1st congressional district
in Northwest Oregon on Tuesday,
March 9, then the 2nd congressio-
nal district that covers all of Oregon
east of the cascades on Wednesday,
March 10.
The cOVId-19 pandemic has
upended the once-a-decade redraw-
ing of legislative and congressional
districts. The u.s. census Bureau has
said the pandemic made collection of
population data difficult or impossi-
ble at times.
The data was required by federal
law to be sent to the states by april 1
to begin drawing maps. Now it will
not arrive until sept. 30.
The unprecedented delay has set
off a constitutional crisis in Oregon
and at least 23 other states.
The autumn delivery date will be
well beyond all of Oregon’s consti-
tutional and statutory deadlines for
submitting maps. Both the Legisla-
ture and the secretary of state, which
have authority to draw maps at differ-
ent points during the usual process,
are shut out by the drawn-out time-
line.
The fate of 60 house, 30 senate
and five or six congressional districts
“I TOLD THEM
ALL TO GET
NEWSPAPER WORK
OUT OF THEIR
SYSTEMS, BUT I’M
ENCOURAGED THAT
THEY STILL READ
THE NEWS.”
— Wil Phinney, about his
three daughters
La GraNde — eastern
Oregon university announced it
will not raise tuition for current
undergraduate students in 2021-22.
The eOu Board of Trustees in
a special meeting on Friday, March
5, voted unanimously in favor of
holding tuition flat for all returning
undergraduate students, on-campus
and online, the university reported
in a press release. Trustees will vote
on graduate tuition rates when they
reconvene in May for the board’s
regular meeting.
“This is something we can do
for our students hardest hit by the
pandemic,” said eOu President
Tom Insko. “as Oregon’s rural
university, meeting students where
they are is core to our mission and
particularly this year we need to do
all we can to carry out that mission
and make higher education as
affordable as possible.”
The decision came earlier than
typical tuition announcements,
Insko said, to provide greater
certainty for students and an
extended opportunity for prospec-
tive students to make an informed
decision. National trends show
many students spending more
time deciding whether to invest in
higher education as the cOVId-19
pandemic stretches into its second
year.
Nearly two-thirds of eOu
students are from low-income
households, identify as ethnically
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
See Phinney, Page A9
See Tuition, Page A9