Stanfield’s Josie Goodrich heads to College National Finals Rodeo | SPORTS, A9
E O
AST
145th year, no. 101
REGONIAN
Thursday, June 10, 2021
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
CAPITAL INSURRECTION
Bentz: Investigation of Jan. 6 a constitutional duty
Freshman U.S. rep
makes stop Monday,
June 7, in Pendleton on
swing through district
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Encompassing
nearly 70,000 square miles, Oregon’s
2nd Congressional District is not
easy to traverse if a lawmaker wants
to be thorough about meeting with
constituents.
By the time he stopped in Pend-
leton to meet with local leaders on
Monday, June 7, U.S. Rep. Cliff
Bentz, R-Ontario, had already
visited Bend, Madras, Klamath Falls
and Medford. Despite the disparate
nature of each community, Bentz
said the issues constituents wanted
to talk about were often the same:
climate, wildfires, drought, housing,
homelessness, agriculture and infra-
structure.
“I would say the issues are very
alike,” he said.
It was Bentz’s first stop in Pendle-
ton since he was elected to represent
the 2nd District in 2020, emerging
from a 11-way Republican primary
to win the general election and fill the
seat former Rep. Greg Walden held
for more than two decades.
Bentz was thrown almost imme-
diately into the fire when on Jan. 6,
a group of rioters breached the U.S.
Capitol as lawmakers were voting to
certify President Joe Biden’s victory.
In May, Bentz was one of 35 House
Republicans who joined Democrats
in creating a bipartisan commission
to investigate the attempted insur-
rection.
For Bentz, the commission was
preferable to the alternatives.
Under the legislation creating
the commission, the body would
be comprised of an equal number
of Democrats and Republicans and
require a majority to issue subpoe-
nas. Bentz said the structure of the
commission would allow Repub-
licans to also scrutinize Speaker
Nancy Pelosi and Democrats and
whether they played any role in some
of the security lapses that day.
Bentz said the alternative was
a select committee House Demo-
crats assembled that would conduct
an investigation in a more partisan
manner.
But besides the partisan impli-
cations, Bentz said it also was his
constitutional duty to support an
investigation of what happened on
Jan. 6.
“On the list, certainly not neces-
sarily at the top, is the fact that each
of us took an oath to protect and
defend the Constitution,” he said.
“And if you have people wandering
through the Capitol screaming ‘Hang
Looking
to boost
workforce
Civics
already
offered
at local
schools
By DAVIS CARBAUGH
and BRYCE DOLE
EO Media Group
See Benefits, Page A7
See Bentz, Page A7
SENATE BILL 513
Lawmakers assert that
current supplemental
unemployment benefits
are driving a regional
labor shortage
SALEM — Eastern Oregon
lawmakers are calling for the state
to end supplemental unemploy-
ment benefits to help out-of-work
Oregonians endure the pandemic,
saying the programs have spurred
a workforce shortage that is hurting
regional business economies.
Commissioners
from 14 Eastern
Oregon counties,
as well as three
state represen-
tatives and one
senator, signed
Beverage
a letter and sent
it Monday, June
7, to Gov. Kate
Brown’s office,
asserting “unem-
ployment recip-
ients, especially
those receiving
Nash
additional federal
u n e m pl oy m e n t
benefits, are choos-
ing to stay home
rather than look for
work.” The letter
stated the bene-
fits are “creating
Hansell
a labor shortage
that is impacting our most vulner-
able communities and will not be
sustainable long term.”
“There’s a disincentive to work,”
said Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena,
who signed the letter. “You get paid
as much, or nearly as much, to not
work as you do to work with the
(former Vice President) Mike Pence’
— which they were, you can look at it
and see it — it’s the kind of thing that
we in Congress should be doing our
best to prevent in the future.”
The rioters breached the Capi-
tol under the assumption, without
evidence, that massive voter fraud
had been perpetrated in key states to
steal the victory away from former
President Donald Trump.
Although Congress ultimately
voted to certify the vote, Bentz was
among a group of lawmakers who
voted against the certification of
votes in Pennsylvania.
Bentz said his vote for the Jan. 6
Greg Lehman/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, File
Duane Thul, one leg of the trio of board members for Weston Cemetery Maintenance District No. 2, talks on
May 14, 2021, about a large granite tombstone that overgrowth completely covered at the cemetery.
Historic treasure
not at all. Grass fires were known
to decimate the area, burning away
homemade crosses and other mark-
ers.
The cemetery McCorkell first
took on 75 years ago was more
wild space than not. Weeds were
free range and the hand-dug graves
nearly so, Zach Mayer said.
“Anytime he would be digging
See Cemetery, Page A7
See Civics, Page A7
By SHEILA HAGAR
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
W
Cemetery dates
back to 1870s
Indeed, the earliest recorded
burial at Weston Cemetery was of
an infant in 1873, five years before
Weston officially became a city,
said area historian Sheldon Delph,
also descended from a branch of the
McCorkells.
Greg Lehman/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, File
A stump on May 14, 2021, bears testimony to one of the dozens of fail-
ing locust trees that have been removed from the Weston Cemetery.
Officials said the decision was painful but necessary for safety reasons.
The land for the original ceme-
tery was donated from the home-
stead of Isham E. Saling, who left
Walla Walla to settle in Weston and
establish himself as a merchant
nine cemetery districts,” the histo-
rian said. “Weston is Cemetery
District No. 2.”
Early on, numerous graves were
marked with wooden memorials or
“ANYTIME HE WOULD BE DIGGING A
NEW GRAVE AND FIND REMAINS, HE’D
HAVE TO STOP AND FIND A NEW SPOT.”
— Zach Mayer, Weston Cemetery District board member
around that time.
More land was added later, espe-
cially when the 1893 diphtheria and
1918 Spanish flu epidemics claimed
numerous lives, including entire
families, Delph said.
The cemetery became its own
taxing district in 1950, meaning
public money was available to pay
McCorkell a wage and keep up with
repairs and improvements.
“In Umatilla County, there are
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
SALEM — Every high
schooler in Oregon starting in
2026 will need to take at least one
class in civics before graduating.
But thanks to requirements at the
local level, little will change for
the two largest school districts in
Eastern Oregon.
Gov. Kate Brown on June 3
signed Senate Bill 513, a law that
adds a half-credit of civics educa-
tion to the list of the state’s grad-
uation requirements. The bill
passed with strong bipartisan
support, including every member
of Northeast Oregon’s legislative
delegation.
“It is a bill that begins the
process of holding our schools
accountable for teaching the next
generation of Oregonians how to
operate the most complex, compli-
cated and often confounding form
of self-governance in human
history,” state Rep. Paul Evans,
D-Monmouth, said, according to
the Oregon Capital Bureau. “This
is a call to arms for all good people
to come to the aid of our Union.”
The bill may result in some new
offerings at high schools around
the state, but many districts,
including those in Pendleton and
Hermiston, already required it.
State law mandates all high
schoolers obtain 24 credits to
graduate, but only lists three
credits of math, four credits of
English and, now, a half-credit of
civics as requirements. The rest
of the state’s graduation require-
ments are handled by the Oregon
State Board of Education, which
maintains requirements for other
subjects like health, physical
education and electives.
The board gives school districts
leeway in how students obtain
three credits of social sciences,
meaning schools could require
classes like economic or personal
finance instead of civics.
But in the many years Brian
Johnson has taught social studies
at Pendleton High School, civics
always has been a must-take
course for students.
Following years of the state
Weston Cemetery District a source of pride
ESTON — It’s hard
for Zach Mayer to
draw a line between
where his board
service on the Weston Cemetery
District ends and family life begins.
Mayer, along with Duane Thul
and Sallie McCullough, make up
the elected, volunteer board in
charge of keeping these 9 acres
functioning well enough to house
the dead and serve the living.
The job is not only an honor for
Mayer, but a multi-pronged connec-
tion to his heritage, he said.
That line to the Weston Cemetery
began with his great-great-grandfa-
ther, Alex “Bump” McCorkell.
When he retired from farming
in 1946, McCorkell moved off the
nearby mountain and became the
first dedicated cemetery sexton for
the unincorporated town.
The title fails to portray the
range of duties involved, from coor-
dinating property care to managing
legal and public records associated
with burials, stocking supplies and
resetting headstones.
Before McCorkell took the
sexton position, according to local
legends, families dug graves for
their own in this spot atop a rolling
hill just outside of town.
“Because people didn’t have
any money for funerals,” recalled
McCorkell’s granddaughter, Amy
McCorkell Mayer. “People would
go at night and bury their babies.”
Bill requires a
half credit of
high school civics