20 yearS Later: eastern Oregon residents remember 9/11 | PAGE A10
E O
AST
145th year, No. 140
REGONIAN
Saturday, September 11, 2021
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
‘WE’RE A FAMILY’
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Bernice Charlton, the owner of the Long Branch
Cafe & Saloon, poses for a portrait Thursday,
Sept. 9, 2021, behind the fire tape that rings her
Weston eatery after a Sept. 5 fire ravaged the
restaurant portion of the establishment.
Long Branch
begins recovery
after recent fire
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
AT HAPPY CANYON
Night time pageant continues to thrive as generations pass down the tradition
By NICK
ROSENBERGER
East Oregonian
peNdLetON — american
Indian history, the Wild West,
someone getting both their legs
sawed off — these are normal
scenes from the annual Happy
Canyon Night Show, which
brings thousands of spectators
Wednesday through Saturday
of round-up week for a night
of arena-shaking action.
With nonstop action, the
play has an excessive number
of moving parts. the legions of
volunteers and dedicated staff,
many of whom have passed
their roles down generations,
are the only ones standing
between chaos and a success-
ful, safe show.
“a big part of this is improv
and rolling with it,” said rylan
Still, a second-time volunteer
who will be acting as part of
the fire crew scene and assist-
ing with the undertaker.
any number of unexpected
things can happen with roughly
750 participants involved, from
someone missing their cue to a
horse acting up. the show can
be pure pandemonium, but
many feel passion and love for
the big presentation.
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Becky Waggoner, right, a third-generation director of the Happy
Canyon Night Show, talks through plans for a scene with Hap-
py Canyon Princesses Mary Rivera, center, and Clarise Huesties
during a dress rehearsal Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021, for the show in
the Happy Canyon Arena, Pendleton.
Still, who watched his dad
act as a part of a now-retired
scene, loved the show since he
first saw it and knew he wanted
to be a part of it. His favorite
scene, outside of his dad’s, was
when the firefighters came to
rescue someone from a burn-
ing building. this year, he was
excited to play his favorite part.
“I’m going to do it as much
as I can,” he said. “It’s so fun.”
this excitement r uns
through the volunteers and
staff like an electric cord,
all the way up to the Happy
Canyon board of directors. It
would undoubtedly be difficult
to find someone more exhila-
rated when the show rolls
around every September than
becky Waggoner, director of
the Happy Canyon Night Show.
“I love it with all my heart,”
Waggoner said, answering
questions between a never-end-
ing onslaught of greetings,
thanks and congratulations to
what seemed like nearly every-
one involved.
“We’re a family,” she said.
She’s not wrong. most
involved, such as Still, have
family members who brought
them into the mix. Waggon-
er’s own roots in the show run
deep. Her great grandfather
played the show’s first sher-
iff in 1914, while her grandfa-
ther and father were both show
directors. As the first female
director, Waggoner lives and
breathes Happy Canyon. She
loves it so much, she even
published a book in 2016 about
it titled, “Happy Canyon: a
History of the World’s most
unique Indian pageant and
Wild West Show.”
according to Waggoner, the
original event began in 1914
when roy raley created the
original Wild West segment,
later enlisting the help of
anna minthorn Wannasay,
whose father was Chief yellow
Hawk (petamyo-mox-mox) of
the Cayuse, to help write the
Indian portion.
See Family, Page A8
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
TOP: Jason Hill, left, and Becky Waggoner demonstrate their respective roles as the doctor and nurse during a dress rehearsal
Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021, of the Happy Canyon Night Show in the Happy Canyon Arena, Pendleton. Hill and Waggoner are passing
on their roles in the show to a younger generation.
WeStON — bernice Charlton was sitting
in her office on Sunday, Sept. 5, when a couple
came knocking on her door.
She had no clue that smoke was billowing
from the roof of the Weston business she’s owned
for three decades.
“They told me, ‘Get out! It’s on fire!’” Charl-
ton said.
She ran into the kitchen of the Long branch
Cafe & Saloon, hoping to save some of her
belongings and possibly put out the fire herself.
By then, the flames were reaching toward the
ceiling.
another person — Charlton never saw their
face — came knocking on the back door with a
fire extinguisher and put out the blaze emanating
from the deep fryer. But as the flames reached
higher into the overheard vents, she ran back
outside, just as firefighters arrived.
Charlton spent most of the next six hours
sitting at the post office across the street. She
thought of little besides hoping that the flames
would be extinguished quickly. She was not
thinking of what she would do next. She sat there
and watched the flames consuming the beloved
Weston business — an institution that had drawn
people from far and wide for decades — fizzle
out.
Plans to rebuild
Four days later, Charlton sat on the bench in
the front of her business, the smell of smoke and
char still lingering in the air.
She has red hair and wore a green and white
flannel, blue jeans and crocs. She was tired from
a busy week of talking to state agencies, insur-
ers and countless concerned friends and family
members asking what she would do now. the
day was eerily quiet, devoid of the customers that
frequent the longstanding business.
“It’s just not the same,” Jackie Howard, Charl-
ton’s sister, said while standing outside the busi-
ness that day.
by then, Charlton had begun the long process
of salvaging the restaurant. most of the ceiling
over the restaurant had caved in and the water
damage was extensive. Insulation covered the
ground along with beer cans and fully wrapped
loaves of bread. but the bar, from waist height,
looked almost as if nothing had ever happened.
the rows of classic salt and pepper shakers
— donations from community members to
commemorate the deaths of parents — remained.
See Fire, Page A8
Shortage of employees leads to new business models
Local businesses remain
flexible to survive worker
scarcity during COVId-19
By DAVIS CARBAUGH AND
ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
La GraNde — enterprise isn’t
the largest town in eastern Oregon,
with a population of 2,052. but it’s
just a few miles from the ever popular
town of Joseph and its vistas across
Wallowa Lake to the peaks of the
eagle Cap Wilderness.
In a normal summer, the town’s
terminal Gravity brewing would
be busy all days of the week serving
local, handcrafted beers to patrons
and traditional brewpub fare. but due
to a labor shortage this summer the
company had to cut hours during its
EDITOR’S NOTE
This is the second in a five-part
series by EO Media Group looking
at the issue of the lack of workers for
jobs in Central and Eastern Oregon
— why workers are not returning
to previously held jobs and how
businesses are pivoting to function
without being fully staffed.
lunch rush, and close altogether on
tuesdays.
Natalie millar, chief executive
officer of the Wallowa County brew-
ery, said it’s an inevitability it will
have to close for even more days as
their skeleton crew of cooks, serv-
ers and hostesses return to school —
high school, to be exact.
See Shortage, Page A8
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group/La Grande Observer
Mariah Davis pours out an IPA for a flight of beers on Sept. 2, 2021, at Ter-
minal Gravity Brewing, Enterprise. Terminal Gravity recently closed down
operations on Tuesdays following a staff shortage. Many of the kitchen
staff are high school students who have returned to school, leaving the
brewpub further short staffed.