REGION
Saturday, September 11, 2021
East Oregonian
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Local police help nab leaders of outlaw motorcycle gang
One works as prison
guard at Washington
State Penitentiary,
Walla Walla
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
WALLA WALLA — Local
police detectives on Thursday, Sept.
9, helped the Gang Intelligence
Team of the Walla Walla County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce arrest leaders of an
outlaw motorcycle gang.
The sheriff ’s offi ce in a press
release reported police captured
Dustin Wendelin, a corrections offi -
cer with the Washington Depart-
ment of Corrections, and Charles
Montgomery of Milton-Freewater.
Both hold leadership positions in a
local chapter of the Pagan’s Motor-
cycle Club, the sheriff’s office
reported. Wendelin is in the Walla
Walla County Jail, Walla Walla,
and Montgomery is in the Umatilla
County Jail, Pendleton.
The Walla Walla County Sher-
iff’s Office reported it has been
collaborating with Spalding County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce, in Griffi n, Geor-
gia, for several months, along with
federal law enforcement partners.
Intelligence generated from traffi c
stops in Walla Walla County led to
a joint investigation into two local
members of the Pagan’s MC, the
sheriff ’s offi ce reported.
The Pagen’s is a “1%er” or “One
Percenter” club — the 1% of motor-
cycle clubs that operate outside
the bounds of the law. The gang
frequently participates in violent
crime, traffi cking and racketeer-
ing, according to the sheriff ’s offi ce,
and Pagan’s members nationwide in
the past have allegedly participated
in bombings, shootings, felonious
assaults and homicides.
The Walla Walla County Sher-
iff ’s Offi ce worked with the Geor-
gia Bureau of Investigation and the
U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms, and Explosives, the Drug
Enforcement Agency and the FBI,
as well as several law enforcement
agencies in Washington state.
Detectives with the Umatilla
Window painting returns
for the return of Round-Up
The passion for
painting continues
By NICK
ROSENBERGER
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — It all
began with a former Navy
man who worked at the Pend-
leton Post Office. As new
1950s cars rumbled past the
town’s brick buildings, Tom
Simonton began painting the
signs for the grocery store
next door to his work in his
free time.
Simonton, known locally
as “Big Tom,” eventually
moved from signs to paint-
ing shop windows and, when
Round-Up rolled around,
someone asked him to start
painting rodeo cartoons on
their storefronts.
“And that’s how it all
started,” said Rick Simon-
ton, Tom’s son.
Big Tom spent his days
cartooning, drawing and
painting everywhere he
went. He would draw on
the back of napkins for wait-
ers, he would visit hospi-
tals to whip up cartoons
for doctors and babies, he
would paint animals on the
bellies of kids and windows
for Round-Up.
“Every place he went he
would draw something for
anybody and everybody,”
Simonton said.
A completely self-taught
cartoonist and painter, he
would continue his creative
hobby for the rest of his life
until he died in 1993.
“I think he just liked it,”
he said, “he liked to make
people happy.”
Big Tom’s paintings and
cartoons were so popular
and so in-demand that nearly
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
One of Laurie Doherty’s Round-Up cartoons adorns the
front window of the Rainbow Cafe Friday, Sept. 10, 2021, in
downtown Pendleton.
every shop-owner in Pend-
leton seemed to want him
to come by. Overwhelmed
by the number of requests
during Round-Up in the
1970s, Laurie Doherty joined
in the eff orts to cover Pendle-
ton’s windows in paint.
“It fell into my lap
because Tom was over-
loaded,” Doherty said.
D oh e r t y a n d To m
Simonton had two things
in common: a voracious
appetite for creativity and
a passion for painting. The
two were constantly creat-
ing, never quite turning off
the switch on their imagi-
nations. And, over decades,
the paintings have become
a part of the Pendleton
community — a legacy that
can be found in nooks and
crannies around town during
Round-Up week. A perma-
nent mural of Big Tom’s
remains at Crabby’s Under-
ground Saloon.
When Doherty published
a book titled “Be Happy,
Be Healthy and Learn to
Cartoon,” she visited schools
around the region to talk with
and teach children about
painting cartoons. She said
she loved to see the bright
light go off in their eyes after
realizing that they’d painted
something.
“It made my heart sing,”
she said.
And that was an element
she said kept her going.
“Knowing that it was
making a difference,” she
said, “a positive diff erence
— in people’s lives, giving
them hope.”
After 51 years, Doherty
still is looking for ways
to express herself and has
continued to paint windows,
completing four this year
even with a broken bone in
her foot.
Doherty, who is plan-
ning on retiring soon, runs
a nonprofi t art studio called
Laurie’s Cartoons and is
off ering to teach those with
creative souls how to paint
and cartoon to keep the tradi-
tion alive.
Many of you have served with Bob and his family during his 85 years of volunteer
service to the Round-up! We'd love to have you stop by and share your memories
that have made the Pendleton Round-up such a special event for the
Stangier family and the great town of Pendleton!
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 TH
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM
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WE WILL BE SERVING
BLOODY MARYS SCREWDRIVER BREAKFASTSNACKS
COME BY AND HAVE A LITTLE CELEBRATION BEFORE THE PARADE!
Tribal Police Department, Morrow
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce and with the
police departments of Pendleton,
Hermiston, Milton-Freewater and
Boardman also participated in the
apprehensions. Those local agen-
cies are members of the Blue Moun-
tain Enforcement Narcotics Team,
the local illegal drug task force.
The Pendleton Police Depart-
ment oversees BENT. Pendleton
Police Chief Charles Byram said
the arrests of the two Pagan’s was
not an offi cial BENT project, and
detective Rick Jackson, the lead
on BENT, and detective Howard
Bowen, who is not on BENT, both
assisted.
Wendelin’s apprehension came
at approximately 6 a.m. at the Wash-
ington State Penitentiary in Walla
Walla. The Walla Walla Union-Bul-
letin reported public records show
Wendelin lives in Milton-Freewater.
About three hours later, police
arrested Montgomery at his resi-
dence in Milton-Freewater.
The sheriff’s office reported
both men are indicted in Georgia
with charges of aggravated assault,
aggravated battery and three counts
each of violation of the street gang
terrorism and prevention act.
The sheriff ’s offi ce also reported
Wendelin and Montgomery’s extra-
dition to Georgia is the fi rst step in
a joint investigation into the West
Coast Pagan’s MC, and the local
investigation continues with addi-
tional charges pending.
LOCAL BRIEFING
Governor will sit
out ’21 Round-Up
SALEM — Gov. Kate
Brown will skip the 2021
Pendleton Round-Up.
At a Tuesday, Sept. 7, press
conference to discuss the state
of the COVID-19 pandemic
and the start of school, KGW
reporter Pat Dooris asked
Brown if she would attend
this year’s rodeo and what she
would say to attendees.
“Unfortunately I will not
be going this year,” she said.
“For those who are attend-
ing, I encourage them to get
vaccinated ahead of time and
to wear their masks. I know
that sometimes it can be quite
warm in the Pendleton region
but we know that, combined
with vaccines, masks are a
very simple and eff ective tool
to reduce transmission of the
delta variant.”
After she encouraged
rodeo-goers to “Let’er Buck,”
Dooris asked why she was
declining to attend.
“I’m certainly concerned
about community spread,”
she said.
Umatilla County
OKs site to take
on homelessness
HERMISTON — The
Umatilla County Board of
Commissioners on Wednes-
day, Sept. 8, agreed to allow a
warming station and tempo-
rary living huts to go on 10
acres the county owns.
The site is at the inter-
section of Lind and Bensel
roads, Hermiston, and the
county Public Works Depart-
ment has used the site to store
aggregate storage, and Gran-
ite Construction leases part
of the site for equipment, rock
and gravel storage.
Commissioner George
Murdock said the county has
been working with Umatilla,
Hermiston, Echo and Stan-
fi eld on a site for temporary
shelters to help take on home-
lessness. Commissioner Dan
Dorran at the meeting said
the land is fl at and usable and
near Highway 395, which
makes it good for transporta-
tion to towns as far away as
Milton-Freewater.
Umatilla County would
own the shelter and continue
to own the land.
Hermiston City Manager
Byron Smith said the project
is largely a response to a new
law the Oregon Legislature
passed in June that mandates
cities codify ordinances that
would protect people from
fi nes and fees for sleeping on
public lands if a local govern-
ment fails to provide other
viable alternatives. Cities have
two years to comply with the
law.
The local plan at this stage
calls for a modular building to
act as a warming station that
also would provide show-
ers, restrooms and meeting
areas. The site would need
to connect to infrastructure
for water and power, and and
pumping truck would provide
sewage services.
Funding for the project
could come from grants but
also local cities.
Rather than each of the
four cities creating its own
solution for the new mandates,
Smith said the shelter is an
eff ort by the cities to fi nd a
comprehensive solution to
assist those experiencing
homelessness.
— EO Media Group
9/10-9/16
Cineplex Show Times
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PAW Patrol: The Movie (G)
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1:50p 4:50p 8:10p
Jungle Cruise (PG13)
12:50p 4:10p 7:30p
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Pendleton, OR I-84 - Exit 216
