OFF PAGE ONE
Saturday, October 16, 2021
Cases:
Martin:
Continued from Page A1
Continued from Page A1
And since July, at least 48
Umatilla County residents
who contracted the virus have
died, making the delta variant
surge the deadliest and most
infectious that the county has
ever seen.
“Unfortunately, we are
still getting death reports,”
Fiumara said. “Not that I
can say they’re directly from
Round-Up, but they do seem
to be from the spike in cases.
And that is unfortunate, but I
don’t know if it was unfore-
seen.”
To curb the rapid spread of
infection tied to events across
the region, Washington Gov.
Jay Inslee announced Oct.
14 that events must require
proof of vaccination or a
recent negative coronavi-
rus test from attendees. The
rule applies to indoor events
exceeding 1,000 people and
outdoor events exceeding
10,000.
No such requirement
exists in Oregon.
Health officials have
reported that some Round-Up
attendees came to the rodeo
with COVID-19 symptoms
and later tested positive. And
despite low vaccination rates
across Eastern Oregon, the
Round-Up did not require a
negative COVID-19 test or
proof of vaccination.
Fiumara said if a require-
ment had been in place,
some ill attendees may have
thought twice before coming
to an event that attracts tens
of thousands of people. But
he wouldn’t go so far as to
say that a requirement simi-
lar to Washington’s should be
in place.
“I’m really torn,” Fiumara
said. “I’m not a big mandate
fan. I do understand that these
measures work, but I’m in that
camp where I want people to
choose those options, and I
don’t know how well compli-
ance would have gone if it
would have been enforced
with Round-Up.”
Fiumara said he doesn’t
believe there are enough
people ready for strict
requirements like Washing-
ton’s to be implemented.
“I’m not saying these
measures don’t work, but I’m
not taking the position that we
should have done them neces-
sarily,” he said, adding, “I
don’t want to shoot ourselves
in the foot moving forward.”
Since the pandemic
started, Umatilla County has
reported 14,240 confirmed
or presumptive coronavi-
rus cases. Nearly 18% of
the county’s population has
contracted the virus, and 144
residents have died, accord-
ing to county health data.
Ordeman remembers he and
Martin having occasional disagree-
ments but still getting along perfectly
well. That reality was common in
their years working together, he said,
adding he “loved Ron Martin like a
brother.”
Other speakers told stories about
Martin’s commitment to helping
those in need. He accommodated
families who couldn’t pay for end-of-
life services, “just because it was the
right thing to do,” Clemons said.
He also helped people experiencing
homelessness, Clemons said, buying
meals, renting hotel rooms, or using
the chapel as a drop-off point for food
and clothing for those less fortunate.
“It was more than a business to
him,” Clemons said. “These were
people. This was his community.
These were his neighbors.”
The service concluded with music.
Martin, a musician himself, could
sometimes be found playing around
the markets on the streets of down-
town Pendleton on summer evenings.
At the end of the service, a small band
of Martin’s musician friends jammed
for a while playing “You Are My
Sunshine,” and “I’ll Fly Away.” The
mourners listened quietly.
Afterwards, those in attendance
moved to the back of the room. They
shared snacks and their memories of
Martin.
Among them was Clifford Smith,
a post commander with the Pendleton
VFW, who served in the United States
Army in Vietnam from 1971 to 1972.
He and several VFW members wore
matching jackets at the ceremony, and
they spoke about Martin’s commit-
LATEST COVID-19
FATALITIES IN
UMATILLA COUNTY
Umatilla County reported
five new COVID-19 deaths
between Wednesday, Oct.
13, and Friday, Oct,. 15, bring-
ing the county’s pandemic
death toll to 144.
The follow are Umatilla
County’s latest fatalities from
the disease:
• The county’s 140th
victim is a 79-year-old
woman who tested positive
on Sept. 16 and died on Oct.
3 at Good Shepherd Medi-
cal Center, Hermiston. She
had unspecified underlying
health conditions.
• The county’s 141st victim
is a 61-year-old man who
tested positive on Sept. 24
and died on Oct. 7 at Legacy
Good Samaritan Medical
Center, Portland. He had
unspecified underlying
health conditions.
•The county’s 142nd victim
is a 61-year-old woman who
tested positive Aug. 29 and
died Sept. 23, at a private
residence. Health offi-
cials have not determined
whether she had underlying
health conditions.
•The county’s 143rd victim
is a 71-year-old woman who
tested positive Sept. 22 and
died Sept. 25 at Providence
St. Vincent Hospital, Port-
land. She had unspecified
underlying health condi-
tions.
•The county’s 144th victim
is a 66-year-old woman who
tested positive Oct. 4 and
died Oct. 7 at a private resi-
dence. Health officials have
not determined whether she
had underlying health condi-
tions.
ment to helping local veterans.
Smith recalled Martin reaching
out to local veterans and telling them
his services always were available to
them. He held ceremonies for veterans
annually, and maintained a memorial
garden for local fallen members of the
military that sits in front of the chapel.
Seeing the garden makes Smith feel
pride in having served his country.
“He went far beyond his duties,”
Smith said of Martin.
Smith said he’s worried about what
the chapel’s annual Veterans Day
memorial service will look like now
that Martin is gone.
Umatilla County Commissioner
George Murdock met Martin soon
after he came to Pendleton more than
a decade ago. They bonded while
involved in the Pendleton Rotary
together and through event plan-
ning, he said. Murdock, a graduate of
Washington State University, said he
even contacted Martin about setting
up a prepaid funeral and making
an urn out of a steel WSU football
helmet. That’s still the plan, even
though Martin has passed, Murdock
noted.
“He cast quite a shadow,” Murdock
said. “He touched a lot of people. I
looked around (today) and thought,
what a tribute.”
Margaret Harned sat with two
friends at the back of the room, chat-
ting about Martin. He had helped her
when her husband died a year ago.
The three spoke about how, in this
life, one meets only a handful of truly
extraordinary people. Those who you
meet and, within moments, you feel
that you’ve known them your whole
life, and you know they’d do anything
for you.
To them, that was Ron Martin.
East Oregonian
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Pastor Chris Clemons, of the Pendleton Church of the Nazarene, speaks
Wednesday Oct. 13, 2021, about his friend Ron Martin at Martin’s funeral
at the Pendleton Convention Center.
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
Carl Scheeler and other musician friends of Ron Martin laugh after play-
ing together at Martin’s funeral on Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021, at the
Pendleton Convention Center.
Sams:
Continued from Page A1
Sams climbs
the ladder
CTUIR Education Direc-
tor Modesta Minthorn is
only a few years older than
Sams and remembers him
as a young man. While his
youth may not have presaged
a future in a presidential
administration, Minthorn
said he was known for being
smart and having leadership
qualities.
As an adult, Sams started
working for tribal govern-
ment before leaving to start
a new career in environmen-
tal nonprofits. His resume
includes stints at the Earth
Conservation Corps, the
Community Energy Proj-
ect and The Trust for Public
Land. When news broke that
Sams had been nominated
for the National Park Service
position, the latter sent out
a statement celebrating his
achievement.
After Sams decided to
return home in 2012, it was
Deb Croswell who made
the decision to hire him as
the tribes’ communica-
tions director. Croswell had
known Sams long enough
that both had worked in a
tribal recreation program
together as teens.
The deputy executive
director at the time, Croswell
said Sams had the necessary
qualities to be the public
voice of the tribes.
“He’s a good communica-
tor, he’s very articulate, very
insightful (and) thoughtful,”
she said. “He’s a good super-
visor, he’s a good manager of
people and really cares about
people and their needs and
wants to help people learn
and grow and do their jobs
well. So those are all things
that contributed to him being
a good communications
director for the tribes.”
Those qualities seem to
help Sams climb the ladder
of tribal government, even-
tually earning him a promo-
tion to deputy executive
director after Croswell
moved over to Cayuse Hold-
ings, a tribal enterprise, and
CCS:
Continued from Page A1
CCS also either will take
over the existing leases or
purchase all of Lifeways’
11 facilities in the county,
Lindsay said. And during
the next year, the provider
will turn each of these
facilities into centers where
people can get both types of
services, she added.
W hen Com mu nit y
Counseling Solutions starts
its mental health services,
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian, File
Chuck Sams speaks to local high school students on Aug.
29, 2018, about tribal history and beliefs. Sams now is Pres-
ident Joe Biden’s nominee to direct the National Park Ser-
vice. His confirmation hearing is Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021.
two stints as interim execu-
tive director.
As a colleague, his
former peers described
Sams as being collabora-
tive and well-prepared. As a
supervisor, CTUIR Finance
Director Paul Rabb was
clear about his expectations
while remaining fun and
approachable.
“He wasn’t this dictator
of a boss,” he said.
Rabb, who succeeded
Sams temporarily as the
interim executive director,
said Sams would’ve been
in-line for the permanent
position if he had stayed.
But in a March interview,
Sams said he told the CTUIR
Board of Trustees he was
looking at other opportuni-
ties and wasn’t interested in
staying on long-term.
By then, Gov. Kate Brown
had already appointed him
to the Northwest Power
and Conservation Council
and wrote a letter to Biden
recommending Sams for a
much bigger position.
He spoke about the
law that required Ameri-
can Indians to notify state
government of their pres-
ence if they were travel-
ing through Salem, a law
that wasn’t struck from the
books until the early 2000s.
He explained the difference
between Western and tribal
values. The former holds
that a person has unlimited
wants and limited resources
while the latter holds that a
person has limited wants and
unlimited resources.
As the communications
director and later as interim
executive director, Sams
was often tasked with being
the public face of the tribes
and the region. Sams was
on-hand when the CTUIR
and several other Northwest
tribes buried The Ancient
One, 9,000-year old remains
that were the subject of 20
years of scientific study and
legal challenges.
When Pendleton’s sister
city, Minamisoma, Japan,
The tribal spokesman
wanted to welcome Pendle-
ton students back to the city
after a 2011 earthquake and
nuclear disaster, Sams was a
part of the 2014 contingent
the city sent to ensure it was
safe.
When the tribes started
a land buyback program,
Sams wrote an editorial
explaining how the Dawes
Allotment Act of 1887 led
the reservation to be subdi-
vided and sold to white
settlers.
“It seems strange that we
have to buy back our own
land,” he wrote in 2014. “We
did not create this problem.
Our ancestors signed the
Treaty of 1855 in good faith,
convinced that exclusive
use meant the land was ours
forever. Though it is true we
were dealt a poor hand by
history, we can make a new
start. We now have a chance
to restore our land base, and
with proper oversight and
use, we will begin to make
ourselves whole again.”
He also was appointed
to various committees and
commissions throughout
the tribes, city and state.
One of his most recent
appointments before join-
ing the Northwest Power and
Conservation Council was
a spot on the state’s Racial
Justice Council.
A historic
appointment
When the National Park
Service commissioned an
article from historian Mark
David Spence, he wanted to
start the run-up to the estab-
lishment of the national park
system at 30,000 years ago
when the land belonged
to America’s indigenous
peoples.
Sp e nce, aut hor of
“Dispossessing the Wilder-
ness: Indian Removal and
the Making of the National
Parks,” said the federal
government used a mecha-
nism similar to the one that
subdivided the Umatilla
Indian Reservation on
land they intended to use
for national parks such as
Yellowstone, which inter-
sects with ceded lands
that belonged to the Crow,
Shoshone-Bannock and
Blackfeet tribes.
Those policies continue
to reverberate today. While
the government will open
federal land to tribes to
exercise their treaty rights,
Spence said national parks
remain off-limits to to tribes
looking to engage in the
traditional hunting, fishing
and gathering activities that
have defined their people
for generations. While he
thinks communication has
improved between Indian
Country and the park
service, Spence said Sams
has an opportunity to push
it further because of his own
lived experiences.
“There is an undercur-
rent or maybe even over-
current right now, where
… a broader public is more
amenable to seeing native
peoples as managers of their
own lands, as opposed to
props in a national park,” he
said.
Back home, several of
Sams’ former colleagues
described the feeling of
pride that one of their own
is now in position to become
the next park director.
“It’s one of those things
that we’re going to talk
about for generations,”
Minthorn said. “I can see
(myself), talking to grand-
kids, telling them, ‘Be
more like that guy.’”
3 Webinars
to Choose from. . .
When “racial incidents”
roiled local schools, students
from Pendleton, Echo and
Nixyaawii Community
School joined several other
Eastern Oregon schools in
taking a trip to the Tamasts-
likt Cultural Institute, where
Sams was one of the featured
speakers.
former Lifeways patients
should expect a seamless
transition, Lindsay said.
Lifeways has said that,
in Umatilla County alone,
it served 184 clients with
schizophrenic disorders,
491 clients with major
depression, 471 clients with
post-traumatic stress disor-
der, 215 clients with bipo-
lar disorder and more than
2,000 clients with adjust-
ment disorders.
Come Dec. 1, Lindsay
said, “People should be able
to walk in and pick up right
where they left off.”
A11
Topics vary for each webinar:
Nov 10: Eastern Oregon topics
For all
Pesticide
Applicators
Approved by Oregon
Dept. of Agriculture
Nov 2:
4 credits
(2 Core, 2 Other)
Nov 4:
5 credits
(3 Core, 2 Other)
Nov 10:
4 credits
(3 Core, 1 Other)
503-370-7024
info@oacfa.com
Full agendas online.
Register at OACFA.com
S265478-1