$1.50
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2022
JAN . 26–F
146th Year, No. 41
INSIDE
PENDLETON
WINNER OF 16 ONPA AWARDS IN 2021
EB. 2, 202
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The
OLD CHURCH TOWERS OVER JOHN DAY’S MAIN STREET impor
t
of art ance
PA G E 8
Chamber president apologizes for column
adjusted
offering
s during
the pan
demic.
PA GE 4
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — The presi-
dent of the Pendleton Chamber
of Commerce Board of Directors
said she began issuing apologies
after writing a column critical of
personal pronouns.
In the chamber’s Jan. 11 newslet-
ter, President Velda Arnaud entitled
her monthly column “Ostrich-like
Behavior.” She opens with an anec-
dote about a phone conversation she
had with a person who mistook her
comments about starting “‘ostrich-
like’ behavior” for “ostracizing-like
behaviors.”
“No, I’m going to behave more
like an ostrich: I will be sticking my
head in the sand until some sense
of sanity returns to the world,” she
wrote. “For example, I cannot use
‘they’ to refer to a singular person.
While I completely understand that
some people are against he and she
pronouns, I worked too hard to learn
English grammar to just willy-nilly
make changes.”
She goes on to cover a variety
of topics, including her educational
experience with grammar, her
thoughts on using “it” as a pronoun
and “The Addams Family” char-
acter Cousin Itt, whether ostriches
actually bury their heads in the sand
and how modern vernacular has
replaced “sh## show” with “dump-
ster fi re.”
Queer, gender nonconform-
ing and nonbinary people some-
times use the personal pronouns
“they” and “them” when they don’t
identify as either male or female.
In a Monday, Jan. 24, interview,
Arnaud said she didn’t know the
reason behind the use of they and
them pronouns until after she
PA GE 6
PA GE 12
wrote her column.
“I don’t want to off end anyone,”
she said. “I want to respect people
for who they are.”
Arnaud said she tries to keep her
“Chamber President’s Message”
column “light hearted,” using
humor to comment on contempo-
rary issues, such as how to main-
tain social intelligence during the
See Pronouns, Page A7
HERMISTON FOOD POD
COVID-19
Large
indoor
events
continue
Pendleton chamber’s
First Citizens Banquet
is Friday; Umatilla
County reports 198
new COVID-19 cases
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Following
two years of cancellations and
curtailments due to the pandemic,
most local events have returned in
earnest. The latest is the Pendle-
ton Chamber of Commerce’s First
Citizens Banquet, an annual dinner
to honor exemplary community
members and businesses from the
past year.
While the banquet is going ahead
as planned on Friday, Jan. 28, at
the Pendleton Convention Center,
a new spike in COVID-19 cases
is spreading throughout Umatilla
County.
Umatilla County has been hit
hard by each wave of COVID-19,
and the surge in cases caused by
the omicron variant is no diff er-
ent. During the week of Jan. 17, the
Oregon Health Authority reported
more than 1,600 cases of COVID-
19 in the county, an all-time high
during the pandemic.
Umatilla County Public Health
Director Joe Fiumara said orga-
nizers for events such as the cham-
ber banquet haven’t reached out to
him to ask for his advice nor is he
seeking out organizers to off er his
advice unsolicited.
But Fiumara warned that large
indoor events are likely to see some
See COVID-19, Page A7
Dolores Amaya prepares pupusas Friday,
Jan. 21, 2022, at her El Salvadoreno No. 2
food truck at the Hermiston Food Pod.
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
FOOD POD HOLDS
A SOFT OPENING
Two trucks to start,
space has hookups
for a total of eight
By ERICK PETERSON
East Oregonian
H
ERMISTON — Custom-
ers walked up to his
popular food truck,
but they seem ready to
do cartwheels instead,
according to Patrick Hunt,
owner of Southern Twain BBQ.
Hunt said he is as happy as
his customers — thrilled to be
dishing out smokehouse nachos,
hickory sausages, sweet tea and
other delicacies once more.
Hunt oversees the Hermiston
Food Pod, 240 S.W. Third St.,
across the street from where he
also runs his business. The pod
was closed at the start of Octo-
ber for improvements that would
make it more attractive for addi-
tional restaurants.
At the pod’s soft opening
Jan. 18, there were only two
See Food, Page A7
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Patrick Hunt slathers barbecue sauce on a brisket sandwich Friday,
Jan. 21, 2022, at his Southern Twain BBQ food truck at the Hermis-
ton Food Pod.
Marcus Whitman statue up for debate
By EMRY DINMAN
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
WALLA WALLA — More than
a dozen members of the Walla Walla
community and others recently spoke
in support for or in opposition to the
removal of a statue of pioneer Marcus
Whitman during a recent meeting of
the city arts commission.
Part 1 of this article ran in the
Tuesday, Jan. 25, edition of the East
Oregonian and focused on arguments
for the removal of the statue that is
on public display on the campus of
Whitman College.
Several others spoke in opposi-
tion to removing the statue Jan. 19,
during a meeting of the Walla Walla
Arts Commission. Marcia Wendler
argued Whitman was a renowned
physician who “answered every call
of the distressed and sick, no matter
the distance, the time, the day or his
own weariness.”
Susan Schomburg, who served on
the Santa Monica Arts Committee
in California for more than a decade
and who opened an art gallery there
in 2001, also spoke in opposition to
the statue’s removal.
Schomburg argued the statue,
which she said is the oldest in the
city’s public art collection, is acces-
sible to all, but placing it in a museum
would create a fi nancial barrier to
viewing it.
The debate around depictions
of Whitman has paralleled debates
nationwide over other statues, includ-
ing those of Christopher Columbus
(one of which sits on the Walla Walla
County Courthouse lawn), Confed-
erate soldiers and generals, and other
controversial historical fi gures.
Schomburg drew a distinction
between them during an interview
before the Jan. 19 arts commission
meeting.
“He’s not like Confederate
soldiers,” Schomburg said. “I under-
stand why those statues are being
removed. I feel that those statues
deserve to be removed. But Marcus
Whitman did not enslave people, and
he didn’t deliberately kill people.”
In an online petition Schomburg
started in 2020, which has been
signed by more than 1,350 people, she
argued rather than remove the statue,
another statue should be placed
See Statue, Page A7
Greg Lehman, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, File
The Marcus Whitman statue stands in
September 2020 at East Main Street
and Boyer Avenue, Walla Walla.