LIFESTYLE
Thursday, February 17, 2022
East Oregonian
A7
Remembering the ‘gadfly’ who was Tom Hebert
WIL
PHINNEY
OTHER VIEWS
N
ot many people
could put up with,
much less like, Tom
Hebert.
Even his family disowned
him.
He was headstrong and
stubborn, assertive to a fault,
often annoying and rude,
sometimes belligerent in his
determination to convince
others that his ideas not only
had merit but were unques-
tionably necessary to fix
things.
Even if his ideas were
rebuffed, he would not
let a good one die — like
he did Feb. 8 at Maple
View Memory Center in
Monmouth. He passed
unceremoniously, without
family or friends, at the age
of 83.
Hebert had the audacity
to deliver pages and pages
of unsolicited ideas, whether
they be a museum inte-
gration plan to Pendleton
leaders or plans for a bison
ranch on the Umatilla Indian
Reservation.
Hebert liked his self-
given label of gadfly — a
persistent, irritating critic,
a provocative stimulus, a
goad, a blighter, a pesterer
and resident irritant.
Most men dismissed
him; some women wanted to
punch him in the face.
The punching I under-
stand, but many of Hebert’s
ideas were rejected out of
hand because of his off-put-
ting personality.
You get my point.
As you would expect,
Hebert left me loads of
information with which
to write his obituary, but I
thought this guy deserved
more than recognition on
the East Oregonian records
page.
Rather than me waxing
poetic about Hebert (I called
him Hebert rather than
Tom if he was irritating me,
which was often), I will let
him tell you about himself,
starting with his credo:
“Live a life of adventure,
admit to failures, and learn
from them. Put community
before self and buy a good
horse.”
Here are more jewels
from the man everybody
loved to hate.
“Perhaps my life falls
between garrulous glorifier
and servant. That I can live
with.”
“To lose a friend is a kind
of death.”
“When I believe that a
friendship is on the rocks, I
have a panic attack.”
“Usually, my tears are not
warranted.”
“To some friends I have
become a burden.”
“Gadflies, drivers, and
mavericks tread on thin ice.”
“Talkative garrulous Tom
is a major part of the prob-
lem.”
“Aging doesn’t help.
Sometimes I get stressed out
and feel lonesome.”
“An axis exists balancing
loyalty and the horrors of
betrayal.”
“There’s a saying, ‘Don’t
let your age disgrace your
youth.’ I’m working on it.”
Some things you may not
know, but can appreciate
Hebert’s claims:
• He was a “government
spy, for about an hour,”
while working for the State
Department in Africa in
1979. “I did my spying over
lunch when I ‘borrowed’
certain documents from
the Bulgarians’ desks and
fast had them copied at the
Embassy.”
• Tom worked with John
Fusco, producer and screen-
writer of the 2004 film
Hidalgo. Three years later,
Fusco wrote: “Tom is not
only a fine horseman and
talented writer, but he knows
more about preserving
and promoting Barb horse
breeds than anyone I know.”
• He was hired in 1965 to
teach English and speech at
Prairie View & College in
Prairie View, Texas. Hebert
was the first white teacher
East Oregonian, File
Tom Hebert in 2018 poses
for this portrait in down-
town Pendleton. Hebert,
who called himself a gadfly
due to his drive to pester lo-
cal governments to improve,
died Feb. 8, 2022, in Mon-
mouth. He was 83.
Tom Hebert/Contributed Photo, File
at Prairie View, at the time
America’s largest histori-
cally Black college.
• In the Peace Corps
in Nigeria, he created a
national support network
and then organized the tour
of a traveling full-sized
Shakespearean stage folded
up on a semi-trailer and
45 actors and technicians,
3,000 bush miles, playing
in 23 cities and towns. On
that Shakespearian tour, he
learned the Emir of Kano,
then ruler of three million
people, had stolen his girl-
friend.
• In a late night Ibadan
street in 1964 he lost
an argument with Wole
Soyinka, an eventual Nobel
prize winner in literature,
about staging Shakespeare’s
“Comedy of Errors.” Hebert
had personal notes from
Soyinka pinned to the “brag
wall” in the little trailer he
rented from the late Randy
Severe.
• In Vietnam with the
USO in 1966, Hebert made
an assault landing off a Navy
LST with a hotdog machine.
• He was held hostage
twice and was fired on
simultaneously by the
Marine Corps and North
Vietnamese. “I got under my
bed with a bottle of cognac.”
• While working for
the United Nations during
the Biafra war in 1968,
Hebert was declared a
“mass murderer of chil-
dren,” placed under house
arrest, and expelled on a
nighttime gunrunning arms
flight and then, as a fellow
passenger and reporter
later wrote, “instantly held
under police guard on a
remote corner of the Lisbon
airport.” The “brag wall”
contained a photo of Hebert
in the airport flanked by two
soldiers with machine guns.
• He was condemned in
the May 16, 1972, Congres-
sional Record “all because
I didn’t sleep with a subor-
dinate. I later modified my
behavior … On Nov. 1, 1973,
I received a formal letter
of apology from the accus-
ing Congressman who was
later Clinton’s Secretary of
Defense.”
• He was interviewed
on National Public Radio
regarding a book about trade
schools he had co-authored.
The Chronicle of Higher
Education in 1972 wrote of
the book, “‘This Way Out’
is downright subversive.
It encourages the ancient
idea that a student need not
attend college to receive a
higher education.”
• He worked for eight
years as supervisor of the
Tennessee Valley Author-
ity Energy Conservation
and Solar Institute. The
Chattanooga Times, in a
1981 story headlined “He
Belies Images of Standard
Bureaucrat,” the newspa-
per described Hebert as a
“TVA executive that comes
to work sans coat and ties
and gets away with it, claims
to regard each day on the
job as an opening-night
performance.” Another
in the story said this: “He
seems to never slow down;
he has a tremendous amount
of energy and any task he
sets his mind to, he gets
done.” Tom conceived of
and put together a $4 million
two-barge, prize-win-
ning exhibition at the 1982
World’s Fair. In a 1986
letter of appreciation, a
TVA official said, “I think
the best compliment that
can be made to you is the
Tom Hebert served in the Peace Corps from 1962-64. His last assignment was as national tour
manager for the University of Ibadan’s Shakespeare Traveling Theatre, which played in 23
cities and towns in a 3,000 mile loop to audiences in the thousands.
Tom Hebert/Contributed Photo, File
Tom Hebert, near Calabar, Eastern Nigeria in 1964 sharing a
taxi with friends. Hebert lived in Pendleton for many years.
He died Feb. 8, 2022, at the age of 83.
fact that you were asked to
spend the last months of
your time with TVA work-
ing directly with with the
General Manager on ideas
that you had generated over
the years. — Thanks for the
battery charge. Your think-
ing is inspiring.“
• In 2013, the Waitsburg
(Washington) Times had
this to say: “We are encour-
aged by this initiative for
Cowgirl Ranch Racing,
which was floated and
facilitated by Tom Hebert,
a Pendleton-based consul-
tant who has been a staunch
advocate of the Centennial
Days of Real Sports ‘rein-
vention’ since the recent loss
of pari-mutual horse racing.”
The Walla Walla Union-Bul-
letin said of the Centennial’s
signature event, “Hebert’s
foresight lit a fire under a
local non-profit, the business
community and the mayor.
Cowgirl Ranch Racing was
born … Hebert was an inspi-
ration and we thank him
for his vision, patience and
perseverance.”
Tom did a lot of work
during his 20 years on the
Umatilla Indian Reserva-
tion, particularly focusing
on Cayuse horses, and with
Chief Bill Burke and the late
Doug Minthorn, who gave
Tom a place to stay when
he arrived here, was an
outspoken advocate of using
a small percentage of casino
earnings to fund drug and
alcohol prevention. He also
helped organize the Ticham,
the Tribes’ Conservation
District.
Long-time leader Antone
Minthorn, in the Confed-
erated Umatilla Journal,
wrote: “Hebert knows a lot
about Cayuse mustangs. He
knows all the breeders and
he’s always promoting the
Cayuse as being a part of
the history of our people. He
wants them – the horses and
the people – to come back
together again.”
In 2010, outgoing
Umatilla tribal Executive
Director Don Sampson (who
is ED again) said in a letter
to Hebert: “Tom, you’ve
been my conscience.” Dave
Tovey, the succeeding exec-
utive director, said, “Tom,
you are a valued community
member and have achieved
‘institutional’ status. I was
taught early on that ‘show
me someone in Indian
Country that no one hates,
and I’ll show you someone
that hasn’t accomplished or
tried anything.’”
Well, I see I have
stretched beyond my word
limit. If you would like to
read a shorter version, look
for Tom’s obituary, which he
helped me write, in the East
Oregonian.
———
Wil Phinney retired in
January 2021 after a 44-year
newspaper career. He lives
in Pendleton with his wife
Carrie. They have three
daughters.
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