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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 16, 2019)
OPINION Wallowa County Chieftain A4 Wednesday, October 16, 2019 VOICE of the CHIEFTAIN Indigenous Peoples Day: a time to honor and remember F or most of us, the sec- ond Monday in Octo- ber has been cele- brated as Columbus Day, a time when banks and post offi ces are closed, and we think, however briefl y, about Columbus’ discovery of America. History, however, has broadened our under- standing of the negative reper- cussions of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria’s arrival to a continent already popu- lated with bustling, sophisti- cated cultures and economies of its own. So what has been known as Columbus Day is more and more recognized as Indigenous Peoples Day in honor of the Americas’ estab- lished inhabitants whose lives would be upended and whose populations decimated by the arrival of Europeans. South Dakota was the fi rst state to transform Columbus Day into a time to honor the heritage of the hundreds of cultures that once fl ourished here. In Oregon, the second Monday in October was offi - cially designated Indigenous Peoples Day in 2017 to “rec- ognize the many contributions made to our communities through indigenous peoples.” Archeologists’ and anthro- pologists’ estimates of the number of native inhabitants of the Americas in 1491 vary from James Mooney’s 1.1 million to Henry F. Dobyn’s newer, somewhat contro- versial, but increasingly accepted, 112 million—a greater population than Europe at the time. When the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto moved through the Mis- sissippi Valley in 1539, his expedition records noted a thickly settled land “very well peopled with large towns.” The tragic loss of 90 to 96 percent of the indigenous pop- ulation, estimated by Timothy K. Perttula, an archaeologist who specializes in indigenous population numbers came not so much from confl ict as from the unintentional coast-to- coast spread of diseases, from smallpox and measles to viral hepatitis that swept repeatedly through indigenous popula- tions. This carnage occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries, long before Lewis and Clark, manifest destiny, and Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears, and was unintentional. But it also created the illusion that this was a pristine and unin- habited continent, with for- ests, grasslands, and waters untouched and untrammeled by humanity. We are learning that the sophisticated peoples who lived here long before the arrival of Europeans managed their landscapes and resources assiduously. They set fi res to the buffalo prairies in the fall. They kept forest fl oors open and rich in grassy forage with similar burns from New England to the Northwest. They harvested game, but also managed the numbers. And generally, they did this sustainably. What European newcomers saw as wilderness was the heritage of a carefully managed, and often cultivated North American landscape. So it is right to honor this heritage with an Indigenous Peoples Day. And to learn from it. Every time we eat a tomato, chomp on an ear of corn, or dive into a baked potato, we are celebrating the peoples who brought us those foods. And now, as we care- fully reintroduce fi re into a landscape that had adapted to fi re for millennia before us, we are honoring them again. Enterprise High School’s talented artist Do-gooders do good STUDENT VOICES in Wallowa County N Destiny Wecks W hen asked what draw- ing means to her, Kodie Paige Kiser, a 15-year- old Enterprise High School soph- omore, simply replied, “It’s not necessarily therapeutic, but it calms me down; it’s really fun to sit down to draw and paint!” Her recent works include designing the logo for her brother’s band, The Jake Walk Saints. Kiser sat down to tell me all about her love for art and what she wants to accomplish with the great skills she possesses. “So, what got me into draw- ing was in the 6th grade, so about 3 or 4 years ago. I was really into the stretched portraits and the haunted mansion,” Kiser said “and so I drew them, and it all escalated from there into actually doing art.” “What inspires me most is peo- ple. I really like drawing people; I would say that’s what I’m best at,” Kiser said. “In general, probably TV shows and scenery is what I enjoy when doing watercolor. For more sketched drawings, I lean towards people and things that are living, and things that I can give personality and a life to.” She said that forest scenes are her favor- ite, and water and the ocean are always fun to draw and color as well. Many others have noticed the skills and the potential art gift that young Kiser has. A huge opportu- nity came to Kiser from her older brother, Casey Kiser. He asked her to do the logo for his band, The Jake Walk Saints, at the beginning of the summer, which she fully and happily took on. The task was to hand-draw and color the logo that many people would see and associate with the growing band. “I remember him mentioning ear- lier that he wanted something with cards, and the colors black and red with a cat.” From there, Kiser drew a black cat with beautiful green eyes and three cards that read the band’s name. Kiser also said that she “would love to get into the more business part of designing logos and doing animations which would be super fun.” After high school, she has thought about art college; how- ever, she hasn’t decided yet. In the Photos by Destiny Wecks Kodie Kiser is a talented artist at Enterprise High School Drawings by Kodie Kiser show her talent. future she would defi nitely like to do animations to music, and thinks “doing logos would be really fun for a side job.” At school, you can fi nd Kiser packing her big red fl ip sketch book along with her many pencils and blending tools. She is always drawing and improving her art techniques and skills. “I have art class to do art for my assignments, but in my own spare time, I like to do art and sit and just relax and be chill,” Kiser said. Editors note: This column by Enterprise High School student Destiny Wecks is the fi rst of a new series of columns and contribu- tions by high school students from across Wallowa County. LETTERS to the EDITOR Good luck, David Ribich To the editor, I want to mention how won- derful it is that Enterprise High School and Wallowa County pro- duced a runner who qualifi ed for the 2020 Olympic trials in the 1500 meter race. David Ribich has been an amazing runner for many, many years. Good luck, David. Cathryn Paterson Enterprise Dog owners should be more responsible Well, Joseph is being taken over by dogs and their irrespon- sible owners. Just this morning, just before daybreak, a lady with her dog off leash to let it poop in the neighbors yard and contin- ued walking on. I’m seeing more and more dogs off-leash, and thus more dog poop, in Joseph. Come on humane society — quit promot- ing adoptions of these emotionally scarred dogs and promote respon- sible dog ownership instead. Marge Smith Joseph o one gets paid to be a member of the Soropti- mist, Lions Club, Rotary, the Hospital Foundation, 4-H Leaders Association, the PEO, the new Wallowa Mountains Hells Canyon Trails Association or any of a dozen other organiza- tions not listed that exist to make life richer and better in Wallowa County. In fact, you probably have to pay dues for the privilege in most cases, and then cough up money for the projects your group takes on, like chip in extra for a scholarship, the food bank, or high school band trip, or put money in the baseball cap for the team you are volunteer coaching. I’ve written about the Sorop- timist before, but I’ll remind you that they raise and give away over $100,000 each year! And they raise that money by keep- ing scores of families in cloth- ing, shoes, silverware and dishes that they can afford. Sell enough plates and levis for quarters and it adds up! I’ve been involved with sev- eral do-good outfi ts over the years—the Eagle Cap Ski Club, which became Fergi, goes on. I don’t know how many skis and boots Charlie Kissinger has slipped onto how many kids, but Fergi has created a lot of ski- ers—and snowboarders. I’ve been on the board of the Wal- lowa Nez Perce Homeland for years, and scores of people, beginning with Terry Crenshaw and Taz Conner, have made that organization, the powwow and the grounds, something good and proud. But right now I got horn- swoggled into the presidency of Rotary, and it got me to thinking about all the things that Rotary has been involved with for more than three decades. I’ll start with “Coats for Kids,” because win- ter is coming, and Marilyn Dal- ton and Rob Lamb are lining up brand new coats to be given to pre-schoolers and elementary school students before it does. There’s the Spelling Bee, introduced by Jolene Cox with the idea that spelling teams com- pete for money that will then be given to their own favorite char- ities. The OK Theater was a ben- efi ciary one year, and now hosts the annual event. Scholarships. Rotary can’t match the Soroptimists, who give away about $20,000 annu- ally to local students, but we do our share. As do the Lions, PEO, Stockgrowers, and many other organizations. Rotary uses the proceeds of the Lostine River Run to help fund scholarships. Bob Crawford, a long-ago Wal- lowa High graduate who went on to teach and superintendent schools for years, matched up the run and the scholarships, Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884 M EMBER O REGON N EWSPAPER P UBLISHERS A SSOCIATION Published every Wednesday by: EO Media Group VOLUME 134 USPS No. 665-100 P.O. Box 338 • Enterprise, OR 97828 Offi ce: 209 NW First St., Enterprise, Ore. Phone: 541-426-4567 • Fax: 541-426-3921 Contents copyright © 2019. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. General manager, Jennifer Cooney, jcooney@wallowa.com Editor, Ellen Morris Bishop, editor@wallowa.com Publisher, Chris Rush, crush@eomediagroup.com Reporter, Stephen Tool, steve@wallowa.com Reporter, Bill Bradshaw, bbradshaw@wallowa.com Administrative Assistant, Amber Mock, amock@wallowa.com Advertising Assistant, Cheryl Jenkins, cjenkins@wallowa.com MAIN STREET Rich Wandschneider and recently made two jobs of his one: Steve Kliewer is our River Run man, and Anette Christoffersen is handling the scholarships. When Dick Burch was pres- ident of Rotary years ago, he decided to make putting AEDs—“Automated Exter- nal Defi brillators”—around the county his special project. There are now 77 devices spread from Wallowa to Imnaha, and Dick still trains people to use them and checks them regularly. The fi rst AED life saved happened this summer. And while on health matters, Rotary had a modest but import- ant role in bringing the Ore- gon Health Sciences Universi- ty’s family practice residency program here. In the 1980s Drs. Lowell Euhus and Scott Siebe were the only two local practi- tioners. They were also Rotari- ans. At a rural health care meet- ing in La Grande, Lowell told the crowd that rural communities weren’t attracting new docs, and that he and Scott were wearing down. The head of OHSU’s fam- ily practice program was at the meeting, and said that he could fi x the problem, that from here on out all of his residents would be required to do two-month rural rotations, and that it would begin in Wallowa County. It went well for a time, with OHSU renting a local house for the visiting docs. They were about to pull the rent plug, and Lowell gathered a bunch of people around him to raise money to keep it going. Rotar- ians Don Green and Don Swart quickly took the lead. And then the informal group decided that we should own a house rather than raise money for rent. Mick Courtney stepped up and donated a lot; Tom Gleasman lined up construction crews at cost or better; and Don Green committed Rotary to the land- scaping. The fi rst Hospital Auc- tion and grants from Meyer Trust and the Oregon Commu- nity Foundation provided cash, and the Doctors House on the hill came to be. It, and a stream of OHSU residents, some of whom have come back to prac- tice locally, including Dr. Eliz- abeth Powers and her husband, Nic, who is now CEO of Wind- ing Waters. And the list of local do-good- ers is much longer, so slap some- one on the back, or pick up a shovel and groom a trail. 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