4 DECEMBER 15, 2004
Smoke Signals
Business Association Honors Hatfield
The Senator's work benefiting the Umatillas is highlighted in evening gala.
By Ron Karten
Everybody loves Mark O.
Hatfield.
The man who has held every
major elected office in Oregon, the
elder statesman whose bona fides
are still intact after 46 years in pub
lic life and nearly another ten in
active retirement, last week was
named 2004 Statesman of the Year
by the Portland-based Oregon Busi
ness Association.
Indians from many Tribes were
on hand to support the man who
was instrumental in Restoration
legislation of the 1980s, including
Restoration for the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde. The Grand
Rondes and Cow Creeks were ma
jor sponsors of the evening's event.
Umatilla Chairman Antone
Minthorn was co-recipient of one of
three Oregon Values Awards pre
sented after the dinner. The Val
ues awards were given in three cat
egories - investment, collaboration
and action to highlight the ways
that Hatfield's values translated
into concrete results throughout
Oregon.
Minthorn received the Collabora
tion award along with Hadley
Akins, a banker who once repre
sented irrigator interests along the
Umatilla River. Irrigators and the
Umatillas had been adversaries for
much of the last century because
the Bureau of Reclamation gave
water rights to the Indians for fish
ing in 1857 and then gave those
same rights to irrigators in 1907.
But the Bureau did not just give
away the water rights twice. It also
diverted water the fish needed with
an ambitious dam project that re
sulted in irrigators alone using the
water.
Hatfield's contribution was to
work with these and other groups
to bring in water diverted from the
Columbia River.
The other awards went to the
Oregon Hearing Research Center
at Portland-based Oregon Health
Sciences University and to Eugene
based Mobility International, a
group running international ex
change programs for folks handi
capped in one way or another.
What the folks from Mobility
think about their disabilities was
made clear not only by their par
ticipation in the group's programs,
but also by a
plaque affixed
to the back of
one wheelchair
that read:
Handicrap.
In a video
highlighting
moments in
Hatfield's life
and comments
about his work
from a range of
players on
Oregon's busi
ness and politi
cal scene, Cow
Creek Chair
man Sue
Shaffer said
that Hatfield
"never forgot his
roots in rural
Oregon."
Hatfield Legis
lative Director Sue Hildick, who
was also instrumental in develop
ing Grand Ronde's Mark O.
Hatfield Fellowship, said that
Hatfield's office was always like a
classroom. (Hatfield started his ca-
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Remembering The Good Times Former Grand Ronde Consultant Len Bergstein, standing, rekindled old
friendships during the program. Bergstein bolted from Grand Ronde years ago to work for the Confederated Tribes of the
Warm Springs. From far left is Grand Ronde's former Chairwoman Kathryn Harrison, Tribal Council member Angie
Blackwell (center) and Tribal Council Secretary June Sell-Sherer (right.) Inset is Elizabeth Hatfield Keller M.D., the Senator's
daughter, who accepted the award.
Reflections Cow Creek Chairman Sue Shaffer talked
to Grand Ronde Lobbyist Justin Martin (in the mirror) as they
stood among a group that also included former Grand Ronde
Tribal Council Chairwoman Kathryn Harrison and new Tribal
Council member Chris Mercier.
reer as an instructor of political sci
ence at Willamette University.) "He
loved watching people grow and
thrive."
She credited his success to his
ability to form fruitful personal re
lationships and to his pragmatism.
Hatfield's daughter, Elizabeth
Hatfield Keller M.D., added his
sense of priorities to reasons for his
success. "It was always God first,
my mother second, the children
next, and then all of you."
Keller went on to call for "revolu
tion" in her father's name. She en
couraged the audience to "open our
hearts to experience outrage."
In calling for "a spiritual renais
sance," she also came down on the
"quote Religious Right," for taking
religion out of the realm of the per
sonal and placing it in the public
square, and then using it to sit in
judgment of others.
While acknowledging that her
father was "not perfect there is no
Saint Mark," she noted that he did
have qualities largely missing from
today's public discussions.
"My father had the ability to dis
agree as a gentleman," she said.
The Statesman of the Year was
ill and unable to attend.
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