ECLIPSE 2017
Volume 142, Issue 34
www.Polkio.com
August 23, 2017
$1.00
Weekend
brings no major
incidents for
first responders
By Emily Mentzer
The Itemizer-Observer
POLK COUNTY — While the weekend was packed
with live concerts, street performers, food trucks,
beer and wine gardens, culminating in the big
event — the Great American Eclipse — for law en-
forcement, it was mostly business as usual.
Sheriff Mark Garton credited that to the commu-
nication between agencies prior to the event.
“If we didn’t plan well enough, it could have gone
really bad,” Garton said. “Everyone was really guess-
ing in our planning stages. A good thing is all the dif-
ferent agencies — public safety, the hospital, vine-
yards, the farming community — we had meetings
often for the last six to eight months.”
Dallas saw a few incidents, said Dallas Police Lt.
Jerry Mott.
“We had one significant domestic violence inci-
dent involving a gun where the suspect fought po-
lice,” Mott said. “He had been drinking and carrying
the gun concealed at the event downtown, but the
actual call and arrest came after he drank some
more at home.”
A couple people were warned about using mari-
juana in public. Others were encouraged to leave
the event safely when they were intoxicated and be-
coming disorderly. A few people were arrested for
driving under the influence of intoxicants, but Mott
said those were not necessarily related to the Dallas
Eclipse Celebration on the Square.
“We had an unconfirmed report of men urinating
on a business across from a bar and exposing (them-
selves) to passing females,” Mott said. “No urine was
present when officers arrived. No one exposing
themselves, either.”
Some girls found a “significant amount of money”
and turned it into police, Mott said.
“If the owner isn’t found, they will get to keep it,”
he said.
At one point, officers left the event in downtown to
look for a small child who went missing, Mott said.
“An officer found him sleeping in a closet at
home,” he said.
Overall, Mott said the incidents encountered over
the weekend were “not a lot of problems.”
See ECLIPSE, Page 11A
Background photos
by ROGER HARNACK and JEFF MENTZER
Polk County Courthouse by DAVID ROSEN
For more Eclipse coverage, see Pages 6A and 7A.
Lifelong dream realized at Illahe Vineyards
Eclipse chasers find joy, delight in Great American Eclipse viewing party in Polk
By Jolene Guzman
The Itemizer-Observer
DALLAS — At about
9:25 a.m., Lisa Hoople
looked up at the sun
shortly after the Great
American Eclipse began
at Illahe Vineyards in
Dallas.
“It’s starting to really
shape up as the moon
now,” she said.
Hoople, from Port-
land, watched the eclipse
with her husband, James
Hoople, and Carrie De
Graaf, who visited them
from Michigan just for
this occasion.
They had planned
ahead. They even made
a dry run of their drive
from Portland on all
back roads to get to the
vineyard in case of bad
traffic. It took two
hours, so they stayed for
a wine tasting after
route testing and made
a connection with Illa-
he’s tasting room man-
ager Kathy Greysmith.
“She was pouring for
us and we had a blast,”
James Hoople said. “We
fell in love with this place
right then and there.”
Monday, the three of
them were ready to final-
ly experience the event
they had been looking
forward to for so long.
James Hoople has
been talking and think-
ing about it for two
years. He considered it
an item on his bucket
list, and the day seemed
almost spiritual for
him.
De Graaf also had
been planning for two
years to view the eclipse
in the path of totality. In
her home state, the view
would be only 75 to 80
percent.
Monday, she soaked
up as much of it as she
could. She leaned back
in her chair with her
solar glasses on and just
watched.
“I’m comfortable and
my head is in the right
spot,” she said.
When the eclipse was
at 75 percent, she said:
“This is what it’s going to
be like at home.”
Greysmith witnessed
the 1979 eclipse, but
could only experience it
through a pinhole pro-
jector.
She squealed with glee
when she put on a pair of
viewing glasses at the be-
ginning of the eclipse.
Later, as totality ap-
proached, she emerged
from the tasting room,
glasses in hand saying
for everyone to hear,
“It’s going to happen!”
The air cooled — tem-
peratures dropped 20
degrees by totality — as
the sky got darker. Peo-
ple pointed to Venus as it
emerged bright in the
sky.
Totality brought a
round of applause from
watchers at the vineyard.
“It was everything they
said it was going to be,”
De Graaf said.
The experience brought
James Hoople to tears,
marveling at the rareness
of the event and having
been at the right place
and time to see it.
“I have a very short
bucket list, and seeing
the eclipse was on it,” he
said. “To see something
like that, it took my
breath away.”
After totality, Grey-
smith laughed at her re-
action, saying: “I’m still a
child at heart.”
Still, she said seeing
the moon block out the
JOLENE GUZMAN/ Itemizer-Observer
Kathy Greysmith, Illahe Vineyard’s tasting room manager, squeals with delight as
she puts on her eclipse viewing glasses to witness the dance between sun and moon.
sun was momentous.
“I don’t have any
words that are beyond
what anybody else has
said,” she said, pausing.
“It’s beyond words. I was
just so excited inside. A
great event in my life-
time.”
Around 10:45 a.m.,
people began to make
plans to head home, but
Lisa Hoople and De
Graaf were still watching
the second half of the
eclipse.
“It’s an eyebrow now,”
De Graaf said describing
the shape of the sun.
“Or a frown,” Lisa
Hoople said.
“No. It’s an eyebrow,”
De Graaf said. “There are
no frowns today.”
wed
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Partly cloudy
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