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WARM SPRINGS
Community tries to preserve
language as elders slip away
RANDALL KILBY |
ACCUSED OF MURDER IN BEND
Neighbors
were afraid
of suspect
for years
BY GARRETT ANDREWS
The Bulletin
Dean Guernsey/Bulletin photos
Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs elders from front to back, Viola Govenor, 82, Marcia Minthorn, 78, Willard Tewee, 72, and Lonnie James, 63, in a
classroom where native language is taught on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation.
More than 20 people at Warm Springs have died from COVID-19,
taking their knowledge of language and tradition with them
BY MICHAEL KOHN • The Bulletin
instructors, 84-year-old Viola Govenor closed her eyes and broke into song in Sahaptin, her native language. The
melody rose and fell as the others listened intently to her impromptu song. There may not be many more times to
hear it.
Govenor is one of the last speak-
ers of her language, and there
are fewer now in the wake of the
COVID-19 pandemic, which
claimed the lives of more than 20
Warm Springs community mem-
bers, some of them fluent speakers
of their indigenous language.
The pandemic, which has cut
short millions of lives, is now
threatening the traditions and lan-
guages of indigenous people in Or-
egon. Those who know the tradi-
tions the best, the elder population,
have seen their numbers dwindle
to the point where the stream of
knowledge is being undercut.
Govenor, who was hospital-
ized herself with COVID-19, lost
friends to the disease and spent
months in isolation. She missed
the powwows and meetings. She
missed out on funerals for loved
ones. Mostly, she missed the op-
portunity to pass along knowledge
of her fragile culture.
“We don’t get together too of-
ten anymore to share it with the
younger generation,” said Gove-
nor, wisps of gray and black hair
framing a face burnished during
a youth spent riding horses in the
sunshine near her home on Mutton
Mountain, close to the village of
Simnasho.
“I thank the lord that I was able
to leave the hospital and I am still
here doing the work that I really
enjoy. Our language has to go on,”
she said.
“We have a certain way that we put our dead away ; it used to be two to three days. We
haven’t been able to have our washat, our drumming, when we sing over the body. We
haven’t been able to dance around the deceased ; it’s hurtful and very depressing.”
An offer of help
Kilby had a friend in Jeffrey Taylor,
though.
The two met when they worked for an in-
dependent contractor that cleaned commer-
cial kitchen stove hoods.
Taylor let Kilby park a trailer outside his
Granite Drive home when Kilby got out of
prison.
Jeffrey Taylor once ran a catering business
in Bend but lately had been on disability.
With the neighborhood mailboxes located
outside his house, he was known to say
hello to everyone picking up mail.
For years, neighbors told Jeffrey Taylor
that Kilby was “no good,” but he insisted his
friend just needed help.
“He was very laid-back. Very nice guy,”
said neighbor Jerry Stanyer, Susan’s hus-
band. “He maybe trusted people too much
is what he did.”
Neighbors grew to recognize the signs
Randall was around: loud arguments that
spilled into the street, strangers working on
cars at odd hours.
Kilby had grown up in Bend, his parents
operating the 7-Eleven franchise on East
Third Avenue.
He has a criminal record throughout his
adult life — burglary, vehicle theft, resisting
arrest — but nothing as severe as the mur-
der charges he’s facing.
Kilby’s attorney, TJ Spear, declined to
comment for this article, citing the conduct
code of the Oregon State Bar.
— Marcia Minthorn, a 78-year-old Warm Springs community member
See Language / A4
TODAY’S
WEATHER
Some sun
High 61, Low 28
Page B6
See Kilby / A5
INDEX
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Dear Abby
C1-8
B5
C3
Editorial
Horoscope
Local/State
A6
C3
A2-3
Lottery
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B2
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C5-6
Obituaries
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A9-11
C4
B1-4
The Bulletin
An Independent Newspaper
We use
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Vol. 119, No. 75, 30 pages, 4 sections
SUN/THU
I
n a brightly lit classroom on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, sitting among other senior-aged language
Arriving home from work, Susan
Stanyer’s heart would fall whenever she
saw Randall Kilby’s car parked outside her
neighbor’s home at 60971 Granite Drive.
Neighbors like Stanyer, who lives across
the street, say their corner of the Romaine
Village subdivision in Bend is quiet and
crime-free. But when Kilby showed up five
years ago, after a stint in prison, he brought
an air of menace. He lived
in a trailer on the Granite
Drive property, often yell-
ing at people there.
“We just felt different
when Randall was living
here,” Stanyer said. “We’ve
been uncomfortable with
Randall Kilby,
him for five years.”
shown in
There was reason to feel
March, had a
that way about Kilby. He
string of police had a string of police ar-
arrests and
rests and criminal convic-
criminal con-
tions dating back to
victions dating November 2001 that in-
back to No-
cluded burglary, theft and
vember 2001
assault. But none of that
that included
prepared neighbors for
burglary, theft
what they discovered last
and assault.
Sunday.
Kilby, 35, now stands ac-
cused of killing three people in the Granite
Drive house: A March 20 hatchet attack on
brothers-in-law Jeffrey Allen Taylor, 66, and
Benjamin “Benny” Harlin Taylor, 69, and an
alleged Christmas Day beating of 43-year-
old Daphne Banks, who was in a coma for
weeks and died in January after being taken
off life support.
Kilby is due to be arraigned Monday in
Deschutes County Circuit Court.
The killings left many in the community
asking questions, notably, why Kilby wasn’t
in jail earlier. These people include neigh-
bors, relatives and alleged victims who say
they were shocked by killings, but not sur-
prised Kilby is the suspect.
“Quite a few people around here didn’t
care that much for Randall,” said neighbor
Dorothy Evans. “A lot of people said that he
was bad news.”
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