W EDNESDAY , J UNE 8, 2016
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www.MyEagleNews.com
The
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
DISTRACTED TO DEATH
EO Media Group/E.J. Harris
Shannon Moulton of Richland, Washington, holds a photo of her daughter, Alexxyss, as traffic passes by on Highway 395 in Pendleton. Moulton lost her
daughter after she collided with a vehicle while driving from Long Creek on Highway 395 and using her smartphone in February.
Mother on quest to end ‘epidemic’ of distracted driving
By Phil Wright
EO Media Group
Alexxyss Therwhanger was 18
when she got her fi rst tattoo: “I love
you, Mom.”
Her mother, Shannon Moulton, a
tattoo enthusiast, said she replied in
ink as well with “I love you more.”
Alexxyss the afternoon of Feb. 19
left a friend’s place in Long Creek, a
small town in remote Grant County,
Unity slate
divides
state GOP
convention
By Paris Achen
Capital Bureau
SALEM — A slate of can-
didates seeking positions as
Oregon delegates to the Re-
publican National Conven-
tion ran on a platform that
they would help unify the
party. Instead, the slate and
a confl ict over ballot rules
caused division in the party
during the statewide conven-
tion in Salem Saturday.
The slate included 48
candidates — mostly polit-
ical insiders — to fi ll every
position in the delegation.
Among them were state Reps.
Bill Post, R-Keizer, and Greg
Barreto, R-Cove, Sen. Kim
Thatcher, R-Keizer, and Ou-
rania Yue, the wife of Repub-
lican National Committee-
man Solomon Yue Jr.
The slate came to the con-
vention with campaign ma-
terials, set out on attendees’
chairs, and endorsements from
13 organizations, including the
Ted Cruz and Donald Trump
campaigns, Oregon Right to
Life and Oregon Small Busi-
ness Association.
When some party mem-
bers saw the ballot for at-
large delegates, they stopped
See GOP, Page A18
“
This is my new project. I don’t want any
other family to have to go through this.”
— Shannon Moulton
and headed north on Highway 395
in a 1998 Buick Century to return to
Hermiston. She lived in Hermiston
most of her life and was staying there
again. South of Pilot Rock she drift-
ed into the other lane and crashed
head-on into a Lincoln Continental.
The two occupants of that car,
Frank Wimberley and Donnetta
Kulis of Prairie City, were injured.
Alexxyss died. She was 19.
Oregon State Police investigated
and determined Alexxyss was using
her smartphone throughout her trip.
Shannon, 42, now is raising awareness
of the dangers of distracted driving.
“This is my new project,” she
said. “I don’t want any other family
to have to go through this.”
Oregon State Police used Alexx-
yss’s phone records to determine
a time line leading up to the fatal
crash. Lt. Mike Turner, commander
of the Pendleton offi ce, said based
on the records and driving time,
Alexxyss never stopped the car
when she handled the phone.
“Everywhere she had coverage,
she was texting, sending and receiving
texts, taking calls, sharing and review-
ing Facebook pages,” Turner said.
The Oregon Department of Trans-
portation defi nes distractions as
“anything that diverts your attention
away from focusing on your primary
task — operating your vehicle — and
See QUEST, Page A18
PREPARING FOR
DISASTER
Agencies work together for success
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
J
OHN DAY — Emergency responders fl ocked to
the scene of an apparent crash and fi re Thursday,
June 2, but there was no need to panic — it was
only a drill.
On the side of the highway, about 4 miles east
of John Day, the scene included an overturned vehicle
and a school bus with 21 teen “patients” with various
injuries.
The mock emergency also involved a fi re which
“spread” to the nearby hill.
While operations were ongoing at the crash scene, a
call came in to John Day 911 dispatch for fi ve residents
of Valley View Assisted Living Facility who had symp-
toms of the norovirus — all a part of the drill.
“It’s a county emergency management and hospital
emergency preparedness event,” said Kara Kohfi eld,
who was the mass-casualty incident director of oper-
ations. “For the hospital, this drill is meeting state and
federal requirements to prove that we have the resourc-
es to help our communities.”
See DRILL, Page A18
The Eagle/Angel Carpenter
Emergency responders work to remove “patients” from a Grant School District
bus during a disaster drill held on Thursday morning on Highway 26 east of
John Day, including firefighters William Reffett, left, and Dylan Brandsma. The
“patient” being removed from the back bus window is Grant Union student
Brett Copenhaver.
Celebrate the good old ’62 Days
Meet the grand marshal:
Mary Ellen Brooks
Blue Mountain Eagle
CANYON CITY —
Missing the good old days?
Celebrate them with a
good old time at the ’62
Days Celebration Friday and
Saturday, June 10 and 11, in
Canyon City.
The festivities kick off
Friday evening with high-
lights from the documen-
tary concert “Romancing
the West,” presented by the
Grant County Chamber of
Commerce, at 6 p.m. at the
Canyon City Community
Center. Tickets to the show
cost $15, or two for $25.
Saturday’s
schedule
starts bright and early with
breakfast at 6 a.m., and the
Gold Rush Walk/Run at 7
a.m.
The parade begins at 11
a.m. with this year’s theme,
By Cheryl Hoefl er
Blue Mountain Eagle
Eagle file photo
The Whiskey Gulch Gang, organizers of the
annual ’62 Days Celebration, have a rootin’
shootin’ time during the parade in 2015. This
year’s event will be Friday and Saturday, June 10
and 11, in Canyon City.
“Tell me About the Good
Old Days.” Lifelong Grant
County resident Mary Ellen
Brooks will be riding and
waving in style as the pa-
rade grand marshal.
Afternoon
activities
include a barbecue and
ice cream social from
noon to 3 p.m., the mock
See ‘62, Page A3
CANYON CITY — Reign-
ing over the ’62 Days parade this
Saturday will be Grant County
native Mary Ellen Brooks.
Brooks has lived in Mt.
Vernon since high school, but
she was born in Canyon City
and spent her early years there,
including attending fi rst- and
second-grade at the Rebel Hill
school.
Her family’s roots in Canyon
City date back even further.
Her great-grandfather, Mar-
tin Lucas, settled in the town in
the mid-1860s and helped build
St. Thomas Episcopal Church
a few years later. One of his
children, Etta (Lucas) Clark,
Brooks’ grandmother, was born
in 1878. During the Bannock
uprising between the U.S. mil-
itary and Paiute and Bannock
tribes that year, while her grand-
mother was just a baby, the fam-
ily hid in a cave for several days
until the confl ict subsided.
Clark reigned as Pioneer
queen during the ’62 Days
Celebration of 1957. From the
event’s early years through the
1960s, a full “pioneer program”
was part of the festivities which
included a pioneer queen, musi-
cal programs, pageants, histori-
cal and patriotic presentations,
and a multitude of competitions
See BROOKS, Page A3