Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 23, 1956)
o L ! BRAKY U OF 0 EUGENE. ORE Copies 1 0 Cents Horse Show Friday Expected to Draw Many Entries One of the popular events of the Morrow county fair and rodeo win be the horse show on Friday, August 31 sponsored again this year by the Wranglers. A lull morning and afternoon program is again scheduled. Show officials emphasized this week that anyone who is a resi dent of Morrow county is eligible to enter any of the fair events, but that horses must have been owned and kept in the county at least 30 days proir to the time of entry. Entries for the horse show must be in by 8 p. rn. Wednesday, Aug ust 2D and entry blanks are avail able now at the office of Turner, Van Marter and Bryant, Insur ance. Fred Hill of Helix has. been named judge for the show and Joyce Buschke will act as secre tary, it was announced. Howard Bryant will be ring master. Hal ter classes will be held in the rodeo arena Friday morning and working classes that afternon. No admission will be charged to either of these events. The following people will be in charge of the various classes lor the horse show: F. R. Jones, colts foaled in 1956; John New man, yearlings foaled in 1955; Bruce Lindsay, two year olds foaled in 1954; Cornett Green, stallions, 3 years and over; Mer lyn Robinson, mares 3 years and over; Ralph Beamer, geldings 3 years and over; Howard Bryant, mare and produce; William Smet hurst, mare and nursing colt; Harry Dinges, Get of sire. Bill Heaiy, stock horse with bit; Bruce Lindsay, stock horse with hackamore; Floyd Hutchins, junior equitation class; Merlyn Robinson, western pleasure horse class; John Newman, gaited pleasure horse class; R. R. Ful leton, trail horse class; Howard Bryant and Cornett Green, cow cutting; Oscar George, junior calf roping; Mrs. Martin Bauern fiend, ponies on lead rope; John riders, and other ponies under 14 hands. o IONE POOL TO CLOSE The lone swimming pool will close for tile season Sunday, Aug ust 26. Mr. and Mrs. J. O. Turner left Saturday for Portland and went on- to the coast the first of the week. Joe Hughes accompanied them as far as Portland. , 1 !" . f PATB.ICA WRIGHT, Queen of the ceived her white Stetson hat as - j i r fx -1 ; rent of the chamber of commerce, at coronation ceremonies in downtown Heppner Saturday night following the Dress-Up parade, Shown are Princesses Pat Steagall, Sue Coleman. Queen Patsy, princesses Janet Myers and Maxine Sicard. Mrs. William Smet hurst, right, is chaperone for the court. Blakney is standing be hind Queen Patsy. A sizeable crowd witnessed the parade and cononation ceremonies which were followed by the Queen's dance at the fair pavilion. FLOODS NUMEROUS IN COUNTY'S HISTORY Record of Floods Shows Need (With the recent revived in terest in the construction) of a flood control and irrigation dam on Willow reek, the Gazette Times this week begins a series of articles on flood history and irrigation in the Willow creek val ley. The information was assem bled by Quentin Bowman, field engineer for the state water re sources board from government agency sources. The informa tion is also being used by the county water resources planning ,mmittPo in its studv of the wa ter and flood control needs of this area. Some of the information con tained in the report is well known to many residents, but it is pre Alonio Edmondson Injured When Pinned by Tractor Alonzo Edmondson, Balm Fork rancher suffered a compound fracture of his left leg and severe lacerations of the right when he was caught between a tractor and a hay stacker while working alone in a field near his home. Edmondson was pinned be tween the tractor and the stacker when it in some way got in gear and though pinned down he suc ceeded In reaching over the spin ning tracks to kill the motor. The accident occurred at about 8:30 Wednesday morning and it was 11:30 before his wife noticed his plight from the house through field glasses. He was brought to Pioneer Me morial hospital by ambulance where he is being treated by local physicians. His condition is de scribed as fair. Mercury Climbs During Week Old Sol rolled up his sleeves again this week and really bore down "on Morrow county bringing maximum temperatures Tuesday and Wednesday nearly to the 100 mark. The official high mark in Hepp ner Tuesday was a hot 96 and by 11 o'clock Wednesday morn ing had reached 97. Unofficial thermometers in downtown Hepp ner recorded well over 100 on both days. Despite the continuing hot wea ther, there have been no reports of any serious fires either In the forests or farm areas, but con tinued caution is urged on every one who uses the forests. Official temperatures at the Heppner weather station for the past week were: Max. Min. Thursday 79 47 Friday 82 50 Saturday 86 54 Sunday 90 55 Monday 93 59 Tuesday 96 58 Wednesday 97 Rev. Alfred Shirley To Leave lone Church Rev. Alfred Shirley, pastor of the lone Community church for the past 10 years, has resigned his pastorate and will move to Portland. He plans to do interim and free laice work there. He and Mrs. Shirley plan to leave for their new home early next week. No new minister has been named for the church. Morrow county fair and rodeo, re a crown from Phil Blakney, presi' (Photo by Clem Stockard) sented to give the overall picture of the study that has been made. Because of its length, the re port will be presented in sections.) Flood and Storm Characteristics Discharges above normal occur annually in the late winter and early spring months from melt ing snows in the headwaters re gion. The stages in these snow melt floods are very seldom high enough to exceed channel capa cities or cause notable damage. Summer storms are sudden and violent with intensly heavy rain fall over the upper portion of the basin. Most of these short dur ation storms are of cloudburst type that follow a comparatively narrow band crossing the basin Heppner, To Play in Saturday Shrine Game i ?Vi -,prM x r4N ' ED BROSNAN, Heppner high school tackle, will see action next Satur day night at Pendleton in the Shrine All-Star east-west football game. Brosnan weighs 175 and is the lightest tackle on the east team which is being coached by Jim Conroy, Malin, and John Co misky, Union. The east squad is working out at La Grande. The game and preceeding Shrine festivities and parade is expected to draw a capacity crowd at Round-Up park. (East Oregonian Photo) AIR FORCE FLIES IN INCUBATOR FOR LOCAL HOSPITAL EMERGENCY Premature babies for a while this week taxed the incubator facilities at Pioneer Memorial hospital . . but not for long, thanks to the assistance of the U. S. Army and the Air Force. The hosDital had its one incu bator occupied with a baby on Tuesday when another, prema ture birth required the use of the hospital's airlock to keep the in fant breathing. It appeared that the newest baby might require incubation for several days which would tie up all of the hospital's emereenev oxveen giving equip ment and leave none in case an- 80 BUSHEL WHEAT STORY BRINGS OTHER REPORTS OF HIGH YIELDS Last week's story concerning the harvesting of an 80 bushel average wheat crop on a 177 acre field in the Sand Hollow area this week brought addi tional reports to the Gazette Times of some exceptionally high yields. C. A. Tom informed this paper early this week that one 80 acre field on the former Ed wards place in Sand Hollow, MORROW AMONG NATION'S TOP COUNTIES IN BARLEY PRODUCTION A bureau of census report re leased this week shows Morrow county to be among the top 100 counties in the United States in the production of Barley. The fig ures were for the year 1954. Three other Oregon counties were listed among the top 100. Morrow county, with 44,045 acres of barley in 1954 ranked 71st in the acreage grown, but it placed 64th in production with a total of 1,281,722 bushels grown. Umatilla county was the top barley producer in Oregon with a total production of 2,125,475 bushels which ranked it 32nd in near the timber line. The con centrated rainfall precipitates a great volume of water that sweeps down the barren, steep sloped gulches and rapidly descending beds of intermittent stream cour ses to the main channel. The cloudbursts of greatest intensity have generally occurred in June. The destructive effect of these cloudburst floods is due more to the rugged character of the water shed and almost total absence of vegetation than to the unusual amounts of rainfall. The precipi tation during the 1903 storm per iod was one and one-half inches in 20 minutes. The steepness and bareness of the watershed re Oregon, Thursdoy, August 23, 1956 K tif f ' other emergency arose. Dr. Thomas of Condon Wednes day morning contacted the Spo kane, Washington Army hospital and Wednesday afternoon Robert Lowe of the hospital staff met an air force plane at the Lexington airport and received delivery of another, 'ncubator, I ef( to Pio neer Memorial hospital by the Spokane hospital to tide it over its emergency. Only very few hours elapsed between the time the emergency arose and the equipment was placed in operation at the hos pital. the yield was Gl and one-half bushels. He also said that on all his holdings in Morrow county his average wa3 over 40 bushels and that one ranch at Lexington came up with a 39 bushel average yield. This is more than 25 percent better than any previous year. Several other reports have been received of yields over 40 bushels and one of slightly over 50 in smaller fields. the nation In production. Klam ath had a production 2,096,927 bushels and a rank of 34th. Mor row county was tljird in Oregon, followed closely by Sherman with a production of 1,268,913 and a rank of 65th among the, counties of the nation. The biggest producer was Fres no county, California which grew nearly J3 and one-half million bushels on 234,672 acres. Bill Walker of Eugene was visiting with his grandmother, Mrs. Charles Barlow, last week. sulted in an immediate run-off of 1 approximately two-thirds of the total rainfall. History and Magnitude The first white settlements in the Willow creek basin were started in the early 1870's. The earliest major floods, according to historical records, occurred in 1883. This flood destroyed a large part of the early improvements and drowned livestock, but did not cause any konwn loss of hu man life. The reported high water marks of the 1883 flood ex ceeded any other flood stages known in the valley. Another major flood occurred in 1888, which caused the loss of live State Planning Rebuilding of Heppner Bridges Th chamber of commerer; re oived word this week from the state liiglnvay department that two major bridge improvement projects in Heppner will be in imlcd in the department's 1957 construction program. The two bridges which will be widened are the ones across Willow creek at the north end of Main street and the May street bridge directly west of the ourt house. Both carry heavy traffic and are only two lane width. The chamber of commerce and the city council has tried tor several years to get the highway department to improve the Main street bridge, and according to reports, it has In'en submitted in the department's plans by engi neers but rejected by the com mission in every instance. The letter to the chamber of commerce did not indicate whe ther the bridges would be com pletely rebuilt, or whether they would be just widened by plac ing the sidewalks outside the present railings. State engineers previously have said, however, that the present bridge was not constructed in such a manner as to allow widening which would make it appear that they will be rebuilt. The letter also said that the commission was to consider at its meeting last week, the construc tion of a footpath on the north side of the Heppner-Pilot Rock highway between the school buildings and the rodeo grounds. No report has been received as to the commission's action on this project. It has been proposed that a portion of the bank south of the highway near the grand stand be cut back to provide ad ditional parking space near the grounds, but engineers said that it was not the policy of the high way department to provide park ing area in such locations. There was no definite date set ftr the bridge work except during (he 1937 construction year. School Sign-Up Times Revealed Heppner school officials again reminded parents that they must accompany first grade students for registration which will be held in the afternoons on Thurs- lav.and Friday, August 30 and 31 and Tuesday, September 4. Ktich first grader will be required to have a birth certificate or some other Wficial evidence of birth and a health examination certificate. All ninth graders entering high school and all students new to Oregon schools also must have a physical examination. School will begin Wednesday morning, Sept. 5 at 8:45 with an assembly in the gymnasium at which time all students who pre-registered will have a chance to change their registration to correspond with the new sche dule. New students will register Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 4 and also any students with special registration problems. ! Cafeteria Not Finished Superintendent Joe Stewart an nounced this week that due to the steel strike and other diffi culties, the cafeteria will not be completed when school starts so it will be necessary for students to carry sack lunches or make other lunch arrangements for -a while. The home economics de partment will be finished, how ever, it was announced. for Willow Creek Dam stock, bridges and other im provements. Two lives were re ported lost in this flood. The re ports on high water marks are conflicting, but generally the flood of 1888 appears to have been lower than the floods of 1883 and 1903. The flood of June 11, 1903 was the most destructive flood that has occurred In the basin. This storm centered in the headwaters region of Balm Fork and Willow creek above Heppner. It occur red between 4 and 5 o'clock on Sunday afternoon and was accom panied by a cold wind and fall of hail that caused most of the resi dents to seek the shelter of their Fair And Program Everything is in readiness for the start of the Morrow county fair and rodeo the middle of next week, fair officials said today, and indicated that they expect more exhibits and interesting events than at any recent fair. One time change which fair secretary Nels Anderson pointed out to residents who plan open class exhibits is that all such exhibits must be entered by Wed nesday noon, August 29 rather than Thursday morning as has been the case in past years. The (arlier deadline has been set to allow all judging to be done be fore the actual opening of the fair so that ribbons and awards will be in place. lone Schools Plan Opening Tuesday, Sept. 4 The new school year in lone will get underway Tuesday, Sept. 4 at 8:00 a. m. All grade school students will be greeted by their teachers in their regular class rooms for registration between 9:00 and 11:30. Busses will run their regular routes in the morn ing to arrive around 8:45 and will be leaving for the return trip promptly at 11:30. No lunch will be served Tuesday. High school students will gather in the eafetorium at 9:00 lor a meeting with the new super intendent. After a general ex planation of procedures they will then register and have an oppor tunity to buy their books. The afternoon will be given over to a short faculty meeting at 1:00 o'clock and time for teachers to prepare their classrooms and of ficial registers and roll books for the opening of regular classes. Parents are 'reminded that all first graders and ninth graders and other students entering the lone shools for, the first time should bring a physical examina tion form at the time of regis tration. Athletes planning to play football must have a special physical examination. F'orms for the regular physical or special athletic examination are avail able at the school office if any one does not hcive the necessary forms. First graders must also bring a birth certificate with them. Starting Wednesday, September 5, the regular schedule will be followed, school starting at 9:00 o'clock and dismissing at 3:25 each day. New additions to the faculty this year include the superinten dent, Robert Woodroof, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Brostrom and Mrs. Emma Dally. Faces which will be missed are Phil Newitt, Wayne Pierce, Mrs. Selma Johnson and Mrs. Grace Schmidt. Mr. Woodroof served as high shool principal in Hereford, Ore gon last year. Mr. Brostrom taught in the. Pedee grade school, Pedee, Oregon and will be serv ing here' as 8th grade teacher, grade school coach and assistant high school coach. His wife has not taught before, but has com pleted all her training. She will be teaching one high school art course and working parttime in the grade school. Mrs. Dally comes from the Powers, Oregon schools to take over English and home economics departments ind to serve as librarian. Mr. Woodroof is In his office daily if there are any questions he can help with. homes. Doors and windows were closed when the wave of water struck so that it could not pass through the dwellings, and the houses were lifted off their foun dations and floated away. The height of the wave flattened to about 5 feet as it entered the town, but its high velocity soon drove the houses against trees, bridges anJ other objects; crush ing them to pieces. In the swift current and among masses of timber, those who could get free found it almost impossible to swim to safety. This flood caused the loss of 247 lives from drown ing and exposure and property damages of about $350,000, of 73rd Year, Number 24 Rodeo Complete All 4-H entries must be in by 9 a. m. Wednesday and several of the 4-H contests will be held during the day Wednesday. Home economics and other ex hibits and entries will also be judged that day. Both open class and 4-H live stock and agricultural exhibits will be judged Thursday morning and early afternoon and one of the top events of the fair, the annual 4-H style revue will again be held at 8 p. m. Thursday even ing. Judging of 4-H dresses for the revue will be held at 9 a. m. Thursday, it was announced. The style revue will be held In the fair pavilion. The fair will officially close at 4 p. m. Saturday. Other high points In the week's events Include the 4-H pig scram ble and fat auction sale Friday evening; the horse show Friday morning and afternoon; the two rodeo shows Saturday and Sun day and the special Saturday night show which will feature this year, for the first time, a Morrow county chariot race, and numerous other events. The complete program of fair and rodeo events during the five days can be found in the fair board advertisement elsewhere In today's paper. Nearly $600 in Prizes Await Parade Winners The merchants committee of the chamber of commerce this week announced the prize list for the fair and rodeo parade on Saturday, Sept. 1 and urged all interested groups, businesses and individuals to plan now for floats and parade entries. A total of nearly $600 has been provided for prizes, Dick Brunner, merchants committee chairman revealed Wednesday. The prize monev Is Dut un by merchants and individuals of the area. Topping the prize list is the $5f award for the grand sweep stakes float winner which will be taken from the first place winners in the three float divisions, juve nile organization, adult organi zation and business. As has been the practice for many years, each grade school child wno tanes pan In the parade will receive a silver dollar. The various divisions and the prizes are listed below with the amounts for first, second and third places are listed in that order. Floats juvenile organization, $25, $15, $5; adult organization, S25. $15. $5: business, $25, $15, $5. Grand sweepstakes, $50. Best riding club $; Desr ic. $10-. hst family group. $7.50; best mounted cowboy and cowgirl, each $7.50; oldest cow boy, $5; oldest cowgirl$5; young est cowboy and cowgirl, $3.50 each. In the Juvenile division child's float, $7.50; $5, $3.50; best pet, $7.50, $5, $3.50; best juvenile cowboy, $7.50, $5, $3.50; best juve nile cowgirl, $7.50, $5, $3.50. o EXAMINER COMING A drivers license examiner will be on duty in Heppner Tuesday, August 28 at the court house from 9:30 a. m. to 3.30 p. m. Mr. and Mrs. Harold Laird and family and Miss Shirley Kononen were visiting In Salem over the weekend. which $250,000 was estimated for Heppner. Two cloudburst floods of major proportions occurred in 1905 and 1934. In the flood of 1905, five lives were lost and considerable property was damaged. No esti mate of property damage is avail able -for the 1905 flood, but the damages reported to have been heavier on Rhea creek than in the Willow creek valley. No lives were iost in the 1934 flood. Local in terests estimated the damages at $125,000 in 193-4 to property and livestock, and the Red Cross spent about $2,500 for relief. (Next Magnitude of area's floods).