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TWO The Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon, Thursday, May 3, 1979
The Heppner
GAZETTE-TIMES
The Gazette-Times welcomes
letters from readers on any subject
of general interest...letters should
be not more than 250 words
WD
Bid to ban steer busting is
taken seriously in Salem
By
Kathleen Glanville
Eagle Newspapers Reporter
The chute opens and the steer charges
out, racing across the arena pursued by a
horseback rider swinging a lasso.
As the seconds tick away and the crowd
roars, the cowboy casts his rope and pulls
the steer to the ground.
To the crowd in the grandstands it's an
exciting test of skill as old as America's
West. But to a small, but determined group
of animal lovers, it's a grotesque display of
man's cruelty to animals.
And that group is back before the
Legislature this year with a bill to ban the
rodeo event called "steer busting." The
House Judiciary Committee last week heard
testimony on House Bill 2924 which would
classify the steer busting as torture and
outlaw it in Oregon.
"Steer busting" is a competitive rodeo
event in which the steer is roped around the
horns, tripped to the ground and tied.
Proponents of the measure told the
committee that the sport is a brutal event
which is banned in most states.
"Man can concoct the most outrageous
tortures," said Otto Jorgensen of Scap
poose. "This steer busting I think tha! it
should get the blue ribbon for man's
overworked crippled brain when it comes to
torture."
The 70-year-old Scappoose man said he
once wanted to be a buckaroo when he was
young, but when he began going to rodeos he
quickly changed his mind because of the
inhumane treatment of animals.
He said he drove 70 miles to argue for
the bill because he is an animal lover.
Sen. Mike Thome, D-Pendleton, who
has competed in the Pendleton Roundup,
said the people who are against steer roping
don't understand the sport.
"Sometimes people get hung up on
something when they don't understand the
history or the background," he said. "At one
time roping was the only way a rancher
could doctor a sick animal. That's one of the
reasons people originally started roping a
steer. It became and art."
Thorne said the rules of steer roping
have been changed over the years to protect
the animals. He said plaster is placed
around the horns to keep them from being
broken. The contestent is not allowed to
throw the rope around the animals neck and
he has only one chance to trip the steer.
House Bill 2924 would define the
following event as torture: "A person
pursues a steer while on horseback, loops a
rope over the horn, head or neck of the steer,
then turns his horse at an angle from the line
on which the steer is running, flips the slack
of the rope around the rump of the steer and
causes the head of the steer to be whipped
around when the end of the rope is reached."
Royal Raymond, chairman of the
Pendleton Round-up board of directors,
objected to the term "steer busting." "The
word busting is used because it sounds cruel
and this bill has been instigated by those
with high emotions and sponsored by those
who are misinformed."
Raymond said in the past two years, 432
steers have been roped in Round-up
competition. He said in 1977 there were no
injuries and in 1978 the only casualties were
two broken horns and one broken leg.
Raymond said the goal is to loop the
rope over the horns of the steer. If the rope
goes over the head or neck the entrant is
disqualified. When the steer is down, the
cowboy must tie three legs as in calf roping.
Legislative counsel Dennis Bromka,
wondering if the ban would affect ranchers,
asked, "Is this the normal way of
apprehending a steer?"
Raymond said it was. He said it's
difficult for one person to treat a sick animal
unless the steer is roped, knocked down and
tied.
Lois Winchester, a Heppner woman
who's been trying to get steer busting
banned for several years, asked Rep. Wally
Priestly, D-Portland, to sponsor the bill.
"In this day and age it's disgusting that
there are still people who promote cruelty as
entertainment," she said. "Steer roping is
prohibited in most states because it is
considered excessively cruel." "Would any
of these cowboys like to trade places with
the steers?"
fell
Sifting through
the TIMES
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1,
This nest containing curlew eggs was one of several ( .
discovered by Heppner High School biology students during a
search of a section of the Boardman Bombing Range last Kyr
week. Nesting habits of the rare curlew are being studied on f
. i t.: U.. fJ-l ,!lfli;ri ffiialc '
a section oi me Dornumg range uy icuciai wiiuiii
with thP nirf nf the HHS students, who combed through f-M
hundreds of acres of range land seeking the nests, and other
youth groups, a survey will be completed to determine the
curlew population the bombing range plays host to. Curlews,
an increasingly endangered species of bird, apparently finds
the relatively untrammeled and ungrazed section of the
bombing range one of its favorite nesting places. The long
legged, droopy billed birds migrate from the arctic region to
as far as southern South American. (Photo by Dan Nix)
Atiyeh 'stacking of commissions' denied
Dy Senator Ken Jernstedt
There is both good news and
bad news coming from the
State Capitol this week.
The good news is that the
Atiyeh administration,
through its appointments, is
restoring balance and judge
ment to several important
boards and commissions.
The bad news is that some
members of the State Senate
are using the new appoint
ment confirmation process as
a political war toy to try to
embarass the governor.
We've heard a lot of
controversy, perhaps too
much, about the fact that two
of the Governor's appoint
ments have not been approved
by the Senate. A number of
tactics have been employed to
keep delaying and postponing
action and there is a strong
possibility that these two are
being held "hostage" as a
trade off to secure changes
some senators want in bills
concerning Trojan and the
proposed two Pebble Springs
nuclear plants. Such changes
would result in Trojan being
shut down permanently and
Pebble Springs never being
built.
To keep the matter in
perspective, the Governor has
appointed 166 Oregonians to
positions of public trust. One
of them was rejected by the
Senate, for purely political
reasons. Another nominee,
former Chief Justice Kenneth
O'Connell, was withdrawn by
the Governor.
The positive side of the
question, and the side about
which we've not heard
enough, is that the Governor's
appointments have received
universal acclaim a handful
of Senate prime-time primma
donnas notwithstanding.
Most pleasing is that the
Governor has a strong com
mitment to unstacking those
boards and commissions
where one point of view has
been over-represented
through appointments made
by the previous administra
tion. The Governor has been
accused of trying to stack the
" Energy Facility Siting Council
by filling vacancies with two
new members who refused to
commit to a decision on the
Pebble Springs application
until all the facts are in.
The chairman of that Senate
committee wanted the reap
pointment of two members
whose terms expired eight
months ago but who were kept
on by Governor Straub even
though they had served the
maximum years allowable.
These two members had
already publicly announced
how they would vote on the
application request more than
a year before all studies can
be made upon which a
decision will be based.
One thing that is clear is
that it isn't the Governor who
is trying to stack the Energy
Facility Siting Council! Guilty
instead are the chairman and
a few members of the Senate
Committee on Energy and
Environment.
As Oregonians, we can all
hope that the Governor will
stick to his guns and continue
with his policy of seeking the
cream of the crop of Oregon's
citizenry to serve on those
boards and commissions
which have a big impact on all
of our lives.
The Heppner-Spray highway came a
step nearer completion during this week 50
years ago, when the Bureau of Public Roads
authorized funding for surfacing a six mile
stretch of the new thorofare.
The six mile link completed the highway
through the section of forest between the two
towns, leaving only a few miles to be
completed on either end. Road surfacing
costs were a bit more reasonable in those
days, when $40,000 was all that was required
for the six mile segment.
Wasco County's "Sky" Soden had a field
day pitching against Heppner's town
baseball team in Wheatland League action -during
this week in 1929.
Soden held Heppner to three hits, while
striking out 15 batters. According to a
Gazette-Times account of the game, "Van
Marter seemed to be about the only local
who could distinguish the pellet from the
balls of dust that rolled down to the plate
with Soden's deliveries, and he made two of
his team's three hits, the first of which was
responsible for Heppner's lone tally."
In other local news half a century ago,
Elsie Owens, superintendent of Morrow
General Hospital, became the bride of P.A.
Mollahan, the new owner of Bayless service
station.
Cougars were well on their way to
becoming an endangered species in Oregon
50 years ago this week, when the Oregon
Game Commission announced it was
holding a contest with $500 in prize money to
amateur shootists bagging the most
cougars.
The hunter killing the most cougars in
the state was to receive $175, in addition to
regular bounties, with $125 going to the
second place gunman. According to the
Gazette-Times, "for some time the game
commission has had under consideration a
plan which would stimulate greater activity
among cougar hunters and thus save the
lives of many deer..."
Bacon was selling for 29 cents a pound at
the MacMarr Store in the Heppner Hotel
building, and Poland China weanling pigs
were advertised for $5 each by lower Rhea
Creek farmer Walter Jepson.
Thirty years ago this week, the town of
Kinzua retained the services of a full-time
barber, after several years without a
resident hair clipper. J.B. Dyer of Fossil
returned to the Blue Mountain timber town,
after barbering in Condon and Fossil.
During the same week in 1949 Kinzua,
according to Gazette-Times Kinzua corres
pondent Elsa Leathers, "little Jerry
Samples was injured Saturday afternoon
when struck on the head by a baseball bat
during practice. He was taken to the doctor
at Fossil and had the wound stitched up."
"Little Jerry," now owner of Jerry's
Mobil and Minimart in Heppner, appears to
have recovered from his baseball injury.
A late-season snowstorm greeted Hep
pner residents 25 years ago this week.
Nearly five inches of snow fell on the city,
and more in the county's mountain reaches,
helping to ease a predicted period --of
insufficient water for the 1954 irrigation
season. Only 3.87 inches of moisture had
fallen on the area since Jan. 1 of that year.
During the same week, Ron Baker of
lone was elected president of the Students of
the College of Agriculture at Washington
State College, and on the home front,
Beverly Nolan was named valedictorian of
Lexington High.
Shutler Flat near Arlington was the
topic of discussion by NBC talk show
personality Johnny Carson 10 years ago this
week.
During a Monday night airing of "The
Tonight Show," Carson, who has bantered
from time to time with NBC bandleader Doc
Severinson about his Shutler Flat childhood,
produced a map of Oregon and demanded
that Severinson show him where Shutler
Flat was located. Since Shutler Flat is not
one of the larger metropolitan areas in the
state, Doc was unable to find his home-place
marked on the map, prompting Carson to
comment, "see, there is no Shutler Flat."
Johnny did find Arlington, Olex, lone,
Mikkalo and other area towns but no
Shutler Flat.
The Gazette-Times told its readers that
it would forward a Metsker map "which has
Shutler Flat on it in nice, big letters" to
Carson, who acknowledged that he would
"probably get a lot of letters from Shutler
Flat," as a result of his comments to Doc.
The G-T also suggested that the "Chamber
of Commerce should invite Carson out for a
tour of these famous places if he could
stand the congestion."
Five years ago this week, city engineer
Steve Anderson, back from hearings in
Washington, D.C., on the Willow Creek
Dam, said prospects for Congressional
re-authorization of the project looked
"promising."
Others testifying before Sen. Mike
Gravel's senate subcommittee included
O.W. Cutsforth of Heppner. A letter from
Heppner's W.W. Weatherford was "well
received" by the subcommittee, Anderson
said.
6Sif ting Through Times' rekindles reader's memories
Oregon Newspaper
Publisher, Aisocio'ion
The Official Newspaper of the
City of Heppner and the
County of Morrow
The Heppner
GAZETTE-TIMES
Morrow County's Award-Winning Weekly Newspaper
U.S.P.S. 240-420
Published every Thursday and entered as second-class matter at the Post Office
at Heppner, Oregon under the Art of March3, 1879. Second-class postage
paid at Heppner, Oregon
SUBSCRIPTION RATE
$8.00 In Morrow, Unatilla, Wheeler 8i Gilliam County; $10.00 elsewhere
GM Reed, Publisher
Terry M Hager, General Manager
Eileen Salmg, Office Manager
Melissa Scott, Composition
Justine Weatherford, locol Columnist
Delores Reed, Co-publisher
Rick Steelhammer, News Editor
Gayle Rush, Composition
Cindi Doherfy, AdvertisingOffice
Ron Jordan, Printer
Editor:
Your "Sifting Through the Times"
Column of April 5th pertaining to Heppner's
team in the long departed Wheatland
League certainly brought back fond
memories to this writer. Ah, yes, recalling
those great games played during the
twenties and thirties.
The league comprised six teams
(Wasco, Condon, Heppner, lone, Fossil and
Arlington) and what an interesting and
entertaining brand of ball they provided the
fans of that era.
How many Old Timers remember the
Heppner roster of their town team of 50
years ago? Well, shall we bring back a little
nostalgia and perhaps a tear or two that this
type of baseball is dispensed no more.
Do you recall the following names?
Crockett Sprouls, "Dink" Devaney, Hank
Robertson, Elmer Hake, Roy Gentry,
Buster Gentry, "Mitch" Thorn, Harold
Erwin, "Ducky" Drake, Clair LaMear,
Lowell Turner, Nolan Turner, Laverne Van
Marter, the Bleakman boys from Hardman,
Ray Ferguson, "Jap" Crawford, "Doc"
McCready, Bob Corral and a pitcher named
Aune whose first name I can't seem to
remember.
Oh yes, we had recruiting in those days,
too. "Ducky" Drake and Clair LaMear were
both drafted from Portland to play each
Sunday for the Heppner team. I was told
that LaMear received $50 per game to catch
which was good money in those days. Drake
did the hurling and what a job he did.
The first five names in the batting order
were "Mitch" Thorn, (employed by Pacific
Power and Light) Harold Erwin, Roy
Gentry, Ducky Drake and Clair LaMear.
Drake, a pitcher, must have had some
power in his bat to be placed in the cleanup
position.
Emory Worthington, a salesman from
Pendleton and an employee of Buster Brown
Shoe Store, called the balls and strikes in his
umpiring capacity. I recall more than once
some heated arguments on some hair line
decision he rendered.
I would say that the "pepper" man or
the Rah Rah man of the Heppner infield was
Ray Ferguson at the "hot Corner" or third
base. Definitely the Pete Rose of his era.
It may seem strange to report that cars
were allowed within the confines of the
Rodeo Grounds and many a fan watched the
games without ever leaving his auto. Of
course, there was a liberal sprinkling of
people in the stands, too.
I was somewhat of a spectator
participant during the game. I was a vendor
dispensing soda pop turned out by Andy
Baldwin in a small plant he had built in a
vacant lot near the old William Cunningham
residence and adjacent to the Hinton Creek
bridge which you had to cross to go up North
Elder to the Gilman, Fredericksen, Morgan,
Marlatt, Edwards, Doherty, Aiken, Josie
Forest management
poses problems
Editor:
To my way of thinking we have two
problems here in Morrow County, and both
up here in the mountains.
One is that there is about $4,000,000.
worth of bug-eaten lodgepole pine which will
be dead and will rot in a few years, and it
isn't being harvested. I'm an old farmer,
and when a crop was ripe I harvested it.
The other is that in the end, the Forest
Service will log the headwaters of Willow
Creek, and there goes the last year-round
creek we have, also probably our shallow
wells. There also, will go the last piece of
virgin forest of 700,000 acres.
We are entitled to something better
here.
O.W, Cutsforth
Jones, Driscoll, McCullough, Hisler or my
residence.
"Doc" McCready might have been a
dentist but he loved to do a little pitching on
the side. He would probably like to forget
one Sunday afternoon in Arlington when he
was really shell shocked by the Honkers. If
my memory serves me correctly, he didn't
have a team uniform in his possession on
that particular day. Just took off his coat
and started hurling.
In closing, I would like to remember,
also, a few individuals from other teams in
the league.
lone had a "Big Drink of Water" as a
pitcher by the name of Larry Ritchie.
Also, who can forget "Kewpie" Clow, a
pitcher for Condon, and his jerky motion in
the act of throwing the ball.
Arlington had a pitcher by the name of
Soden whom I thought had the speed of Bob
Feller of a later era. However, he had
problems with his wildness. Even with this
shortcoming he was lucky enough to be
given a tryout with the San Francisco Seals.
Undoubtedly, I inadvertently overlook
ed a number of other outstanding indivi
duals and highlights of that great era.
After 50 years there must be some
forgiving.
William J. Mitchell (Ole)
Daly City, Calif.
Public Officials
U.S. Sen.
Mark O. Hatfield
Hussi'll Somite Office Bldg.. Washington.
DC aim ii. Member of Appropriations
Committee. Interior Committee, Rules Com
mittee, and Indian Policy Review Commis
sion Portland office. Pioneer Courthouse.
Km IH7. .-)L'ii S V Morrison. Portland. Ore.
972IU. phone l-:WHii.
U.S.
Bob
Sen.
Packwood
Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.. Washington.
DC. ai'iio. Member of Finance Committee
and Commerce Committee. Portland office.
Iik.2 X K Holladay. Rm. 70n (P.O. Box 3621 1.
Portland. Ore. 97208. phone 2:):-4J71.
U.S. Rep. Al Ullman,
Of The Second District
House Office Bldg., Washington, D.C.
205 l;Y Member of Ways and Means Commit
tee. Salem office. 5:i(l Center St.. Rm 330 (P.O.
Box 247i. Salem. Ore. 97308. phone 399-5724.
State Sen.
Ken Jernstedt
i Morrow. Gilliam and other counties),
Stale Capitol. Rm. S317. Salem. Ore. 97310!
phone 378-885(1.
State Sen.
Robert Smith
1 Wheeler. Grant and other counties)
Slate Capitol, Rm. S323. Salem. Ore. 97310,
phone 37H-B176.
State Rep.
Bill Bellamy
(Morrow. Gilliam and other counties),
state Capitol, Rm. H364. Salem. Ore. 97310,
phone 378-8853.
State
Rep.
Max Simpson
Gov. Vic
State Capitol. Salem
378-31 (HI. :
Atiyeh
Ore. 97310. phone
(Wheeler, Grant and other counties),
Stale Capitol. Rm. H481. Salem. Ore. 9731o!
phone 378-8789. 'j
Penom wanting information on bills,
hearings, and other doingi of the '
Oregon Legislature may call,
toll-free, 1-800-452-0290