25 years ago this week — 1999

It’s not just a business any more, it has become an institution — Winn’s Strawberries.

As Preston Winn sat at his strawberry stand on Highway 11 near Weston Tuesday afternoon, a steady stream of cars pulled off the road.

One guy was lost a looking for directions, but the rest of them knew exactly where they were going.

Bob and Sandy Lairson drove all the way from La Grande just to get strawberries from Winn’s stands. They bought four flats.

“It’s nice to find a real red strawberry,” Bob said as he hoisted the flats into their car. “Now I can graze all the way back home. Mmmmm…”

Another carload, carrying Pendleton residents Connie Cross, son Tyson and her mother Pat Mellema, pulled off the road in the 90-degree heat.

“We went shopping in the Trr-Cities and came back around this way just so we could buy strawberries here,” Connie said. She had Winn cover the baskets of berries she bougyht with wrapping paper so Tyson would not devour them on the way home.

Another woman from Troutdale said her husband, who raised his own strawberries, instructed her to stop in and buy some of Winn’s strawberries – for comparison.

That’s the way it has been for 47 years, ever since Bob Winn, Preston’s father, started to raise strawberries here.

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Wheat harvest got off to a slow start this week with only a few combines moving out into the fields. Those fields that were being harvested were disappointing, but that was not a surprise to anyone.

Bill Caplinger, grain divisions manager for Pendleton Grain Growers, said Thursday that he has only talked to one farmer who had started harvesting. That was in the Butter Creek area, east of Pendleton on the Morrow, Umatilla county line.

“That farmer said he wasn’t real happy with the extra yields there; which was to be expected,” Caplinger said. “His yield was in the 20-bushel range, in ground that is usually 30- to 40-bushel ground in a good year.”

But Caplinger said he thought the crop would improve on the fields farther east.

“Overall it looks like the crop will likely be around 80 percent of last year,” Caplinger said.

The harvest, which usually begins right after the July 4th weekend, has been delayed for five to 10 days because cool weather and drought conditions slowed the development of the wheat.

“At this point everyone is just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the wheat to get ripe,” Caplinger said.

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PENDLETON — Legislation that permits school districts to control the growth of the biggest slice of the budget pie has been approved by the Senate and awaits action by the House.

Senate Bill 1181, proposed by Majority Leader Gene Derfler, R-Salem, and Sen. Neil Bryant, R-Bend, approved 16-14 on June 29, would bring teacher and administrator salaries under guidelines similar to those used in state government.

The legislation would allow school districts to make offers to administrators, teachers and classified employees for salaries and benefits based on “allowable growth factor,” in lieu of negotiating a collective bargaining agreement. It would also require the state Employment Relations Board, in cases of dispute, to determine whether an offer meets the “allowable growth factor” and require school districts that make an offer above that factore to report on it.

The average salary of Oregon teachers is more than $42,000, 13th highest in the country.

“I voted yes on it because we have a dilemma in education brought about by measures 5, 47 and 50, which changed the course for funding schools,” said State Sen. David Nelson, R-Pendleton. “The legislature is in the process of determining how we can contain costs and still give teachers, school boards and administrators the tools to provide the best education possible.”

50 years ago this week — 1974

SALEM — The Pacific Northwest Power Co. argued with environmentalists today on whether the Oregon Water Resources Board should prevent power generation on the Middle Snake River.

The board held the hearing on whether it should reverse its 14-year-old policy that power could be generated on that section of the stream.

The company, which wants to build a dam on the river, said more power is needed and that hydroelectric generation is the cheapest and best way to get it.

The Oregon Environmental Council, with the support of Gov. Tom McCall, urges that the river be preserved for recreation.

The company’s lawyer, Hugh Smith, replied that a power dam would create a lake that would make the river more accessible to recreationalists.

Smith said a hydro plant would have less effect on the environment than a coal-fired or nuclear plants.

Smith said “the project will provide a reservoir, which may be used to help satisfy the growing need for water-based recreation, particularly swimming, flat-water boating and water skiing.

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Thunderstorms brought drenching rain to much of Oregon Monday evening that interfered with traffic and communication and damaged some crops.

Rain and wind cracked ripe cherries and tore limbs off orchard trees in the Hood River Valley.

Unharvested grass seed crops in the Willamette Valley were flattened and grass seed crops that has been harvested but not collected from the fields were soaked.

“If the moisture content remains high for a week, there is danger of sprouting,” said John Swatzka of Tangent, secretary of the Oregon Rye-grass Growers Association. “It could be disastrous. If seed germinates in the windrows, that’s it.”

The Portland area got four-fifths inch of rain, most of it during thunder, lightning and gusty winds, and up to 1 ¾ inches were recorded in some spots near Portland.

The storm that swept north westward across the Cascade Mountains from off the southern Oregon coast prompted gale warnings.

Three feet of water blocked half of Interstate 80N in Portland at 7 p.m. and water flowers over parts of Interstate 5 between Portland and Salem.

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Oregon’s mayors are thinking about public transportation, population growth, city sewer systems and pride in the community.

And they’re worrying a lot over money.

About 45 delegates from communities throughout the state arrived in Pendleton Thursday for the Oregon Mayors Association’s annual summer workshop. The event continues through Saturday morning.

At a social hour Thursday night, some of the mayors talked about problems their communities are facing and what they’re doing about them.

Rod Norwood, mayor of St. Helens, said his city is concerned about getting sewer service to residents of the community’s outlying areas.

St. Helens’ population is 6,710. Another 5,000 live outside city limits and don’t have sewer service.

“Our area is particularly lacking in sewer service,” Norwood said. “Those who don’t have it will have to either form a sewer district or be annexed to the city.

“We don’t want to form all these little districts if we can help it, but we’ll have to be ready for the added load if they annex with us.”

Norwood said he’d like to see St. Helens residents show more pride in their city. He said they have a lot to be proud of.

100 years ago this week — 1924

Beginning with this morning’s balloting, the movement to Davis gathered a momentum which could not be retarted and gradually but surely through the succeeding ballots the votes flopped over into the John W. Davis’ column as state after state either announced its offering to him or turned over its whole quota.

Bryan’s opposition to DAvis was swept away in the rain of Davis votes which swept over the convention. The attempt of the McAdoo strength, commanded a following which made only a bad third and when the Davis flood was rising so that all other candidates were being swept before it, Iowa, Meredith’s home state withdrew him from the contest and voted for Davis.

Scenes of disorder swept the convention as everybody clamored for a chance to join the winning forces. When the furore was at its height, Thomas Taggart of Indiana, mounted a chair and moved the nomination of Mr. Davis by acclamation. The motion was carried with a roar and Chairman Walsh shouted in the din before him:

“The chair declared the Honorable John W. Davis the nominee of this convention.”

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Requests by a plenipotentiary extraordinary to the city council that the women of Pendleton be provided a special room where they may be lodged if they are so unfortunate as to get in jail, a plea that women of the city be permitted to install an iron bench in the men’s jail and the installation of one additional light in the jail so that prisoners may be able to read with ease were made last night.

Mrs. Lucretia Overturf made the requests, and she so mixed humor with common sense that she has the careful attention of the council incidentally, they rocked in paroxysms of laughter as she illustrated her own observations.

“We hold women in such high esteem that we really have not thought it particularly necessary to have any special jail for them,” Mayor Fee countered gallantly, after Mrs. Overturf had asked for a special room for women prisoners.

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The interest that has been developing in the dairying in the Pilot Rock section of the country and which recently found expression in the organization of a boys’ and girls’ calf club there has continued to grow, according to Fred Bennion, county agent.

He was in the south end of the county yesterday checking on the records being kept by the members of the club and inspecting their young stock. Herman Beilke who operated a wheat ranch there and has a number of cows as one phase of his farming has placed an order of registered Jersey bull with Walter L. Baker of Lane county.

Mr. Baker gave the calf club the young bull when the club was formed a few weeks ago, and the animal that Mr. Beilke ordered is a St. Maus bull with a fine producing and blood record behind him, similar to the record of the calf club bull.

Lawerence Huges, Pilot Rock business man and incidentally the owner and operator of a small dairy, is leader of the club, and his enthusiasm is one of the big factors in causing popularity of dairying in that section. He and Twig Hinkle have each placed orders for a registered bred Jersey Heifer.