25 years ago this week — 1999

PENDLETON — The nightmare of mangled metal and injured motorists on Interstate 84 following multiple-car accidents brought on by a Saturday dust storm meant one thing at St. Anthony Hospital.

Code D — a disaster. The hospital mobilized a major life-saving effort Saturday as a caravan of ambulances arrived with patients injured in the massive freeway pileups that resulted in seven deaths.

Seventy-five employees — from doctors and nursing staff to food and laundry service personnel — were either involved in Saturday’s emergency response or placed on standby.

Three trauma doctors led a critical care team that included eight more doctors with a wide range of medical expertise.

In a one-hour period, St. Anthony received seven people with severe injuries sustained in numerous vehicular accidents.

“The number of injuries was the most I’ve ever seen at one time,” said Michael Bryan, emergency room doctor.

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PENDLETON — The good news? Poverty levels are dropping. If you fit the right demographic. If you live in the South. Or if you are Caucasian or Hispanic. Or a child under age 18.

In 1998, the poverty rate in the West held at about 14 percent. Umatilla and Morrow counties are slightly above that average with a poverty rate of 14.8 percent. That’s 10,056 people in the two-county area identified as living below the poverty level.

AFS defines poverty by the federal guidelines. A family of four earning $565 per month or less would be considered eligible for 100 percent of services available.

The number of people living slightly above the poverty level has not been calculated for this region since 1990. But Glenda Cole, regional manager of AFS, noted the number is significant.

The total number of Americans living in poverty fell by 1.1 million to 34.5 million in 1998, from 35.6 million in 1997. The nation’s poverty rate, 13.1 percent, is as small as in 1989 before the deep recession of the early 1990s.

Median household income rose by 3.5 percent or about $1,300 in 1998, to a high of $38,900. That surpassed 1989’s pre-recession median income by 2.6 percent.

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PENDLETON — The Nez Perce National Historical Park will sponsor a special presentation by Larry I’Neal at the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute at 7 p.m. Thursday.

O’Neal will present a talk and slide on the New Perce experience in Oklahoma and Kansas following the tribe’s war with the U.S. government in 1877.

While he will discuss exile at large, he will focus on Ottawa County, Kansas, in particular, where prisoners were interred from 1878-1879.

Following the War of 1877, 431 Nez Perce prisoners including women, children and elders were exiled to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and locations in Oklahoma. O’neal’s desire is to disperse as much of this information as possible to Nez Perce, Cayuse and other Native Americans.

O’Neal became interested in the Nez Perce and their experiences in Kansas and Oklahoma after he ran across a newspaper article about Chief Joseph in the town of Baxter Springs, Kan. He has spent many years searching local and state archives for newspaper articles, government records and maps.

His research has uncovered a wealth of primary material that he is now interested in making available to the Nez Perce people and scholars. O’Neal has names and other information on individual Nez Perce people who were exiled to Oklahoma and is interested in providing Nez Perce families with whatever information he has.

50 years ago this week — 1974

A cat that chased a bird or small animal into a power substation in Riverside Sunday, was the apparent cause of an electrical outage for Umatilla Electric Cooperative Association consumers.

Power was cut to consumers in Riverside, Meacham, Cayuse, Thornhollow, Mission, McKay Creek and Gibbon at about 10:45 p.m. UEC and Bonneville Power Administration repair crews made temporary power at about 2:30 a.m.

According to UECA official Bill Kopacz, the cat apparently caused an arc between switching gears. Bonneville Power officials said that permanent repairs to the substation are expected later this week.

The Pendleton Fire Department responded to the call at about 10:50 p.m., and a PFD official said that an eyewitness reported a big flash and then a small fire. The fire had burned itself out by the time the department arrived.

The cat was killed in the incident.

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MISSION — The Umatilla Indian Reservation will be closed to all big game hunting, including deer, elk and bear, effective immediately, spokesman for the Confederate Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation said Tuesday.

Sam Kash Kash, chairman of the board of trustees, and J. M. Carpio, superintendent of the reservation, said that Title 18 of the United States Code, prohibiting unauthorized hunting on Indian reservations since 1960, will for the first time be enforced by authorized agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of the Interior.

The restriction, intended to protect the Indian deer and elk resources from the expected influx of hunters when deer and hunting season opens Oct. 5, prohibits all but enrolled Umatilla Indians from hunting on reservation lands under a maximum penalty of $200 or 90 days in jail. Bird hunting and fishing permits issued by the Confederated Tribes will continue to be honored.

All major access roads as well as the beginning of the foothill area on the reservation will be posted with yellow-colored warning signs and a copy of the Title 18 Act, Kash Kash said.

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Workers for the Umatilla County United good Neighbors drive are in a hurry. They’ve set an ending date to the fund-raising campaign, now inprogress, for Nov. 15.

Somewhere along the line the campaign has bogged down, Pendleton division chairmen found at a report meeting Thursday.

Of the $105,850 Umatilla County goal, Pendleton’s goal of $61,000 is more than half the amount asked from the rest of the county, Joe McLaughlin, Pendleton, county campaign director noted. “The giving to date, percentage-wise, is above last year’s,” McLaughlin said, “but the total amount collected is down. That means people are in favor of the drive; they just haven’t been contacted yet.”

McLaughlin urges workers to complete their contacts and turn in collections as soon as possible, so the campaign can be wrapped up by the target date.

The United Good Neighbors campaign annually included 12 agencies “so you’re giving to 12 instead of one,” McLaughlin said.

100 years ago this week — 1924

With the death of Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Coffey in Pendleton early this morning, there passes one of Pendleton’s early pioneers, a resident here since 1864.

She was born in Bloomfield, Iowa, her maiden name having been Mary Elizabeth Patterson. In 1864 she came to Pendleton and later was married to James Coffey. For a time she lived on a homestead near this city and knew the hardships suffered by the pioneers of the western frontier. Later they came to Pendleotn and lived on east Court street in the old Coffey residence, which has since been razed. Trees which she planted 50 years ago were cut down recently. In Pendleton, she was long prominent. For the past 10 years she has been an invalid.

Mrs. Coffey is survived by the following children: James Herbert Coffey and Hervert O. Coffey, of Denver Colo., the latter lieutenant commander, United States navy, retured; Kenneth Coffey of Culver City, and George Hackthorne, well known film star of Los Angeles. The two latter were at their mouth’s bedside at the time of her death. Surviving also are two brothers, Cagel Patterson and Alfred Patterson, the latter formerly of Milton, and a sister, Mrs. Hester Kinney, of Heppner, who will arrive here today.

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Thirty-five picked men from the Oregon-Agricultural College Military band arrived here this morning on its first trip season to take part in the program arranged by the Whitman O. A. C. game committee today. The band paraded the streets this morning, played at the high school this morning and at the game this afternoon. The band orchestra will furnish the music for the dance in the Happy Canyon hall tonight.

The band toured eastern, northern and central Oregon during the spring of 1923, giving a concert here in the Presbyterian church, It stopped here again at the depot last fall on its return trip from the Armistice day football game at Boise.

As a college band the organization is known as one of the strongest on the coast. It always makes a tour of the state during the college spring vacation, frequently going out of the state, and makes many shorter trips during the school year. An average of between 2,000 and 3,000 miles a year has been traveled in recent years.

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Old Man Gloom was not present at the O. A. C. reunion banquet last evening at the Parish house of the Church of the Redeemer. Otherwise the attendance was strong, so much so that the rush of quests exceeded expectations with the result some overflow meetings had to be staged elsewhere.

With President and Mrs. Kerr as guests, likewise O. A. C.’s “real football” coach, Paul J. Schissler, other officials, the team, band and many alumni from over eastern Oregon the followers of the orange and black celebrated the victory won in the opening game of the schedule this year. The “Yea Aggies” yell with Cheer Leader Bothwell leading, nearly parted the roof when given in honor of the “president of the greatest land grant college of the west and Coach Schissler.

The principal talks of the evening were by president Kerr and Coach Schissler. The president spoke informally to the assembly, told of some of the progress made at the college and expressed appreciation for the courtesies extended to the team and others of the party on the occasion of the Eastern Oregon game.