Like most other cities in America, Pendleton is wrestling with how to manage its homeless population. The city does not plan to use its limited resources to provide robust services to the homeless. Nevertheless, they are fellow human beings and they have the same Constitutional rights the re…
It is not lost on me that this is my last column before the presidential election. An English major at heart, but equipped with a degree in political science, I feel innately drawn to summariz…
Last week, I got to help my granddaughter with her remote learning lessons from Athena Elementary School. Help isn’t quite the right word.
Many Northwest residents have heard enough about El Nino and La Nina to know these events have quite the bearing on the region’s weather. Both these features, which technically refer to the pr…
I have enjoyed great friendships with some wonderful people. It just so happens the best of those people have had some great dogs over the years. Specifically, bird dogs.
As someone who’s lived most of my life in Eastern Oregon, I know we here in Umatilla County are not escaping the public health crisis of opioid addiction and other drugs. One in 10 Oregonians …
Local manufacturing businesses and jobs have experienced a resurgence in recent years that needs to continue for our state’s livelihood and connection to the global economy.
I missed having Round-Up this year. Not the city folks wandering around in plastic boots and hats with half a Rhode Island Red glued onto the crown, or the vendors selling rude and marginally …
Most would agree forest management is essential to reducing heavy fuel loads that contribute to unnaturally severe wildfires. Yet anti-forestry obstruction and litigation are keeping federal l…
Umatilla County has played host to a fair number of presidents and candidates through the years. My September column spotlighted the visits of presidents Harding in July 1923 and Truman in May…
If you are reading this column on a printed news page or behind the paywall of the East Oregonian website, I will make the assumption you are an active voter. Those who pay for their news are …
The river below our home winds its way through a valley of farmland, pastures, and wooded property, with rocky walls that jet toward the sky. Layers of color and multiple patterns seem to tell…
We should not be surprised that much of the West is on fire. Or that more than 3.1 million acres already have burned in California, another million in Oregon and in Washington, and that tens o…
Eastern Oregon University is excited to welcome students back to campus and community. With gratitude for the incredible work of so many colleagues and partners, we share an update on EOU’s La…
Your energy levels are precious assets, which you can manage and assets which you have a great deal of control over. Having lots of energy feels good while lack of energy can make you feel phy…
I wish to register a complaint.
Elections typically generate plenty of opinions and rhetoric, but this year the annual exercise in democracy is already shaping up to be one of the most contentious on record.
We are in the heart of wildfire season and daily news reports summarize destructive wildfires throughout the western states.
Have you ever had an adventure with a wild tiger? A really close adventure?
Prep sports is about as American as you can get.
Silence isn’t golden in the National Football League — the season recently kicked off with canned stadium sounds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A conversation I had recently went awry, leaving me frustrated at my inability to get it back on track to neutral territory. I’m noticing these days how we interact with people we know and wit…
From helping someone move, to selling lemonade and baked goods, many of us made our first dollar in quintessential summer jobs. But states are increasingly regulating these easy paths to employment.
Today, let’s talk about trust.
Oregonians don’t like where the state is headed. The most recent poll from DHM research is bleak: There’s been a 64% increase in the number of Oregonians that think the state is headed in the …
“Let’s hold each other up,” I wrote in August when our community was divided about how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. “Let’s be kind.”
Let’s face it, 2020 has not been a particularly good year. On top of a pandemic and all the hardships associated with it, extreme weather events have hit various parts of the country.
Last week, my two sons and I embarked on a journey I hadn’t envisioned for ourselves prior to this year — traditional homeschooling. We started on Tuesday, Sept. 8, and the jury is still out a…
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in office for eight years, is suddenly stepping down because of a severe health condition. No successor with his standing in Japan and abroad is in the pipel…
When was the last time you thought of those who were prisoners of war or those who are still missing in action?
I heard this story on a cemetery road, above Cove, about 15 years ago. There were four of us in a Chevy van— me, my son, Clifford, my guru, Dewie Lovelace, and Earl Marshall, who was Dewie’s c…
The anniversary of the deadly attacks of 9/11 was Friday, marking 19 years since that fateful day.
September is upon us, Labor Day is over, school will start this week — if only virtually — and everyone will presumably now start focusing on the 2020 presidential contest.
I had a mystery illness in January and I’ve been dying to know if it was COVID-19. Did you know the American Red Cross will give you a free COVID antibody test if you donate blood?
To preface, I want to thank local organizers Briana Spencer, Nolan Bylenga and John Landreth. They have been unjustifiably demonized by those who would seek to discredit them and the movement …
“We’ve got this closed system. We’re on a ball floating through space, with a thin skin of gas around us. We’re changing the composition of the atmosphere with pollution in a way that traps mo…
The evils of human trafficking and child abuse have seen increased attention in recent weeks, including a march in Hermiston last weekend to raise awareness of the issue.
These days our mental health is under assault more than ever before. The stress caused by the fast pace of our lives with news bombarding us 24/7 along with the uncertainty and unknowns about …
Early this summer, Kathy and I took our 4-year-old grandson on his first camping trip with other friends and family. We picked a location on the Umatilla National Forest with a lake, not too c…
PENDLETON — Stinking sumac. Varnish tree. Stink tree. Tree of heaven. By whatever name, this tree has invaded Pendleton’s yards, streets, and parks, creating an environment no one would call h…
Want to know how your kids see you? Give them a camera.
Sheriff Til Taylor become royalty in 1916, though he resisted mightily.
Facing a fierce public outcry, the U.S. Postal Service is “suspending” its sudden cost-cutting moves — tossing out high-speed sorting machines, uprooting collection boxes, reducing Post Office…
We are not a very tolerant society. We trust less. Perhaps that is a symptom of the times, maybe just a slight spike in the annual American psyche that is often a roller coaster of emotions an…
I recently reduced how much time I spend on Facebook after being called a troll by an actual troll. The interaction reminded me why I typically refrain from engaging in such discussions on soc…
Mid-August 2015 found us in Meridian, Idaho, proud parents attending our son’s graduation from Northwest Lineman College, happy for him as he launched his adult life.
I am compelled to write to stand up for Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, one of my fellow Republican senators, because he was recently targeted for political points. I want to set the record strai…
Black Lives Matter protesters of Hermiston are about 95% white. We are standing up for the rights of everyone in Umatilla County, no matter race, creed, religion preference, lifestyle, physica…
I was born and raised in the Blue Mountains and have spent most of my life fishing for steelhead on my home waters of the Grand Ronde and the Wallowa.
The 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote across the country and enfranchised nearly 50% of the U.S. population, was celebrated on Tuesday, Aug. 18. A cen…
News consumption is growing exponentially, but for the past decade, the revenue to news publishers has been on a decline. This is, in large part, because of the unbalanced relationship between…
The hottest days of summer are coming to an end as days are getting shorter and nights are getting longer. Most people agree it’s an appreciable weather change with the autumn equinox just aro…
Ms. Goldsmith, my kindergarten teacher, likely changed my life. Turns out that students with more experienced kindergarten teachers tend to have higher earnings as adults. And, as luck would h…
There is nothing more rewarding for me as an editor than the feeling I get when I can step back from a project and realize its success is real.
This has been a week of bad news, worse news and occasional good news in Oregon government. But instead of recounting all those downs, ups and sideways, let’s check in on a continuing issue: u…
