Pioneer Portraits - July 6, 2017

Ten Years Ago

July 12, 2007

Shubi Broom, a talking Budgie Parakeet that was immortalized in a children’s book written and illustrated by Kathelene’ Joyce of Milton-Freewater, escaped and is lost somewhere around Waitsburg and environs. Shubi is about seven inches from hedt to tail, bright sky blue in color with royal blue spots on the neck and is precocious. The unique bird has been a member of Jeff and Gayle Broom’s household for a couple years and escaped when the cage door accidentally opened while being carried into the broom home on 10th street.

The first loads of wheat were dumped at Northwest Grain Growers’ Prescott storage facility on Monday, July 9 by Allen Ford of Brown and Ford Ranches. Triple-digit temperatures forecast this week are expected to have an effect on how quickly other farmers get started, according to J.E. McCaw, branch manager of the Northwest Grain Growers office in Waitsburg.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

July 9, 1992

The thong was wrong. That’s what the all-male City Council believed. At first it was hem and haw, Mayor Roy Leid stumbling around for the right way to broach the subject of the woman’s bathing suit at Waitsburg’s pool two weeks ago. The mayor obliquely mentioned a list of “does and don’t” and “rules to play the game.” But by the end of the time the discussion at the July 1 City Council meeting ended, all was revealed. Councilman John Lindsey, who had seen the woman’s bathing suit with his own eyes, described it in minute detail – and that’s about all there was to it.

Waitsburg teacher Scott Branson would just as soon forget this Fourth of July. Problem is he really can’t remember it. Branson, 41, and his 19-year-old daughter Amy and son, Adam, 16, all spent last Saturday’s holiday sleeping and probably unconscious after eating a home-canned jar of dill pickles while staying at an isolated cabin in Southwestern Montana.

The City Council appointed Michelle L. Long marshal of Waitsburg last week, making her the town’s first woman marshal and only the second female chief of police in the state.

Fifty Years Ago

July 6, 1967

Roy Reed, who was a feature of last week’s Times, has applied to the editor for a position as staff statistician. We mentioned in our article about the water shortage that the cannery uses over 2 million gallons of water per week. This must take the prize for understatement. The three pumps supplying the cannery pump 2000 gal. per minute. That is 120,000 gal. per hour, and 2,880,000 gal. per day. In a seven-day-week, this amounts to 20,160,000 gallons – which is a heap of aqua, no matter how you pour it!

Game protector “Red” Mohney said that the weekend of July 8-9-10-11 will be set aside for the salting program for game in animals in the Blue Mountains. Red said that he was going up with some pack animals on Friday, July 7, and that anyone who would like to accompany the group on this annual jaunt into the mountains should get in touch with him this week.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

July 10, 1942

According to reports, Ernest Mikkelsen will be the first to start harvest this year for he is all set to begin today.

A truck of peas met with sad fate out at the Glen Smith ranch over the weekend when it jumped the road into a culvert and was completely demolished.

Local housewives will rejoice over the OPA decision to allow two extra pounds to every ration card holder between July 10th and Aug. 22nd.

A neighborhood picnic was held in the lovely setting of Mrs. Marcus Zuger’s back yard Saturday when friends and neighbors held a no-host dinner. Members of the Smith, Bickelhaupt, Roberts and Zuger families were present as well as Miss Lillie Hollowell and her nurse, Mrs. Berry.

One Hundred Years Ago

July 13, 1917

The Walla Walla Union of Wednesday says that as a precaution against any interference with the harvesting of the county’s wheat crop by the W.W. element, state troops will arrive in Walla Walla within the next few days to assist home guards in patrolling roads and wheat fields of the county.

Persons who change their names while fishing in order to evade payment of one dollar for a hunting and fishing license stand a fair chance of finding themselves in court.

S.A. Phelps was a Walla Walla visitor Monday returning with a new Hupmobile. The people on the Coppei Creek seem to have an epidemic of auto fever, as most of the Coppeites have cars now which makes it look like a prosperous farming community.

One Hundred Twenty-Five Years Ago

July 22, 1892

A minister driving with the editor of the Times and observing the scout table, asked a blessing as follows: “Lord, make us thankful for what we are about to receive and strengthen s to journey homeward after we receive it.”

The O & W T railroad was on Tuesday re-christened; it is now the Washington and Columbia River railroad but it will always be known as the Hunt line.

A valuable horse belonging to A. Mikkelsen was badly cut on a barb wire fence a few days ago, the result of a runaway.