Pomeroy Pioneer Portraits

Ten Years Ago

May 11, 2011

Inspired by her family and motivated to return to her job as Pomeroy Elementary School secretary, Lynn Shawley survived a near-death experience with sepsis. “I just wasn’t ready to quit,” she says.

Revelation members Jerry Bartlow, Mike Field, Bill Van Vogt and Stan Warren will perform a concert this weekend marking their 29th year as a quartet.

Pomeroy Community Center received a $1,500 grant from Sterling Savings to fund the installation of a greenhouse.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

May 22, 1996

Pomeroy will send its Pirate girls’ softball team to the state tournament for the first time since the program started in 1990.

Baseball and softball players at the fairgrounds field will have cover thanks to Babe Ruth Baseball president Ed Fruh and a bunch of volunteers and contributors who worked on two mobile dugouts that will be wheeled into place during the season.

50 riders participated in Saturday’s Pump Up the Pulse Challenge race across the northern section of the county.

Fifty Years Ago

May 20, 1971

Some 273 alumni, spouses and guests attended the annual Alumni Banquet at the Maple (Jaycee) hall.

Garfield County 4-H Livestock Club took permanent ownership of the Con Maddox Herdsmanship trophy after winning for the third consecutive year at the Spokane Junior Livestock Show. The award goes to the 4-H group having the most attractive pen, and keeping their animals and pens cleanest during the entire show. They also walked off with the championship in livestock judging contest over 26 other counties from Washington, Idaho and Oregon.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

May 16, 1946

The Garfield County 4-H Livestock club members made a very outstanding showing at the Junior Livestock show, the largest show of its kind in the United States. Top honors included the grand champion barrow exhibited by Robert Dye, followed by Teddy Greene, with the reserve champion.

The 70th semi-annual session of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, sixteenth district, will be held in Pomeroy in the Union lodge hall with an estimated 150 members attending.

One Hundred Years Ago

May 21, 1921

A Memorial day parade with music will form at the K. of C. Hall on Main street, with veterans of all wars, school children and citizens invited to join. A patriotic program composed of orchestral music, readings and an address will be held at the Seeley theatre.

Two cars of 6-inch pipe arrived this week and work has begun for city water improvement at the springs. An authoritative source states that the lower Pataha riparian owners will institute legal proceedings against the city to prevent diversion of the water.

The Pataha school closed with an old-fashioned picnic and program at the J. Butler grove. The church organ and seats were moved over for the occasion. The Maypole was covered with green and decorated with flowers. The streamers were school colors, wine and ivory; when the sixteen white-robed lassies with their Queen of May and her attendants completed the scene it was like a glimpse of fairy summerland. After the festivities a team of boys played and lost a game of baseball with Pomeroy boys.

Two windshields and a ball game were lost to Pomeroy last Sunday when the W.O.W. organization of the Walla Walla twilight league journeyed here to walk away with the long end of a 5 to 3 score.

R.D. Williams, with some help from R.R. Baldwin and Ed Patterson dug out from three holes 17 young coyotes, adding 4,250 points to the local score in the Pomeroy-Dayton hunting contest. The bounty on coyotes is also worthwhile, a dollar each.

J.A. Armstrong’s fox pen has produced a litter, but there is no telling how many of these valuable little animals the owner now possesses. The mother fox holds human beings in such contempt that if one even peeps into the next she would kill her young, fox-farmers say. So, Mr. Armstrong has not yet peeped, but he is probably the most anxious man in town.

One Hundred Twenty-Five Years Ago

May 16, 1896

The Pomeroy mill is now running in full blast and turning out an excellent quality of flour.

All persons wishing flowers for commencement exercises or for Decoration Day, should leave their orders with Harry St. George not later than May 20.

Harry Abbott was up from Walla Walla Monday. He made a careful survey of the grounds about the old planing mill, the site of the long disputed water right, and found that about 80 feet of that portion of the ditch immediately about the pump house, including the gate and several feet of the city water pipes were on his land. Mr. Abbott intimated that the water would again be turned into the upper ditch and that the price of the Pomeroy mill would go up accordingly.

Chas. Bishop killed a large lynx one day last week.

School is running full blast in Peola with 23 scholars enrolled.

The “Young Ladies’ Basket Ball Team” of the State Normal went to Seattle for a match game with the University girls. They were defeated only within the last ten minutes of the game.