Pomeroy Pioneer Portraits

Ten Years Ago

February 27, 2013

At the Senior Center's annual Valentine's Day program, a new King and Queen are crowned who will represent the Senior Center for the current year. Richard and Bea Fuchs will be the 2013 royal couple and ride in the Pioneer Day parade representing the Senior Center. In addition, the program featured singing by the Golden Girls, a piano selection by Carmen Gingerich, Stephanie Reisdorph on the violin, and Crystal Gordon singing.

Who can give you the address of anyone in Garfield faster and more accurately than anybody? If you lived here for any amount of time, you know the answer is Micky Richmond, the petite lady behind the counter at Pomeroy Post Office. Tomorrow, Thursday, Feb. 28, Micky will retire from the postal service, five days short of 30 years. Putting together the names and addresses, and more importantly the faces, of local residents wasn't an easy process. As a newcomer to Pomeroy and a new employee at the post office in 1993, Micky put together the address or post office box number with the name quickly enough. But while she was behind the walls of the work area, she couldn't see the faces of people picking up the mail from their boxes, so she came down to the post office lobby on her days off.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

February 25, 1998

Can Garfield County, the smallest in the state of Washington, be smitten by the coffee craze ignited on the west side of the Cascades? Eva Webb, owner of the Lost Highway Café, will find out. Eva, daughter of Lost Highway Museum owner David Webb, opened the espresso shop last week on Main St., in the former Valentine Ridge Sub Shop location. "I really like making espresso and dealing with people," she said.

P.H.S.'s Drama Club will present its first Talent Show and Mr. PHS contest. The program is called "Men in Orange and Black." Competitors for the Mr. PHS are Dustin Mulrony, Kelly McKeirnan, Andy Keatts, Cameron Mulrony, Jeramy Norland, Joe Cox, Keith Long, and Aaron Walker. The program also includes skits by Drama Club members.

Fifty Years Ago

February 22, 1973

Pomeroy Public Schools have the lowest per weighted pupil cost among districts in the state while at the same time staying substantially within the state's standards of accreditation, according to the Supt. of Public Instruction.

Chelsea Allena Moore and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Moore, were the recent recipients of gifts from Pomeroy merchants. Chelsea Allena was the first baby born in Garfield County in 1973. The First Baby of the Year Contest is sponsored by the Delta Club. Chairmen this year were Teddi Long and Shelda Zander. Born Feb. 2, Chelsea Allena is the first child for the Moore's. Her grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. Bill Greene and Mr. and Mrs. Craig Moore.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

February 26, 1948

Mrs. Everett D. Greeley, wife of the minister of the Assembly of God church, and the mother of five attractive children, Bernadine, Beulah, Eugene, Virgil, and Everett Jr., will celebrate her eleventh birthday come Sunday. Hard to believe, is it not? Then can you believe this? Bernadine, Mrs. Greeley's eldest daughter, commemorated her eighth birthday anniversary 11 days after her mother's eighth birth anniversary. Beulah, her youngest birthday in the fall, 1948, the same year her mother reached her eleventh birth date. The E.W. has no intention of divulging Mrs. Greeley's age, but the key to the puzzle, if it is one, is that she was born on February 29 and has a birthday only every four years.

The highway committees of the Lewiston and Pomeroy Chambers of Commerce met in Lewiston and adopted a strong resolution requesting that the unbuilt link of 36 miles of the Lewis-Clark highway between Missoula and Lewiston be completed within five years instead of ten as appears to be the present program.

One Hundred Years Ago

February 24, 1923

A heated controversy which has consumed much time was settled with the defeat of the 40-mill tax limitation and three-way tax plan bill by a vote in the house of 58 to 38. The loss of the support of the farm bloc which at first supported the measure defeated it. The way is now open for other tax schemes, with but little time left in which to lick them into shape. A bill to prohibit the sale of cigarettes is sponsored by six members of the house including C.M. Baldwin of Garfield County.

After thoroughly discussing the Gooding bill which would fix a price of $1.75 for the coming wheat crop and the leave in the hands of a committee the duty of fixing a fair price during each of the next two years, the Pomeroy commercial club last Monday, at a meeting held in the Pomeroy hotel, voted unanimous endorsement of the bill. Controversy arose over the advisability of taking this action in view of the fact that the local farmers' union already had passed a resolution opposing the Gooding bill. Later is was said that many of the farmers who at first opposed this bill believed they had made a mistake and were now willing to see it go through.

One Hundred Twenty-Five Years Ago

February 26, 1898

Mr. Wade, of Mayview, while on his way home last week, had a little mishap on the gulch caused by the coupling pin of his wagon giving away. The team with the front wheels took a lively spin up the hill for Deadman, leaving Mr. Wade sitting in the remains.

The Pataha Flat farmers are on the rustle fixing up their farming implements preparatory to putting in the largest crop of wheat this season ever known in the history of this country.

Since the Republican clubs of Oregon have squarely endorsed President McKinley's recent utterances on the gold standard, and it is clear they mean no dallying with free silver, those political trimmers who have been straddling on the money question for years find themselves in a bad way. The free silver republicans, editors and speakers are having hard work to prove that they have always been for sound money.

Among those who find themselves in a bad fix, and a long way from water, are ex-senator Mitchell and Dr. Fulton. It keeps the little organs of the former very busy explaining, and the latter is trying to clear up things through columns of the Oregonian. That paper takes great delight in showing up the past political careers of the trimmers, and it shows them no mercy.