Pomeroy Pioneer Portraits

Ten Years Ago

July 2, 2014

Pomeroy High School senior Savannah Ruark entered an essay about Tim Burt, who recently retired as the school's math teacher, and her entry earned Tim a Seattle Mariners' "Teacher of the Week" award. The Teacher of the Week program honors and recognizes 24 teachers through the 2014 Seattle Mariner season. Tim Burt will receive a $500 classroom grant and he and the other winners are invited to attend a game in a suite at Safeco Field and have the opportunity to meet legendary Mariners broadcaster Rick Rizzs.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

June 30, 1999

The spirit of ecumenism, the movement toward worldwide Christian unity and cooperation, has been prevalent in the last half of this century, and Pomeroy residents Fr. Roger Williams and his wife Jane have taken this spirit and made it part of their lives. Roger and Jane are oblates of the Benedictine Monastery in Pecos, New Mexico. The word "oblate" means "one offered to God," and the title is given to those who were not called by God to enter a monastery but nevertheless desire to follow the monastic way of life while adapting it to their own life circumstances.

Fifty Years Ago

June 27, 1974

After long and exhausting planning, the Pomeroy trip to Japan is nearing reality. Passports have been obtained; visas are next, and the students traveled to Yakima this Tuesday to rehearse for the programs they will put on in Japan, similar to those put on here. Some 23 students and seven chaperones are attending from Pomeroy, along with some 150 students from Davis and Eisenhower schools in Yakima.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

June 30, 1949

General Tractor Repair, owned by Jim Scoggin, Riley Yeoman, and Orville Laughery, has purchased two lots, each 60 by 120 feet from Fred Weimer, on East Main Street across from the new cement elevator of Pomeroy Grain Growers, Inc. According to Jim Scoggin, the partners will build a modern one story cement building on the land within 30 days.

One Hundred Years Ago

June 28, 1924

The commercial club luncheon in the Pomeroy hotel Monday was enlivened by a spirited discussion of the Tucannon irrigation project, in which George Thompson of Dayton represented those who oppose the enterprise and Mrs. E.E. Gowen of Marengo those who support it. Mr. Thompson said the land owners could not pay the estimated $85 an acre for water and make good and that he believed the cost would exceed the estimate. Mrs. Gowen graphically contrasted the condition of irrigated districts with those where dry farming is done, with every economic point favoring water.

One Hundred Twenty-Five Years Ago

June 24, 1899

We have had the various phases and phenomena of a smallpox scare in Pomeroy, but even the wildest are settling down to something like sanity again. While the one case we have had in town is quite severe, he is getting along well and will likely recover all right. No other cases have developed.