Yesteryear: Irish in Bend awaiting word of relatives in 1925 | lifestyle

Irish In Bend Awaiting Word of Relatives

With a famine now hovering over County Cork and the southwest region of Ireland, hundreds of people in the Central Oregon country — all natives or children of natives of the area stricken with a food shortage — are anxiously awaiting news from relatives and friends who live in the region where the famine impends. It is estimated that there are approximately 500 residents of Deschutes, Lake and Klamath counties who were born in the county Cork, or have relatives there.

Should the famine gain in Ireland, it is certain that the Irish of Central Oregon will take immediate steps to give financial assistance, it is indicated in talks with the Irish of Bend. Natives of the county Cork now in Bend say that excessive moisture in wet seasons has at all times been hostile to cereal crops, as well as to potatoes. Improved drainage has in a small measure done something to mitigate this evil.

New High School Exterior Finished

With the roof completed some time ago and windows now being put in place, the new high school structure will be entirely enclosed and fully protected from the weather, probably by the end of the present week, according to information obtained from Hugh Thompson, architect.

Since the high school building, one of the most modern and largest of its kind east of the Cascades in Oregon, is now under roof, its completion in May is virtually a certainty.

Central Auto Service Company Safe Robbed of $1500

After relieving the safe in the Central Auto Service Co. office, where he was employed, of about $1,500, J.C. Bennett changed the combination and locked the safe so that the proprietors of the stage company, George Duke and Fred Duke, cannot open it, they complained to the sheriff’s office.

A man giving the name of Robert M. Jackson was arrested in Seattle today, answering to Bennet’s description, Sheriff S.E. Roberts has been informed. The man had about $800 in his possession.

That this is the man wanted is further indicated by the fact learned by the officers here, that Bennett shipped his baggage to Seattle under the name of J.C. Jackson. Bennett left the city on Tuesday evening’s train without telling anyone that he was going, and his actions that day, as described by employees of the stage company, indicate that he had been planning flight. In the afternoon he had his suitcases at the office. Later learned he telephoned a taxicab to take the bags to the station.

It was rumored that a young woman left Bend the same evening and is suspected of having gone with Bennett.

Sheriff Roberts left this afternoon for Seattle to bring Bennett back to Bend with him.

All-Time Record Broken by Bend Snowfall

Bend today recorded its heaviest snowfall in history for any month when the January total reached 56 inches, following a morning “dusting” of flakes that fell from a chilled sky. Low temperature for the night was -8 degrees, with a mere 2 above recorded at noon today.

On Saturday night Bend was chilled by its lowest temperature of the season, 17 below zero. Madras recorded a low of -23 for Saturday night with a minimum of -7 noted this morning. In Prineville early Sunday morning the low was -21. This morning a low of -4 was recorded.

When two inches of snow fell in the past 24 hours, a record that dated to the stormy month of December, 1919, was broken. In that month, the total fall of snow was 55 inches, with 48 inches recorded in a 24 hour storm. Up until the present, monthly heavy falls of snow included December 1919, 55 inches; January 1907, 36 inches; December 1943, 44 inches, and January 1943, 33.5 inches.

Bend’s monthly and seasonal snowfall record dates back to the winter of 1901-02.

Kiwanis Skating Meet Draws Large Crowd, Despite Cold

Many Central Oregon residents braved the cold to attend the Kiwanis sponsored skating meet yesterday on Symons rink, with both participants and spectators pronouncing the event a success. Exhibitions by 13-year-old Karen Chapman of Bend, and Miss Christine Lassee, a local visitor from France, sparked the show.

Ribbons for first, second and third places, and certificates for first-place winners were awarded in the following categories: Fifty-yard dash for boys and girls 5 and under, two hundred yard dahs for girls and boys 8 and under, 400 yard dash for girls and boys 12 and under, six hundred yard dash for girls and boys 15 and under. Women’s and mens open event, 600 yard dash, Backward race for girls and boys 12 and under, Women’s and mens backward race, and couples skating.

Officers, assisted by Bend residents, joined in a roundup yesterday when a cow came into Bend from the east, strolled across the railroad track and ambled past the state police station. At that point, Officers Jeff Pearce and Eugene Gray of the city force picked up the trail and drove the cow down Wall street and across the Tumalo bridge to West 14th street where she went into Ken Gulick’s barn. Gullick volunteered to find the cow’s owner.

New B-S mill pond proposed

Brooks-Scanlon, Inc., has proposed a new plan for eliminating the use of the Deschutes River as a log storage pond at its Bend mill.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has given the company until October of this year to quit using the river for log storage.

This morning John Borden, regional engineer for the DEQ in Bend, said he had recommended the new plan be approved. Brooks-Scanlon has also asked for an extension of the DEQ deadline until Dec 31, 1976.

Brooks-Scanlon is proposing building a mill pond adjacent to the river’s eastern bank by constructing a 1,200 foot long dike to separate the river from the pond. The pond water would be obtained from the river at the pond’s south end and would be piped out of the pond across the river and into a holding area, where it would be allowed to evaporate.

The plan also calls for construction of a 40-foot-wide bridge across the river south of the mill site to connect the dry log storage area on the west side of the river with the mill. Bark would be kept at the north end of the mill pond by the use of spray nozzles at the pond’s south end. In the winter, the pond would be kept from freezing by the infusion of steam at 180 degrees, according to the proposal.

This morning, Michael Hollern, president of Brooks-Scanlon, said, “The project will cost us more than $575,000, will increase our yearly operation costs, but will provide no benefits for our company.”

Hollern said the project developed by Century West Engineering Corp. of Bend, would take about six months to complete following approval of the plan by all public agencies involved.

According to Borden, Brooks-Scanlon will have to get approval for the project from the Deschutes County Planning Commission, the Division of State Lands, and the Oregon Wildlife Commission, as well as the DEQ.

Silt would be removed from the pond periodically, the proposal states.

Erosion control along the dike would be maintained by the use of large rocks and some metal sheeting, according to the proposal.

Brooks-Scanlon and the DEQ agreed on a different plan last year. That plan would require re-channeling the river around the mill to make room for a dry log handling operation. That project would have cost an estimated $1,2 million.

Brooks-Scanlon, however, withdrew that proposal because of the danger of seriously increasing the amount of silt in Mirror Pond near downtown Bend, mill officials said.

Remember the game before it was Super?

For a guy who kicked the first successful field goal in Super Bowl history, Mike Mercer is a pretty humble fellow.

“Remember,” he says, “I was also the first one to miss.”

Well, I looked it up, and he’s right. But honestly, who remembers any of that? Mercer himself, now 64 and a seven-year Central Oregon resident, has only a sketchy recollection of what would become known as Super Bowl 1.

Back then, on Jan. 15, 1967, it was known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, the first meeting ever between the champions of the upstart American Football League Mercer’s Kansas City Chiefs- and the champions of the established National Football League the Green Bay Packers.

The ‘66 season was Mercer’s finest as a pro. A “toe-punch” kicker — the conventional method until soccer-style kickers revolutionized the position in the late 1960s-Mercer booted 20 field goals and led the Chiefs in scoring with 93 points.

He added a 32-yard field goal and four extra points kicks in Kansas City’s 31-7 romp over Buffalo in the AFL Championship Game, earning the Chiefs a shot at Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers.

Supporters of the NFL gave the Chiefs no chance against the Packers. They called the AFL a ‘Mickey Mouse’ league,” says Mercer. That , he recalls, prompted Kansas City coach Hank Stram to order up big-eared Mickey Mouse hats and a recording of the Mouseketeers’ theme song for the locker room on the day of the big game.

The idea was to loosen the team up. “It worked — for the first half,” says Mercer, whose 31-yard field goal just before halftime pulled the Chiefs to within 14-10 against the heavily favored Packers.

But Green Bay, behind quarterback Bart Starr and receiver Max McGee pulled away in the second half to win 35-10.

It wasn’t a total loss for the Chiefs, whose losers’ share of the prize money came to $7,500 per player. That’s a pittance by today’s standards (Super Bowl XXXIV losers will get $33,000 each), but it was more than half again Mercer’s 1966 salary of $13,000.

The World Championship Game — Super Bowl 1 — was the last game Mercer would play with the Chiefs, who had drafted another place-kicker; a future Hall of Famer, named Jan Stenerud.

After living in the San Francisco Bay Area for 30 years, Mercer retired from real estate development and moved to Oregon. He and his wife of 10 years, Pam, have lived in the Bend area since 1993.