By Lauren Brown
Burns Times-Herald

There’s an old Baldwin piano in Harney County that has probably traveled more miles than many county residents.

The piano has been in Judi Barnhart’s family since the 1920s when her grandfather, James Richardson, acquired it. Since then, it has been passed down through five generations.
“I first became acquainted with this piano as a small child,” Barnhart said, starting lessons at the age of 5. Although at that point, she didn’t know that the piano had played a in role in helping build Highway 395.

The Rattlesnake Rattlers

Back in the 1930s Richardson played piano with a Burns group that called themselves the Rattlesnake Rattlers. Other Rattlers included Alex Eggleston on fiddle, George Mowery on bass and Charles Schroeder and Hugh Miller on guitar.

The Rattlesnake Rattlers played at dances around town. “They played all kinds of music,” Dale Eggleston, Alex Eggleston’s son, recounted. “In those days, if you wanted music, you had to make it yourself.”

While music was a hobby for each member of the Rattlesnake Rattlers, most of them also had day jobs. They were community leaders. Richardson was the Burns fire chief and postmaster. Schroder was the town butcher, and Mowery was the head of the power company. “All those guys were professionals,” Eggleston said.

They were movers and shakers who cared about the welfare of the community and would go to great lengths to ensure the Burns legacy was there to stay.

The beginning of a highway

In the early 1930s, it was decided that a new highway would be built from Canada to Mexico. During that time, most of the roads weren’t in great shape. The new road would be called the Three Flags Highway and was advertised as a direct route from Mexico through California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington to Canada. The town of Burns would be a prominent stop on the route.

The route would also be known as U.S. Highway 395. Getting a highway built, especially one of this magnitude, took time and money. It would be 25 years before the people of Harney County would see the highway built in Oregon. But at the time, the leaders in Burns realized the importance of getting the route established.

Burns sent a delegation of 19 men to a Three Flags Highway meeting in Reno, Nev. The June 7, 1935, edition of the Burns Times-Herald stated, “With the Burns group went well formulated plans contemplated to splurge Burns into prominence as one of the leading stops on the new International all-east-of-the-mountains short-cut between Mexico and Canada.”
In fact, the Rattlesnake Rattlers were an integral part of this delegation. The June 11, 1935, Times-Herald reported, “the Rattlesnake Rattlers and a Burns quartet performed dozens of times and always was enthusiastically received to the end that Burns is a more prominently placed city on the Three-Flags route than it has ever been before.”

The delegation made a pit stop in Lakeview, where the Rattlers put on quite a show. “So all the town could know, a piano was moved into the street and a(n) impromptu program given with most of the town gathering around,” the Times-Herald reported.

Bringing awareness through music

Twenty-five years before the highway would be built, these men had the vision to realize how important the route would be for future transportation. The Rattlers decided to use their musical talents, playing in various towns along the proposed route to help promote the highway.

According to Dale Eggleston, this musical tour is what raised awareness and got the highway built. “They just took it on themselves,” Eggleston said. They didn’t get paid for it. “It’s the main track from Canada to Northern Mexico because of that band,” he said. “They put Burns on the map.”

Playing Western songs, waltzes and fox trots, the band covered the territory of the proposed highway, hauling their instruments, including the Baldwin piano, from the Canadian border to Mexico. “They attracted a lot of people,” Eggleston said. “They’d find a spot downtown where they could make a racket and people could gather. They had a good time working together.”

It couldn’t have been easy to haul all their equipment, let alone the piano, from north to south across the United States, but the band members persevered. Perhaps for the larger cause of getting the highway built, or perhaps just for the love of music. They ended up touring the vast expanse of the West off and on for more than a year.

owever, it wasn’t until a quarter of a century later that the necessary funds and plans would be in place to actually complete the highway.

In 1953, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held in Burns to officially open the new “all-oiled route from border to border in Oregon,” according to the Aug. 21, 1953, edition of the Burns Times-Herald. Harney County residents were finally able to reap the benefits of years and years of planning for the Three Flags Highway, which ended up costing the state $10,000,000 for the Oregon portion of the route.

The ribbon cutting was a big deal. The governor was there as well as assorted state and county representatives and dignitaries. The Times-Herald story lists several local residents who also attended the festivities, including James Richardson of Burns, “a member of the Rattlesnake Rattlers orchestra when the 3-Flags was young.”

For piano, the music plays on

“It’s in amazingly good shape,” said Barnhart while gazing at the famous Rattler piano at her mother’s house in Burns. Her mother, Faye Smith, recently passed away.

Barnhart and her brother were cleaning out Smith’s house, where the piano has resided for the last several years. “It’s a piece of history,” said Barnhart, who grew up in Burns and now lives in Eugene. For her, out of those early piano lessons on the old Baldwin sprouted a love of music that carried her to a degree in music and then to Hines, where she taught music for a while.

From his childhood, Dale Eggleston, who also happens to be Barnhart’s second cousin, has fond memories of the Rattlesnake Rattlers and the music they made. “They had a grand old time,” he said. “The piano went with them, and it is still alive. But all the players are gone.”
So what is to become of the Rattlesnake Rattler piano? It will leave Harney County to live with Barnhart’s son in North Bend, Wash. There, a new set of little hands will learn to tickle the ivories on a piano within which just a little desert dust must still reside from its earlier travels.

From an unassuming piano came music that helped build a multi-million dollar highway — a reminder of what a little ingenuity can do when combined with community-minded individuals who want to leave a lasting impact on a desert oasis.

By Lauren Brown
Burns Times-Herald

Members of the Harney County District No. 3 Budget Committee will have to make some tough decisions as they consider what to cut to make next year’s budget work.

Superintendent David Courtney noted in his School Talk column last week that the district is about $800,000 in the red, which means programs, teachers, staff or school days will have to go.

The next budget committee meeting will take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 30, in the Lincoln administrative building (550 N. Court Ave) boardroom, with the possibility of moving to the auditorium if more room is needed. Superintendent Courtney hopes residents will attend and offer input.

District staff and administrators held a meeting to brainstorm a list of options to reduce the budget shortfall. Here is a partial list of options that could be considered to save the district money:

• Cut Slater Elementary music program ($69,535).
• Cut curriculum director position ($35,400).
• Cut golf ($8,000).
• Cut library aid positions ($103,940).
• Eliminate the vice principal position at the high school and have the principal assume those duties.
• Reduce counseling positions to half time.
• Eliminate one of the reading specialist positions at Slater Elementary School.
• Cut days at the end of the school year ($300,000).
• Cut middle school sports ($26,725).
• Cut mid-week games (saves money in substitutes and decreases student absences).
• Cut non-league games.
• Increase the fee to play sports.
• Cut sports uniforms and equipment.
• Eliminate bus transportation for sports.
• Cut the entire sports program.
• Completely close buildings on Fridays.
• Cut the senior project requirements, which can be met through career classes.
• Cutting administrative positions.

No decisions have been made yet. The budget committee will discuss these options and other suggestions in more detail at the April 30 meeting.

By Lauren Brown
Burns Times-Herald

At the April 23 meeting, the Burns City Council appointed Darwin Johnson to fill the vacancy left by Jim Eshelby, who resigned in March.

Johnson will serve the rest of Eshelby’s term, which will end in December of this year. In his letter of interest to the council, Johnson, who works for the county planning department, stated, “I love this community and hope that the experiences and knowledge I have will be beneficial to the council and community as a whole. I appreciate the history of our city, community, county and the great work which volunteers such as you have done in making this a desirable community to raise a family, work and enjoy the recreation that Harney County has to offer.”

Johnson was sworn in at the beginning of the April 23 meeting after the council unanimously approved his appointment. Johnson’s was the only letter of interest the city received for the vacant council seat.

In other business:
• the council made a couple of decisions regarding the upcoming budget. The council gave the budget committee the go-ahead to give city department heads up to a 2.5 percent cost-of-living increase in their salaries and also agreed to put the cemetery, parks and airport contracts out for bid.

City Manager Justin Boone said the contracts should be ready to put out to bid in the next month or so. When asked why they couldn’t be done sooner, he replied that the city attorney still needed to look them over.

However, City Attorney Steve Finlayson said he was under the impression the city was simply going to renew the contracts for another year, but he said he could have the contracts ready in the timeframe Boone outlined and hoped to have them ready by the May 12 budget meeting;

• the council approved 4-2 an invoice in the amount of $8,700 for legal services rendered from July to December 2007 by attorney Finlayson.

The invoice included hours spent on airport issues, the Burns water/sewer project as well as ordinances and franchise work. It also included 78.1 hours of work labeled “other.” When asked what kind of work would go under that classification, Finlayson said he couldn’t remember exactly off-hand but that it likely included reviewing resolutions as well as litigation work that he couldn’t talk about in open session.

Councilor Sean Wilson asked if the city had the money in the budget to pay the invoice. City Manager Boone said that while the city doesn’t have the money in the city attorney’s line item, the money could come from elsewhere in the budget, possibly the contingency fund.

Mayor Laura Van Cleave and councilors Linda Johnson, Bill Renwick and Darwin Johnson voted in favor of paying the invoice, while councilors Len Vohs and Wilson voted against it;

• Councilor Wilson gave a report on the bid received to move the airport fueling ramp. He said that only one bid was received, and it was higher than the engineer expected. However, the bid included a couple of project options — one for asphalt and one for concrete. The concrete option was more expensive, but would also last longer. Wilson said he thought the Airport Committee was leaning toward the concrete option but would discuss it further at the next committee meeting and come back to the council with a committee recommendation.

Airport Manager Walt Sitz said he would prefer the concrete option, and if the project had to wait a year in order to gather extra funds to pay for the concrete, that would be OK;

• Councilor Linda Johnson said she has been contacted by a number of residents on the recycling issue. She said residents appreciate the 4R Recycle Center and hope it stays in business.

Curbside recycling has been a contentious issue of late as the 4R Recycle Center would like to offer curbside recycling, but cannot do so because C&B Sanitary, which offers curbside garbage pick-up, holds the franchise rights.

City Manager Boone said that he believed C&B Sanitary would work out an agreement with the 4R Recycle Center.

Councilor Renwick noted that Rimrock Recycling, which offered a recycling day once per month, recently closed its doors. He commended them for their work over the years;

• Mayor Van Cleave appointed new councilor Darwin Johnson to lead the parks committee.

The next Burns City Council meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 14, at Burns City Hall.

By Randy Parks
Burns Times-Herald

Steven Attleberger pitched a one-hitter and the Hilanders banged out 14 hits in a 14-0 win and a sweep of the Nyssa Bulldogs on Friday, April 25.
Burns won the opener 10-0 behind a three-hit performance by Tommy Ghost Dog (10-3).

The first game was a scoreless affair until the bottom of the fifth when Burns loaded the bases on two walks and an infield hit. Caleb Feist then cleared the bases with triple down the left field line.

After a flyout, Ghost Dog  and Logan Garner hit back-to-back singles, and Dallon Swindlehurst drew a walk to fill the bases once again. Matt Ogata followed with a two-RBI single and the Hilanders led 6-0.

The Hilanders ended the game early on the 10-run rule the next inning. Trevor Smith, Feist and Garrett Swisher all had base hits to lead off the sixth and Ghost Dog drove in the first run with a walk. Garner made it 8-0 with an RBI single and Drew Heinz finished the deal with a base hit that scored two runners.

In the second game, it was Feist again who got the Burns offense started. He cracked a leadoff homer to give Burns a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first.
Burns put together a five-run rally in the second inning, which included a three-run triple by Swisher.

The Hilanders then tallied four runs in each of the next two innings to put the game away.

Feist finished 3-for-3 at the plate with three RBIs and three runs scored.  Ghost Dog was also 3-for-3 with two RBIs. Jory Fritts drove in two runs on two hits and Swisher ended up with four RBIs to lead the team.

Along with giving up just one hit, Attleberger struck out 10 and walked three in five innings.

“Steve had his best pitching performance of his high school career,” Burns coach Kevin Feist said. “He did a great job of keeping the Nyssa hitters off balance all game.”

With the sweep, the Hilanders improved their Eastern Oregon League (EOL) record to 3-3 and stayed alive in the playoff race. “These were two must-win games for us,” Feist said. “I am really proud of how we played. We were solid in all aspects of the game.”

Burns travels to Umatilla on Friday, May 2, and then finishes up EOL action on Friday, May 9, when they host Riverside.

First game
1  2  3  4  5  6  7   R H E
Nys   0  0  0  0  0  0  x   0  3  0
Bur   0  0  0  0  6  4  x  10 12 0
Second game
1  2  3  4  5  6  7    R H E
Nys  0  0  0  0  0  x  x    0  1  0
Bur  1  5  4  4  x  x  x   14 14 1

•••

The Hilander baseball team raised their season record to 11-8 with a 6-5 win over Baker on Tuesday, April 22.

Feist drilled a lead-off home run in the top of the first inning to give Burns a lead they’d never relinquish.

The Hilanders’ Garner came up with an RBI-single in the game and Smith picked up two RBIs with bases-loaded walks.

Burns had only one other hit in the game, a double by Swindlehurst, but benefitted from a total of 14 walks issued by the Bulldogs.

Ghost Dog picked up the win, giving up three earned runs on seven hits with six strikeouts and two walks over seven innings.

“We needed this win,”  coach Feist said. “We had lost our last three league games by one run and lost to Madras by three. It was our time to win a close game. Baker is a very good baseball team. They’re tied for first in the Greater Oregon League with La Grande and Ontario. It’s always nice to beat a quality team on the road.”

1  2  3  4  5  6  7   R H E
Bur   4  0  0  1  0  1  0   6  3  2
Bak   1  0  0  0  2  1  2   5  7  2

•••

Burns JV baseball team swept Nyssa 10-0 and 11-6 on Saturday, April 26, to raise their overall record to 6-5.

The Hilanders’ Zach Dobson threw a no-hitter in the first game, and Pat Stampke notched the win in the nightcap.

On Tuesday, April 22, the Burns JV team lost to Baker 9-3.

Burns JV swept Grant Union on Saturday, April 19, 8-1 and 11-8.

JoAnna White died on April 28 at her home in Burns in the presence of her husband, children and grandchildren.

She was born in Ontario on Aug. 3, 1935, to John Henry Westfall and Naomi Esther (Brewer) Westfall, the first of their two children.

On Feb. 7, White was diagnosed with bile duct and pancreatic cancer, which was determined to be inoperable by cancer specialists at Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital. She returned home under the care of her family and Harney County Hospice, which allowed her the privilege of spending her final days in the comfort of her home surrounded by family and friends.

White’s father worked on the Oregon State Highway Department Highway Bridge Crew during her first three years of grade school, resulting in her attending many different schools and always being the new girl in class. In 1944, he took a maintenance job for the State Highway Department at Seneca, where she attended grades fourth through seventh. In 1948, the family moved to Hines where she attended the eighth grade. She graduated from Burns High School in 1953.

After high school, White was hired as a secretary for the State Highway Department in Burns, where she worked for a year before leaving with her husband as he entered the U.S. Army.

She and Dale White were married on April 11, 1954, in Burns, and had just celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary a few days prior to her death. She had three children, Linda, Kathy and Ron.

White was primarily a housewife devoted to the upbringing of her children. When her children were small, she was a Brownie Scout Leader. She had a great love for flowers and not only grew them, but was a talented arranger. She was also a cake decorator and provided many beautiful bouquets and cakes for church, weddings, birthdays and other special occasions.

White participated in numerous community and church activities. She was always ready to lend a helping hand. She was more interested in providing service than in claiming the spotlight.

She was an active member of the Burns/Hines Kiwanis and enjoyed the activities and fellowship of this service organization. She enjoyed participating in fund-raising activities that were primarily for the benefit of the youth programs of Harney County. White was one of the primary originators and developers of the Kiwanis Fishing Pond at the Harney County Fair. In 2004-2005 she was recognized for outstanding dedication to the Kiwanis Club of Burns/Hines as Kiwanian of the Year.

White’s great love was her church, where she had been a member of First Baptist Church (now Faith Baptist) from 1949 until the present. She was a Sunday school teacher, young people’s leader, deaconess, vacation Bible school leader, camp counselor, King’s Daughters leader, choir member, Awana listener, and served on various church committees and commissions. She was a member of the building committee that resulted in the building of the new addition to her church that is now under construction. One of her desires was to be able to get strong enough so she could again attend church, but it was not to be.

On April 23, she worked up enough strength to take a wheel chair tour of the church and the new construction, which buoyed her spirits. It gave her great satisfaction to see the progress that was being made on the addition, and she would have loved to have lived to see it completed, but God had greater plans for her.

White is survived by her husband, Dale; children, Linda (White) Bennett and husband Rod; Kathy (White) Wassom and husband Ron; and Ron White and wife Debbie; six grandchildren, Levi Bennett and wife Joelle, Mandi Bennett, Natalie Wassom, Shyanne White and fiancé Timothy Slate, Samantha White and Chance White; and one great-granddaughter, Jorah Bennett.

She is also survived by brother-in-law, Don White and wife Lois; sister-in-law, Terry Westfall, and nieces and nephews, Tammy and Derek Sebright, Debbie and Ron Ryan, Bob and Stacy Westfall, Jim Westfall, Kurt White, Joel and Nadra White, Charlotte Lamborn, Rawleigh and Gretchen White, and Dean and Petrina White; numerous other family members; and a host of friends.

White was preceded in death by her parents, John and Naomi Westfall, and her brother, Johnny Westfall, who was born on her 11th birthday, and unfortunately succumbed to the same pancreatic cancer that claimed her.

A celebration of White’s life will be held at Faith Baptist Church on Saturday, May 3, at 2 p.m. Contributions in her memory may be made to the Faith Baptist Church Memorial Fund, Harney County Hospice, Harney County Senior Center, or to a charity of one’s choice.

Merna Bernice Adkins Vancil, 89, a long time Eastern Oregonian, died at her home in Oregon City on April 17.

She was born near Weston, on April 9, 1919, to Eva Lena and Marvin Adkins.

Vancil began her schooling at Fairview School on Reed and Hawley Mountain and then moved to Weston with her family when she was in third grade. She graduated from Weston High School in 1936.

She married Marvin Vancil on Aug. 7, 1938, in Weston, and they called Weston, Enterprise, Arlington, North Powder and Mt. Vernon home. Marvin was an educator and was an active supporter of all school activities.

Vancil was primarily a homemaker until her children were in school. After that time she worked as a school secretary in North Powder and Mt. Vernon, and later was a secretary to the County Extension Agent in Canyon City.

She reigned as queen of the Umatilla County Pioneer Associations annual Pioneer Reunion in Weston in 1985, as her mother had in 1960.

Vancil loved life and being around people, whether it be family gatherings or her associations with members of Neighbors of Woodcraft, Order of Eastern Star, the Rainbow girls in North Powder, of which she was Mother Adviser, and the 4-H girls she led in cooking and sewing. She enjoyed her bowling league, sewing for her family, doing handiwork, and playing cards with family and friends.

After retirement she and her husband made many memories golfing and spending time with their friends at the golf course in John Day. When her husband’s health failed she was an inspiration to her family as she gave all of her time to his care. She always put her family first and loved spending time with her children and grandchildren, cheering them on in their individual pursuits.

In 2004, Vancil moved to Walla Walla, where she enjoyed the companionship of her sisters. In 2006, she moved to Oregon City to an assisted living facility, where her loving spirit continued to touch those around her.

Vancil is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Bob and Judy Vancil of Redmond; daughters, Lynne Adams and husband Tom, of La Grande, and Dana Copenhaver and husband John of Burns; nine grandchildren; 18 great-grandchildren; sisters, Georgia Schisler and Marilyn Duffy of Walla Walla; sister-in-law, Marie Vancil of Milton-Freewater; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Vancil was preceded in death by her husband; brother, Pete Adkins; son, Donald Vancil; and grandson, John Copenhaver.

A graveside service will be held at the Milton-Freewater Cemetery at a later date. Contributions in Vancil’s memory may be made to the Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church, of which she was a member.

Storytime for preschoolers is held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. at the Harney County Library.

Burns Fire Dept. meets each Wednesday at the Burns Fire Hall at 7 p.m.

Burns Elks Lodge, 118 North Broadway, meets each Wednesday at 7 p.m.

Alcoholics Anonymous meets each Wednesday at the Foursquare Church at 7 p.m.

A Merchant’s Meeting will be held on Thursday, May 1, at 8 a.m., at Tumbleweed Floral, to discuss the Quilt Show.

Soup & Support, a bereavement support event hosted by Harney County Hospice and facilitated by Hospice Chaplain Renfro, is held the first Thursday of each month at the Burns Four Square Church, 74 South Alvord, from noon until 1 p.m. It is free of charge; all are welcome.

Burns Butte Sportsmen’s Club meets the first Thursday of each month at the State Office Building, 809 West Jackson, at 7 p.m.

Tai Chi  is held every Thursday at the Harney County Senior and Community Services Center, from 9:30-10:30 a.m. All ages are  welcome to participate.

Kiwanis Club of Burns-Hines meets for a no-host luncheon each Thursday at Glory Days Pizza, 690 Oregon Ave., at noon.

Take Off Pounds Sensibly meets each Thursday at Hines City Hall, 101 East Barnes, at noon. Call 573-2896.

The Boys & Girls Club holds karaoke each Thursday. Members of all ages are welcome to join Hanna in the education room for a program that promotes the art of singing, as well as a fun way to practice reading skills.

Teen Night is held at the Boys & Girls Club each Thursday, from 6-7 p.m. for all teenagers.

Alcoholics Anonymous meets each Thursday at the Foursquare Church, at 7 p.m.

Oregon Old Time Fiddlers, District 9, meets the first, third and fourth Friday of each month. Call Julia at 573-2770, for time and place.

Boxing is held each Friday from 2-4 p.m. at the Boys & Girls Club. The fundamentals of boxing are taught to kids. Permission slips must be turned in prior to participation in this program.

Hines Middle School Reading Club meets each Friday from 10:30-11:30 a.m. at the Harney County Library.

The Boys & Girls Club has the Club Bucks Store open each Friday. This is an incentive program in which members earn “club bucks” by doing good deeds and helping out around the club.

Alcoholics Anonymous meets every Friday at Foursquare Church at 7 p.m.

The Harney County chapter of the Oregon Hunters Association will host its eighth annual Big Game Classic fund-raising banquet on May 3 in the Memorial Building at the Harney County Fairgrounds. Banquet registration fliers can be picked up at Burns Ford, or for more information, call Terri Hellbusch at 573-1509.

Diabetes Support Group meets at the Harney County Health Building, 420 North Fairview, the first Saturday of each month at 2 p.m.

Alanon holds an open meeting each Saturday at Foursquare Church at 5:30 p.m.