Yesteryears -- Nov. 15, 2017

2012 – For the second consecutive election, Oregonians overwhelmingly rejected the idea of allowing a private casino to be built in the Portland suburb of Wood Village. Voters rejected the idea by a 71 percent to 29 percent margin. Oregonians also defeated a constitutional amendment to allow private casinos in the state.

2007 – Grand Ronde Tribal member Rebecca Knight was selected as a 2007-08 Hatfield Fellow. Knight, 22, was the ninth fellow and fifth Grand Ronde Tribal member selected for the program. She was set to begin a fellowship in Congresswoman Darlene Hooley’s office the following month.

2002 – Roy Hawthorne, a World War II Navajo code talker, was the featured speaker at the Veterans’ Memorial fundraiser event in Grand Ronde. He waived his customary speaking fee to help the Tribe defray costs. Hawthorne was a part of a group of Navajo men who developed the only military code the Japanese were unable to break during the war.The fundraising event also included other speakers, dancers and the Eagle Beak Singers.

1997 – Tribal member Tammy Garrison, owner of T & L Cookie Co., gained regional notoriety after winning the Wal-Mart Championship Bake-off for Oregon and was set to compete in the national championship. She began her business earlier that year.

1992 – The Tribe was gearing up for the ninth annual Restoration celebration on Nov. 22. “I was really young at the time,” said Karen Harrison, Tribal receptionist. “But I remember the excitement and uncertainty during the plane ride to Washington, D.C. We weren’t sure the bill would pass.”

1987 – The Tribal Health Program was planning an “AIDS Workshop” to alleviate concerns from Tribal members about the virus and how it was transmitted. Some of the questions the workshop planned to address were if only drug users contracted AIDS, if it could be spread by shaking hands or kissing, and if children needed to worry about contracting it at school.

Yesteryears is a look back at Tribal history in five-year increments through the pages of Smoke Signals.