Looking back on August 28

Chuck Covert didn’t even know the Mill Creek Tunnel existed until the day it was overwhelmed by floodwaters, which then coursed downtown. Now Covert, co-owner with his wife Cathy of Napa Auto Parts, which was heavily hit by the February flooding, knows a lot about the tunnel. “Yes, I know a lot more about it than I ever dreamed I’d know, but when things affect your life like that, you want to know more about it,” he said. He has spearheaded a successful effort to bring various agencies to the table to seek a solution to prevent a similar situation from happening again. A recent multi-agency meeting saw pledges to take several steps toward improving the tunnel’s ability to handle water.

LONDON (AP) – No more royal husband, no more Her Royal Highness – no more role for Diana? Now divorced from Prince Charles, the newly styled Diana, Princess of Wales, is rich, beautiful, independent and effectively jobless. The final decree came today, six weeks after Charles was granted a preliminary decree of divorce from the woman he married 15 years ago. The marriage ended at 10:27 a.m. when a legal clerk issued a decree that their divorce was now “absolute,” Buckingham Palace said.

40 years ago – 1976

TYGH VALLEY – Lisa Gustafson of Tygh Valley walked off with the 1976 grand champion livestock showmanship award and was named the overall showman champion at the 1976 Wasco County Fair Friday. Mike Sandoz of The Dalles was reserve champion. Miss Gustafson won several other champion awards.

GOLDENDALE, Wash. – There’s something on Mars fixing carbon and the Viking scientists are all excited trying to figure out what it means. That brings the mission into proper focus, B. Gentry Lee, director of NASA science flight teams for the project told listeners here last night. Lee is on loan to the project from his parent firm, Martin Marietta Aluminum Company, and his appearance here was arranged by Sandy Thomson, plant manager for MM’s Goldendale plant. Lee’s electrifying enthusiasm for his work kept more than 150 people spellbound for two hours as he unfolded the entire project and he called for more work to determine exactly what information already taken really means. He said scientists on the project were being very careful about drawing conclusion as to the existence of life on Mars. “You don’t want to be the man who goes down in history as being wrong about life on Mars. Think about it,” he quipped, drawing one of the many appreciative laughs his audience gave during his humor-filled talk.

60 years ago – 1956

CAIRO (UP) – The British Embassy categorically denied today that it was involved in an alleged espionage ring which Egyptian police said it cracked Monday with the arrest of two Britons. The Britons were accused of heading an alleged ring that passed military information to a foreign embassy, but a British embassy spokesman today categorically denied that it was the British Embassy that was involved. No formal charges were filed immediately against the Britons, who were arrested along with four Arabs. They were identified as James Swinburn, 51, employee of the Arab News Agency, and Charles Pittuck, who worked for the Marconi Telegraph Company.

City police today are investigating the break-in at Nick’s Rich Maid ice cream store at 819 W. Sixth street sometime last night. Store owners who discovered the forced entry at 8:45 a.m. today said nothing was taken except a quart of ice cream. The thief or thieves forced a door at the northwest corner of the building. Police also said four wheels and tires and a battery were taken off a car in a ditch on the road between Dufur and The Dalles sometime Sunday.

A group of 16 farm taxpayers yesterday requested that County Judge Fred Mauser appoint a steering committee to help set up a program for reclassifying farm land, the judge said today. Mauser appointed holders of various kinds of farm land throughout the county. The committee is scheduled to call a meeting Sept. 6 and ask the state tax commission to send a representative. The farmers have indicated that at that time they would like to select a farmer from every county in the state who will, with the assistance of the tax commission, divide the counties into smaller districts for the purpose of the proposed program. Within these smaller districts, the work of reclassifying the land will be done by volunteers from among the farmers and tax commission and county assessor’s office representatives.

80 years ago – 1936

HENDAYE, France, Aug. 27. (UP) – An American citizen, John Dored, cameraman for the Paramount Newsreel, was arrested and jailed by rebel forces at Navalmoral today. Accompanied by three loyalist bodyguards, Dored, mistaking rebel for government outposts, crossed into insurgent territory. The three guards were executed. When government passes, stamped at Barcelone and Madrid, were discovered in Dored’s pockets, he as placed in jail.

Stalwart figures in the history of exploration, missionary work and military operations centering about Old Fort Dalles will be represented by leading men and women of the community in the pageant, “131 Years in The Dalles,” to be presented Thursday and Friday nights next week at the civic auditorium as the principal attraction of the Old Fort Dalles Frolics. The pageant, for which intensive rehearsals are now being held, will be divided into four acts, or episodes. The first is that of exploration. The second deals with the inauguration of missionary work here in 1838 and the third presents the picturesque life of the frontier community, when activities centered around the military post. The fourth act takes on a note of prophecy. It gives some indication of the expected development of the great Inland Empire and visions the future of The Dalles, gateway city and connecting link on a waterways highway between the vast interior country and the markets of the world.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore., Aug 28. (UP) – Overflow waters from Tule lake swirled today through a new break in the dike protecting the 1,000 acre barley field leased by the Haskins Brothers, while CCC crews from the Klamath and Lava Beds camps battled the flow. As the CCC workers were rushed in to stop the gap in the dike which separates the Haskins lease from the already inundated Cox Brotehrs lease, five big combines chewed through the barley in an attempt to complete the harvest ahead of the impending flood.

100 years ago – 1916

BUENOS AIRES, Aug. 28. By Charles P. Stewart (United Press Staff Correspondent.) – South America’s republics today are sitting over just such another powder magazine as the one which exploded two years ago in Europe. In many ways the situation recalls the situation existing in Europe just a few years before the outbreak of the present struggle. The recent hint of war between Venezuela and Peru and Columbia and Ecuador brought South America to sharp attention. They might easily do what the Balkan mix-up did in Europe. There is the same feeling that a widespread clash cannot be prevented, the same conflict of interests, same warnings, same preparations, same groaning under the weight of those preparations and the same undercurrent of international ill-feeling. If war comes, the two principal belligerents probably will be Argentina and Chile.

George Roos of Portland, aged 18 years, was drowned in Five Mile rapids east of this city on the Washington side of the Columbia river yesterday afternoon when his canoe overturned in a big whirlpool. His brother, Walter Roos, aged 16, who was also in the canoe, succeeded in swimming to shore, and walked to this city, bringing the first news of the accident. The two boys, whose parents reside at 321 Sixth street, south, Portland, were employes of Huntley brothers drug store in Portland, and were on their vacations. They shipped a canoe to Lewiston, Idaho, from which city they planned a trip down the Columbia river to Portland. “We went over to the Washington side of the river, intending to shoot the rapids,” said the younger brother yesterday. “Our canoe turned over in the upper rapids and we lost two guns and a camera. Thinking nothing worse could happen to us we righted our canoe and continued down the rapids. A big whirlpool struck the canoe and we both went into the water again. I hung onto our knapsack and blankets and swam to shore but never saw George after we overturned.”