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This issue
Classified Ads A9-10 • Legal Notices A10 • Obituaries A6 • Opinions A4 • Out & About A7 • Calendar A7 • TV Guide A8 • Sports A12-16 • Weather A12
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
The Chronicle
$1 Vol. 134, No. 30 18 Pages
www.thechronicleonline.com
Clowning around at the rodeo with Danger Dave fighter. After college, he left his home in Montana and attended a Sankey Rodeo school in Kansas, receiving an award for top student in his class. He fought bulls for a while, transitioning to clowning gradually, and working as both for a time. His wife Kelly is six-months pregnant, and she travels with him on the road, helping him chase his dreams. “I knew I could talk out in front of people and not worry about acting like a fool,” Whitmoyer said. “Some people get really tense in situations like that… there’s pressure every day, but I feel like I handle it
BY CODY MANN cmann@countrymedia.net
People come to the rodeo to see bronco busting and bullfighting, but they also come to laugh, thanks in large part to entertainers such as David Whitmoyer, professionally known as Danger Dave. Rodeo clowns keep the show moving, fill in the space between events, and engage the audience to make the experience a more personal one. A college football player and graduate, Whitmoyer had always wanted to be a bull-
well enough.” Whitmoyer was fearless in the rodeo area at St. Helens, taunting all manner of beast and man for a laugh. Even when he hunkers down in his protective barrel, he never stops interacting with the show, risking his neck for the crowd’s enjoyment. “Through 10 years of this I’ve learned to move around
animals and livestock and bucking bulls in the arena, so I can make those close calls look really close to the crowd, but I know I’m in a safe spot,” Whitmoyer said. He attributes his safety to the rodeo school preparation, but his success is a nod to combining his bullfighting skills with his approach to clowning. “Some people think because
I’m wearing these big baggy pants or I look like dork that I can’t move around a bull or that I’m not athletic,” Whitmoyer said. The rodeo clown serves as a backup to the bullfighters in the arena whose job it is to provide a distraction when a rider is thrown. If the situation calls for
See CLOWN, Page A6
County Democrats, Republicans battle for Presidential votes BY JEREMY C. RUARK jruark@countrymedia.net
The race for the White House will include a full court press from both the Columbia County Republican Party and the Columbia County Democratic Party to reach voters between now and the General Election in November. Columbia County Democratic Central Committee Chair Donna Nyberg said presidential candidate Bernie Sanders helped increase voter interest in the race. “Bernie Sanders made this an exciting campaign bringing in a lot of independents and first-time voters,” she said. Nyberg said the county Demo-
cratic Party has launched a registration drive and is working on behalf of the Democrats running for state and local offices in Oregon. According to Nyberg, a Hillary Clinton victory in Columbia County is all about reaching the right demographics. “We will work hard to get out the base,” she said. “We have a good record of voting in Columbia County. In addition we must take our case to the non-affiliated voters and to those Republicans who are in the “Never Trump Camp.”’ Nyberg said the priority is to reach all voters. “We believe in the intelligence and the good common sense of voters all across the country and in Oregon particularly,” she said. “We will make a positive case for Hillary Clinton as the most prepared and the most experienced candidate who has ever run for President and compare that to the history of Mr. Trump’s business dealings, including Trump U. and a series of bankruptcies stiffing contractors and small business owners.” Columbia County Republican Party Chair Larry Ericksen said his party is also conducting aggressive
See ELECTION, Page A6
Filling lagoon could net City $137M BY CODY MANN cmann@countrymedia.net
The City of St. Helens is looking deeper into the possibility of generating funds by filling the 39-acre lagoon at the wastewater treatment plant. That would allow the city to build a new, more efficient plant at another location, adding the current spot to the developable waterfront property the city is currently working on. Sources under consideration for the fill material include the Portland Har-
Over a dozen brewers at event. All beers being sampled will be on sale with HOT pricing. Vote for you favorite beer to enter to win a $100 gift card. Winning beer will be on sale all of August.
bor Superfund cleanup site, a Multnomah Channel maintenance project and regional brownfield cleanup sites. Charging dumping fees for accepting the material would generate revenue for the new wastewater treatment plant for the city and other development costs. During the July 20 meeting of the St. Helens City Council, the value of filling the lagoon at the Wastewater Treatment Plant was unveiled by Ted Wall, a consultant with the environmental engineering firm Maul Foster & Alongi. The firm recently helped to
transform a landfill in Astoria into a sports complex. Wall presented three choices for partial or complete fills of the lagoon, allowing for up to 4.5 million cubic yards of filling material to be brought to the site. Wall projected 2.1 million cubic yards of sediment and soil from the channel project, 1.7 million cubic yards from the Portland Harbor cleanup, and 665,000 cubic yards from brownfield cleanup sites in the region. The project could generate as much as
See LAGOON, Page A12
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