Re-enactment reunion; billboard angers citizens; California chicks
- Updated
Odd and interesting news from the West.
- By TAMMY AYER Yakima Herald-Republic
- Updated
YAKIMA, Wash. — They came by the thousands from all directions, streaming into Valley Forge State Park in Conestoga wagons and Prairie Schooners, on horseback, on foot.
That day — July 3, 1976 — Marilyn "Micki" Robison rode among them on the eve of America's 200th birthday, reported the Yakima Herald-Republic (http://bit.ly/292Y4A0).
With more than 300 wagons and nearly 5,000 people on horseback who traveled from every corner of the country, the yearlong Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage to Pennsylvania had reached its final destination.
"It was amazing," said Robison, 82, of Naches.
During the holiday weekend, a reunion at Valley Forge celebrated the 40th anniversary of the wagon train pilgrimage, arguably among the most ambitious of many oversized bicentennial events.
Over the course of a year, Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage participants traveled through cities and towns throughout the United States as they followed traditional migration routes such as the Oregon, California and Santa Fe trails, the Great Platte River and Mormon roads, the Santa Fe, Old Spanish, Natchez Trace, Wilderness, Old Post and Lancaster Pike.
People brought their children. Some quit their jobs or left school. A few married along the way. Others met people they would marry after it ended.
And Robison wasn't just any participant. She served as the National Trails Coordinator of the bicentennial pilgrimage, crisscrossing the country throughout the process to ensure that each of the seven wagon trains traveling to Pennsylvania stayed on track and on task, hiring and firing paid staff, solving problems, answering questions, riding along with the wagons when she could and smoothing their entry into Valley Forge.
Robison was set to attend this first national reunion, flying out with Bill Gregory, 63, whom she befriended when he joined the wagon train from Polk City, Florida.
"The reason they're doing it is ... because of the 100th anniversary of the (National Park Service)," she said. Among other festivities, they will participate in the July 4 Picnic in the Park.
July 4 also marks the 40th anniversary of Valley Forge State Park becoming Valley Forge National Historical Park. President Gerald Ford signed the paperwork in which the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania turned the park over to the federal government.
Robison was chosen to assist him.
"I handed (President Ford) the pen. He signed it. It was really cool," she said.
An idea unlike any other
The Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage to Pennsylvania began in Blaine, Washington, on June 8, 1975, with a ride through the peace arch at the American-Canadian border.
A massive recreation of the Western migration in reverse, the pilgrimage was chosen from among other ideas that involved tall ships and a freedom train.
"The American Revolutionary Bicentennial Organization ... established a few years before the bicentennial, was trying to determine what it would do," Robison said. "It was funded and they offered $1 million to anybody that could come up with a project."
The project had to be inclusive, and "we all knew we wanted to do something special," Robison said. Organizers chose the wagon train.
Every state, including Alaska and Hawaii, received a wagon that would roam its cities and towns until each wagon joined one of the wagon trains coming through the contiguous 48 states. Every major wagon train featured a traveling musical show that was performed for local communities at each stopping point.
A public relations executive in Philadelphia, C. Robert Gruver, coordinated the project, according to the Valley Forge website, www.nps.gov/vafo. It was sponsored by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and funded by the federal government and bicentennial organizations.
Gruver oversaw the departure of 60 official wagons from each state. His family also was involved, including wife Nancy and children Holly and C.R.
Corporate sponsors including Aero-Mayflower Transit Company, Gulf Oil and Holiday Inns provided services and helped foot the bill, which among other things paid for the official wagons crafted in Arkansas, insurance and small salaries for the wagon masters and other staff.
But anyone with a wagon and horses could ride along, and that was Robison's plan in the first place.
"I'm kinda hyper-patriotic; I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what. ... I went to a horse show in Santa Barbara" in the spring of 1975 and saw a Conestoga wagon, said Robison, a junior high teacher and longtime horsewoman who was living in southern California at the time. She still has horses on her ranch near Chinook Pass.
"I (talked to) the man who was sitting there with this wagon, which had been carried around the state on the back of a truck. He told me this wagon would be in the Rose Parade; that would be the start of the wagon train from California."
Robison started as an assistant wagon master, but was promoted to California wagon master, then hired as national trails coordinator when the need became apparent in the face of multiple organizational challenges. She applied for it like any other job and had experience working with groups, having run a children's camp and working with horses for most of her life.
After helping launch the effort in Blaine, she joined others in riding down through Washington, Oregon and Idaho. She crossed the Western deserts of Arizona and flew to other wagon trains' launch locations to help them get started.
In November 1975, the north-westerners put their wagons in winter storage in Cheyenne, Wyoming. With the new year, wagon trains began in southern states and others resumed their journeys as the weather improved.
Robison rode in the Rose Parade on Jan. 1, 1976. She rode in the Mardi Gras Parade that year in New Orleans.
As part of her national-level role, Robison helped launch wagon trains throughout the country, including Polk City, Florida.
That's where she met Gregory, who was 20 at the time.
"I hired him to be a camp jack," Robison said, explaining that Gregory was a handyman for that wagon train. "He's kinda like a son to me."
Gregory, a Virginia native who was attending college in St. Petersburg at the time, still relishes the adventure.
"I went over to Polk City for the day" to check out the hoopla surrounding the wagon train launch. He knew almost immediately that he wanted to join.
"I went home, quit my job, got out of my lease, the whole thing," he said.
Things were a little hairy from the start. A tornado warning the first day on the road — Jan. 31, 1976 — sent everyone into the closest ditch they could find. Gregory wasn't fazed.
"I got paid $100 (a month) and my horse and I got fed," he said.
Gregory slept in his horse trailer and like other participants, made arrangements to drive his truck and trailer ahead to the next stop, get a ride back to the day's starting point and ensure that his horse was in the right place at the right time.
Mayflower vans hauled hay and the sound stage equipment for the Penn State performers who accompanied each wagon train.
They headed north through the Panhandle for the next five weeks then "zig-zagged" up through Alabama, visiting as many towns as they could before mid-April, when they merged in Nashville with the wagon train following the main route in the South.
"People were so incredible," Gregory said. "The locals would hold potlucks. It was pretty amazing; every town gave us such a great reception."
One of Gregory's favorite moments was leading his wagon train as it passed through Washington D.C.
"We went right by the White House. I was carrying the flag and leading that group," he said. "That was the proudest moment for me."
While Gregory was on the road with his continually changing wagon trains, Robison was here and there, making sure operations were progressing on schedule with all of the seven wagon trains.
She's still amazed at how many people brought their own wagons, and how many people got involved any way they could.
"There were hundreds of people with wagons. Anybody could join at any time and ride on horseback. They would start out riding for a day or two," she said.
Upon their arrival at Valley Forge, participants settled in for a week or two, or longer if they could. Robison got there a week before the wagon trains arrived and helped coordinate their entry into the park on July 3.
"Once we got to Valley Forge, we spent the whole summer there from the Fourth of July through Sept. 30," Robison said.
Same family, new event
Memorabilia from the Bicentennial Wagon Train of 1976 will be on display in the park's Meeting Room as part of the July 4 festivities. The public can see the collection and talk to participants.
Robison is looking forward to the reunion but doesn't like flying. Others insisted, she said.
"I'm very nervous. I dread the plane flight," she said. "But everybody said, 'You have to come, you are the only one who knew all the trains.'"
She's staying at a four-star hotel "for the first time in my life," Robison said with amazement.
The reunion was organized by Holly Gruver Franciamone, daughter of the man who oversaw the pilgrimage, Robison said.
Franciamone talked to Dan Weckerly, communications manager for the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board, about holding a 40th reunion.
"It may seem odd to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bicentennial Wagon Train. I mean, the 50th would make more sense," Franciamone told Weckerly in his blog at www.valleyforge.org.
"But the people who lived this — who traveled mile after mile and faced all those challenges and slept in the wagons and dealt with the difficulties — some of them are gone now. And the others are getting older.
"I'm not sure how many of us will be left in 2026. So the time for this kind of reunion is now."
Back in 1975, "nobody dreamed that it would get as big as it did," Robison said. In every sense of the cliche, it was the journey of a lifetime. She met a descendant of Sacagawea, country singer Loretta Lynn and her daughters; the president and his daughter. She met most of the governors.
"It was kind of a big deal, bigger in some states in others. In many places it was incredibly authentic," Robison said.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
RENO, Nev. — Reno police say they shot to death a man who tried to run over an officer as he attempted to drive into a crowded chicken wing festival, KNRV TV reported.
Authorities say that a silver mini-van tried to get past a barricade in front of the annual Biggest Little City Wing Fest on Sunday afternoon and then swerved toward a police officer who was on foot.
Washoe County sheriff's spokesman Bob Harmon tells the TV station (http://nbcnews.to/29fMOmF ) that the officer shot the man after it crashed into a vendor.
Police say the suspect, who they have not identified, was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died.
No officers or bystanders were injured.
Witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots and seeing officers try to cut the van off.
Wing Fest, an annual chicken wings cook-off, is a three-day event that features 25 wing cookers, a free concert and draws 80,000 people.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
SAN DIEGO — Firefighters found the body of a man as they put out a small fire under a San Diego freeway bridge.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/29i9IbP ) a homicide investigation is under way following the grim discovery in the Bay Park neighborhood Sunday morning.
Police Lt. Manny Del Toro says it's unclear if the man was already dead at the time of the fire or if he suffered other trauma. An autopsy will determine the cause of his death and his identity.
Del Toro said witnesses saw someone run away from the area across Interstate 5 to the center divider around the time the fire was reported. He said a man was also seen carrying a gas can within two blocks of the fire.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
PORTLAND, Oregon — The owner of a $1 million vacation home on the Oregon coast says the structure is in danger of slipping into the ocean after waves whittled away a protective sand dune.
Tai Dang built the oceanfront property in Rockaway Beach seven years ago. He has since applied for a permit to install riprap, which is loose stone used as a foundation, to stop the erosion from eating away the land under the home, but neighbors, the city, the state and conservationists oppose the proposal. Conservationists say installing riprap in one location can increase erosion elsewhere by redirecting the flow of water.
"Basic common sense should tell you that it shouldn't have been built there," Phillip Johnson, executive director of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition, told The Oregonian newspaper (http://bit.ly/29cB563). "We have little sympathy for him. ... He knew what he was doing."
Dang said he consulted a geologist about the land's stability, the city told him exactly where to build and then approved all the building permits. He said he's confounded by the opposition to his riprap application.
"I'm not reckless," he said. "I'm very conservative. ... I looked to my left and I looked to my right, and I didn't see any homes in Rockaway Beach getting washed away."
Historians say there aren't a lot of cases where Oregon homes have actually fallen into the ocean or been relocated because riprap wasn't allowed. The state gets a few riprap requests each year, though the numbers are higher after stormy winters. In the past decade, Oregon has received about 30 applications, and, besides Dang's request, it has only denied one other application.
Jonathan Allan, a coastal geomorphologist with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, said fights over riprap applications will likely increase as climate change causes bigger winter storms and higher sea levels.
"I'm not aware of anyone's house falling into the ocean because they weren't allowed to put up riprap, but it's coming. I think we're going to see more and more of this," said Allan, who has taken no position on Dang's case.
Eleven people testified against Dang's permit proposal during a hearing last year. The riprap would cost at least $15,000 and stretch 81 feet long, projecting 30 feet from the base of the bluff onto the beach.
"I hope that you do not allow him to put riprap (there)," neighbor Alice Pyne said. "Because if you do, there will be a domino effect, and I will be sitting in front of you next year asking you to put riprap in front of my house."
Dang, who immigrated from Vietnam at age 14, said he worked his way through college and relied on scholarships to become an electrical engineer. He worked hard to be able to afford the vacation home and sees the potential destruction as an unnecessary waste and unjust taking of his property, he said.
"It's crazy," Dang said. "My house, I'm on the verge of losing it."
- The Associated Press
- Updated
HYRUM, Utah — A 10-month-old boy is expected to recover after falling down an elevator shaft in a Hyrum home.
The Herald Journal of Logan reports (http://bit.ly/29nOHzK) that the child fell 8 feet Saturday evening.
According to Cache County Sheriff's Lt. Mike Peterson, the family has an elevator lift in the home for elderly occupants.
The door to the lift was left open by mistake.
Peterson says the boy fell and landed on his back.
He was taken to the hospital.
Peterson says the boy suffered a broken arm but he does not appear to have any internal injuries.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah residents are slamming an auto dealership's billboard ad as a sign of disrespect toward police officers.
KUTV reports that Ken Garff Automotive Group in Salt Lake City is receiving major backlash on social media for the advertisements.
The sign features a traffic officer next to the words, "He doesn't hear you. We do."
Dozens of people have made their outrage known in comments on the company's Facebook page.
The dealership responded Sunday afternoon, saying the ads were in poor taste and that it did not mean to make light of the work of law enforcement.
Garff Automotive also promised that all billboards, which are on display in at least two places, would be taken down in the next two days.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
SALT LAKE CITY — The collapse of Utah's nonprofit insurance cooperative is leaving Utah hospitals with millions in unpaid claims.
Arches Mutual Insurance Co. owes $33 million that the Utah Department of Insurance says will likely remain unpaid until 2017, the Salt Lake Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/29oYPsx).
Officials who worked for Arches say the decision to close the co-op was hasty. They also say the liquidation process has been mismanaged.
"Unfortunately, Utah's doctors and hospitals are going to be shorted a lot of money," former Arches founder and CEO Shaun Greene said. "It didn't have to be that way."
A stabilization fund set up under the health law collected less money than expected, and in October it was announced that insurers would only receive about 13 percent of their requests.
Insurance Commissioner Todd Kiser said his analysis found Arches couldn't absorb the hit.
Greene said Arches could have continued serving its policyholders, including three school districts, until their contracts ended, but state insurance regulators scared them off. That money could have helped pay hospitals back, Greene said.
Kiser said the risk was too great.
"If I'm placing your business with a company, do you want it in an A-rated company, an A+ company, an A++ company or a B-minus company?" Kiser said. "As an insurance agent, I did not want to put any of my clients in a B-minus company."
The assets left at Arches are about $15.2 million short of the total owed in unpaid claims.
Utah's HMOs may be tapped to help pay the difference, Kiser said.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
CODY, Wyo. — Wyoming game wardens are using decoys to trap poachers, luring as many as 10 illegal hunters a day.
Wyoming Game and Fish regional supervisor Scott Werbelow said mule deer and elk decoys made of plastic foam allow game wardens to be present at the scene of a crime with no risk to living wildlife.
"We hide them a little bit," said Werbelow. "He's going to have to be looking to hunt."
Werbelow recalled one case where he caught a hunter who quickly realized his mistake. Werbelow said the man threw down his rifle and said, "I shot the same darned deer last year!"
Wardens say it helps them find violators in an area that covers 2,000 square miles, where the law can't be everywhere at once. Authorities want to catch hunters who shoot animals out of season or without licenses, unlicensed outfitters who take out clients and those who spotlight animals at night.
Meeteetse game warden Jim Olson said game taken illegally is often not killed for its meat.
"Every one of us has seen a poached animal with its head cut off for the antlers," he said. The rest of the animal is left to rot.
In other cases, Olson said, animals were injured and left to die, including an elk found hung up on a fence.
"She had been laying there for four or five days, licking snow for water," said Olson, who euthanized the suffering animal.
The violators were caught, and they lost their hunting privileges and paid fines and restitution, the Cody Enterprise reported (http://tinyurl.com/zqb2op9 ).
Olson said violators need to face stiffer penalties, saying they are essentially being allowed to buy their way out of crimes.
"To me it's fairly heinous," Olson said.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
BOISE, Idaho — Boise Fire Chief Dennis Doan is calling for lawmakers to ban the sale of fireworks in Idaho.
The Idaho Statesman reports that fireworks have sparked more than 350 fires in Idaho between 1992 and 2013, burning a total of more than 40 square miles, though aerial fireworks are illegal to use in the state.
Current law says that aerial fireworks can be purchased in Idaho as long as they person buying them signs an affidavit saying they will not shoot them off in Idaho. Non-aerial fireworks are legal to use in the state unless banned by city or county ordinances.
Doan says the loophole sends a mixed message and tacitly endorses fireworks. He plans to ask the Southwest Idaho Fire Chiefs board to beck him as he petitions lawmakers for the change.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The Aquarium of the Pacific is celebrating a pair of newly hatched Magellanic penguins.
Bird keepers tell the Los Angeles Daily News (http://bit.ly/299DNIu ) the chicks hatched in late May in the Long Beach aquarium. They were born to a pair of Magellanic penguins that were rescued off Brazil's coast five years ago.
The chicks are learning how to swim in shallow pools before they can join the rest of the colony. Since they're so young, it's not known yet if they're male or female. The chicks are expected to make their public debut next month.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
LEWISTON, Idaho — Photographer Mike Ridinger says he got a lot more than sweet nothings after discovering a giant beehive hidden in his office ceiling.
The Lewiston Tribune reports that a tenant alerted Ridinger last week that a sticky substance had leaked from the ceiling and coated the tenant's band equipment. According to Ridinger, an unknown beehive had cracked open after being suspended on the planks and rafters in the office building's roof.
An estimated 60,000 to 80,000 bees were living in the hive — with 50,000 of the bees roaming the Lewiston downtown area collecting pollen.
Ridinger enlisted the help of Lewiston Police Lt. Joedy Mundell, a professional beekeeper, to safely remove the hive to a new home over the next few days.
Mundell says he will be able to extract 10 to 15 gallons of honey from the remaining hive.
- By BRETT FRENCH Billings Gazette
- Updated
CROW AGENCY, Mont. — Seven years ago following a near-fatal automobile collision, Warren Stevens was told that although he was lucky to be alive he might never walk again.
Yet recently he was riding a horse across a portion of the Little Bighorn Battlefield dressed as an 1876-era soldier with 22 other students in the U.S. Cavalry School. Although he admitted the work was hot and tiring, he seemed as giddy as a puppy.
"It's a time machine, that's what I told my wife," said Stevens, a 61-year-old retiree from the aviation and aerospace industry in Southington, Connecticut. "I've stepped back in time."
In the process, he seemed to have regained the emotional vitality of his youth, reported the Billings Gazette.
Battleground
On the 140th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn — an event considered one of the worst military defeats in U.S. Army history but one of the greatest victories by Indian tribes — re-enactors, students, volunteers and family have been mixing on the Real Bird property. It's the location for what has become an annual gathering at a portion of the actual battle site, Medicine Tail Coulee, and on land where Chief Sitting Bull and his band of Sioux were encamped.
"This is hallowed ground," said Gary Stewart, a 57-year-old Salt Lake City man playing Brevet Lt. Col. Tom Custer in this year's re-enactment — his 20th.
Wearing a blue shirt with the crossed saber cavalry insignia on the collar he held his restless horse as he chatted about seeing Indian ghosts on horseback, finding an ancient buffalo skull and his love for the history of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
"Everyone here has a passion for history and wants to find out what it was like, and this is as close as you can get," he said.
The school ended the weekend re-enacting the battle. Stevens planned to take part, even though he knows his character will die at the hands of his Indian adversaries.
"It's not even over yet, and I want to come back," he said. "The ride we took yesterday, the word 'fantastic' seems to be an understatement. I can't believe the things I'm doing on horseback. I can't imagine this getting any better, but I know it will."
Re-creation
Adding to the feeling of stepping back in time, canvass tents were pitched along the Little Bighorn River underneath the shading branches of cottonwood trees. A sign lying at the base of one read: 7th U.S. Cavalry Welcome to 1876. One tent bore a sutler sign — the traveling salesmen of the time who followed soldiers to peddle provisions. Over the top of a wood fire, large coffee pots were set on a grate to boil water.
Under a nearby awning Keith Herrin, the 44-year-old owner of the school whose other job is working for the National Guard in Helena, paused between hurried bites of a lasagna lunch to talk about the history of the school.
It was founded in the late 1990s by veterans who participated in making the Kevin Costner movie "The Postman," a post-apocalyptic tale. They had such a good time on the film that they created the school, Herrin said. After working at all different jobs at the school following his introduction in 2004, he bought the operation in 2013.
Students, including women, pay up to $1,900 for an immersion that includes clothing, tack, a horse and chances to learn mounted horse maneuvers, shooting, saber fighting tactics and even basics like cleaning a saddle and washing clothes 1800s style. Many of the students are veterans, Herrin said, and about 30 percent are return visitors. Some students attended so many times that they've become instructors. Another component of the students are horse people looking for something different, Herrin said, like riding the battlefield or taking part in the re-enactment.
"It fills some desire to experience what it was really like rather than read about it in a book," said Mark Jacobsen, a Miles City volunteer who has been taking part in the re-enactment for four years and acts as the camp trumpeter. "Being treated like a trooper, some of the basics of frontier life, the visitors from back East really enjoy that."
Lifestyle
For some, the step back in time extends beyond this Little Bighorn encampment.
Sharon Brown and her husband Mark, of Whitehall, have been taking part in re-enactments for more than 35 years. Sharon, who wore a small sheathed knife hung around her neck, has earned high praise for her ability to weave cloth and make clothes that are historically accurate down to the last detail. She's even reproduced one-of-a-kind items for the National Park Service.
A nine-button pleated enlisted soldier's blouse copied from the original in the Big Hole Battlefield Museum was hand-stitched, taking her about three months to make working 10 hours a day. For a blouse she sells for $325, that's about a penny-and-a-half an hour in wages, she figured. The only other original is in the Smithsonian Museum.
"That's OK, I'm not doing it for the money," she said, her handmade, full-length white print dress shifting in the breeze. "I'm doing it to see if I can re-create something."
She owns more than 800 original garments from which to learn about different sewing techniques of the era. She even has eight original sewing machines, the oldest from 1854, to match stitching of the time period.
Her husband, Mark, takes photographs similar to the age using a wet plate camera from 1860 that can require a 30 second exposure. He compares the process to going back in time a little bit.
"It's not like George Orwell's 'Time Machine,'" he said, "but emotionally, culturally and educationally it's a mission you are on."
Defender
For Gerry Schultz of Glendive, that mission has been to elevate the historical status of Pvt. Peter Thompson of Company C. While some historians have discounted Thompson's written recollections of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the 62-year-old Schultz said he has been able to verify the survivor's account.
Thompson's "The Experience of a Private in the Custer Massacre" so enthralled Schultz that he began researching the battle's history and took part in his first re-enactment in 2009.
Paul Kicking Bear, a Los Angeles-area born Lakota Sioux, said visiting the Real Bird property and re-enactment has changed his life. His family never talked about their native roots, but he's found a reconnection to his ancestors by sleeping on the same ground where the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes numbering an estimated 11,000 were camped on June 25, 1876. To the tribes involved, it was the Battle of the Greasy Grass.
"That was the most precious thing to me, to sleep and walk the ground my ancestors did," he said.
Disengage
Kicking Bear, 50, said he can't wait to leave Los Angeles for the annual gathering in Montana. It gives him a chance to "de-escalate" and "disconnect" while enjoying the history and the fellow re-enactors. Since he plays a "hostile," he noted with air quotes, he enjoys ribbing his cavalry counterparts. His T-shirt depicted the profile of a 1800s-era soldier on horseback riddled with arrows.
"Hey, they lose on this fight anyway," he said. "It's not like they're not expecting it. So I enjoy rubbing it in. I don't hide that. But it's done in good humor, not in a resentful way."
He also takes the opportunity to educate the participants on the native view of the battle and the era. The entire camp seems to be an education that never stops. Depending on who a visitor talks to, everyone is a historian in some respect with an in-depth knowledge of some aspect of the time, battle or people involved.
"This battle, this time period, has always been kind of my focus," said Mark Brown as he relaxed in the shade after conditioning his horse to the sound of mock gunfire in a nearby corral. "I'm frozen in it. It's been studied and studied. It's amazing, 140 years later and people are still coming up with ideas of what happened here."
- By TAMMY AYER Yakima Herald-Republic
YAKIMA, Wash. — They came by the thousands from all directions, streaming into Valley Forge State Park in Conestoga wagons and Prairie Schooners, on horseback, on foot.
That day — July 3, 1976 — Marilyn "Micki" Robison rode among them on the eve of America's 200th birthday, reported the Yakima Herald-Republic (http://bit.ly/292Y4A0).
With more than 300 wagons and nearly 5,000 people on horseback who traveled from every corner of the country, the yearlong Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage to Pennsylvania had reached its final destination.
"It was amazing," said Robison, 82, of Naches.
During the holiday weekend, a reunion at Valley Forge celebrated the 40th anniversary of the wagon train pilgrimage, arguably among the most ambitious of many oversized bicentennial events.
Over the course of a year, Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage participants traveled through cities and towns throughout the United States as they followed traditional migration routes such as the Oregon, California and Santa Fe trails, the Great Platte River and Mormon roads, the Santa Fe, Old Spanish, Natchez Trace, Wilderness, Old Post and Lancaster Pike.
People brought their children. Some quit their jobs or left school. A few married along the way. Others met people they would marry after it ended.
And Robison wasn't just any participant. She served as the National Trails Coordinator of the bicentennial pilgrimage, crisscrossing the country throughout the process to ensure that each of the seven wagon trains traveling to Pennsylvania stayed on track and on task, hiring and firing paid staff, solving problems, answering questions, riding along with the wagons when she could and smoothing their entry into Valley Forge.
Robison was set to attend this first national reunion, flying out with Bill Gregory, 63, whom she befriended when he joined the wagon train from Polk City, Florida.
"The reason they're doing it is ... because of the 100th anniversary of the (National Park Service)," she said. Among other festivities, they will participate in the July 4 Picnic in the Park.
July 4 also marks the 40th anniversary of Valley Forge State Park becoming Valley Forge National Historical Park. President Gerald Ford signed the paperwork in which the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania turned the park over to the federal government.
Robison was chosen to assist him.
"I handed (President Ford) the pen. He signed it. It was really cool," she said.
An idea unlike any other
The Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage to Pennsylvania began in Blaine, Washington, on June 8, 1975, with a ride through the peace arch at the American-Canadian border.
A massive recreation of the Western migration in reverse, the pilgrimage was chosen from among other ideas that involved tall ships and a freedom train.
"The American Revolutionary Bicentennial Organization ... established a few years before the bicentennial, was trying to determine what it would do," Robison said. "It was funded and they offered $1 million to anybody that could come up with a project."
The project had to be inclusive, and "we all knew we wanted to do something special," Robison said. Organizers chose the wagon train.
Every state, including Alaska and Hawaii, received a wagon that would roam its cities and towns until each wagon joined one of the wagon trains coming through the contiguous 48 states. Every major wagon train featured a traveling musical show that was performed for local communities at each stopping point.
A public relations executive in Philadelphia, C. Robert Gruver, coordinated the project, according to the Valley Forge website, www.nps.gov/vafo. It was sponsored by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and funded by the federal government and bicentennial organizations.
Gruver oversaw the departure of 60 official wagons from each state. His family also was involved, including wife Nancy and children Holly and C.R.
Corporate sponsors including Aero-Mayflower Transit Company, Gulf Oil and Holiday Inns provided services and helped foot the bill, which among other things paid for the official wagons crafted in Arkansas, insurance and small salaries for the wagon masters and other staff.
But anyone with a wagon and horses could ride along, and that was Robison's plan in the first place.
"I'm kinda hyper-patriotic; I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what. ... I went to a horse show in Santa Barbara" in the spring of 1975 and saw a Conestoga wagon, said Robison, a junior high teacher and longtime horsewoman who was living in southern California at the time. She still has horses on her ranch near Chinook Pass.
"I (talked to) the man who was sitting there with this wagon, which had been carried around the state on the back of a truck. He told me this wagon would be in the Rose Parade; that would be the start of the wagon train from California."
Robison started as an assistant wagon master, but was promoted to California wagon master, then hired as national trails coordinator when the need became apparent in the face of multiple organizational challenges. She applied for it like any other job and had experience working with groups, having run a children's camp and working with horses for most of her life.
After helping launch the effort in Blaine, she joined others in riding down through Washington, Oregon and Idaho. She crossed the Western deserts of Arizona and flew to other wagon trains' launch locations to help them get started.
In November 1975, the north-westerners put their wagons in winter storage in Cheyenne, Wyoming. With the new year, wagon trains began in southern states and others resumed their journeys as the weather improved.
Robison rode in the Rose Parade on Jan. 1, 1976. She rode in the Mardi Gras Parade that year in New Orleans.
As part of her national-level role, Robison helped launch wagon trains throughout the country, including Polk City, Florida.
That's where she met Gregory, who was 20 at the time.
"I hired him to be a camp jack," Robison said, explaining that Gregory was a handyman for that wagon train. "He's kinda like a son to me."
Gregory, a Virginia native who was attending college in St. Petersburg at the time, still relishes the adventure.
"I went over to Polk City for the day" to check out the hoopla surrounding the wagon train launch. He knew almost immediately that he wanted to join.
"I went home, quit my job, got out of my lease, the whole thing," he said.
Things were a little hairy from the start. A tornado warning the first day on the road — Jan. 31, 1976 — sent everyone into the closest ditch they could find. Gregory wasn't fazed.
"I got paid $100 (a month) and my horse and I got fed," he said.
Gregory slept in his horse trailer and like other participants, made arrangements to drive his truck and trailer ahead to the next stop, get a ride back to the day's starting point and ensure that his horse was in the right place at the right time.
Mayflower vans hauled hay and the sound stage equipment for the Penn State performers who accompanied each wagon train.
They headed north through the Panhandle for the next five weeks then "zig-zagged" up through Alabama, visiting as many towns as they could before mid-April, when they merged in Nashville with the wagon train following the main route in the South.
"People were so incredible," Gregory said. "The locals would hold potlucks. It was pretty amazing; every town gave us such a great reception."
One of Gregory's favorite moments was leading his wagon train as it passed through Washington D.C.
"We went right by the White House. I was carrying the flag and leading that group," he said. "That was the proudest moment for me."
While Gregory was on the road with his continually changing wagon trains, Robison was here and there, making sure operations were progressing on schedule with all of the seven wagon trains.
She's still amazed at how many people brought their own wagons, and how many people got involved any way they could.
"There were hundreds of people with wagons. Anybody could join at any time and ride on horseback. They would start out riding for a day or two," she said.
Upon their arrival at Valley Forge, participants settled in for a week or two, or longer if they could. Robison got there a week before the wagon trains arrived and helped coordinate their entry into the park on July 3.
"Once we got to Valley Forge, we spent the whole summer there from the Fourth of July through Sept. 30," Robison said.
Same family, new event
Memorabilia from the Bicentennial Wagon Train of 1976 will be on display in the park's Meeting Room as part of the July 4 festivities. The public can see the collection and talk to participants.
Robison is looking forward to the reunion but doesn't like flying. Others insisted, she said.
"I'm very nervous. I dread the plane flight," she said. "But everybody said, 'You have to come, you are the only one who knew all the trains.'"
She's staying at a four-star hotel "for the first time in my life," Robison said with amazement.
The reunion was organized by Holly Gruver Franciamone, daughter of the man who oversaw the pilgrimage, Robison said.
Franciamone talked to Dan Weckerly, communications manager for the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board, about holding a 40th reunion.
"It may seem odd to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bicentennial Wagon Train. I mean, the 50th would make more sense," Franciamone told Weckerly in his blog at www.valleyforge.org.
"But the people who lived this — who traveled mile after mile and faced all those challenges and slept in the wagons and dealt with the difficulties — some of them are gone now. And the others are getting older.
"I'm not sure how many of us will be left in 2026. So the time for this kind of reunion is now."
Back in 1975, "nobody dreamed that it would get as big as it did," Robison said. In every sense of the cliche, it was the journey of a lifetime. She met a descendant of Sacagawea, country singer Loretta Lynn and her daughters; the president and his daughter. She met most of the governors.
"It was kind of a big deal, bigger in some states in others. In many places it was incredibly authentic," Robison said.
- The Associated Press
RENO, Nev. — Reno police say they shot to death a man who tried to run over an officer as he attempted to drive into a crowded chicken wing festival, KNRV TV reported.
Authorities say that a silver mini-van tried to get past a barricade in front of the annual Biggest Little City Wing Fest on Sunday afternoon and then swerved toward a police officer who was on foot.
Washoe County sheriff's spokesman Bob Harmon tells the TV station (http://nbcnews.to/29fMOmF ) that the officer shot the man after it crashed into a vendor.
Police say the suspect, who they have not identified, was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died.
No officers or bystanders were injured.
Witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots and seeing officers try to cut the van off.
Wing Fest, an annual chicken wings cook-off, is a three-day event that features 25 wing cookers, a free concert and draws 80,000 people.
- The Associated Press
SAN DIEGO — Firefighters found the body of a man as they put out a small fire under a San Diego freeway bridge.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/29i9IbP ) a homicide investigation is under way following the grim discovery in the Bay Park neighborhood Sunday morning.
Police Lt. Manny Del Toro says it's unclear if the man was already dead at the time of the fire or if he suffered other trauma. An autopsy will determine the cause of his death and his identity.
Del Toro said witnesses saw someone run away from the area across Interstate 5 to the center divider around the time the fire was reported. He said a man was also seen carrying a gas can within two blocks of the fire.
- The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Oregon — The owner of a $1 million vacation home on the Oregon coast says the structure is in danger of slipping into the ocean after waves whittled away a protective sand dune.
Tai Dang built the oceanfront property in Rockaway Beach seven years ago. He has since applied for a permit to install riprap, which is loose stone used as a foundation, to stop the erosion from eating away the land under the home, but neighbors, the city, the state and conservationists oppose the proposal. Conservationists say installing riprap in one location can increase erosion elsewhere by redirecting the flow of water.
"Basic common sense should tell you that it shouldn't have been built there," Phillip Johnson, executive director of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition, told The Oregonian newspaper (http://bit.ly/29cB563). "We have little sympathy for him. ... He knew what he was doing."
Dang said he consulted a geologist about the land's stability, the city told him exactly where to build and then approved all the building permits. He said he's confounded by the opposition to his riprap application.
"I'm not reckless," he said. "I'm very conservative. ... I looked to my left and I looked to my right, and I didn't see any homes in Rockaway Beach getting washed away."
Historians say there aren't a lot of cases where Oregon homes have actually fallen into the ocean or been relocated because riprap wasn't allowed. The state gets a few riprap requests each year, though the numbers are higher after stormy winters. In the past decade, Oregon has received about 30 applications, and, besides Dang's request, it has only denied one other application.
Jonathan Allan, a coastal geomorphologist with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, said fights over riprap applications will likely increase as climate change causes bigger winter storms and higher sea levels.
"I'm not aware of anyone's house falling into the ocean because they weren't allowed to put up riprap, but it's coming. I think we're going to see more and more of this," said Allan, who has taken no position on Dang's case.
Eleven people testified against Dang's permit proposal during a hearing last year. The riprap would cost at least $15,000 and stretch 81 feet long, projecting 30 feet from the base of the bluff onto the beach.
"I hope that you do not allow him to put riprap (there)," neighbor Alice Pyne said. "Because if you do, there will be a domino effect, and I will be sitting in front of you next year asking you to put riprap in front of my house."
Dang, who immigrated from Vietnam at age 14, said he worked his way through college and relied on scholarships to become an electrical engineer. He worked hard to be able to afford the vacation home and sees the potential destruction as an unnecessary waste and unjust taking of his property, he said.
"It's crazy," Dang said. "My house, I'm on the verge of losing it."
- The Associated Press
HYRUM, Utah — A 10-month-old boy is expected to recover after falling down an elevator shaft in a Hyrum home.
The Herald Journal of Logan reports (http://bit.ly/29nOHzK) that the child fell 8 feet Saturday evening.
According to Cache County Sheriff's Lt. Mike Peterson, the family has an elevator lift in the home for elderly occupants.
The door to the lift was left open by mistake.
Peterson says the boy fell and landed on his back.
He was taken to the hospital.
Peterson says the boy suffered a broken arm but he does not appear to have any internal injuries.
- The Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah residents are slamming an auto dealership's billboard ad as a sign of disrespect toward police officers.
KUTV reports that Ken Garff Automotive Group in Salt Lake City is receiving major backlash on social media for the advertisements.
The sign features a traffic officer next to the words, "He doesn't hear you. We do."
Dozens of people have made their outrage known in comments on the company's Facebook page.
The dealership responded Sunday afternoon, saying the ads were in poor taste and that it did not mean to make light of the work of law enforcement.
Garff Automotive also promised that all billboards, which are on display in at least two places, would be taken down in the next two days.
- The Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY — The collapse of Utah's nonprofit insurance cooperative is leaving Utah hospitals with millions in unpaid claims.
Arches Mutual Insurance Co. owes $33 million that the Utah Department of Insurance says will likely remain unpaid until 2017, the Salt Lake Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/29oYPsx).
Officials who worked for Arches say the decision to close the co-op was hasty. They also say the liquidation process has been mismanaged.
"Unfortunately, Utah's doctors and hospitals are going to be shorted a lot of money," former Arches founder and CEO Shaun Greene said. "It didn't have to be that way."
A stabilization fund set up under the health law collected less money than expected, and in October it was announced that insurers would only receive about 13 percent of their requests.
Insurance Commissioner Todd Kiser said his analysis found Arches couldn't absorb the hit.
Greene said Arches could have continued serving its policyholders, including three school districts, until their contracts ended, but state insurance regulators scared them off. That money could have helped pay hospitals back, Greene said.
Kiser said the risk was too great.
"If I'm placing your business with a company, do you want it in an A-rated company, an A+ company, an A++ company or a B-minus company?" Kiser said. "As an insurance agent, I did not want to put any of my clients in a B-minus company."
The assets left at Arches are about $15.2 million short of the total owed in unpaid claims.
Utah's HMOs may be tapped to help pay the difference, Kiser said.
- The Associated Press
CODY, Wyo. — Wyoming game wardens are using decoys to trap poachers, luring as many as 10 illegal hunters a day.
Wyoming Game and Fish regional supervisor Scott Werbelow said mule deer and elk decoys made of plastic foam allow game wardens to be present at the scene of a crime with no risk to living wildlife.
"We hide them a little bit," said Werbelow. "He's going to have to be looking to hunt."
Werbelow recalled one case where he caught a hunter who quickly realized his mistake. Werbelow said the man threw down his rifle and said, "I shot the same darned deer last year!"
Wardens say it helps them find violators in an area that covers 2,000 square miles, where the law can't be everywhere at once. Authorities want to catch hunters who shoot animals out of season or without licenses, unlicensed outfitters who take out clients and those who spotlight animals at night.
Meeteetse game warden Jim Olson said game taken illegally is often not killed for its meat.
"Every one of us has seen a poached animal with its head cut off for the antlers," he said. The rest of the animal is left to rot.
In other cases, Olson said, animals were injured and left to die, including an elk found hung up on a fence.
"She had been laying there for four or five days, licking snow for water," said Olson, who euthanized the suffering animal.
The violators were caught, and they lost their hunting privileges and paid fines and restitution, the Cody Enterprise reported (http://tinyurl.com/zqb2op9 ).
Olson said violators need to face stiffer penalties, saying they are essentially being allowed to buy their way out of crimes.
"To me it's fairly heinous," Olson said.
- The Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho — Boise Fire Chief Dennis Doan is calling for lawmakers to ban the sale of fireworks in Idaho.
The Idaho Statesman reports that fireworks have sparked more than 350 fires in Idaho between 1992 and 2013, burning a total of more than 40 square miles, though aerial fireworks are illegal to use in the state.
Current law says that aerial fireworks can be purchased in Idaho as long as they person buying them signs an affidavit saying they will not shoot them off in Idaho. Non-aerial fireworks are legal to use in the state unless banned by city or county ordinances.
Doan says the loophole sends a mixed message and tacitly endorses fireworks. He plans to ask the Southwest Idaho Fire Chiefs board to beck him as he petitions lawmakers for the change.
- The Associated Press
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The Aquarium of the Pacific is celebrating a pair of newly hatched Magellanic penguins.
Bird keepers tell the Los Angeles Daily News (http://bit.ly/299DNIu ) the chicks hatched in late May in the Long Beach aquarium. They were born to a pair of Magellanic penguins that were rescued off Brazil's coast five years ago.
The chicks are learning how to swim in shallow pools before they can join the rest of the colony. Since they're so young, it's not known yet if they're male or female. The chicks are expected to make their public debut next month.
- The Associated Press
LEWISTON, Idaho — Photographer Mike Ridinger says he got a lot more than sweet nothings after discovering a giant beehive hidden in his office ceiling.
The Lewiston Tribune reports that a tenant alerted Ridinger last week that a sticky substance had leaked from the ceiling and coated the tenant's band equipment. According to Ridinger, an unknown beehive had cracked open after being suspended on the planks and rafters in the office building's roof.
An estimated 60,000 to 80,000 bees were living in the hive — with 50,000 of the bees roaming the Lewiston downtown area collecting pollen.
Ridinger enlisted the help of Lewiston Police Lt. Joedy Mundell, a professional beekeeper, to safely remove the hive to a new home over the next few days.
Mundell says he will be able to extract 10 to 15 gallons of honey from the remaining hive.
- By BRETT FRENCH Billings Gazette
CROW AGENCY, Mont. — Seven years ago following a near-fatal automobile collision, Warren Stevens was told that although he was lucky to be alive he might never walk again.
Yet recently he was riding a horse across a portion of the Little Bighorn Battlefield dressed as an 1876-era soldier with 22 other students in the U.S. Cavalry School. Although he admitted the work was hot and tiring, he seemed as giddy as a puppy.
"It's a time machine, that's what I told my wife," said Stevens, a 61-year-old retiree from the aviation and aerospace industry in Southington, Connecticut. "I've stepped back in time."
In the process, he seemed to have regained the emotional vitality of his youth, reported the Billings Gazette.
Battleground
On the 140th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn — an event considered one of the worst military defeats in U.S. Army history but one of the greatest victories by Indian tribes — re-enactors, students, volunteers and family have been mixing on the Real Bird property. It's the location for what has become an annual gathering at a portion of the actual battle site, Medicine Tail Coulee, and on land where Chief Sitting Bull and his band of Sioux were encamped.
"This is hallowed ground," said Gary Stewart, a 57-year-old Salt Lake City man playing Brevet Lt. Col. Tom Custer in this year's re-enactment — his 20th.
Wearing a blue shirt with the crossed saber cavalry insignia on the collar he held his restless horse as he chatted about seeing Indian ghosts on horseback, finding an ancient buffalo skull and his love for the history of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
"Everyone here has a passion for history and wants to find out what it was like, and this is as close as you can get," he said.
The school ended the weekend re-enacting the battle. Stevens planned to take part, even though he knows his character will die at the hands of his Indian adversaries.
"It's not even over yet, and I want to come back," he said. "The ride we took yesterday, the word 'fantastic' seems to be an understatement. I can't believe the things I'm doing on horseback. I can't imagine this getting any better, but I know it will."
Re-creation
Adding to the feeling of stepping back in time, canvass tents were pitched along the Little Bighorn River underneath the shading branches of cottonwood trees. A sign lying at the base of one read: 7th U.S. Cavalry Welcome to 1876. One tent bore a sutler sign — the traveling salesmen of the time who followed soldiers to peddle provisions. Over the top of a wood fire, large coffee pots were set on a grate to boil water.
Under a nearby awning Keith Herrin, the 44-year-old owner of the school whose other job is working for the National Guard in Helena, paused between hurried bites of a lasagna lunch to talk about the history of the school.
It was founded in the late 1990s by veterans who participated in making the Kevin Costner movie "The Postman," a post-apocalyptic tale. They had such a good time on the film that they created the school, Herrin said. After working at all different jobs at the school following his introduction in 2004, he bought the operation in 2013.
Students, including women, pay up to $1,900 for an immersion that includes clothing, tack, a horse and chances to learn mounted horse maneuvers, shooting, saber fighting tactics and even basics like cleaning a saddle and washing clothes 1800s style. Many of the students are veterans, Herrin said, and about 30 percent are return visitors. Some students attended so many times that they've become instructors. Another component of the students are horse people looking for something different, Herrin said, like riding the battlefield or taking part in the re-enactment.
"It fills some desire to experience what it was really like rather than read about it in a book," said Mark Jacobsen, a Miles City volunteer who has been taking part in the re-enactment for four years and acts as the camp trumpeter. "Being treated like a trooper, some of the basics of frontier life, the visitors from back East really enjoy that."
Lifestyle
For some, the step back in time extends beyond this Little Bighorn encampment.
Sharon Brown and her husband Mark, of Whitehall, have been taking part in re-enactments for more than 35 years. Sharon, who wore a small sheathed knife hung around her neck, has earned high praise for her ability to weave cloth and make clothes that are historically accurate down to the last detail. She's even reproduced one-of-a-kind items for the National Park Service.
A nine-button pleated enlisted soldier's blouse copied from the original in the Big Hole Battlefield Museum was hand-stitched, taking her about three months to make working 10 hours a day. For a blouse she sells for $325, that's about a penny-and-a-half an hour in wages, she figured. The only other original is in the Smithsonian Museum.
"That's OK, I'm not doing it for the money," she said, her handmade, full-length white print dress shifting in the breeze. "I'm doing it to see if I can re-create something."
She owns more than 800 original garments from which to learn about different sewing techniques of the era. She even has eight original sewing machines, the oldest from 1854, to match stitching of the time period.
Her husband, Mark, takes photographs similar to the age using a wet plate camera from 1860 that can require a 30 second exposure. He compares the process to going back in time a little bit.
"It's not like George Orwell's 'Time Machine,'" he said, "but emotionally, culturally and educationally it's a mission you are on."
Defender
For Gerry Schultz of Glendive, that mission has been to elevate the historical status of Pvt. Peter Thompson of Company C. While some historians have discounted Thompson's written recollections of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the 62-year-old Schultz said he has been able to verify the survivor's account.
Thompson's "The Experience of a Private in the Custer Massacre" so enthralled Schultz that he began researching the battle's history and took part in his first re-enactment in 2009.
Paul Kicking Bear, a Los Angeles-area born Lakota Sioux, said visiting the Real Bird property and re-enactment has changed his life. His family never talked about their native roots, but he's found a reconnection to his ancestors by sleeping on the same ground where the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes numbering an estimated 11,000 were camped on June 25, 1876. To the tribes involved, it was the Battle of the Greasy Grass.
"That was the most precious thing to me, to sleep and walk the ground my ancestors did," he said.
Disengage
Kicking Bear, 50, said he can't wait to leave Los Angeles for the annual gathering in Montana. It gives him a chance to "de-escalate" and "disconnect" while enjoying the history and the fellow re-enactors. Since he plays a "hostile," he noted with air quotes, he enjoys ribbing his cavalry counterparts. His T-shirt depicted the profile of a 1800s-era soldier on horseback riddled with arrows.
"Hey, they lose on this fight anyway," he said. "It's not like they're not expecting it. So I enjoy rubbing it in. I don't hide that. But it's done in good humor, not in a resentful way."
He also takes the opportunity to educate the participants on the native view of the battle and the era. The entire camp seems to be an education that never stops. Depending on who a visitor talks to, everyone is a historian in some respect with an in-depth knowledge of some aspect of the time, battle or people involved.
"This battle, this time period, has always been kind of my focus," said Mark Brown as he relaxed in the shade after conditioning his horse to the sound of mock gunfire in a nearby corral. "I'm frozen in it. It's been studied and studied. It's amazing, 140 years later and people are still coming up with ideas of what happened here."
