Weston-McEwen students gear up for clock project

What started out as a fascination with one tooth of a gear and a snapshot in a magazine turned into a year-long project for two Weston-McEwen High School students intrigued by the idea of building a grandfather clock completely from wood.

Sean Calvert and James Albert began their odyssey into clockmaking in April 1993, just after finishing a unit on gear construction in Dave Lange’s Technology class at Weston-McEwen. The class allowed students to investigate everything from traditional carpentry to computer animation to architecture. Calvert and Albert, both juniors, happened upon a magazine article that featured an entirely wooden clock, complete with dozens of gears, pendulum and a boxed-in frame. Intrigued, they decided to build their own clock from scratch.

“You don’t realize how complex a clock is until you start building it,” said Calvert. “We though it would take three months.”

The magazine article had given them only the outside diameter of each gear and the number of teeth. They plugged those figures into 10 different formulas to figure out the mechanical dimensions of each gear — no sweat for two guys enrolled in the highest math class at the school, math analysis. Calvert and Albert used AutoCAD to design the gears, then translated the designs to MasterCam to make the final adjustments.

Then a computerized numerical control milling machine was used to cut out each gear — in halves, because the machine wasn’t wide enough to cut the gears in one piece. Through trial and error, and many botched attempts, the duo soldiered on using their most important tool of all — seamless teamwork.

“They had to be problem solvers every day,” Lange said.

The most difficult, and most critical, gear was the escape wheel, which controls the weights and pendulum and gives the tick-tock to the clock. Albert wrestled for days with a scale and protractor to hand-design the spiky teeth. And the pair found that plywood made for “fuzzy” gears, so a three-tiered, cross-grained cherry and walnut sandwich was created for the precise edges they needed.

More than a year after that original article piqued their interest, Calvert and Albert were scrambling to finish the last pieces of the clock in April of 1994 before their senior year ticked away. Calvert, the more analytical of the pair, studied the pieces to find and fix any problems. Albert, who planned a career in architecture, was carving a rounded gear frame to house the inner workings. Both vowed to continue working on the clock through the summer, hoping to finish the project before they went their separate ways to college.

But there would be no arguments over who got to keep the final product: the team made duplicates of each part, so each would go home with a clock.

Weston-McEwen high school seniors Sean Calvert (left) and James Albert (right) hold the gears that form the foundation for the wooden grandfather clock they spent a year crafting from wood after a technology class with teacher Dave Lange (center) in 1993. (EO file photo)

Running all in the family for Lexington athletes

Lee Padberg was proud of his son Bryan, whose high school running career took off his freshman year at Heppner High School with state Class A titles in the 1,500 and 3,000 meter runs in 1986. But Lee was prouder that Brian broke 20-year-old school records in the mile and 2-mile runs the same year — records Lee had set himself 20 years earlier.

Running titles were a family affair for the Padbergs, beginning with the family patriarch and continuing with daughter Jodi, a middle-distance standout during her high school career. Bryan’s freshman success, though, led to some attitude problems and he failed to repeat his win in the 1,500-meter race his sophomore year.

“I didn’t work as hard that year,” Bryan said during an April 26, 1989 interview with the East Oregonian.

But coach Dale Conklin agreed that Bryan learned his lesson and “worked his tail off” during his junior year, posting personal bests in the 1,500 with 4 minutes, 3 seconds, and the 3,000 meters at 8:54.7 at the Gladstone Meet of Champions. He capped his junior season by leading Heppner to the state Class A track championship, taking the titles for the 1,500 and 3,000 and anchoring the team’s fifth-place 1,600 meter relay team. He was named the Class A men’s athlete of the year in the 1989 issue of “Who’s Who in Oregon Track and Field.”

Along with the boys’ first-ever state track championship, Bryan’s junior year also included a spot on the roster of Heppner’s second-place football team during the fall state Class A championships. But it wasn’t all victories for Bryan and his teammates that year: the Mustangs failed to move past the district playoffs during basketball season, his favorite sport.

Bryan was considering nibbles from the University of Oregon and Pacific Lutheran University track coaches as his high school career was drawing to a close, his senior year focused on improving his GPA in hopes of scoring scholarship offers. “I’ve got to do well this year. I guess that’s one of my pressures,” Bryan said as his mother, Linda, watched him prepare for yet another race.

“Maybe he puts a little too much pressure on himself,” Linda said. “I think he’s nervous this year.”

Bryan promptly ran away from the field, breaking the tape in meet-record time for the 800 meter race.

Lover’s triangle leads to tragic deaths

A Heppner man, insanely jealous when the woman of his dreams chose a different companion, went on a shooting spree that left his heart’s desire and himself dead in May 1908.

Henry P. Morrison, a brakeman for the Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company in Heppner, had fixed his sights on the lovely Nora Wright. But Miss Wright spurned Morrison’s affections, instead choosing Barney Ahalt as her escort. On May 2, 1908, after several weeks of depression and working himself up into a jealous rage over Wright’s rejection, Morrison went looking for the pair with deadly intention.

Morrison borrowed a .41 caliber Colt revolver from Express Messenger Smith, telling him a dog down the track had been annoying him and he wanted to be prepared. Morrison took a “speeder,” a small two-man vehicle used for railroad track maintenance, and traveled along the tracks to Cecil, where Miss Wright lived with her parents. He stashed the speeder in a field and created a hiding spot under a warehouse that gave him a good view of the Wright house.

Morrison spent the night and half the next day waiting for Wright to emerge, finally spotting her and Ahalt climbing into a buggy around 2 p.m. on May 3 and heading south toward the tiny hamlet of Morgan. He caught up with the pair at a crossing two miles north of Morgan.

Morrison had waved to the pair cheerfully as he traveled along the track in the speeder, and was waiting for them on the bank next to the wagon road when they approached the crossing. Morrison stopped Ahalt’s team, brandished a revolver and said, “You had better say your prayers.” He then opened fire.

Miss Wright fell dead immediately with a bullet to the head. Ahalt was also shot, a flesh wound in the shoulder, but managed to whip the team into motion and fled, carrying Wright’s body with him.

Morrison followed the racing team to Morgan, where he was told Wright was dead. He turned the gun on himself, shooting himself in the forehead. He was carried to a warehouse, where he died about 9 p.m.

Robbery duo nabbed by local lawmen

Two men who disarmed a Seattle policeman and stole his car at gunpoint in April of 1950 were spotted in Pendleton and arrested by local police the next day.

William Archie Miller, 28, and John Boggs, 30, were wanted for armed robbery in Seattle after the holdup of a policeman early in the morning hours of April 13, 1950. The duo held the officer at gunpoint and relieved him of his vehicle, then fled the city. An all-points bulletin was sent out to law enforcement across the Pacific Northwest, and two hours later Pendleton night watchman Tom Fitzgerald recognized the fugitives’ license plate number on a car that entered town from the east.

Fitzgerald followed the car and notified local police officers just as they were changing shifts. Sgt. Arch Campbell and officers Irwin Hood, Cliff Smick and John Powell raced to the Fraternity Club entrance on Main Street. Boggs was still in the car, while Miller was walking a Samoyed dog on the sidewalk.

Rookie cop Smick grabbed Miller around the arms just as the man was reaching for a .45 automatic stuffed into his belt. The gun was loaded and cocked, with a bullet in the chamber and the safety off. Both men were arrested and taken to the city jail, while the dog was taken to a local veterinary clinic for safekeeping.

When their vehicle was searched, police found a veritable arsenal of weapons, ammunition and safecracking equipment — drill, punches, crowbar, sledge hammer, dynamite and caps, battery, wire and ... a banana. According to Police Chief Charles Lemons, bananas are used to seal dynamite powder in the cracks of a safe door before the charge is set off.

The men opposed their extradition to Seattle to face charges, and made a useless attempt at escaping from the jail hours after their arrest by breaking off part of a steam pipe to use as a weapon. During a search before their move to the county jail, a small amount of wire was found on one of the men and confiscated.

Miller’s wife called Pendleton police to claim her car, the expensive new vehicle the men were driving when arrested, and the dog.

Seattle law enforcement were required to take extradition papers to the Washington governor’s office for a signature, then to Salem for Oregon Gov. McKay’s signature, before traveling to Pendleton to claim the prisoners.