Worm association profitable for junior high entrepreneurs

An octet of junior high school entrepreneurs in Pendleton in November 1967 made some serious bank with the ickiest of businesses: worms.

In a room the size of a closet at Pendleton's John Murray Junior High School, eight students constituting the Round Up Worm Association kept busy with the main duties of their fledgling business on a blustery November day: acquiring, sorting, packaging and shipping night crawlers to a worm distributor in California. Larry Ables, Dennis Edgerly and Bruce Cable, along with five other students and adviser Bill Harris, thought up the business as a way to make money for school field trips.

Each Wednesday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the boys bought worms from other students and the junior high teachers and staff for a half cent each. The worms were packaged in boxes of 500 worms each, cushioned by a mixture of damp peat moss, sawdust and leaf mold. On Nov. 2, 1967, the Worm Association shipped 2,500 worms to their buyer.

Showing off their stock in trade on Nov. 3, 1967, are, from left, Larry Ables, Dennis Edgerly and Bruce Cable, members of the Round Up Worm Association. (EO file photo)

It was busy work. Harris said that the boys learned bookkeeping and how to apply other school subjects to their work. Edgerly drew the association's letterhead, and designed advertisements and posters for the organization. The group also placed an article in the school newspaper seeking worms, but warned, "Do not use electric prods to get the worms and get night crawlers only. Please bring the worms in multiples of ten." 

It could also be frustrating. One boy lost the bottom out of a box of worms he was carrying into the building, scattering worms up and down the stairs.

In addition to buying worms, the boys also foraged for their own. Bruce Cable's neighbor let him hunt for night crawlers in her yard. All you needed, he said, was a flashlight and a bucket, especially after a heavy rain. The worms crawl to the surface and are "thicker than blazes." He collected 500 worms in one night.

"You can get that many in one hour — if they're out good. You spot them with a flashlight, then turn off the light and grab them with your hands. I was getting three at a time," Cable said.

Ron Hathaway, a veteran worm raiser, made a tidy sum several years prior by selling night crawlers to local fishermen.

They didn't get many girls willing to help them in their endeavors, however — something none of the boys could understand.

Milton youth foils his own kidnapping scheme

A 20-year-old Milton man who attempted to extort money from his wealthy uncle in April 1909 foiled his own scheme when he lost his nerve and confessed that a kidnapping plot with himself as the victim was a complete hoax.

Sam A. Miller, president of the Milton nursery company and former mayor of Milton, received an unsigned letter declaring a mysterious "we" had kidnapped his nephew, Leonard A. Raup, and were holding him for $1,200 ransom. Miller was directed to take the ransom to a railroad track east of Milton at 11 p.m. on April 5, 1909, to a point where he would find a dim light. He was to deposit the money there and turn out the light, then return home to wait for his nephew's release before reporting the incident to police. Failure to comply with the instructions would result in the burning death of Raup and also the death of Miller's young daughter.

Miller immediately dispatched a copy of the letter to Umatilla County Sheriff Til Taylor, then withdrew the ransom money from his bank with every intention of complying with the kidnappers' demands. Sheriff Taylor and Deputy Bert Wilson drove to the scene of the ransom drop to investigate. They returned to Miller's house just before the kidnap victim appeared at 8:15 p.m.

Raup declared he left his boarding house April 3 and was on his way to town to buy tobacco when he was kidnapped by two Freewater men, who took him to a straw stack. He escaped, he said, while his kidnappers were drinking and playing cards.

But Raup's guilty conscience got the better of him. He came up with the kidnapping scheme himself, wrote the ransom letter and hid for two days in a deserted house on his grandfather's property. But a dust and wind storm the day of the ransom drop-off was too much for Raup's nerves, he confessed to a representative of the East Oregonian during an interview.

Raup said he had found himself in a bit of a financial difficulty, and came up with a scheme to get money from his uncle to square his accounts. He had planned to skip town if the ransom scheme failed. He denied any intention to hurt his cousin, and said he intended to make a full confession to his uncle the night of the ransom drop-off but manufactured his escape story when he found law enforcement was already involved.

Raup was arrested by Sheriff Taylor and brought to the jail in Pendleton to await action of the grand jury. He pled guilty to attempting to extort money from his uncle on April 15.