Leslie Everett Minthorn

Átway Leslie Everett Minthorn was born to Lucy Peeps Totus Minthorn and Wilbur Minthorn on October 1, 1933, on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Les, or “Kite” as he was fondly known, attended school, and graduated from Pilot Rock High in 1952. During his sophomore year, he was on the 1950 State championship team that beat Halfway, Talent, and Triangle Lake to take the B-6 Football Final 25-18.

In 1952, he enlisted in the US Army and served in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, with Company C 127 th Airborne Engineer Brigade and was honorably discharged in 1955. While in the service, he met Patricia G. Magee of Enterprise, Oregon, and they wed in Kentucky on July 24, 1954. At the time of his passing, they had been married 69 years. Les and Pat had 4 children: Micheal Leslie Minthorn (Roxanne Sparks, Shirlee Rebstock, Lee Grannell, Alec Davis); Malissa Ann Minthorn Winks (Danny Becker, Michael Winks); Maureen Minthorn Bates (Bill Butler, Victor Bates); and Melanie Sue Minthorn Barkley (John Barkley). They adopted Patricia Ann Brown Rose (Don Delgado, Joseph Rose) and Wayne Robert Brown. Les and Pat had many other foster children, many of whom were relatives including John Wesley Withers Jr. and Julia Withers Lyons (Richard Lyons).

After his return from the Army, Les’ mother Lucy took him aside to explain the origin of his Indian name, Koyoma Sumkiin or Cougar Shirt. She explained that he was named after an ancestor who was accused of killing Marcus Whitman and executed in Oregon City in 1850. This began the important effort to find and return these men to their homeland which became a cornerstone of his life and purpose. Inspired by Les, this pursuit continues with help from the University of Oregon. Les and nephew Armand Minthorn developed a strong relationship with Oregon City officials and communicated to them the story of the Cayuse Five and the need to remember and repatriate them. A tribute to the Cayuse men is in development now with the City of Oregon City.

Les participated in the Bureau of Indian Affairs Relocation Program which took his family to San Jose, California, for a brief stint in 1957-1958. They migrated to Portland, Oregon, and were there until 1972. While in Portland, he attended Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, to study electronics. He worked for Electronics Specialties and Boeing making gyroscopes for NASA amongst other electronic instruments. In 1973, the family returned to the Umatilla Reservation where Les would enjoy a long and distinguished career spanning four decades serving the people of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla in a variety of leadership roles. He was elected to the nine- member governing body, the Board of Trustees, in 1973 and 1974, back when all the
elected leaders were volunteers, not paid officials. His peers elected him Chairman of the same Board in 1975, 1976, most of 1977, and 1979. He was elected five times to the post of Treasurer of the Board of Trustees from 2000 through 2009. He became Chairman again in late 2011, a post he held until 2014.

As a leader, Les initiated quarterly government to government meetings with the Oregon Governor’s office. Long before that, he persuaded young law school graduate and tribal member William Johnson to come home to lead development of the Tribal Court. Les would go on to play a pivotal role to restore Umatilla Tribal jurisdiction over the Reservation.  Oregon finally retroceded criminal jurisdiction in 1980. He advocated for deploying the Tribes’ sovereignty to exercise full civil and criminal jurisdiction over the Reservation. He personally traveled to Portland to bring back 24 boxes of archival material documenting the Tribes’ Indian Claims Commission Docket 264 and had them housed at the Whitman College Penrose Collection until Tamástslikt Cultural Institute
could archive them into their repository. Les served on the CTUIR Gaming Commission, Economic and Community Development Committee, Umatilla Reservation Housing Authority, Law and Order Committee, and the initial board of the Timine Development Corporation. He assisted the creation of Wanapa Business Park and the Wanapa power facility and served as President and
Board member for Yaka Energy LLC, a tribally owned enterprise envisioned to provide power, natural gas, wind power, coal, biodiesel, and other petroleum products for the continental United States.

In 2000, he led a CTUIR delegation to New York City for a meeting on Wall Street with a bond counsel firm to work on financing the power plant project. While there, he visited the Heye Museum, which would become one of two sites of the National Museum of the American Indian, to conduct research. During his leadership tenure, he was involved in Umatilla land consolidation and development and the inheritance legislation and code. In 2008, as President of Yaka Energy, Les received the Emerging Diverse Business Award for his work in multicultural leadership diversity promotion - promoting minority-, women-, and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses in the utility sectors, from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners [NARUC].

Like his siblings, Buddy Jones (Elizabeth Wocatsie); Sylvester Minthorn (Virginia Williams); Phillip Minthorn Sr. (Loretta Pinkham; Dorthea Tierney); Eulalia Minthorn (Willie Shippentower); Lorene Minthorn (John Withers Sr.; Roland Spencer); Alvin Minthorn (Sheena Miller; Linda Sam); and Roger Minthorn (Gwen Green; Marcia Thompson), Les was raised a Presbyterian at the Tutuilla Church. Yet, like his mother, religious denomination was not an issue for him.

In the 1970s, he joined forces with a group of like-minded Tribal men and women to bring the Washat way of life back to the forefront of Umatilla Tribal practices. For nearly a century, the Tribal approach to public and open worship had been branded heathen and contemptable by missionaries and government officials. As a result, it went underground and was only practiced in the home and occasionally in temporary, make-shift long-tents and canopies away from the Indian agency. With Wish, Ham, and Ike Patrick, Raymond Burke, Pete Quaempts, Louie Dick, Ron Pond, Steve Sohappy and other local elder men and women, they collaborated to ensure that Washat services were routinely held at the new Umatilla Longhouse and that the traditional foods of the people were blessed in seasonal feasts and according to ages-old practices of gathering, processing, and sharing the foods. Les would use the mantra of gathering, processing, and sharing many times to talk about economic development, fact-finding and data compilation and dissemination, and many other applications pertinent to serving the people.

Les had an early affinity for rawhide work taught by ancestor Watkins Ezekial which resulted in him becoming a prolific drum maker, both hand drums and big drums, which he often gifted to others. Among many others, he made sets of seven hand drums for Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, Willamette University Hallie Ford Gallery, University of Oregon Longhouse, and the Wallowa Longhouse. As a youngster, he accompanied Tribal men to wild horse roundups in the Blue Mountains.

Les was an avid league bowler, pool and ping pong player, fisherman, and a life-long golfer. In addition to being an early Portland Wrestling fan, he was a fanatical Trail Blazer devotee. He was also a gifted singer in many genres from Washat prayer songs, to big drum pow wow songs, to Presbyterian hymns translated into Nez Perce. He was so fond of all types of music, he eagerly attended any concert he could get to including Willlie Nelson, Tina Turner, the Supremes, Sam Cooke, and the Eagles.

He is predeceased by all siblings except Roger and by his daughter Maureen. His grandchildren: Micheal D. Minthorn; Shorty Minthorn; Angie Winks Grass (Fred Grass); Jeremy Barkley (Stephanie Saluskin); Catherine Barkley (Iosefa Taula); Christina Barkley; Josh Barkley; Tahner Bates; Alishia Delgado. Great Grandchildren: Yayoi Newman; Miah Rueber King-Calder (Jayce King); Darius Rueber (Autumn Thompson Rueber); Angelisha Delgado.

Services commence at 1:30 pm September 25 with a procession from Pioneer Funeral Chapel to the Umatilla Longhouse, dressing at 2 pm, dinner at 5, Washat at 7 pm. Last seven songs will be at 7 am, September 26, at the Longhouse followed by a procession to and services at Tutuilla Presbyterian Church at 9 am with interment in the Tutuilla Cemetery. A traditional meal will occur at the Longhouse following the burial.