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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Pony’s Finders Are ‘Ecstatic’ About Reprieve Lowry Comes To The Rescue; Auction Averted After Phones Ring Off The Hook In State Offices

Seattle Times

By golly, government works. If it gets the right prompting, that is.

Just ask Carlene Whitesell of Paterson, Wash., a tiny town on the Columbia River some 30 miles southwest of the Tri-Cities, a town where it’s not uncommon to keep a horse or cow in your back yard.

“I’m ecstatic; my children are ecstatic,” Whitesell said Tuesday night after no one less than Washington Gov. Mike Lowry came to the rescue of the pony she and her children, Israel, 12, and Benjamin, 8, had found, apparently abandoned, on Dec. 30.

For a while, Whitesell thought government didn’t work - or worked backward.

When she contacted the state branding office, Whitesell was told the gelding, since named Blaze, would have to be auctioned, a requirement of the state Agriculture Department drawn up to protect owners from rustlers.

State officials were ready to take Blaze away Tuesday.

“I think the whole thing is ridiculous,” Whitesell said at first. There should be some law that allows people to keep abandoned animals, she said.

First, the media got involved, showing pictures of the cute pony chomping hay in the Whitesells’ back yard.

Then the phones began to ring. On Monday, the governor’s office estimated it received 200 calls, with nearly as many Tuesday.

At the state Department of Agriculture, whose agents were going to auction the animal, the call count was even higher. Kremiere Boone, the department’s communications director, estimated 400 calls were received Monday, with 200 to 300 Tuesday.

Not one caller saw it the way the government did.

“They thought it was another bureaucratic mess,” refusing to recognize that it was not a “finderskeepers” situation, Boone said.

“People swore at me. They were angry enough to swear and tell me I hate animals,” Boone said, mystified.

For the past two days, she and Julie Sandburg, the department’s assistant director, had time to do nothing but answer phone calls from angry people, Boone said.

On Tuesday, Lowry sent Jim Jesernig, director of the department, a directive that said in part: “Take no action toward transporting or auctioning the pony currently held by Ms. Carlene Whitesell” until there is time to amend the current law to take care of cases like the Whitesells’.

“It looks like it will stop him (Blaze) from going to auction,” a relieved Whitesell said Tuesday night.