There are many very small communities in Humboldt County and it is always interesting to know their history-who settled them and what their visions were for this sometimes, harsh land. Some dreams perished and the folks moved on while others persisted and established livelihoods for themselves and for their descendents that followed. Adam Adrian and his wife Mary were both raised in Bavaria Germany, settled in the Quinn River Valley in 1875, relocated to Denio around 1905 building the Denio Store, and still have family in the area, including their great-great granddaughter, McDermitt Combined School Alumni Mindy (Sherburn) Northrop.
Mindy's paternal great-great grandparents, William W. Sherburn (whose parents were from Maine), and his wife Alice (whose parents were both born in Belgium), were wheat farmers near Pendleton, Oregon before moving to Denio to try dry land farming. Sometime after World War 1, they moved on and by 1925 were residents of Stockton California. One of their sons, Lloyd Frank Sherburn joined the Marine Corp in 1913 and served in China during the political and religious unrest following the Boxer Rebellion and the Peking (the capital of China that is now known as Beijing) Rebellion. He continued to serve during World War 1, and Mindy says that either he liked Denio or Adam Adrian's granddaughter, Daisy Denier, but in either case, upon his discharge after the war, he returned to Denio and he and Daisy were married.
Lloyd and Daisy made their home on the Upper Trout Creek Ranch near Denio and raised a family of three sons. The oldest was named after his dad, but Daisy saw no need of two L's so spelled it L-o-y-d-however, being born on the night that boxer Jack Dempsey beat Jess Willard claiming the Heavy Weight Championship, he was forever nicknamed Jack-next was Mindy's dad Del; and last was Alan. None of the Sherburn boys would ever move too far from Denio for any long period of time.
In 1945 Del Sherburn married Dorothy (Johnson), (Dorothy's grandparents homesteaded at Pyramid Lake near where the community of Sutcliffe, Nev., is located today). Del and Dorothy lived on and operated the Cottonwood Ranch located between Denio and Fields, Ore., raising four children-Sarah (Casey) and Loren Sherburn of Denio, Ted Sherburn (MHS 1970) of Owyhee County, Idaho and Mindy.
Mindy attended eight years of grade school at the Fields, Ore., school (located only 20 miles from Denio) and says that outside of school she was mostly at home helping out, except for some infrequent trips to town. From the third grade on she was the oldest girl in school, and the student body for all 8 grades' ranged from 8 to 12 kids. Teachers would stay about two years and she felt she had great teachers in the seventh and eighth grade with Doris Defenbaugh and Mrs. Coburn. They were both semi retired and while they could get a little cranky, they kept the kids attention and had them well prepared in everything especially math.
In 1968 Del and Dorothy purchased the Ten Mile Ranch north of McDermitt from Dave Bankofier's family, and owned it until 1988 when they moved back to Denio. Mindy, who had started at Crane Union High School her freshman year, transferred to McDermitt the middle of that year. At MHS she liked Government with Tom Johnston and Mr. Nish's Business class. She also enjoyed the four years of Home EC she took with Liz Landis. She was on the volleyball team that was just getting started, and her sophomore year she attended a High School Rodeo with her friend Yvonne Minor (MHS 1973) and says that it was a life changing experience. The next year she competed in over 20 rodeos' (not all High School) in breakaway roping, goat tying, barrel racing and team roping.
Graduating in 1972 in a class of over 20 kids, Mindy enrolled at the College of Eastern Oregon in LaGrande, Ore. After a year she transferred to Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore., and graduated in 1976 with a degree in education. She had a spot on the College Rodeo Team all four years, competing in barrels, breakaway and goat tying. For her first job out of college she reached back to her high school business skills and landed a position with General Electric as a purchasing agent. This was followed with a bookkeeping job for a construction company in Hermiston, Ore., where she also began to substitute at the Hermiston School. The 1983-1984 school season found her teaching Social Studies classes for the 5th through 8th grade at McDermitt Combined School as well as coaching the 8th grade girls basketball team to a championship, before returning to Hermiston.
Mindy enjoyed training horses and competing. In 1981 she passed on her life changing experience from High School to Judy Falen (MHS 1984) when she sold Judy a barrel horse she had trained, named of course, Mork! Mindy enjoyed a 20 year career training and competing before deciding, after a horse fell with her in 1991 breaking her knee, followed by a nasty bite from a Brown Recluse spider, that it was time to stay home.
In 1986 she had accepted a temporary position at a unique school district in south eastern Oregon. Crane Union High School is the largest school district in the state covering an area of 7500 square miles with a student body of less than 100 kids! It is one of the oldest residential public schools in the country, furnishing housing for kids from isolated ranches as far as 150 miles away. Mindy's 'temp' job has now lasted 27 years! She likes teaching at Crane but it's isolation along with the responsibility of a family, also played a hand in her retirement from the rodeo circuit.
Mindy met Gene Northrop in 1990 and they were married in 1992. Gene's family owned the Fields Store for a total of about 15 years, and Mindy and Gene operated it with his parents for 10 years after they were married. When the store sold in 2004 they moved to their farm 15 miles south of Fields-only five miles north of the little town of Denio that all of her great-great grandparents had helped develop over 100 years ago. When he is not farming Gene fills in his time doing day work on area ranches. Mindy travels to Crane (where she now serves as vice-principle as well as teaching) on Sunday evening and is there until she returns home after classes end on Thursday.
Gene and Mindy's son Jesse was born in 1993 and attended the same grade school Mindy did and was one of those 'lucky' kids who had Mom at school every day during high school, keeping him in line. Jesse followed his mom on the High School Rodeo Circuit and is now at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, majoring in crop science while he participates in the College Rodeo Circuit as a team roper. (Mindy says that she thinks that a college degree is actually only considered to be a necessary byproduct of college rodeo!)
Mindy plans to retire in about 5 more years and says that she loves being at home on her own hillside. She might like to do some limited traveling to some of the places they glimpsed while on the road to High School Rodeo's with Jesse, but says that she has a tendency to gather animals, such as horses, cows, dogs, and cats, making it difficult to be able to be gone for long periods of time. She does think that she would like to see more of the red rim rocks in southern Utah and parts of New Mexico, most likely when hauling hay to Texas Tech.
A descendent of the Adrian's who arrived here 150 years ago; and the Sherburn's-a name that has also been familiar in the McDermitt, Orovada and Denio area for over a century, Mindy would tell the McDermitt students today, "Develop a passion for something and if you are lucky it will be how you earn your living. If not quite that lucky it most likely will be something that keeps you excited about life for a very long time!"[[In-content Ad]]
