Letters and comments for September 2, 2011

Information sought

To the Editor:

In 1931, Amos “Spud” Helms, an Oregon State Police officer, was killed in the line of duty in La Grande. He is the first of the 29 OSP officers killed in the line of duty since the inception of the OSP in August 1931.

I am part of a memorial committee working on a memorial for those 29 officers and for three additional officers who were part of the predecessor organizations (the old State Traffic Division and the Game Department).

After Officer Helms was killed, a local La Grande group gathered contributions and bought a “First Aid” car that was named in his honor. It is my understanding that this car still exists. We would like to locate the car and obtain a photo for our memorial database. Can you help?

We are in the process of putting together a website that will contain bios on all of the officers and give information on the memorial that we are trying to erect. The address is ospmemorial.org.

Anyone who has information can send it along to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Roger Rasmussen

Eugene