S816 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE February 23, 2021 flee their homes ahead of the inferno, RECOGNIZING GENEVA’S SHEAR on to open a series of others through- the Tribes immediately offered up the PERFECTION BARBER & BEAUTY out town before finally opening Gene- parking lot the Kla-Mo-Ya Casino for SALON va’s. All the while, throughout all of their use. ∑ Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, this his business adventures, Paul has been active in other ways throughout the When the firefighters tasked with month our country is joining together community. He worked with the Junior containing the fire needed a massive in celebration of Black History Month. It is a month for all of us to recognize Achievement Program at both Hum- open space to stage their ample equip- boldt and Jefferson schools, tutored in ment, those same expansive parking the indescribable impact that Black Americans have left made on our Na- the HOSTS—Help One Student to Suc- lots were readily provided to them. tion; to recommit ourselves to the ceed—program at King School, and At the same time, the doors of their struggle to achieve and ensure racial served for 6 years on the board of the hotel were thrown open to anyone dis- justice throughout our land; and, of Urban League. placed by the fire, to Tribal and non- course, to celebrate Black culture and Last year, Mr. Knauls and his son, Tribal members alike who were in need all of its contributions to America Paul Jr., decided it was finally time to of shelter. In the middle of a pandemic, past, present, and future. Few institu- take a break and close the doors of Ge- neva’s. It was also a decision made out with all manner of precautions in place tions are more connected or have been of a recognition of the difficult new re- to keep folks healthy and safe, that more central to Black culture than the barbershop and beauty salon. As de- alities of trying to operate a personal was no easy feat, but they did it, all care business in the midst of an un- while also welcoming the Red Cross in- scribed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History precedented national and global pan- side to set up a response center, as demic. Sadly, the Knauls and Geneva’s well. and Culture, for generations, men and women have been going to these busi- are not alone. Many businesses have As the forests burned around it, the nesses not just for hair care, but for been forced to confront life amid the Kla-Mo-Ya Casino stood there like the the sense of community and security COVID pandemic and BIPOC-owned eye of a hurricane. It became a center they provide. Black Americans go to businesses and communities have been of help and healing, of safety and shel- spend time among peers, playing cards disproportionately impacted. Last ter. Had they just done those things, or chess, sharing the latest local news year’s announcement of the closure of the Klamath Tribes would have already and engaging in passionate debates Geneva’s Shear Perfection Barber & gone far above and beyond to support about politics. Men and women go in to Beauty Salon was understandably met Tribal members and community mem- these businesses for friendship and with an emotional outpouring from bers alike. They didn’t stop, however, mentorship and to be engaged in the af- local Portlanders. Men and women who with providing the use of their hotel fairs of their neighbors and their com- had been going to the shop their entire lives took to the shop’s Facebook page and its facilities to first responders and munity. to thank the Knauls family for their to those in need. For 30 years, this was particularly true of Geneva’s Shear Perfection Bar- contributions to the community and to No. Klamath Tribal Behavioral ber & Beauty Salon in northeast Port- share some fond memories. Statements Health went out and provided assist- land. Since opening its doors in 1991, came from local leaders and celebrities ance and services to anyone who had Geneva’s has been a hub for Portland’s touting Geneva’s legacy, as one person been affected and displaced, free of African-American community, wel- put it, as ‘‘one of the most important charge. Whether they were Tribal coming over 1,000 people through its examples of a black business that rep- members or not, it didn’t matter. doors every month. Folks from Michael resented more to the community than Those who needed help were able to get Jordan and Muhammed Ali, to mem- just a place to get a haircut.’’ it. They helped feed the firefighters bers of the Portland Trailblazers, sat in And a year after its closing, that leg- risking their lives fighting the infer- its chairs. But more importantly, it acy continues to endure. Geneva’s nos, emergency volunteers helping oth- stood as the heart for three genera- Facebook page is brimming with pic- ers, and even evacuees. tions of Black Portlanders who first tures of young men in graduation robes walked through Geneva’s doors as chil- in front of the salon, of a turkey give- And even now, some 5 months after dren with their parents and then went away in its parking lot that took place the worst of the fire’s carnage, the on to bring their own sons and daugh- this past Thanksgiving to help provide Klamath Tribes are still doing what ters for their first haircuts, even as the for families in need, and announce- they can to help those whose lives were area around this local institution un- ments from other local Black business turned upside down by it. A GoFundMe derwent the kind of gentrification that owners who are moving into the space account has been set up to help any pushed Black families further and fur- to continue the Knauls family’s entre- family who lost their home or their ther away. preneurial spirit. And the legacy of property to the Two Four Two Fire re- But it wasn’t only the barbershop ‘‘The Mayor’’ and his iconic standing build and start to get back up on their itself that is considered an institution in the community remains as strong feet again. The distribution of the of the Portland community—so is the today as it ever has; even after cele- money raised by the account is still a Knauls family who owned and operated brating Mr. Knaul’s 90th birthday age work in progress. The Tribes are fine- it for three decades. Geneva Knauls, and the pandemic have not stopped tuning the priority system and how who passed away in 2014, was our Paul Knauls, Sr., from putting on two folks will apply for it. But once all of State’s first Black female barber. masks to go out for daily walks in his that is worked out, this is going to be Throughout her years as a business- neighborhood and around the Lloyd a tremendous help to so many of our woman, Geneva supported all different Center. For his 90th birthday last friends and neighbors who have en- kinds of local grassroots projects and month, the nonprofit World Arts Foun- dured such heartbreak and hardship. organizations, and become one of the dation streamed a live storytelling most beloved people in the northeast event, featuring decades of friends, em- ‘‘We help each other; We will live Portland community. Her status is ployees, and admirers to help him cele- good.’’ There is no question that the only equaled by her husband’s, Mr. brate. members of the Klamath Tribes have Paul Knauls, Sr., who is affectionately I know that Portlanders everywhere helped those in need across southern known around town as the Mayor of will join me in expressing the immense Oregon through an unimaginably dif- Northeast Portland. From 1963 to 1970, gratitude to Geneva’s Shear Perfection ficult time. We are all deeply grateful Mr. Knauls owned and ran the Cotton Barber & Beauty Salon and to the for everything they have done, both Club, which was the place for jazz and Knauls family for all that they have during the Two Four Two Fire and soul music, welcoming such big names done for the community. Northeast afterward. And we will all be better off as Etta James, Big Mama Thornton, Portland certainly won’t be the same as a State and as a community because and Sammy Davis, Jr., to its stage to without Geneva’s, but everyone who of their kindness and generosity of serenade music-loving Portlanders. He walked through those doors over the spirit.∑ sold the Cotton Club in 1970 and went last 30 years has had their lives

VerDate Sep 11 2014 04:08 Feb 24, 2021 Jkt 019060 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 0624 Sfmt 0634 E:\CR\FM\G23FE6.025 S23FEPT1 dlhill on DSK120RN23PROD with SENATE February 23, 2021 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S817 touched and impacted by it in ways ‘‘He had such an easy way about him with Using persistence and personality, both big and small. And it is reassuring players and media and staff,’’ Connolly said. Antonen scored a rare interview with the no- to know that, through each of them, ‘‘It was one of those things, everyone liked toriously press-shy DiMaggio, late in the leg- Geneva’s legacy, the legacy of the the guy. Everyone. He had a way about him. end’s life, after learning that DiMaggio was He could relate to anybody. He was really in Boston for a special event at Fenway Black barbershop and salon, the legacy very smart, and being a South Dakota boy, Park. The man considered ‘‘ungettable’’ by of community and friendship and look- he was very ease to relate to. I remember many sports journalists talked for several ing out for one another, will continue him saying that if he didn’t go into baseball hours with Antonen, and they finished with to endure.∑ writers, he wanted to be a Lutheran min- a stroll in front of the Green Monster. f ister. You could tell Mel anything, he was a DiMaggio ‘‘loved the history of baseball,’’ pastoral listening-type guy.’’ Antonen years later told the Argus-Leader. REMEMBERING MEL RICHARD Antonen’s journalism career began as a ANTONEN kid, when he called in scores from Lake He was a sports broadcaster for MASN’s Mid-Atlantic Sports Report, and radio ana- ∑ Norden’s home games to two newspapers Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I would that he ended up writing for: the Watertown lyst on Sirius-XM in the last decade of his like to include in the RECORD the fol- (S.D.) Public Opinion, which paid him as a career, and also wrote for lowing obituary for Mel Antonen, a na- high schooler 15 cents a copy inch; and the and other publications. He did a radio inter- tive South Dakotan and longtime Sioux Falls Argus Leader, where he got his view on the baseball Hall of Fame voting reporter for first job after graduation from Augustana from his hospital bed less than a week before his death. He especially loved talking base- USA Today and elsewhere, who passed University, eventually covering the sports, farm and political beats. ball with long-haul truckers on his late- away on January 30, 2021. He is honored He joined USA TODAY in 1986, where one night satellite radio show. by Charles Raasch, also a native South of his earliest assignments was covering the Dakotan, of USA Today with an obit- Antonen’s mother died when he was 12. His Tonya Harding Olympics figure-skating father, himself enshrined in the South Da- uary upon his death. I extend my deep- scandal. Antonen became a MLB reporter kota Sports Hall of Fame, raised Mel and his est sympathy to the Antonen family. and columnist, covering history from Cal sisters, Kathy and Carmen, and brother, The material follows: Ripken Jr.’s consecutive games streak to the Rusty, with the field at Memorial Park be- Mel Antonen, family man, friend to the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa record-breaking coming a refuge. world, and renowned sports journalist, died home race and the steroid scandals that followed. The story he often said was seared ‘‘My life reflects the power of baseball,’’ he Saturday of a rare acute auto-immune dis- said in that 2017 speech. ‘‘One of my earliest ease and complications from COVID–19. He most in his memory came during the earth- quake-interrupted 1989 . There, memories of Lake Norden baseball was the was a longtime USA TODAY Sports and summer of 1969. . . . In March of that year MASN-TV baseball reporter who covered sitting in a press box high above San Fran- cisco’s , he watched as the my mom died after a year-long battle with nearly three dozen World Series. In a half cancer. But it was baseball, and Lake Norden century in journalism, he reveled and ex- entire stadium undulated dangerously during the destructive Loma Prieta quake. Antonen baseball, with hot dogs and a 10-cent glass of celled in telling others’ stories. pop and chasing batting-practice foul balls He was 64. filed a story, then headed out for days to Mel Richard Antonen’s own story became cover the aftermath, focusing on the human on a beautiful summer night, that created a the best of all. It began in the tiny town of costs. diversion from fearful images of three Lake Norden, South Dakota, on Aug. 25, 1956, Hall of Famer Ripken told USA TODAY months prior—(of) my mom’s tan casket, when he was the third of four children born Sports’ Bob Nightengale that Antonen ‘‘was crying adults, the hearse in front of Trinity to Ray and Valda Antonen. a fixture around the game for so many years, Lutheran, on an overcast subzero day, when Lake Norden is 225 miles from the nearest and it was clear that he had a passion for there were piles of snow in one of South Da- major league ballpark and has never been baseball. He was a thorough and thoughtful kota’s worst winters.’’ reporter and left his mark on his profes- populated with more than 550 people, but on Antonen kept reporting and writing soft summer evenings fans from counties sion.’’ Along with the World Series, Antonen cov- throughout his illness with COVID–19 and an away congregate at Memorial Park to watch ered three Olympics, and professional bowl- auto-immune disease so rare that his doctors a new episode of South Dakota’s storied ing leagues. told him he may have been the only person amateur baseball history. Its pull never left ‘‘I can’t imagine being anything other than on Earth with that combination. him even as he walked, as a sports jour- a reporter, an ink-stained wretch,’’ he told Months after being diagnosed with both nalist, on Boston’s hallowed Fenway Park his Hall of Fame audience. diseases, Mel scored an interview with An- with the late Yankees Hall of Famer Joe Freeman, his editor at USA TODAY’s pio- thony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious dis- DiMaggio, or sat in a pre-game spring train- neering sports section, said Antonen’s ease expert and big baseball fan, who talked ing dugout with another Hall of Fame mem- knowledge of baseball, reverence for its his- about the need for caution, but also hope, in ber, Minnesota Twins slugger Harmon Kille- tory, and his love of stories, was evident a pandemic. ‘‘You’ve got to go on with your brew, weeks before Killebrew died in 2011. from the first day. life, but that doesn’t mean you have to de- The Antonen family has promoted amateur ‘‘It became clear to me right away the un- baseball in Lake Norden for decades. Mel prive yourself of all the pleasures’’ Fauci derstanding he had of baseball, and a lot of told him. loved to tell how his father, Ray over the that was because of his father,’’ said Free- years brought to the tiny hometown a series man. Antonen’s final column for MASN, written of barnstorming pros, including the leg- Freeman said one of his favorite stories in- after the Dodgers won the World Series in endary Satchel Paige and Cy Young Award volved Antonen at the 1988 Olympic Games October, paid homage to the comforting and winner Jim Perry, to play at Memorial Park. in Seoul. Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson reassuring next-year ritual of baseball. It On the mornings of home games throughout won the 100 meters in world-record time, but ended this way: ‘‘World Series 2021 pre- his childhood and beyond, Mel, his father and failed a drug test, was stripped of his gold diction: The Padres in six over the White siblings would groom the field, with the ris- medal and ordered to be sent home. USA Sox.’’ ing corn and soybean fields ritually marking TODAY received a tip that Johnson had res- Mel Richard Antonen is survived by his the progression of summer beyond the left- ervations on one of several potential flights son, Emmett, 14, and his wife, Lisa Nipp, a field fence. out of South Korea, and Freeman imme- photojournalist, whom he married in 2001, ‘‘I love baseball because it always brings diately sent Antonen to the airport to find along with three siblings and their families. me home,’’ Antonen said at his induction to Johnson and to do anything necessary to get Lisa embraced the many characters in Mel’s South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. an interview. baseball orbit, once holding the phone for ‘‘A baseball park in my mind is a home. It Carrying nothing but a walkie-talkie and Mel with the crusty, late Hall-of-Fame doesn’t matter if it’s next to a cornfield, as his reporter’s notebook, Antonen arrived at pitcher Bob Feller by discussing the beauty it is in Lake Norden, or if it is next to a rum- the airport and quickly discovered that Ben of hollyhocks. bling subway, in New York.’’ Johnson was booked on a flight to Toronto. At USA TODAY, and later as an analyst Antonen bought a ticket, went aboard and ‘‘From Joe DiMaggio to and for MASN, the network that covers the found Ben Johnson—who turned out to be a Bryce Harper, I have gotten to meet and Washington Nationals and Baltimore Ori- doctor, decades older than the sprinter by interview and become friends with people oles, Antonen ‘‘was a very good storyteller the same name. Antonen turned failure into that baseball fans around the world would who went far beyond balls and strikes and a memorable human interest story about the love to know,’’ he said in that Hall of Fame the score of the game,’’ said his retired USA frantic hunt through Olympics high-security speech in South Dakota. ‘‘But those experi- TODAY Sports editor Henry Freeman. obstacles that ended with the wrong Ben ences only happened because I grew up Dan Connolly was among the reporters in Johnson. around people that we should all be lucky to the Washington-Baltimore area with whom ‘‘It was a non-story that he made a good know. The lessons learned here, and on the Antonen was close, as they two sat next to story of its own,’’ Freeman said. ‘‘It also prairie, have gone with me and worked beau- each other in the press box and exchanged showed the lengths that Mel would go to get tifully. And tonight, baseball brings me good-natured barbs. a good story.’’ home once again.’’∑

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