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The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., September 26, 1968, page 1

DEDICATION PLANS DOMINATE NEWS

With Goldendale being announced as host to the John Day Dam dedication crowd. Chamber of Commerce committeemen were trying at midweek to prepare to entertain any number of visitors to the city up to 1500 or more, if such a crowd materializes. However, they also maintained a tongue-in-cheek attitude, wondering if many actually would show up.
For that matter, although preparations have been made to care for as many as 8000 at the dedication site on the river, no one would predict an attendance, and private estimates ran below 4000.
It is even possible, one authority said, that after invited guests have been accounted for (seating is provided for 2850 in this category) the members of the press corps, security personnel and people on official business might loom large against the number of the public.
(The Corps of Engineers said 174 members of the working Northwest press have been accredited, plus an entourage of 122 members of the vice-president's campaign press corps. These will headquarter at the old resident engineer's office on the Washington shore, where communications have been set up).
The program will start, promptly at 8 a.m., with a welcome and a musical program by Arlington and Boardman High School bands. At 9:30 a.m., a ceremony will be held at which token water from 40 Columbia Basin cities will be returned to the Columbia, below the dam. The time from then until 10 n.m. will be filled by school band concert.
Following the national anthem at 10 a.m., platform guests wilt be introduced and a special ceremony involving Governors Evans, McCall and Samuelson will take place. At 10:30 the 21st United States Army band will play, followed by the invocation. Remarks by Lt. Gen. W.F. Cassidy, chief of Engineers, U.S. Army and Senator Warren G. Magnuson of Washington will follow, preceding the address by the ranking United States dignitary, now expected to be Vice-President Humphrey, in lieu of President, Johnson, who had been invited.
At the benediction following this program, the ceremony of dedication will be at an end, and the crowd will be dismissed.
The dam and powerhouse will then be open to inspection by visitors until 3:30 p.m.
All reserved seats must be occupied before 10 a.m.. the Corps of Engineers said.
Local entertainment arranged in Goldendale for the benefit of crowds who either will be going north on Highway 97 and stop here, or who are induced to come up here from the river includes, tours of the Historical Society museum, of the O.K. Tire & Rubber Co. plant, a visit to the Goldendale Country Club and to the Old Red House. Guy Thompson's steam traction engine will be on parade and display, and it is hoped a display of Indian costumes and possibly of horse riders in western gear can be arranged.