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The Klickitat County Agriculturist, Goldendale, WA., August 11, 1916, page 4

COLBURN
Opposes County Division

Since our townsmen, C.L. Colburn, of White Salmon, says the Enterprise, has decided to have his name appear as a candidate for Representative, it is fitting that the people know what he stands for. Mr. Colburn came to Klickitat county in 1894. He purchased land and became a taxpayer at once, and also took up a homestead. Having spent most of his life in school work he soon became interested in that kind of work in this county. He was elected to the office of County School Superintendent which he held for two terms, during which time the State School Superintendent said at a meeting of County Superintendents, "that if they wanted to see schools superintended, go to Klickitat County."
At the first state convention attended by Mr. Colburn he made a strong plea for an Eight year course of study, to supersede a nine-year course then in use. This plea met with approval of his fellow superintendents and with the State Board, and the result is we got and still have an Eight-year course.
Then Mr. Colburn began to plead for examination questions to emanate from the State Board, so that they might be uniform. Up to this time they came from the County Superintendent's or anybody who had time to prepare a list. He plead along this line for several years, and finally, while he was conducting his last examination in Goldendale, the first list of questions that ever came from the state board arrived, and he shifted from the list prepared in his own office to that prepared by the state. That is the origin of the system we now have.
During his career school career in this county, he taught at Husum, Gilmer, Trout Lake, Centerville, Goldendale, Laurel and White Salmon. He dropped school work to take charge of the Gillett bank of White Salmon, and stayed with that for several years until it paid dividends. Since then he had devoted his time to his hotel and the ranch.
The older teachers will remember that the teachers' institutes held by Mr. Colburn were more like summer training schools and lasted for weeks, instead of days, just before teachers' examination. This method of preparation enabled many teachers to raise their grade of third or second to that of first. One season Mr. Colburn procured free entertainment for every teacher during the entire session at Goldendale. This produced a feeling that did not exist before, and from that time on every outside teacher was a booster for Goldendale and her academy. There was mutual confidence between Goldendale and Mr. Colburn, and he believes that confidence has never been shaken.
While on the homestead Mr. Colburn was Master of the Husum grange, and still holds his membership in the grange, -- of White Salmon. He believes in the organization, and approves of most of the resolutions adopted by the Pomona grange.
A travel phrenologist and physiognomist once said to an audience that if they could get Mr. Colburn interested in a project he would strain every nerve in him to accomplish it; but if they couldn't get him interested he wouldn't turn his hand over.
Owing to changes in conditions within the last few years Mr. Colburn is opposed to county division. He believes in progress, but not in freak legislation. He is not wholly in accord with the registration laws. He believes that the state should have an irrigation code plain enough that any body could understand rather than laws so ambiguous that even Judges cannot understand.