Accidental death of John Newhouse 'a horrible loss'

YAKIMA, Wash. -- The loss of John Newhouse is being felt from the family orchards and vineyards on Snipes Mountain to softball fields in the Lower Valley.

Newhouse, who celebrated his 50th birthday a month ago, died Tuesday after an accident at his family's farm, an enterprise that's been in the Sunnyside area since the early 1900s and recently came to include the Uplands Estates winery.

He was struck by a blade that blew off an orchard sprayer after he had replaced the fan in the sprayer shortly before noon, family members said.

"It's a horrible loss for my family," his older sister, Marla Newhouse, said by phone Wednesday afternoon. "All you have to do is check around Sunnyside; the impact is huge."

And it's a tragedy, his wife made clear, for which no one is to blame.

Cherri Newhouse said by phone Wednesday that her husband knew he was dying when she spoke with him just before he was loaded onto a helicopter to be flown to a hospital.

"His dying wish was that he wanted to make sure that Jose knew it was not his fault," Cherri Newhouse said, referring to an employee who was working on the equipment with her husband.

"He's one of our main men, and John loved him," she said.

A news release issued Tuesday by the Yakima County Sheriff's Office did not identify the accident victim, but said he suffered "a partial amputation of his left arm and severe abdominal injuries."

The state Department of Labor & Industries will conduct an investigation of the accident.

Newhouse died while undergoing emergency surgery at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, according to the family. He had first been taken by a Northwest MedStar helicopter to Kadlec Medical Center in Richland, then flown by plane to Harborview.

Newhouse was a fixture at Sunnyside Christian High School softball and basketball games, often videotaping his daughters' games and making DVDs for those who requested them, Marla Newhouse said. His 17-year-old daughter, Kelly, who plays for the softball team this year, is the fourth of his girls to play sports at the school.

Sunnyside Christian was scheduled to play a softball doubleheader Tuesday against La Salle, but when the team was told after the first game of John Newhouse's death, the second game was canceled.

One of seven children, Newhouse was a cousin of state Department of Agriculture director Dan Newhouse, a former state legislator who has a farm with his brother adjacent to the 1,800-acre orchard and vineyard operation run by John Newhouse's family.

Although the winery was the newest venture in the family operation, "John was more into the farming end of it," Marla Newhouse said.

"He was an integral and important piece of our farming operation," said his nephew, Todd Newhouse. "He's irreplaceable."

His sister said John Newhouse returned to the family farm after working as a police officer in Prosser and Sunnyside for several years in the 1980s.

"He was just a great guy; he was there for everyone else," she said.

Besides his wife, John Newhouse is survived by his six children and one grandson.

A memorial service is tentatively planned for Saturday at the Christian Reformed Church in Sunnyside, where Newhouse was a deacon.