AHS students serve
Cereal for Charity
Warriors face
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NORTH COAST • 3A
SPORTS • 4A
142nd YEAR, No. 216
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2015
ONE DOLLAR
Local tourism jobs No. 1 in Oregon Library,
cemetery,
aquatic
center
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Spending would
address public
concerns about
maintenance
By DERRICK DePLEDGE
The Daily Astorian
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
A line forms outside the Bowpicker Fish & Chips during lunchtime on a sunny Saturday. Expanding restaurant choices are helping drive
a shift in visitor demographics.
On a given night, 27 percent of population is visitors to county
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The Daily Astorian
C
latsop County has many
reasons to be celebrating
its cash cow during the
U.S. Travel Association’s Nation-
al Travel and Tourism Week, May
2-10.
Travel Oregon’s recently re-
leased annual report on travel im-
pacts by Dean Runyan Associates
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impact of visitors to Clatsop Coun-
ty.
“Nationally, travel and tourism
has become America’s No. 1 ser-
vices export,” CEO Todd Davidson
of Travel Oregon said, adding that
tourism services comprise 10 per-
cent of all U.S. exports.
Travel Oregon is a semisep-
arate state agency created by the
Oregon Legislature in 2003 to
promote tourism to Oregon. Da-
vidson and Linea Gagliano have
ALEX PAJUNAS — The Daily Astorian File
been on a tour of the state, pro-
moting the Dean Runyan study Tourists from the Star Princess cruise ship pose with a Port of Astoria welcome sign before venturing
and the revamp of its “7 Wonders beyond the Port’s Pier 1 security check point and into Astoria in September 2013. Cruise ship traffic is
of Oregon” marketing campaign a significant drive of tourism traffic an dollars.
(http://traveloregon.com/7won-
ders), the closest wonder being the
According to the most recent re-
entire Oregon Coast.
port, 22.3 percent of Clatsop Coun-
LEARN MORE
ty’s employment in 2013 could be
To access an interactive online database for Dean Runyan
Year-over-year increases
tied to the travel industry, the high-
Associate’s study on the economic impacts of tourism, visit
The report shows year-over-
est mark in the state and just barely
http://tinyurl.com/l429voj
year increases in tourism’s impact
ahead of Lincoln County. Clatsop
on Clatsop County, including a
County’s annual overnight visitor
more than 27 percent increase in spending generates $27 in employ- specializes in economic and mar- days in 2014, divided by the coun-
direct spending, from $405.2 mil- ee earnings and $4.20 in local and ket research for Dean Runyan and ty’s population, translated to 27
lion in 2010 to $516.7 million in state tax revenue.
has been doing such reports for percent of its population on a given
2014. The report found that every
“It’s probably been … five the past 15 years. Dean Runyan’s night being visitors.
$94,460 spent by visitors creates years of real increases in real reports on Oregon stretch back to
See TOURISM, Page 10A
one job; and every $100 in visitor spending,” said Bill Klein, who 1991.
Astoria, which is exploring a new
library complex with housing and retail
at Heritage Square, could spend $80,000
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city’s existing library on Duane Street.
The proposed capital improvement
fund money for the roof is an expensive
reminder that the city will have to main-
tain its aging library even as it pursues a
long-delayed upgrade.
A city budget committee Tues-
day night tentatively endorsed library
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starts in July.
The budget committee, which will
make a recommendation to the City
Council, also supported a spending plan
for parks and recreation that would ad-
dress maintenance challenges at Ocean
View Cemetery and repairs at the Asto-
ria Aquatic Center.
Public complaints about the con-
dition of Ocean View, the city owned
cemetery in Warrenton, led the City
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and cremation fees.
While the proposed budget does not
include a dedicated maintenance super-
visor for Ocean View, the city would
expand professional service contracts to
help improve maintenance at the ceme-
tery and other park grounds.
The city would also spend $72,000
in capital improvement fund money for
weed eradication and reseeding at Ocean
View and, perhaps, other park grounds.
The Aquatic Center, meanwhile,
would get $250,000 in capital improve-
ment fund money for repair work such
as replastering the pool.
The proposed capital improvement
fund budget also includes $35,000 for
a parks master plan, which would chart
community interest in existing and fu-
ture city parks, and $55,000 for a point
of sale system and registration software
for park facilities.
coast
weekend
THURSDAY
Spring Unveiling
Masons honor top Warrenton scholars
$32,000 in scholarships given at banquet
By (':$5'675$7721
The Daily Astorian
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
Warrenton senior Cale Biel
shakes hands with Archie Cook,
worshipful master of Gateway
Lodge No. 175, as he accepts
his honor student certificate.
The banquet was sponsored by
members of Gateway Lodge No.
175 Ancient Free and Accepted
Masons.
WARRENTON — In 1960, Gate-
way Masonic Lodge member Ervin
Lee Atkins suggested the idea for the
Honor Student Banquet paying tribute
to Warrenton High School’s top per-
formers to fellow lodge brothers John
T. Carden, and Forrest Hensley. By the
next year, they’d held the initial event
at the Crab Pot Restaurant in Warren-
ton.
On Monday night, 55 years later, his
son Ron Atkins Jr. sat at the entrance to
the WHS gym, where he and his fel-
low brothers from Gateway Masonic
Lodge No. 175 gathered with students
and their families to honor their perfor-
mance in school.
They also gave 13 graduating se-
niors a total of $32,000 in scholarships.
The bulk of the lodge’s scholar-
ship money comes from the fortune of
former WHS teachers Dick and Har-
riet Baldwin, a childless couple who
bequeathed more than $1 million for
the lodge to invest in student scholar-
ships. Since 2000, Masons estimate the
fund has given more than $1 million to
about 160 students.
Gil Gramson, a Warrenton lumi-
nary and mason, said the lodge actu-
ally awarded about $90,000 this year.
Scholarships given from the Baldwin’s
fund can be renewed up to four years
in a row, meaning many former WHS
grads and current college students are
still taking advantage of the scholar-
ships. The fund, which Gramson said is
more than $1.5 million, pays for them
all out of its interest.
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In addition to the Dick and Harriet
Baldwin/Gateway Lodge Scholarships,
the Masonic Lodge gives out two
awards. Senior Katherine Carey took
home the Edwin L. Mowick Outstand-
ing Student Award, and senior Brianna
Marsch earned the Murl G. Peterson
Award for Scholastic Achievement.
“I’ve been in this for four years,”
said Marsch, an honor student for all
four years of high school and now WHS’
valedictorian. She was one of eight hon-
ors students in the senior class at the
ceremony, along with eight juniors,
eight sophomores and seven freshmen,
many surrounded by family members
Monday over a prime rib dinner.
See MASONS, Page 10A