143RD YEAR, NO. 228
ONE DOLLAR
DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, MAY 23, 2016
Warrenton
girl drowns
off
Klipsan
Lady Fish are stunning at state track meet
Beach
DOMINANT REPEAT
12-year-old was
likely in the water
more than 30 minutes
By NATALIE ST. JOHN
EO Media Group
LONG BEACH, Wash. — A 12-year-old
Warrenton girl drowned on Sunday evening
while playing in the waves in the Klipsan
Beach area.
“These just make me sick. It’s like they
never end,” Paciic County Sheriff Scott
Johnson said shortly after the girl was pro-
nounced dead at Ocean Beach Hospital. Local
ocean waters have claimed the lives of numer-
ous inexperienced swimmers in recent years.
According to Johnson, details of the
incident are still emerging, but responders
believe the girl and her family may have
been visiting local friends. She and a friend
were reportedly swimming or playing in the
tide near 196th and N streets when she ran
into trouble just before 7 p.m.
“It sounds like the adults were maybe
down the beach, or at the house,” Johnson
said.
Photos by David Ball/For the Daily Astorian
See DROWNING, Page 10A
Astoria sophomore Darian Hageman, the high-point athlete of the state meet, holds another team trophy for the Lady Fishermen.
Fishermen score points in all seven events
By DAVID BALL
For The Daily Astorian
UGENE — Astoria’s Kaylee Mitchell
came ’round the inal turn in the 800-
meter inal at the same time that team-
mate Darian Hageman took a little hop
and started down the runway for a record-set-
ting effort in the triple jump.
The two teammates ran almost side-by-
side in front of the boisterous Hayward Field
grandstands. In a lash, the Fishermen had put
18 points on the scoreboard.
That was the story at Saturday’s Ore-
gon School Activities Association state track
championships for an Astoria team that had too
many athletes in too many events. It wasn’t a
matter of whether Astoria was going to win the
4A team title again, it was only a matter of how
many points they would put up.
E
MORE WINNERS
Other student athletes from
Clatsop County bring home trophies.
Read more on Page 4A
“We were fortunate enough to get peo-
ple spread out across many events and some
in multiple events,” Astoria coach Garrett
Parks said. “All coaches are nervous on Day 1
because you have to get kids through to inals,
and the girls did a great job with that. At the
end of the day it’s just nice to see the kids
celebrate.”
Astoria inished with 109.5 points to blow
out runner-up Siuslaw by almost 40 points.
Marshield topped the leaderboard coming
into Day 2 of the meet, but Astoria would take
charge in dramatic fashion when Saturday’s
irst racing inal went into the books.
Astoria was expecting a tight race in the
400-meter relay inale, but Phoenix went into
the inal exchange two strides ahead of the
pack. But a dropped baton caused mayhem
coming off the corner, and Astoria’s Natalie
Cummings took full advantage snatching the
metal tube from teammate Kaylee Mitchell and
sprinting away. She hit the inish line a full two
strides ahead of anyone else.
“I saw everyone closing in and it was
nerve-racking, I knew I just had to get the
baton and go,” Cummings said. “I saw Phoenix
drop it out of the corner of my eye, and I just
kept pushing myself. My team deserved a gold
medal, and I wanted to do my part to get it.”
Astoria won the tag-team race in 50.12 sec-
onds and surged past Marshield by a point on
See CHAMPS, Page 4A
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
A month-old double-crested cormorant
at the Wildlife Center of the North Coast.
Thousands of
birds abandon
their nests
Cormorants left eggs
vulnerable to predators
By CASSANDRA PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oficials say thousands of cormorants
abandoned their nests on East Sand Island
in the Columbia River and they don’t know
why. Reports indicate as many as 16,000
adult birds in the colony left their eggs
behind to be eaten by predators including
eagles, seagulls and crows.
The birds’ mysterious departure comes
after the latest wave of government-sanc-
tioned cormorant shooting. It’s part of a cam-
paign to reduce the population of birds that
are eating imperiled Columbia River salmon.
Amy Echols, a spokeswoman for the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers, said the contrac-
tors who monitor the birds for the Corps
reported May 16 that the East Sand Island
colony had been signiicantly disturbed.
LEFT: Astoria’s triple crown winner, Darian Hageman, competing in the triple jump and long jump. She also won the high jump with
a school record leap. RIGHT: Junior Natalie Cummings was the winner of the 100 meters, and took second in the 200 meters.
See CORMORANTS, Page 10A
Warrenton teacher, coach is a master of much
eacher, coach, isher, over-
seas traveler, singer and
guitar player. Lynique Oveson,
remarkably, is all of the above.
Her current work address is
Warrenton High School.
Oveson is wrapping up her
irst year of teaching at Warren-
ton, and, just this weekend, took
a handful of athletes to the state
track meet in Eugene, as the
Warriors’ track coach.
This summer, she will be
back in Alaska, resuming her
job on a ishing boat.
For a person who believes
“everything happens for a rea-
son,” Oveson’s coaching story
alone is unique.
Technically, her time on the
sidelines started when she was
T
just a child.
“My dad coached at Wal-
lowa High School (football,
basketball and track), and I have
pictures of me and my identical
twin sitting on the bench, when
we were 3 years old. Coaching
is in our blood.”
After coaching the Warren-
ton junior varsity teams in vol-
leyball and basketball last fall
and winter, “I was trying to not
coach this spring, and focus on
teaching,” she said, “but that
didn’t really happen.”
In her days as an athlete,
Oveson competed in track La
Grande High School, and later
at the University of Portland.
“I did a little bit of every-
thing, but my two main events
were the javelin and 800. I hated
the 800, but I was good at it.”
She was diagnosed with a
heart condition her freshman
year at Portland — which began
her transition from athlete to
coach.
Heart condition
The heart condition “turned
out to be a blessing in dis-
guise,” she said. “I started
See OVESON, Page 10A
Submitted Photo
Warrenton teacher and coach Lynique Oveson, left, with
one of her state-qualifying track athletes, Eli Petersen, fol-
lowing the district meet.