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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (May 26, 2016)
10A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2016 Display: ‘We know there’s something about craftmanship that has been lost’ Continued from Page 1A “Caring, reaching, growing, connecting, the Astoria bridges are never rejecting,” she said. “Take you across from land to land, and soon you will go back over again.” Photo Courtesy of Petty Officer 1st Class David Mosley With a salute, Coast Guard Capt. Bruce Jones, left, passes his command of Sector Columbia River to Capt. Daniel Travers, right, during the change of com- mand ceremony in 2014. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Rich- ard Gromlich, commander of the Coast Guard’s District 13, oversaw the passage from Jones to Travers. Craftsmanship Suenn Ho, the designer behind the Garden of Surging Waves, was chosen by the state to create the interpretive display. She researched the history of the bridges and McCullough. Her team incorporated sal- vaged materials from the two historic Astoria bridges. They buried wooden trestles from underneath the Lewis and Clark River Bridge around the dis- play, topped by historical pho- tos. Next to the trestles were the antique drawspan gears from the Old Youngs Bay Bridge, half-buried and half on display to visitors. “I realized there’s something very profound to relieve them from the gear room and daylight them after 100 years of work- ing,” Ho said. “We know there’s something about craftsmanship that has been lost.” Ho, an architectural teacher, said she searched for the old architectural drawings of the bridges and was again struck by McCullough’s craftmanship. “I have students who don’t know how to draw by hand, and yet these drawings were all done by hand,” she said. “So I know there’s something very import- ant, that we want to tell the story of … the ability to make things by hand, the craft.” In that vein, Ho also reached out to student welders Bronson Holthusen and Clay Englund, seniors at Astoria High School. The two welded a tree stump, complete with branch stubs and bark, in which student poems and art were placed. The time capsule was sealed Tuesday, with no date set for excavation. Travers: ‘I’m going out at the absolute pinnacle of things’ Continued from Page 1A Colorful tenure Just days before his retire- ment, Travers is showing the ropes to Timmons, who used to be an executive oficer at the air station and is coming to the sector from the Paciic Area Command. Hands down the most memorable situation during his tenure at Sector Colum- bia River, he said, was the Fennica protests on the Wil- lamette River. The dam- aged Royal Dutch Shell ice- breaker came into Vigor Marine’s shipyards in Port- land in July for repairs. The vessel was temporarily blocked from leaving by pro- testers opposed to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wild- life Refuge who suspended themselves by ropes from the St. Johns Bridge and formed a kayak blockade in the Wil- lamette River. The Coast Guard took the lead, organizing multiple law enforcement agencies to clear protesters from the bridge and river, with numer- ous civil penalties issued but only two arrests. Like with protests over dams on the Snake River and a liqueied natural gas plant near Coos Bay, Travers said the Coast Guard’s focus was on ensur- ing people’s First Amend- ment rights but keeping the river open to ship trafic. He credited good teamwork between agencies for the rel- atively peaceful outcome. On sea and land Travers said he is espe- cially proud of the 2015 Avi- ation Standardization Excel- lence Award he said Air Station Astoria is receiving for stations using MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters. “We are the premier inland rescue station in the Coast Guard,” Travers said. While regularly rescu- ing people on the coast and in the Paciic Ocean, Sector Columbia River has also per- formed numerous high-pro- ile rescues in the Cascade Mountains, most recently extracting an injured kayaker at Spirit Falls in the Colum- bia River Gorge last month. In November, the Coast Guard helped shuttle rescu- ers to a landing on Mount Jefferson to reach a stranded husband and wife. Travers said the diverse terrain in which his pilots operate makes them some of the most skilled in the coun- try, with some junior pilots comparing favorably to com- manders at other air stations. Why Astoria? Travers is pretty sure he, Jones and Kaup share sim- ilar reasons for wanting to stay. Astoria is also home to retired Adm. Edward Nel- son, who Travers said com- manded Sector Columbia River from 1971 to 1974. “It’s the community,” Tra- vers said. “When you leave this job, you start fresh every two or three years. You have to build all these new rela- tionships. If you’re coming out of here, and you’ve built the relationships, it’s hard to step away from that.” Travers sees himself working at least 15 more years in the private sector, while expanding his volun- teerism. He already volun- teers with Clatsop County United Way and the Astoria Regatta. His wife, C.C., will con- tinue teaching math at War- renton Grade School. The couple have two daughters, Jenna and Kristen, who will be a freshman and senior, respectively, next year at Astoria High School. This time next year, Travers will be busy attending the gradu- ations of Kristen from Asto- ria and his son, Ben, from the University of Michigan. “I’m going out at the absolute pinnacle of things,” Travers said. “This is the way you want to end your Coast Guard career.” Bridge Work Work on the Lewis and Clark River Bridge, the only remaining single-leaf bascule drawspan in the state, was com- pleted by Labor Day weekend. The bridge was one of several identiied by the state as func- tionally obsolete, not necessar- ily unsafe but also not meeting current design standards. Dave True, a project man- ager with the Department of Transportation, said the proj- ect involved replacing some wooden pilings with steel, while wrapping others in protective iberglass jackets to protect from rot, a common issue with bridge substructures continually sub- merged and revealed by tidally inluenced waters. Work is scheduled to con- tinue through November 2017 on the Old Youngs Bay Bridge, one of four double-leaf bas- cule drawspans in the state. The bridge was identiied as one of OSAA 4A GIRLS TRACK & FIELD STATE Congratulate the Astoria High School Lady Fishermen winners of the OSAA 4A Track Championship Your 3-line message to the Lady Fishermen championship team and you business name 45 $ Deadline: May 31 Runs: June 1 in The Daily Astorian Contact Holly at 503-325-3211 Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian The display features purposely rusted panels festooned with historic drawings, biograph- ical information and Lewis and Clark Elementary School students’ poems and drawings. Oregon Department of Transportation Director Matthew Garrett speaks during a bridge interpretive display dedication Tuesday. Student welders from Astoria High School created a time capsule looking like a tree trunk, which contains poems and artwork by Lewis and Clark Elementary School stu- dents. The capsule was sealed and buried during an inter- pretive display dedication Tuesday. the major structurally deicient spans in the county, not neces- sarily failing, but in need of sig- niicant repairs. The bascule style of bridge uses a counterweight to balance the raising span — also known as a “leaf” — throughout the upswing, providing clearance for boat trafic. As of 2013, the average traf- ic count on Old Youngs Bay Bridge was 20,000 vehicles per day, along with 11,400 vehicles a day on the Lewis and Clark River Bridge. Lou Torres, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, said the work being done will add decades to the lifespans of both bridges. Astoria High School senior Clay Englund prepares to bury a time capsule he and fellow senior Bronson Holthusen (not pictured) helped design and weld for an interpretive display dedicated Tuesday. More photos available online at DailyAstorian.com