DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2016
144TH YEAR, NO. 59
DRILLING DOWN
ONE DOLLAR
Port
wavers
on LNG
sublease
Fulton wants to
wait, Hunsinger
wants more info
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Astoria High School students Zac Patterson, left, and Tim Schumacher learn to measure voltage in their engineering technology
class on Tuesday at Astoria High School. Astoria is the first school in a countywide partnership to try out the course.
Astoria is testing
ground for new
career-technical
course of study
See PORT, Page 10A
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
I
nside the new engineering lab at Asto-
ria High School, Glen Fromwiller’s stu-
dents are busy learning the skills of mod-
ern manufacturing.
Split into two-person teams in front of com-
puters and instrumentation panels, they learn to
manipulate robotic arms, read industrial prints,
conigure electrical circuits, design 3-D objects
for printing, operate pneumatic equipment and
program drills — a baseline education for the
mechanically inclined.
Astoria is the testing ground for the new
career-technical education program secured by a
coalition of Clatsop County school districts and
businesses last year.
Modern shop
“It seems like there’s a resurgence in
skills-based education that, for whatever rea-
son, went away 15 to 20 years ago,” From-
willer said.
The modern iteration might not be the greasy
auto shop, he said, but the skills students are
learning are in demand by employers. The class
has also been in demand among students, nearly
50 of whom signed up.
Maddie Ank, a senior at Astoria and one of
the many aspiring engineers in the course, said
she signed up the irst day it became available
The Port of Astoria Commission came
close Tuesday to voting to abandon the agen-
cy’s sublease with Oregon LNG on the Ski-
panon Peninsula, but pulled back amid the
concerns of two commissioners.
Richard Glick, an attorney for LNG
Development Co., sent the Port a letter in
April asking the agency to terminate a sub-
lease with the company, which recently
abandoned a highly controversial liqueied
natural gas terminal planned for the property.
Oregon LNG is a subsidiary of New York-
based holding company Leucadia National
Corp.
The Port leases more than 90 acres of the
Skipanon Peninsula from the Department of
State Lands at $129,000 annually for another
25 years, and subleases the property to Ore-
gon LNG. In his request for termination,
Glick said Oregon LNG was winding up its
affairs and had paid for the sublease on the
peninsula through November.
Astoria High School teacher Glen Fromwiller helps students in his engineering tech-
nology class on Tuesday at Astoria High School.
and nearly fell over from excitement after see-
ing the equipment.
“My dad’s in the computer industry, so I’ve
been around this stuff,” she said. But Ank said
Fromwiller’s class is the irst time she has been
able to interact with such equipment outside of a
museum exhibit.
Students in the course spend two to three
weeks at a time learning at one of the class-
room’s skills stations, which include pneumat-
ics, measuring, electrical, mechanical and elec-
trical fabrication, robotics, computer-aided
design and industrial print reading.
“Over the course of a semester, they’re
building an expertise in that section,” From-
willer said.
At the end of the course, students apply their
learned skills in a team project to turn a kit of
parts into a inished product, like a can-crush-
ing machine, hovercraft or solar equipment. At
the very least, Fromwiller said, students will
come away from the class with some employ-
able skills.
Modeled after Tillamook
The county’s ive school districts applied
last year for a $312,000 career rechnical
education revitalization grant from the state
Department of Education last year. The appli-
cation was supported by a coalition of local
manufacturers, tradespeople and other business
interests.
See PROGRAM, Page 10A
‘It seems like there’s a resurgence in skills-based education
that, for whatever reason, went away 15 to 20 years ago.’
Glen Fromwiller
Astoria High School teacher
Oswald
West is
whale’s
inal stop
Necropsy, interpretive
talks are upcoming
By LYRA FONTAINE
The Daily Astorian
Remains of a dead humpback whale
washed back to shore Tuesday, this time at
Short Sand Beach in Oswald West State Park.
A necropsy of the 38-foot mammal will
likely be performed Thursday by Seaside
Aquarium General Manager Keith Chandler
and Portland State University researchers,
Park Manager Ben Cox said.
The whale is not expected to return to sea
again. “It looks like we’re having a series of
lower tides and based on the current location
of the whale, we’re expecting it to remain in
place,” Cox said.
Because of fewer visitors and cooler tem-
peratures, Oregon Parks and Recreation
Department staff will leave the whale to
decay naturally. During a busier time, staff
would likely bury it.
See WHALE, Page 10A
New citizens welcomed at historic point of entry
By DAVID PLECHL
EO Media Group
KNAPPTON
COVE,
Wash. — When Knappton
Cove Heritage Center Direc-
tor Nancy Anderson organized
a naturalization ceremony for
some of America’s newest cit-
izens, she pulled out all the
stops, even going so far as to
invite President Obama.
“I start at the top,” she
said with a smile. “He is our
employee, you know?”
Obama couldn’t make it,
but that didn’t seem to dampen
the mood during the cere-
mony Sept. 16. The red, white
and blue waved under sunny
skies, as immigration ofi-
cials granted full citizenship to
11 immigrants from Mexico,
Thailand, El Salvador, Korea,
Iran and South Africa, in the
company of their family and
friends.
Historic waypoint
The nonproit Heritage
Center was once known as
the Columbia River Quaran-
tine Station. Between 1899
and 1938, thousands of new
Americans passed through the
station before continuing on
to their inal destinations. It
played such a prominent role
in their journey to citizenship
that in 1921, The Oregonian
called the station “The Ellis
Island of the Columbia.”
Historically,
incoming
vessels carrying immigrants
moored in the Columbia River,
where they were inspected. If
cleared, the ships headed on to
Portland or Astoria. However,
when oficials suspected a ship
of carrying disease, they would
order it to proceed to the quaran-
tine station instead. Disembark-
ing immigrants passed through
the lazaretto, or “pest house”,
and sometimes spent weeks
there, recuperating from ill-
ness and waiting to be cleared.
In all, Anderson said, 132 ships
and about 6,000 people from all
over the world passed through
Knappton Cove.
See CITIZENS, Page 10A
David Plechl/EO Media Group
New citizens take the naturalization Oath of Allegiance
to the United States during a ceremony at the Knappton
Cover Heritage Center. The site was chosen by the U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Service for its Pacific North-
west immigration history.