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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 2017
Project: ‘People consider domestic violence dirty laundry’
Continued from Page 1A
“I was viewing the media
and what they had to show of
Donald Trump, and it kind of
got me thinking about wom-
en’s rights, especially the way
he was talking about women
and to women,” she said. “So
I decided to take the women’s
studies class just to kind of
educate myself a little better.
Before that, I wouldn’t have
considered myself a femi-
nist. I was just kind of going
through the motions, and not
really paying attention to the
kind of oppression women
face.”
Logan said she comes
from a family with a his-
tory of addiction and domes-
tic abuse, and of not talking
about women’s issues. “In my
life, that was the norm, to see
women being treated poorly.”
Logan said Stokes’ classes
started making her think about
all the challenges and inequal-
ities women have faced, from
the wage gap and other dis-
crimination to domestic vio-
lence. Since then, Logan said,
she’s in a lot more debates,
voted for the first time and
took part in the women’s
March in Astoria last month.
Still, she said, changing peo-
ple’s minds is not easy.
“Usually when I approach
people about politics, they’re
way more willing to banter
about it and have a civil argu-
ment,” she said. “But when it
comes to women’s studies, it’s
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Katie Leedy, a student at Clatsop Community College, hangs T-shirts for the Clothesline
Project to raise awareness about violence against women.
like, ‘Shut up; that’s not real.’
And I feel like that’s the reac-
tion I get with 75 percent of
the people I bring it up to.”
Airing dirty laundry
In 1990, the Men’s Rape
Prevention Project released
a statistic showing that while
58,000 American solders
had died in Vietnam, 51,000
women had been killed by
partners during the same time
frame. The statistic galva-
nized a coalition of women’s
groups in Cape Cod, Mas-
sachusetts, to start an educa-
tional and prevention cam-
paign — using the symbolism
of laundry, commonly seen as
women’s work — to address
violence against women.
Stokes, who has taught
at the college and organized
the local Clothesline Project
since 2010, said people often
don’t understand the continu-
ing prevalence of domestic
violence. More than one-third
of all women and one-quarter
of all men have experienced
rape, physical violence or
stalking by an intimate part-
ner, according to the National
Intimate Partner and Sexual
Violence Survey conducted
by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
“People consider domes-
tic violence dirty laundry,”
Stokes said. “No one wants to
air their dirty laundry, and yet
it’s happening everywhere.”
Stokes said the Clothes-
line Project provides an easy
form of grassroots activism
through which people can
be artistic and express pro-
Clatsop Community College
Community members and students from Clatsop Communi-
ty College’s women’s studies class spent a night last month
painting T-shirts for the Clothesline Project, which is on dis-
play in the third-floor lobby of Towler Hall through March 22.
found feelings. The shirts for
the project were provided by
The Harbor, the region’s non-
profit advocacy group for vic-
tims of domestic and sexual
violence. The group provides
a 24-hour crisis hotline at
503-325-5735.
Warrenton: ‘We’re dealing with how you grow a district’
Continued from Page 1A
over the past decade, topping
1,000 students for the first time
this school year.
Part of the challenge is
space. Warrenton Grade and
High schools are both hemmed
in by wetlands, which require
mitigation elsewhere to fill and
build on. The grade school,
which is the sixth-most-pop-
ulous K-8 school in the state,
is also hemmed in by houses
on two sides. Any new con-
struction will also require
more landscaping and parking
spaces.
“One of the concepts was
maybe building behind the
back of the high school in
the wetlands,” Rankin said.
“That’s a money pit, too, and
it’s a time-consuming thing.”
Growing up and afield
With a reduced potential
bond and a lack of space, the
school district has talked about
focusing any bond on one
property. One idea is adding a
second story at the high school
to move middle school grades
and ease crowding at the ele-
mentary school.
“It alleviates the prob-
lem here and lets us focus on
a single” property, Jeffery
said. “And then what kind of
space would be sufficient for
a (grades) 7-12 high school?”
Another option raised has
been to move either John Mat-
tila Field at the high school or
the track at the grade school
somewhere else, opening the
fields up to development.
“Why don’t you buy the
city park?” asked Rankin.
“They never use it anyway.”
Jeffery said one concept
has been to swing a deal with
the city to provide mainte-
nance for the park and build a
football stadium there. Rankin
said the district could take its
baseball programs to the city
park.
The district also owns sev-
eral acres in Hammond from
the demolished Fort Ste-
vens Junior High School. The
property has little value now,
but the school board has dis-
cussed having it rezoned and
subdivided into housing lots.
But Rankin said the upfront
costs of building infrastructure
and utilities for a subdivision
would be huge, with no return
on the investment for years.
A good problem
Jeffery said that since
becoming an administrator in
2001, he’s overseen budget
cuts up until his last few years
at Warrenton.
“This is a really fun prob-
lem to have,” he said. “We’re
dealing with how you grow a
district.”
Jeffery said that next
month, he will bring in a com-
pany that builds schools to
further educate the district on
what it could do with a $20
million to $30 million bond, or
what it will need to satisfy the
demands of a growing district.
Bill: Memorial set for Saturday
Continued from Page 1A
Leather, said. “He would walk
all over town. I was just one of
the many places he’d stop by.
I knew him for years. Every
day he would come in and say
‘hello’ for 10 or 15 minutes,
then he’d go on to the next
guy.”
The attack
Thomas, a Seaside High
School graduate, joined the
military at 17.
The attack that killed
almost 2,400 people and
launched the U.S. into war
took place two months after
Thomas’ 20th birthday.
“As a very young sailor
in the United States Navy,
Bill had a front-row seat to
history,” Capt. Bruce Jones,
former Coast Guard Sector
Columbia River commander
said at the 2015 Pearl Harbor
ceremony in Seaside. “But he
was much more than a specta-
tor. He fought back, returning
to his ship, the USS Medusa,
as the attacking Japanese air-
craft swarmed overhead.
And he manned aircraft guns
alongside his shipmates, and
in the midst of great chaos
and devastation.
“He often told the story of
looking up during the attack
and seeing one of the Jap-
anese pilots looking down
with a sheepish grin on his
face while showing his gold
tooth,” Vandenberg said. “He
told me he will never forget
the look on his face and how
it later made him sick to his
stomach as he recalled that
fatal day.”
“If you had a baseball or a
stone you could have thrown
it and hit a plane,” Thomas
told the Seaside Signal in
2011. “They were that close.”
Thomas was severely
wounded in action later in
the war while serving aboard
the USS Phelps, a ship that
fought at the Battle of Mid-
way and protected forces at
Guadalcanal.
The Daily Astorian/File Photo
Pearl Harbor survivor Bill Thomas, right, tossed the wreath
into the Necanicum River during the Pearl Harbor Day of
Remembrance ceremony in 2015. At left is Clatsop County
Veterans Service Officer Luke Thomas.
Thomas was sent to Ala-
meda, California, for conva-
lescence, Beal said, and lived
and worked in San Francisco
for many years.
After travels on a dredge
to Alaska and Vietnam as a
civilian member of the Army
Corps of Engineers, Thomas
returned to the Northwest in
a maintenance capacity for
schools in Portland.
In remembrance
In the 1970s, Thomas
moved to Seaside where he
rallied for veterans and pro-
posed a Pearl Harbor memo-
rial on the First Avenue
Bridge, Beal said.
Thomas was “the impetus”
for Seaside’s Pearl Harbor
remembrance, former Mayor
Don Larson said in 2015.
The annual event brings
the community together to
reflect on the attack that left
a lasting impression on the
country’s collective memory.
“The remembrance cer-
emony for him was one of
the most incredibly poi-
gnant points of connectivity
between current times and the
dark days of World War II,”
Johnson said.
“Bill wanted to make sure
the Pearl Harbor remem-
brance ceremony would con-
tinue long after he was gone
so that the youth and cit-
izens of our community
would never forget the brave
men and women who made
the ultimate sacrifice for our
country,” Vandenberg said.
Thomas
was
“very
involved” in the planning and
scheduling of speakers during
the annual ceremony, Van-
denberg added.
“He knew more about
naval history than most peo-
ple forget,” Beal said. “He
had limited education, but he
was self-educated. He was
an amazing guy in a lot of
ways.”
Due to ill-health, Thomas
was unable to attend Sea-
side’s 2016 ceremony, but
he was honored in a written
statement from Johnson.
“Bill was only 20 when the
world turned upside down,”
Johnson wrote. “He was tested
in ways many of us never are.
These young men and women
understand that war is not a
video game … It’s a pleasure
and honor to say thank you to
Bill Thomas.”
A memorial for Thomas
takes place Saturday at 1
p.m., American Legion Post
99, 1315 Broadway, Seaside.
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