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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 19, 2017)
7A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JUNE 19, 2017 Hot rods cruise through Seaside Cars on display at annual show By KAELIA NEAL The Daily Astorian SEASIDE — It was Christina Henry’s second year participating in the Muscle and Chrome car show with her burgundy 1972 Chevrolet Nova, which was a birthday gift from her late father. “My dad gave me the car, made me promise I’d show her,” Henry said. Henry said the annual car show is “low-key yet extravagant at the same time,” and “meeting new people is the best part.” This year, 101 vehicles participated over the week- end. Along with showing the cars, the two-day event offered a barbecue, high- way cruise, a treasure hunt downtown and awards. Muscle and Chrome is sponsored by Seaside Downtown Development Association. Many people dedicate their time to help put on the car show. Michelle Lackey of Van- couver, Washington, has volunteered at Muscle and Chrome for about 10 years. “We enjoy the people,” she said. “It’s down to earth. You can talk to anyone.” Dave Deford, of Port- land, just finished his 16th year of volunteering. He said he likes being involved, and it’s “fun to see the same people and meet new people.” Mark Rice from Gra- ham, Washington, has par- ticipated in Muscle and Chrome for about 10 years. “My dad was really into cars so I grew up going to car shows with my mom and dad,” Rice said. This year, he brought a black 2014 Dodge SRT8 Challenger, which he bought about two weeks ago. “The new muscle cars are really cool now,” Rice said. Normally he brings his 1972 black Challenger. “I was going to drive the older car but the weather wasn’t all that great.” Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Thousands of people flocked to the beach Saturday for the annual Cannon Beach Sandcastle Contest. Dedication to the sand Sandcastles take over Cannon Beach in 53rd contest By BRENNA VISSER The Daily Astorian R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian A ‘skeleton crew’ worked on this Muscle and Chrome entry in Seaside on Saturday. The annual car show drew several thousand people downtown. Festival: A family affair for many Continued from Page 1A “I think it’s important to keep the history of the immi- grants who came here alive,” he said. “They came here and established themselves and made a new life successfully, most of them.” Mathews has been involved in the festival one way or another for 46 of its 50 years. Family tradition For many, the festival has been a family affair. Carla Oja’s children grew up in the festival. They learned tradi- tional dances and participated as flag carriers and each year there was the all-consuming question, “What food are we going to eat this time?” Representatives for Clat- sop County’s various Scandi- navian lodges spent days pre- paring traditional food: pea soup, pickled herring, prune tarts and approximately 4,000 krumkake, a Norwe- gian waffle cookie. This year, Oja was in charge of organizing the 50th anniversary events, which included a concert on Satur- day night by Canadian ABBA cover band ARRIVAL. “We don’t know how we’re going to top it,” said Judy Lampi, another festival organizer who coordinated public outreach this year. She didn’t have all the attendance numbers tallied by Sunday night, but she said they saw a good turnout for all three days of the festival. Monument During the festival, Lampi also circulated a peti- tion to gather signatures in support of building a Scan- dinavian heritage monument at Peoples Park in downtown Astoria. Despite the area’s Scandi- navian ties, there is no offi- cial memorial to commemo- rate their enduring presence. City government, though supportive, said this year that the city’s Parks and Recre- ation Department must focus on rebuilding, securing reli- able funding and completing other, higher priorities and cannot commit to maintain- ing another park. The heritage association is now redoubling efforts to find funding for the monu- ment. Lampi estimated she had collected around 360 sig- natures by the time the Scan- dinavian festival ended Sun- day afternoon. CANNON BEACH — In its 53-year existence, those who participate in the Cannon Beach Sandcastle Contest have come to expect that the day’s grandiose sand sculptures will be erased by the elements by the next morning’s break. While there is nothing to be done to control the Pacific Ocean’s tide, event organiz- ers are trying to preserve more of what they can of these creations. “Every year we are so exhausted that no one wants to watch the sculptures,” event organizer Debbie Nelson said. “But we want to save them from kids jumping on them and vandals so people can enjoy them longer. So we got a guard to protect them overnight.” The Sandcastle Contest began in 1964 as a way to boost spirits after a tsunami. Today it attracts on average Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian See more photos of the Sandcastle Contest online. DailyAstorian.com 15,000 people. For one day every year, the beach becomes a place where visitors of all ages can build sand sculptures, cheer on teams of children and teens, and par- ticipate in a parade, live music and a 5-kilometer fun run. Standing watch Kyler Vetter will serve as the guard to fend off those inclined to turn sandcastles into a sand mound. He will be helped by his father, City Councilor George Vetter. “I’ve been advocating for this for years,” George Vetter said. “Why let others destroy what took so long to build?” This year, the two will have about 30 plots to look over — a 20 plot decrease from last year. Nelson said she contributes the decline to Pacific North- west schools getting out later due to an unusual number of snow days taken this winter, making the Sandcastle Con- test compete with graduation ceremonies. While this year’s contest was a little calmer than some previous years, team building enthusiasm was anything but diminished. For Master Class compet- itor David Lond, nothing was going keep him from build- ing — even the accident which gave him a concussion and stitches a week prior. “I got sideswiped while on my bike,” Lond said. “I was going to do this unless my doc- tors said I couldn’t.” His enthusiasm for sand- castle building started when he was young. “I found a photo of me dig- ging up sand when I was 1½ years old,” Lond said. “Since, I think I’ve gotten better. How much better I suppose is questionable.” Family affair Decades later, sandcastle building has become a fam- ily affair. The team he is on, Moonstone, is named after the beach him and his sister fre- quent in California. The team spans from members as old as 82 to as young as 11. Years of playing on the beach helped Lond hone his skills that enable him to make a giant sand octopus. “What’s most important in sandcastle building: a shovel and two buckets. One for water, one for sand,” he said. “Everything else is just toys.” While the team still treats sandcastle building as more casual, family fun, the tech- niques and skills they collec- tively contribute are sophis- ticated. Throughout the day children and adults crowded around his corner of the plot, where he would simultane- ously build his sculpture and explain his techniques as he did it. Sometimes he would take a break from building to show how builders make designs in the sand with thick kneads and drinking straws. “We’ll always try to teach someone,” Lond said. “(Sand- castle building) is clean, inno- cent fun. It’s a cheap thrill.” Moonstone Sandcastle Club has competed in Cannon Beach for many years, Lond’s mother Kate Zublim said, and so far has won every place at some point except for first. This year, the team’s design “Sea Circus” did not place in the top four. The team Form Finders took first for their cre- ation “Reverse Safari.” “We’re just happy to be here,” Zublim said. Grads: Encouraged to ‘do whatever you want’ Continued from Page 1A Headlining the graduates were the college’s two mem- bers of the All-Oregon Com- munity College Academic Team, Haley Werst and Chris- topher Patenaude, along with Christopher Breitmeyer’s inaugural President’s Award winner, nursing graduate Lil- iana Diaz. Werst, president of the col- lege’s Phi Theta Kappa hon- ors society and campus cos- play club, is also a member of the college’s underwater robotics team competing in the international finals next weekend in Long Beach, Cal- ifornia. She is headed to Port- land State University to study film. Patenaude told his story of struggling with drug and alcohol addiction as a young adult, becoming interested in coding and coming into his own at the college, where he would be named to the hon- ors society, a NASA Com- munity College Aerospace Scholar and intern at the Ice- Cube South Pole Neutrino Observatory in Wisconsin. Patenaude will attend Ore- gon State University to study engineering. Take the bat The events at the Scandinavian Midsummer Festival included a parade of participants wearing traditional outfits. More photos online at DailyAstorian.com MORE ONLINE In his first graduation as college president, Breitmeyer reminded students to take hold of the opportunities pre- sented to them. Breitmeyer, a biologist by training, said was a gradu- ate student releasing insects with a research partner in the Sonoran Desert as part of an ecological study when he ran into what appeared to be two hunters. One offered him the bloody stump and wing of a bat for his study, which his Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian The newly opened Patriot Hall served as the site for the Clatsop Community College commencement ceremony on Friday. More photos online at DailyAstorian.com partner advised him to take. Breitmeyer said he declined, and later got shot at. The hunters, he said, were trying to shoot a better bat to offer to the study, and this time he didn’t turn them down. “When you have an oppor- tunity, lean forward and say ‘yes,’” Breitmeyer said, add- ing this became his mantra. “It might not look like the best thing for you to do, but it’s better to say ‘yes’ than ‘no.’ It’s better to try something than to not try something. “I don’t know what the hell I would have done with that bat. But if I would have took it, I wouldn’t have got- ten shot at.” Do what you love Nemlowill, who gradu- ated from the college in 2001, remembered taking classes in the stuffy confines of the old Patriot Hall, built in 1921. Afterward, Nemlowill said, he left for Southern Oregon University to earn a degree in marketing and computer science to join the dot-com boom and make his fortune. The dot-com bubble burst, and Nemlowill’s grandmother fell and broke her hip on the day of graduation in 2003. While taking care of her, Nemlowill checked some books out from the local library and learned a new pas- sion: brewing beer. Presented with the possi- bility of an internship at com- puter chip-making giant Intel, Nemlowill instead opted to move back in with his parents in Astoria and brew in their basement. He worked his way into the local brewing scene, linked up with fellow Fort George co-owner Jack Harris and started his dream in 2006. Fort George has since grown from a small brewpub into one of Astoria’s largest com- panies, employing 120 people and helping put the city on the craft beer map. “You guys have got the foundation to do what- ever you want,” Nemlow- ill told the graduates. “I feel like you guys are really pre- pared for what you guys will do next. Make sure that what you do next, the career that you take, that you look for- ward to going to work every- day, because I think that is just really important. You’ve worked so hard. You don’t want to waste that on some- thing you don’t love doing.”
