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.”