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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 21, 2017
Lifeguards: ‘The community has always cared about the safety of this place’
Continued from Page 1A
to swim out and bring him back
to shore.
The lifeguards on duty
noticed his actions and
brought him into the program
shortly after, he said. He offi-
cially joined the summer of
his 16th birthday and has been
a lifeguard ever since.
“I have always been com-
fortable in the water. I grew up
surfing,” Willyard said. “So I
didn’t really worry whether
or not I was going to make it
— I just ran out. At the least, I
thought, I could keep his head
above water.
“I’ve never been afraid of
the ocean,” he continued. “I
suppose that’s a good quality
to have in this line of work.”
Willyard is one of eight
lifeguards in charge of pro-
tecting the lives of the thou-
sands of visitors who frequent
Cannon Beach during the
summer. While the position
is seasonal, Cannon Beach’s
lifeguard team is rooted in
decadeslong tradition, and
upheld by a team of people
dedicated to returning year
after year — and for some,
decade after decade.
Jana McGill enters the surf near Haystack Rock in Cannon
Beach while keeping a close eye on a surfer (not pictured)
who was catching waves in a potentially hazardous area.
McGill was entering the water with a surfboard as part of
a routine training exercise.
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Jana McGill removes a surfboard from a vehicle near the lifeguard stand in front of Hay-
stack Rock in Cannon Beach. McGill is a longtime lifeguard in Cannon Beach and was get-
ting ready to perform a training exercise on the surfboard in the waters near Haystack Rock.
Hours of training
saving Association calculates
the chance of drowning on a
beach with lifeguards is 1 in
18 million.
Cannon Beach and Seaside
are the only two coastal cit-
ies in Oregon with formal life-
guarding programs.
Where it began
A day in the life
The origin of the lifeguard
program can be traced to the
town’s first lifeguard in 1938,
making the program almost 80
years old and one of the oldest
on the West Coast. According
to the historical text “Comin’
in over the Rock,” the first
lifeguard, W.W. Ross, felt
strongly about the town’s need
for a summer lifeguard and
placed collection jars around
town to pay for lifeguards for
several years.
Today, it is a staple of the
Cannon Beach Police Depart-
ment, and almost everyone on
the team has been a lifeguard
for at least three to five years,
program supervisor and Can-
non Beach Police Chief Jason
Schermerhorn said.
While drownings are still
relatively rare on the Ore-
gon Coast, the federal Cen-
ters for Disease Control and
Prevention lists drowning
has the fifth-leading cause of
unintentional deaths in the
United States. The U.S. Life-
One misconception head
lifeguard Brian Habecker
likes to clarify is the notion
of lifeguards being “beach
bums” or “slackers.”
“Everyone here has a col-
lege degree or is a student pur-
suing one — I know at least
three of us have master’s,”
Habecker said. “We’re easy-
going people, but very serious
when it counts.”
Habecker has been a life-
guard in Cannon Beach for 15
years, the last five as leader.
He describes his team as
driven, hard-working and all
with similar passions and per-
spectives on recreating in the
ocean. These similarities are
by design, he said.
“Part of the reason we are
such a strong team is because
we recruit locally,” Habecker
said. “I taught Jesse as a sixth-
grade student, and when he
got into college, I asked him
to apply for the job.”
It’s a pattern that has
worked well. Habecker him-
Cannon Beach lifeguard
Jesse Willyard uses binoc-
ulars and a scope to keep a
watchful eye on the waters
and the beaches of the area.
self, an English teacher at
Broadway Middle School,
was recruited by John Rippey,
who at the time was an edu-
cational assistant when he was
a student and head lifeguard
for 25 years. Generations of
recruitment turned into one
large, locally grown family,
he said.
“There is a total respect
and bond in this group,”
Habecker said.
Up in the tower, Willyard
said much of his day is spent
meticulously scanning the
beach, and answering ques-
tions like “Where is the bath-
room?” and “Why are there
dead birds on the beach?”
Getting to work where he
likes to play isn’t a bad perk
either, he said.
“It’s one of the best sum-
mer jobs around,” he said.
But hours of training go
into preparing for the rescues
that Habecker said average
about one a month. Because
there are only two beach towns
with formal lifeguards, much
of the training regimen has
been passed down generation
to generation, largely created
and directed by the staff them-
selves, Habecker said.
Every morning in the sum-
mer, lifeguards do a half hour
of either cardio or weightlift-
ing with Cannon Beach Fire
and Rescue. Before the season
starts, the group meets in June
to learn first aid, conduct mock
rescues out in riptides and
rocks and swimming drills that
require lifeguards to swim all
the way around Haystack Rock.
But every year is differ-
ent. Some years Willyard has
only seen a few close calls, oth-
ers as high as 20. He has done
only a handful of rescues, but
described each one as a shot of
adrenaline, and then a wave of
relief.
”It can be hectic, but luck-
ily we have people who have
been here multiple seasons,”
Willyard said. “It’s about pay-
ing attention to every person.”
In most cases, the goal is
to focus on preventative mea-
sures: namely, educating folks
not to turn their back to the
water, identifying rip currents
and warning beachgoers to stay
away from those areas. But
when that isn’t an option, Wil-
lyard and Habecker both said
the most common rescue sce-
nario involves beachgoers get-
ting caught in strong currents.
“The more you do it, the
less daunting it is,” Habecker
said. “What other people see
as heroic, we find exciting.
The ocean brings a lot of fear
because of the unknowns, and
people assume we have the
same fear, but for us it’s not an
unknown.”
But moments of reward
and exhilaration are also hum-
bled by the reality of when sit-
uations do go wrong, like the
Oklahoma teen who drowned
in Seaside last year.
“Out here, it is the expecta-
tion that nothing goes wrong,”
Habecker said. “If something
does go wrong, you have to be
able to take the ownership of
that on. And that’s what sep-
arates our jobs from many
others.”
Past and present
During his 20-year tenure as
a Cannon Beach lifeguard, Jim
Babson got to see the program
evolve.
When he started his first
summer while he was a student
at University of Oregon, it was
him and one other lifeguard
living in bunks in the fire sta-
tion. He started at around $200
a month for seven days a week
of work. After that summer he
became a track coach and high
school teacher in Gresham, yet
still found himself back in Can-
non Beach lifeguarding every
summer until 1993, where he
earned the title “lifeguard emer-
itus” for his years of service.
For Babson, what kept him
coming back was the fami-
ly-like feel.
“I just enjoyed the physical
challenge, and if you got to pull
a few people out of the water,
that’s rewarding, too,” Babson
said. “We had it easier back
then, though. There were way
fewer people on the beach than
today.”
Peter Lindsey, lifelong resi-
dent and the author of “Comin’
in Over the Rock,” wrote about
Cannon Beach’s lifeguard-
ing program in his histori-
cal work, drawing information
from his mother, a lifeguard
in the 1930s, and from friends
like Babson whom he met life-
guarding himself.
“It always seemed to be
kind of a focal point in the com-
munity — a point of pride,”
he said. “The community has
always cared about the safety
of this place. It just seemed
natural.”
Habecker, 46, is starting to
pave the way to a graceful exit
from the program. But after
15 years, he feels comfortable
leaving the program to the stu-
dents like Jesse Willyard.
“Watching my students
grow into the quality people
just further rewards my career
as a teacher. They’re some of
my best friends,” he said. “This
kind of bond is something you
really only get in a small town
like Cannon Beach. It’s ideal —
and it has taken many years to
get that way.”
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Members of the Astoria Sunday Market board of directors along with Astoria Mayor Arline
LaMear, third from the right, as well as Astoria city councilors and Astoria Sunday Market
Board President Jack Ficken, fourth from the right, present a check to Astoria Parks and
Recreation Director Angela Cosby on Thursday at the Garden of Surging Waves.
Sunday Market: Has donated more than
$180,000 to Astoria projects since 2001
Continued from Page 1A
The nonprofit organiza-
tion has a history of charita-
ble giving, including $17,000
for public restrooms in 2004,
$3,000 to the Liberty Theater
in 2008 for exterior repairs,
multiple donations equaling
thousands of dollars to the
Astoria Downtown Historic
District Association over the
years and many other proj-
ects. All told, the market has
donated more than $180,000
to city and community proj-
ects since 2001.
The market, founded in
2000, occurs every Sunday
from Mother’s Day until early
October and includes up to
200 vendors offering a variety
of products.
Parks Director Angela
Cosby said the market’s dona-
tion is the first, but she has
heard from others who are
interested in donating, and
has fielded numerous inquiries
about volunteering. She says
all offers to volunteer are wel-
come, but the department has
a need for organized groups.
The Lower Columbia Hispanic
Council and a crew from Buoy
Beer Co. recently completed
maintenance and cleanup proj-
ects at two of Astoria’s parks.
Over the past 40 years, the
department’s responsibilities
and park lands have increased,
while the number of full-time
staff has decreased. Costs have
also gone up. This year, the
parks department is stretched
very thin, Cosby has said in
meetings to discuss the issues
over the past six months.
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Sharks: ‘We don’t want to downplay it’
Continued from Page 1A
“We can go years between
sightings,” Havel said. “That
could just be a coincidence.”
Businesses have not felt any
effects from recent discussions
about the shark sightings, said
Brian Owen, executive direc-
tor of the Seaside Chamber
of Commerce. He attended a
meeting with 20 business own-
ers Thursday, none of whom
mentioned the topic.
“We don’t want to down-
play it,” Owen said, “but we
don’t want to tell people not to
come here.”
2111 Exchange St., Astoria, Oregon • 503-325-4321
www.columbiamemorial.org • A Planetree-Designated Hospital