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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 19, 2017)
4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2017 Drumheller: He had to reteach himself to talk after baseball injury Continued from Page 1A That set the foundation of his philosophy toward the hotel and restaurant industry, where he worked for 25 years before establishing his own business. A key experience came when Tom turned 9; he was hit by a baseball, Nofield said. The ball concaved his skull and he lost all ability to talk. “They were able to do surgery and put the skull where it needed to be, but he had to reteach himself to talk,” Nofield said. His mother, a school- teacher, read him the Dr. Seuss classic, “Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose.” The incident inspired Drumheller’s future career direction, Nofield said. “Thidwick always wanted to take care of his guests, and of all the people I have ever met, Tom was the most hos- pitable person to anyone, whether it be a housekeeper at one of our hotels, or whether it be a billionaire developer,” Nofield said. “He treats them all the same. All with love and all with encouragement.” Escape Lodging After graduation from the Carson College of Business at Washington State Univer- sity, Drumheller participated in the Hyatt Hotel manage- ment training program before establishing Escape Lodging of Cannon Beach as its chief executive officer in 2001. Escape Lodging also owns the Ocean Lodge, The Inn at Cannon Beach and other lodging properties and restau- rants in Oregon and Washing- ton state. Drumheller served on the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association Board of Directors, Washington State University Hotel and Restaurant Advisory Board of Directors and Travel Port- land Board of Directors. In 2014, Drumheller and Tom Krueger teamed to open Tom’s Fish & Chips restau- rant at 240 N. Hemlock St. Drumheller said in a 2014 interview his goal was to “try to make it really, really cozy, especially during the offsea- son for the locals.” Drumheller and Krueger opened a second location in Seaside this summer. “I was very fortunate to have some great mentors I admired and learned a great deal from,” Drumheller said in an alumni magazine pro- file. “When one of them passed away, it spurred me, along with my future busi- ness partner, to take what I had learned and start my own company. It was both very scary and exciting. The risk-to-reward ratio has been better than I could have imagined.” This spring he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Carson College of Business Hall of Fame. The city mourns Friends and family gath- ered in his last days to salute the man they had grown to know and love. Robin Risley was among the founding members of the arts commission when Drum- heller served as chairman. “He was such a fun person to have at the meeting,” Ris- ley said. “He did things with a sense of humor. We didn’t all come from the same place, but he was so inclusive that most of the decisions were made were fair and forward thinking. I just appreciated him so much. He always had such a twinkle in his eye.” Ryan Snyder, presi- dent and owner of Martin North, worked with Drum- heller beginning in 1995 and together at Martin Hospitality at the time it was owned by the late Steve Martin. “Tom was a mentor and a friend,” Snyder said. “He helped me and my family through the times of transi- tion after the passing of Steve in 2000.” Snyder and Drumheller served on the Oregon Restau- rant and Lodging Association Board of Directors together. “He was a steady, peace- ful, funny, charming, and simply a magical human being,” Snyder said. “He was a great husband and father, a loving grandfather, and a genuine friend.” Cannon Beach Police Chief Jason Schermerhorn knew Drumheller as a mem- ber of the Tourism Advisory Committee. “When I started with the city five years ago, the city manager at the time said, ‘There’s a list of people you need to meet,’ and he was at the top of the list,” Schermer- horn said. “He always had a smile on his face, and very generous when he gave back to the community.” “He was a huge rock here in Cannon Beach,” said Court Carrier, the executive director of the Cannon Beach Cham- ber of Commerce. “He was important — a hospitality executive for decades.” Drumheller and his wife, Christy Lynn, have two adult daughters, Brook Burnett and Britney Drumheller. A memorial service will be scheduled. Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Coast Guard personnel install a part on a helicopter in a hangar at Air Station Astoria. Helicopters: Only about 45 MH-60s nationwide Continued from Page 1A Astoria received last year on a four-year tour in honor of 100 years of Coast Guard aviation was recently sent to San Diego to cover for aircraft respond- ing to Hurricane Harvey. Upon return, the helicopter will go through a 600-hour mainte- nance period and an engine change, Mitchell said. The engine will be sent to the Aviation Logistics Cen- ter in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, where aircraft go for the most intensive pro- grammed depot maintenance. Base Elizabeth City is also the Coast Guard’s training ground for aviation maintenance workers. Lt. Patrick Wright, a pilot and the assistant engineering officer at the air station, said the Coast Guard’s helicop- ters go out to stations from the logistics centers on four-year tours before going back for deep maintenance. “They go back to North Carolina and get completely revamped,” he said. “All the Two Coast Guard technicians install a part during routine maintenance at Air Station Astoria. paint comes off. It’s basically down to a bare hull and wiring. They take all the parts off, put them back on. So it’s kind of like you’ve got a freshly built helicopter with an air frame that’s pretty old.” The aircraft rack up about 2,400 flight hours during each of those four-year tours, said Cmdr. David Feeney, aviation engineering officer at the air station. Keep them running Sikorsky gave the fleet of MH-60Ts an “on-condition” rating, meaning they can fly as long as inspections and main- tenance keep up on the air frames, Feeney said. The MH-60Ts are but one of several variants of the Sikorsky H-60, a family of military helicopters flown by different branches of the mil- itary since the 1970s. The Coast Guard has received and converted several helicopters from the Navy, including one brought from Air Station Sitka in Alaska, to cover in Astoria, while it covered San Diego. The MH-60T was an upgrade in the mid-2000s from the similar HH-60J. The Coast Guard finished its upgrades to the fleet of MH-60Ts last year and moved the program into sustainment mode. With only about 45 MH-60s nationwide, the Coast Guard is too small of a service to make its own order with Sikorsky. In regards to a potential new helicopter, the Coast Guard is waiting to see what happens with the Army’s Future Ver- tical Lift, an effort to develop a future helicopter to replace H-60s by the mid-2030s, Fee- ney said. “That’s why we’ve been pushed back to 2035,” Fee- ney said. “The other services … they’re starting to look, but they’re not actively needing to replace their fleets until 2035, because they’re getting new H-60s.” Seaside schools: ‘It’s a continual process’ Continued from Page 1A Submitted Photo Tom Krueger and Tom Drumheller, the two “Toms” of Tom’s Fish & Chips. Warning: Rain should ease up by the weekend Continued from Page 1A North Coast residents can expect to see more rain for the next few days and some wind — nothing unusual for the coast, just an especially abrupt end to summer. Out on the water, however, advisories for smaller boats are in place though the afternoon due to winds, hazardous seas and rough conditions at the Columbia River Bar. The U.S. Coast Guard listed the status of the bar as restricted for all recreational vessels and uninspected passenger vessels this morning. The National Weather Service reports tempera- tures are expected to remain cool, with daily highs just inching into the low 60s through Friday. There is a 50 percent chance of thun- derstorms on Wednesday. The rain should ease up by Friday, just in time for the annual Pacific North- west Brew Cup beer festival in Astoria. Saturday is pre- dicted to be mostly sunny with a high near 65 degrees. On Monday, the National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning for north- western Clatsop County and southwestern Pacific County that was in effect until 4:15 p.m. There were no imme- diate reports of damage or injury. The weather service had detected a severe thun- derstorm capable of produc- ing a tornado 10 miles west of Warrenton and 9 miles southwest of Ilwaco. People were advised to take cover. decreasing structural integrity, rusted pipes, leaky roofs, old electrical wiring, and failing heating systems. “It would cost well over $30 million to fully correct the roofing, plumbing, heating, and electrical issues,” Save Our Schools wrote at the time. “The deteriorating struc- tural walls and seismic issues cannot be corrected.” Maintenance crews spent the summer polishing floors, painting and doing exterior work to keep pests at bay. “We did not focus on any major repairs in any of the buildings, or any improve- ments or anything like that,” Chuck Loesch, the school dis- trict’s head of maintenance, said. “With an up- and- coming new school, we are just main- taining what we have.” The budgeted cost of build- ing maintenance stands at about $306,000 for repair of school buildings, according to the district’s budget, a figure less than half the $800,000 the year before. “We are looking at any maintenance we need to do,” Superintendent Sheila Roley said. “Do we need this for stu- dent safety? Is this something that is imminent or urgent? Do we need to address it, or is it something we can maybe work out? Because we know there will be a new facility.” What Roley described as “the three legs of the stool” — architect, project manager and general contractor — a re Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian Seaside School District Superintendent-emeritus Doug Dougherty shows the conditions of the boiler room at Gearhart Elementary School in September 2016. now in the preliminary and back and from stages and ground- all the buildings and breaking of a new K-12 all the shrubbery so it campus. The campus is does not collect leaves expected to open for and trash and rodents students in 2020. so it doesn’t create Meanwhile, exist- problems,” he said. Sheila ing schools continue to Leaks in the high Roley house students. school computer rooms During the sum- “are in the works to be mer break, maintenance crews patched,” he added, but pipe polished all school floors and repairs at Gearhart are unlikely painted at Gearhart, Seaside to get attention before students Heights and Broadway schools. are moved to the new campus. Loesch said the district’s At the start of the school maintenance team also per- year, Seaside High School formed integrated pest man- Principal Jeff Roberts said agement this year on all school staff focuses on safety “by buildings. being proactive and mak- “By trimming the trees up ing necessary repairs after routine checks.” “We continue to feel blessed that this community supported the initiative to build new schools that will support student learning and keep kids safe,” Roberts said. “Upon passing of the bond we have been diligent in our spend- ing to ensure that our building is functional and safe for stu- dents and will be very thought- ful in any significant invest- ments we make in capital improvements.” “We probably would defer unless it was really critical doing it,” Roley said. “There are always things. It’s a contin- ual process.”
