9A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2017
Lamplighting: Duty
has been passed on to
select grade schoolers
Continued from Page 1A
“It makes me teary just
from the beginning to see
Sandpiper Square fill up with
so many people like this,”
said Margo Dueber, the orga-
nizer and emcee of the event.
“We come together as fam-
ily, friends and a community.
It feels just kind of yummy,
doesn’t it?”
The lamplighting tradi-
tion began in 1973 amid an
oil crisis that drove down the
number of vacationers who
were coming to visit Cannon
Beach. To get back visitors,
the town banded together
to create a holiday celebra-
tion with a Charles Dick-
ens theme. The Coaster The-
atre put on productions of “A
Christmas Carol” and shop
owners dressed in Victorian
style, Dueber said.
Since then, many of the
traditions remain and others
have evolved. Bill Steidel
and Paul Dueber again per-
formed the town’s offi-
cial song “Christmas in Our
Hometown,” which Steidel
composed for the Due-
ber family when Paul Due-
ber Sr. died on Christmas
Day 1967. For the first time,
students from the Cannon
Beach Academy sang high-
lights from Christmas carols.
The lamp is still lit the same
way Jay Schwehr, a Cannon
Beach local, did for 40 years
before falling ill.
The lamplighting duty
since has been passed on to
selected Cannon Beach grade
schoolers. But this year, the
task was given to Ethan Bur-
nett, the oldest grandson of
Tom Drumheller, a local hos-
pitality leader who died in
September.
“He was also caring,
always helping, always
reaching out to the commu-
nity during the holidays and
every other time of year,”
Dueber said at the lamp-
lighting. “It was extremely
important to him for people to
feel loved and appreciated.”
The evening ended with
kids lining up to see Santa,
who made a surprise visit in
a blaring fire truck to Sand-
piper Square to hand out
bags of treats.
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Laura and Gregg Freedman of the Providence Seaside Hospital Foundation and meteorologist Mark Nelsen, Fox 12 Oregon.
Gala: Sold-out event hosted 330 guests
Continued from Page 1A
A visit with Santa
Photos by Brenna Visser/The Daily Astorian
Santa walks through the crowd at the lamplighting cer-
emony.
Bill Steidel and Paul Dueber sing the town’s traditional
Christmas song at the lamplighting ceremony.
Hundreds stand waiting for the lamplighting ceremony
Saturday in Cannon Beach.
Saturday ranged from
Christmas stocking caps to
black tie.
For the more than 1,000
visitors to Candy Cane Lane
at the convention center, the
event offered not only an
opportunity to support the
region’s medical services, but
a chance to dally awhile with
Santa and peruse 30 donated
Christmas trees and displays
decorated by local businesses,
designers, florists and North
Coast residents.
A line of children waited
on the mezzanine level for
their audience with Santa.
Warrenton’s
Adalyn
Saysongdeth, 8, had no doubt
what she would ask for — a
Hatchable, an egg with birds
inside, she explained.
Adalyn’s brother Brody, 5,
and friend Dominic Dow each
had their eyes on Nintendo
Switches.
A wine tree from the Sea-
side Chamber of Commerce
presented 60 bottles alongside
the tree.
An entry from the Can-
non Beach Chamber of Com-
merce honored founder Tom
Drumheller, chief executive
officer of Escape Lodging
and co-owner of Tom’s Fish
& Chips, who died earlier this
year.
The tree memorialized
one of Drumheller’s favorite
slogans. “He used to always
say, ‘It’ll be fun,’” Drumhell-
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
licize the therapy dog program
at the hospital.
The program, initiated by
Frei and his wife, Cherilyn,
now has 10 teams visiting the
hospital.
“Dogs help patients man-
age whatever challenge they
may be having,” he said. “It
gets them to smile, to talk. It
brings them back to home a
little bit.”
With auction of the tree
came a trip to Beverly Hills
and a meeting with Frei and
show host John O’Hurley.
Tom and Marilyn Christiansen visit the Festival of Trees
on Saturday at the Seaside Civic and Convention Center.
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
People line up to meet with Santa at the annual Seaside
Festival of Trees on Saturday.
er’s longtime friend and busi-
ness partner Patrick Nofield
said. “That was one of his
hallmarks.”
Cannon Beach resident
David Frei, just back in town
from the National Dog Show,
was accompanied by Angel, a
Cavalier King Charles spaniel,
and Grace, a Brittany, to pub-
Premier event
The sold-out gala hosted
330 guests from as far as San
Francisco, with 16 live auction
items. It was a night to see and
be seen, all for a good cause.
“This is the premier social
event of the year,” convention
center General Manager Russ
Vandenberg said. “The com-
munity supports all the things
the hospital does for us.”
Freedman said that means
moving into the 21st century
of medicine — proactive as
opposed to reactive.
“Right now, medicine
is reactive in responding to
someone in an emergency,
whatever that might be,”
Freedman said. “We need it
to be more preventative so
that people don’t need those
services. The ultimate goal
of the foundation and Provi-
dence Seaside is to improve
our community and make it a
healthier place to live for all
of us.”
Transit: ‘We’re not in competition, we’re in collaboration’
Continued from Page 1A
Local taxes are commonly
used as matches for the state
and federal grants that subsi-
dize public transit. Fare reve-
nue also provides a small per-
centage of a transit district’s
revenue — about 15 percent
for Sunset Empire and a sim-
ilar percentage in Columbia
County — but often can’t be
used as a match on grants.
Arla Miller, a regional tran-
sit coordinator with the state
Department of Transportation
for the North Coast, mid-Coast
and Willamette Valley, said the
state saw Hazen’s study as a
good idea when it funded his
grant request.
“Our big push is for collab-
oration … just to have (transit
districts) work together to try
and help serve the underserved
and unserved,” she said.
Miller’s position cov-
ers Columbia, Clatsop, Til-
lamook, Yamhill, Polk, Mar-
ion, Linn, Benton, Lincoln and
Lane counties. In that region
are six separate transit dis-
tricts, she said. The Clatsop
County Board of Commission-
ers formed Sunset Empire in
1993.
Sunset Empire has part-
nered with transit programs
in Columbia, Tillamook, Lin-
Olsen: The district has the support
structure to make sure kids graduate
Continued from Page 1A
with, a single mom, a number
of kids. She works long hours.
It’s just a struggle to have
the basic structure you need
for your family when you
work 12 hours a day and don’t
see your kids from the time
they wake up to the time they
go to bed.
“So I just try to support
families like that, relieve a
little tension, a little anxi-
ety, a little stress, maybe give
them a few skills they might
not otherwise have.”
The school district began
the Strive for Five campaign
this year with a goal of stu-
dents not missing more than
five days as a way to encour-
age higher attendance. Cur-
riculum Director Melissa
Linder reported at a recent
school board meeting that the
district started the school year
strong on attendance, albeit
with absenteeism increas-
ing within a month, likely
because of fall hunting trips
and other early vacations.
Astoria Superintendent
Craig Hoppes has said that
if kids get to school, the
district has the support
structure to make sure they
graduate.
Olsen sees attendance as
one of the main measuring
sticks of his success, and the
primary reason behind refer-
rals from teachers.
“I can’t tell you how many
times the referral process
looks something like this,”
Olsen said. “‘We love the stu-
dent. They’re bright. They’re
amazing. They’re engaged.
They’re not showing up,
and we can’t figure out why.
We can’t crack whatever
the problem is for them not
showing up.’”
coln and Benton counties
since 2012 on Northwest Ore-
gon Transit Alliance, a project
funded by a U.S. Department
of Energy grant to increase
transit use by commuters and
visitors in rural northwestern
Oregon. The program focuses
on creating seamless transit
connections between the Ore-
gon Coast, Portland and the
Willamette Valley.
“One
thing
about
transit,
we’re
not
in
competition, we’re in col-
laboration,” Hazen said. “To
me, it sounds like common
sense.”
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