45/33
PART OF
BIKE TRAIL
NOW OPEN
DAWGS
DEFEAT
SANDY
Sessions spoke
twice with Russian
ambassador in 2016
PENDLETON/3A
SPORTS/1B
NATION/8A
THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2017
141st Year, No. 98
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
PENDLETON
Basketball tourney takes meticulous gameplan
Nearly 300 volunteers
pitch in to prepare center
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
EO fi le photo
Burns fans watch their high school boys basket-
ball team play in the quarterfi nals at the state 2A
basketball championships in March 2016 at the
Pendleton Convention Center.
Success, they say, is in the details.
No one knows the wisdom of
that statement more than individuals
planning this week’s 2A Oregon State
Activities Association championship
basketball tournament in Pendleton.
Dan Mitzimberg knows about
preparation. He’s the guy responsible
for getting the hardwood basketball
fl oor laid down in the main room at the
Pendleton Convention Center. The old
Phoenix Suns fl oor, which cost $46,000
and came by semitrailer to Pendleton in
1998, took 12 workers about 10 hours to
lay out the fi rst time. Mitzimberg, as a
utility worker at the convention center,
said a crew of six whittled that time
down to about fi ve-to-seven hours in the
years since. This year, the process got
even more streamlined.
“Ten inmates from Two Rivers
Correctional Institution came and
helped,” he said. “It went up in about
three-and-a-half hours.”
The fl ooring sits atop a layer of slats
3.5 inches deep, which gives the fl oor a
bouncy feel.
To ready the gym for three days of
intense tournament play, Mitzimberg
City: Safe lead
levels at game site
See TOURNAMENT/8A
See TESTING/8A
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Some positive results from
lead testing won’t stop the
Pendleton Convention Center
from hosting one of its busiest
events of the year.
Following two rounds of
lead testing, Pendleton facil-
ities manager Glenn Graham
said the convention center is
safe to use for the hundreds of
State cuts
to BENT
have deep
implications
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Pendleton police chief Stuart Roberts
warns that removing state police from
the regional drug team would have
far-reaching consequences.
“Does it decimate us? No,” Roberts
said. “But does it cripple us? Absolutely.”
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s budget
proposal for the upcoming fi scal year
would end state police participation on
drug teams, including
the Blue Moun-
tain
Enforcement
Narcotics Team based
in Pendleton, and
close the state police
crime lab in Pend-
leton. The Hermiston
City Council voted
Monday night to give
its support for the
state to fund the lab Roberts
and BENT.
Roberts chairs the drug team board
of directors, and Pendleton, Hermiston,
Milton-Freewater, Boardman and Umatilla
tribal police provide offi cers for the team,
along with the sheriff’s offi ces of Umatilla
and Morrow counties and Oregon State
Police. The team at full strength has 10
members, but Roberts said for the last few
years there have been six regular members
due to some agencies not participating.
Three of those six are troopers with
Oregon State Police, including one super-
visor in Hermiston.
Losing the state police, he said, means
losing offi cers with deep investigative
skills as much as losing the sheer numbers.
And for BENT, the numbers matter.
The team’s funding comes from the
United States Offi ce of National Drug
Control Policy, which operates the High
See BENT/8A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Third-grader Damian Montez reads the book “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!” by Dr. Seuss during his reading period
Wednesday at West Park Elementary School in Hermiston.
The joy of reading
Schools celebrate Read Across America by putting focus on fun
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
“The more that you read, the more things
you will know. The more that you learn, the
more places you’ll go.”
Millions of elementary school children
took those words from Dr. Seuss’ famous
book “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” to heart
this week, with the festivities from Read
Across America, an annual celebration
commemorating Seuss’ birthday of March
2, 1904.
The author of more than 60 children’s
books including “The Lorax,” “The Cat
in the Hat,” and “How the Grinch Stole
Christmas,” Seuss, whose real name was
Theodore Geisel, captivated readers with
his stories and memorable characters. Some
were mischievous and lighthearted, some
were grouchy and some carried a powerful
message. But many inspired a love of
reading in young kids — something the
program aims to encourage long after Seuss’
death.
“It seems like the love of reading has
found its way out of schools,” said Kevin
Headings, principal of West Park Elementary
School. “There’s much more of a technical
focus to teaching reading — more focus on
testing, Smarter Balanced.”
Headings said while the technical aspects
of reading are important, the other side is
important, too.
“When I was in school, teachers would
read aloud, making reading fun for the
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
English as a Second Language students use a computer program called Fast
ForWord on Wednesday at West Park Elementary School in Hermiston. The
program is a game that helps students accelerate their reading skills while
pinpointing where the students are less profi cient at reading.
kids,” he said. “We don’t do enough of that
anymore. Encouraging that love of reading
— that’s what Read Across America is
about.”
Headings said classes at West Park are
participating in dress-up days and reading
challenges or competitions. On Friday, he
said, the school will do a read-in, where
students can bring pillows and blankets and
the entire school will read just for fun.
Long-term, he said, the school has
followed the lead of Sunset Elementary
See READ/8A