THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2017 Lightning strikes the Umatilla Indian Reservation Wednesday as a thunderstorm moves through the area south east of Pendleton. Showers and thunderstorms are likely to return Thursday, accord- ing to the National Weather Service. Staff photo by E.J. Harris 141st Year, No. 133 One dollar WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD HERMISTON Food trucks, flower pots, parking spots in the works for downtown By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian Action groups created in February to revitalize downtown Hermiston are putting their plans into motion. Main Street coordinator Emma Porricolo said input from the citizens’ committee on parking helped inform an item on Monday’s city council agenda that will change the on-street parking along the east side of Second Street between Main Street and Hurlburt Avenue from parallel parking to diagonal parking and add a new handicapped-accessible spot. She said the group is also working on plans for wayfi nding signs around downtown that would help direct people to public lots. “We’re looking for funding still,” she said. The “retail and restaurants” group has focused on increasing the appeal of See HERMISTON/8A Pendleton man loses truck, trailer to fi re Staff photo by E.J. Harris Flames engulf a Dodge truck and fi fth-wheel trailer it was hauling Wednesday on Trail Road east of Pendleton. For the full story see Page 3A. BMCC ARTS & CULTURE WEEK PENDLETON Bosnian War refugee shares her story ‘Fresh start’ program to help build new veterinary clinic “They took over the radio and TV sta- tions fi rst. So when they started killing people there was no way to report it.” Serves as poignant reminder of crises today By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN East Oregonian Selena Hutchins talks cheer- fully about college, her drive down from Seattle and the job where she makes mobile games. But she still chokes up talking about the fi rst few years of her life. — Selena Hutchins, survivor who escaped the Bosnian genocide Staff photo by Jayati Ramakrishnan Selena Hutchins, a refugee of the Bosnian war, shares her story with students at Blue Mountain Community College Hutchins came to the Blue Mountain Community College Hermiston campus Wednesday as part of BMCC’s Arts and Culture Week to talk to students about her escape from the Bosnian genocide. She sets the stage with some basic facts about the Bosnian War, which happened at a time when many of her audience members were children, or not yet born. From March 1992 to December 1995, the war was the fi rst genocide in Europe since World War II and killed between 25,000 and 329,000 people. “That number is so disparate because it depends on who you ask,” Hutchins said. “Those who started it versus those who suffered from it.” Every year, she said, the “offi - cial” number grows when more victims of the war are identifi ed. The purpose of the war, she said, was to create a country called Greater Serbia following the breakup of Yugoslavia. But some wanted only a Christian population, and so began the genocide of thousands of people, most of whom were Muslims. Hutchins is from a town called Bijeljina, where the war started. “They took over the radio and TV stations fi rst,” Hutchins said. “So when they started killing people there was no way to report it.” Hutchins talked matter-of- By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian factly about her experiences to a silently engrossed audience, recalling the time her father spent as a soldier, as all men were required to do, how she slept in street clothes with her shoes right next to her bed, and the time her family spent in a refugee camp. She noted that the camp where she stayed in Hungary is now being used to house Syrian refugees. When the United States and Australia began accepting refu- gees, Hutchins’ family applied to come to both countries. Her mother, who had learned English in college, helped hundreds of others with their applications. They got accepted to both, and her family chose to live in America. They moved to a small town outside Seattle, where it took her about two months to learn English. The transition was diffi cult, Faced with unusual funding requests, the Pendleton Development Commission took unusual steps to approve them. Neither the Pendleton Veterinary Clinic nor the Pendleton Downtown Association used one of the commission’s established programs, but they still got at least some of what they wanted, even if it took creating a new program and an unusually close vote to get it done. The commission agreed to give the Pendleton Veterinary Clinic a $100,000 grant to help build a new clinic on Southwest Emigrant Avenue, between First Community Credit Union and Papa Murphy’s. Clinic owner Fiona Hillenbrand already has fi nancing in place for the $1 million project and wants to purchase blighted property across Emigrant and replace it with new housing in the future. In a presentation, Hillenbrand explained that the Pendleton Veterinary Clinic had outgrown its current building at 1901 S.W. Court Ave., which was originally built in 1949. The new 5,000-square-foot facility would allow Hillenbrand to hire a new veterinarian, two support staff and several part-time employees, she said. See HUTCHINS/8A See PENDLETON/8A