HERMISTON
CLAIMS
TEAM TITLES
INMATES
SUE FOUR
PRISONS
SPORTS/1B
REGION/3A
FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2017
141st Year, No. 149
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Your Weekend
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Cattle Barons Weekend
Buckaroo BBQ Challenge
“The Odd Couple” at
BMCC Bob Clap Theatre
Milton-Freewater
Junior Show and sale
For times and places
see Coming Events, 5A
Catch a movie
Warner Bros. Pictures via AP
An orphan pulls a sword
out of a rock, propelling a
series of CGI-laden battles
in “King Arthur: Legend
of the Sword.”
For showtime, Page 5A
Weekend Weather
Fri
Sat
Sun
56/39
58/39
60/40
Hanford’s
collapsed
tunnel may
have gone
unnoticed
By NICHOLAS K.
GERANIOS
Associated Press
SPOKANE, Wash. —
The large sinkhole that
caved in a tunnel fi lled
with radioactive waste at a
sprawling Washington state
nuclear waste repository
may have gone unnoticed
for days before its discovery
because workers do not
patrol tunnel sites daily,
a spokesman for the U.S.
Department of Energy said
Thursday.
The sinkhole was found
Tuesday, prompting an
emergency at the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation with
evacuations of some workers
and orders for others to stay
inside buildings scattered
across the 500 square-mile
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Rob Brooks, with the National Weather Service, talks about the different types of weather with a group of Sunridge Middle
School sixth-graders during outdoor school at the Kiwanis Camp in the Umatilla National Forest east of Pendleton.
A rite of passage
Pendleton sixth-graders hit
the forest for Outdoor School
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Gorgie
Jones-Hoisington
cupped the moth tightly in both
hands as she rushed over to show
her teacher, Chris Schulze, at
Buck Creek Camp in the Umatilla
National Forest.
Field studies had just wrapped
up Thursday afternoon at Pend-
leton Outdoor School, where
roughly 90 sixth-graders were
given an up-close look at the
environment from local experts.
Jones-Hoisington, 12, used what
she learned to correctly identify
the moth she caught earlier as
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Sunridge sixth-grader Gorgie Jones-Hoisington holds out
a moth she found Thursday during outdoor school.
“These experiences can awaken
something in kids they don’t forget.”
— Chris Schulze, Sunridge science teacher
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Sunridge sixth graders Gavin Clark, Rebekah Edmonds, Sage
Wyland and Grace Moses make leaf imprints on Thursday.
female, based on its size.
“Those are good moments,”
Schulze said as Jones-Hoisington
hurried to her next activity. “It
makes you proud as a teacher.”
Outdoor School is an annual
rite of passage for sixth-graders in
Pendleton, as well as fi fth-graders
in Hermiston, as they head out
into the forest for several days of
hands-on activities and adventure.
The program brings kids to Buck
Creek, adjacent to the North Fork
Umatilla Wilderness Area, for
three days of hiking, campfi res, art
projects and interactive science.
See SCHOOL/10A
See HANFORD/2A
Spray grapples with
County work group to
focus on housing shortage predicted infl ux
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Room to grow
Cities in Umatilla County have been
spearheading individual efforts to tackle
their housing shortages, but county plan-
ning director Tamra Mabbott hopes to bring
all those heads together to promote housing
development county-wide.
Mabbott is forming a work group to fi nd
solutions to the county’s housing crunch.
To guide their efforts, her department put
together an inventory of residential lands in
both the unincorporated parts of the county
and inside each of its 13 cities. Residential
lands on the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation were not
included.
City
Residential Undeveloped
Adams
185
32
Athena
492
20
Echo
383
62
Helix
85
13
Hermiston
5,510
915
Milton-Freewater
2,026
109
Pendleton
5,509
522
Pilot Rock
687
61
Stanfi eld
759
94
Ukiah
178
43
Umatilla
1,875
265
Weston
367
66
County
4,081
570
See HOUSING/10A
Total residential parcels, and number that are undeveloped.
of eclipse tourists
By AARON SCOTT
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Upward of a million
people are expected to fl ood
Oregon for the solar eclipse
on Monday, Aug. 21,
which has cities across the
state scrambling to prepare.
Some have been planning
for months. Others are just
beginning.
Nestled along the John
Day River is one of the
smallest towns in the
eclipse’s path of totality:
Spray. Population: 160
people, one convenience
store, one gas pump and
one small food counter that
closes at 6 p.m.
Drop into this bucolic
setting 8,000 to 12,000
visitors, the town’s estimate
for the eclipse, and you
have a mind-boggling ratio
of about 100 tourists for
every townsperson. How is
that going to work?
On the evening of May
2, some 20 people gathered
in a church recreation room
that doubles as a commu-
nity center to try to fi gure
See ECLIPSE/2A