CAN YOU FIND THIS MEDALLION? 95/62 DAMES RECEIVES BLACK BELT FIRST CLUE/3A McCain making dramatic Senate return NATION/7A SPORTS/1B TUESDAY, JULY 25, 2017 141st Year, No. 201 One dollar WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD HERMISTON Mooney selected as interim superintendent the board Monday to serve in the temporary role while Super- intendent Fred Maiocco takes a leave of absence to serve a tour of duty in Europe for the U.S. Army Reserves. She assumed the role immediately, stepping in as superintendent for the rest of that evening’s board meeting. “I’m humbled and honored By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN East Oregonian The Hermiston school board selected Tricia Mooney to lead the district for the next year and a half. Mooney, who is currently the district’s assistant superin- tendent of human resources, was unanimously elected by to head the district during Dr. Maiocco’s absence,” Mooney said. “We’re going to be ready for over 5,600 kids on August 28.” Mooney was one of three fi nalists for the position. The others were Philip “Buzz” Brazeau and Richard Rund- haug. The board spent nearly four hours interviewing candi- dates on Monday before delib- erating in executive session. During the open session, the board conducted all three interviews before a crowd of 30 to 40 administrators, teachers and community members. Audience members could turn in sheets grading the candidates on their capability and their perceived fi t for the district. Mooney has spent most of her education career in the Hermiston School District, beginning in 1995 as a teacher at Sunset Elementary School. She has also spent time as the principal of Rocky Heights Elementary School and Armand Larive Middle School. See MOONEY/9A PENDLETON Mooney Task force scrutinizes state assets to reduce PERS costs By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Capital Bureau of his vest declared, “For some there’s therapy, for the rest of there’s motorcycles.” This was a biker wedding, smack dab in the middle of Pend- leton Bike Week. A few dozen fellow bikers, friends and family watched the short ceremony from chairs in the Pendleton Conven- tion Center’s main room on PORTLAND — From the state’s liquor control commission to its approximately 4,600 parking spaces, a group appointed by the governor is starting to scrutinize ways to make the most of state assets to reduce its pension obligations. In April, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, announced she was appointing a “task force” to address the unfunded actuarial liability in the Public Employee Retirement System, which now stands at about $21.8 billion. The seven- member group, tasked with fi nding a way to reduce that amount by $5 billion, had its fi rst meeting Monday. The unfunded actuarial liability of the system is the amount of money that the state’s obligations exceed the system’s assets currently will be able to pay. And the $21.8 billion amount may grow, though it’s not yet clear by how much. On Friday, the PERS board is expected to adopt rules reducing the rate it assumes investments of the Public Employees Retirement Fund will earn annually. You can think about PERS like an algebra equation: Since a certain amount of benefi ts are guaranteed to employees, reducing the assumed earnings rate will increase the amount of money that public employers — such as school districts, cities and counties — will have to contribute to the system to pay those benefi ts. Membership in the task force draws on the public and private sector, and ranges from the CFO of Oregon Health and Sciences University to the CEO of the Portland tech company Zapproved. See WEDDING/9A See PERS/9A Staff photo by Kathy Aney Lori Abell exults as offi ciant Sandy Smith announces that Abell and Skip Cripe are now husband and wife. The “biker wedding” was part of Pendleton Bike Week. Love during Bike Week By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian This wasn’t your typical wedding. The groom didn’t enter quietly from a side door, nor did the bride fl oat demurely up the aisle wearing a white, lacy dress. Instead, groom Skip Cripe hopped aboard his Harley Davidson motorcycle, gave the throttle a twist and roared into the room. In place of a tuxedo, Cripe wore a black leather vest, jeans and HOG gloves. He parked his glossy red Road Glide bike and stood waiting. Bride Lori Abell, in a shimmery, sleeveless top, rhine- stone-encrusted skinny jeans and black biker boots walked to her groom with a smile of certainty that this ponytailed biker would More inside New events provide summer boon for local businesses Page 9A forever be her man. Cripe reached out his hands to Abell, his tattooed sleeve extending from his right wrist to his shoulder. A patch on the front BOARDMAN Food science fi nds young fans at OMSI exhibit By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian Photo by Antonio Sierra OMSI food science educator Rebecca Reilly helps Abbigail Burleson of Hermiston with one the museum’s agriculture themed exhibits at the SAGE Center Saturday. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry turned the second fl oor of the SAGE Center into an experi- ment lab. OMSI took over the space at the Boardman museum Saturday for its Celebrate Oregon Agriculture event, a chance to share some of their popular exhibits and further hone the food science exhibits they use in their outreach program. As a part of an Oregon Depart- ment of Agriculture program, OMSI developed several ag exhibits that local children eagerly engaged, “It’s a missed opportu- nity in Eastern Oregon for kids not to learn about agriculture.” — Jane Waldher, of Athena poked, prodded and played with. On one table, kids could clip a microscope to their cell phones and check out the surface of a piece of fruit. Across the fl oor, children could use baking soda or vinegar to make paper coated in blackberry or See OMSI/9A