GRIDIRON
GIRLS
BURNS, KIELE
TAKE TO FIELD
AS QB, KICKER
SPORTS/1B
PALMER
CLEARED
BY DOJ
REGION/3A
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2017
141st Year, No. 259
Your Weekend
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•
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One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Where do you want to eat?
Hermiston diners
hungry for new
restaurants
Oktoberfest Pendleton at
the Round-Up Grounds
Autumn in Echo
citywide yard sales
Book sales in Irrigon
and Pendleton
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
For times and places
see Coming Events, 5A
Weekend Weather
Fri
Sat
Sun
53/33
59/35
63/38
Watch a game
vs.
Bend vs. Hermiston
Friday, 7 p.m.,
at Kennison Field
Districts
discuss the
good, bad
marks on
state school
report card
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Divergent trends defi ned
the report cards for Umatilla
County’s two biggest school
districts.
After the Oregon Depart-
ment of Education released
the documents Thursday,
the data show the Hermiston
School District made one
of its greatest gains in high
school English assessment
while high school language
arts proved to be one of the
Pendleton School District’s
most drastic declines.
And although Pendleton is
buoyed by a high graduation
rate but a lower on-track
rate, the script is fl ipped for
Hermiston.
The report cards give the
public access to assessments,
graduation rates, attendance
and more for the 2016-2017
school year.
See SCHOOL/10A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Hermiston may have 58 different
restaurants listed on the review
website Yelp, but residents are still
hungry for new dining experiences.
A recent post on Facebook asked
what fast food restaurants Herm-
iston needs most and nearly 400
people chimed in. Wendy’s, Arby’s
or Kentucky Fried Chicken were
among the top choices.
Manny Gonzales, 18, said he
made the post because he was
interested in hearing what peoples’
favorite fast food restaurants were,
but he thinks Hermiston could use
another sit-down option, too.
“We need a Red Lobster or Olive
Garden where someone can dress
nice and take someone on a date,” he
said.
Gonzales said his favorite fast
food restaurant in town is Dairy
Queen, because they have good
service, “great prices, yummy ice
cream and good fries.” But he could
go for a Carl’s Jr., Panda Express or
Zip’s Drive-In, too.
In 2011, consulting fi rm Pitney
Bowes Business Insight estimated
the Hermiston area could support
another 5,800 to 6,400 square feet of
full-service restaurants and another
1,500 to 1,750 square feet of fast
food restaurants. Their report for
the city stated there was demand
for a “moderately priced sit-down
restaurant” and recommended an
Applebee’s, Country Kitchen, Sizzler
or IHOP, as well as the addition of a
Wendy’s or Arby’s in the fast food
category.
Hermiston previously had an
Arby’s and a Kentucky Fried Chicken,
but Arby’s was replaced by Starbucks
in 2005 and Kentucky Fried Chicken
closed more than fi ve years ago. The
town has lost some sit-down restau-
rants too, including Stet’s Steakhouse,
which closed in September.
Other Hermiston restaurants have
found a niche and thrived, however.
Delish Bistro, which opened
two years ago, has started leasing
the larger and more visible Stet’s
Steakhouse location at 1619 N. First
St. and plans to move in sometime
around February.
A car moves through the drive-thru at McDonald’s restaurant on Thursday in Hermiston. A 2011 study
found that Hermiston could support more full-service and fast food restaurants.
See FOOD/10A
Rocket scientist recalls early NASA days
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
Beer and space travel
don’t usually go together, but
they paired nicely Wednesday
evening at the Prodigal Son
Brewery.
Retired NASA engineer
Norman Chaffee opened up
his brain and let its contents
pour out to those packed into
the pub’s tiny theater. Chaffee
is a rocket scientist — the
archetype for an ultra-intel-
ligent person — so brainy,
in fact, that he simplifi ed
complex ideas for his audi-
ence, sans jargon. Out came
recollections of the early days
of aerospace in the 1960s,
when he worked on the
Gemini and Apollo programs
as a propulsion engineer. He
retired in 1998 but continues
to do consulting and educa-
tion outreach.
Chaffee, an Oklahoma
native who grew up in a
family of engineers, said his
scientifi c adventures started
in boyhood when he loved
taking things apart and “trying
to put them back together.” A
chemistry set offered tons of
fun.
“If the angle of
re-entry is too
narrow, you hit the
atmosphere and
skip like a stone.”
— Norman Chaffee,
Retired NASA engineer
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Retired NASA engineer Norman Chaffee speaks about his time working for the
space agency on the Gemini and Apollo programs as a propulsion engineer
Wednesday at Prodigal Son in Pendleton.
“I set the house on fi re a
couple of times,” he said. “In
high school, we blew up a
chemistry lab table trying to
make dynamite.”
He turned his mother’s
kitchen bright purple after he
used the stove to heat potas-
sium permanganate. When
it reached its boiling point, it
exploded.
Chaffee started as a
propulsion
engineer
at
NASA’s Johnson Space
Center in 1962.
In a world of thrusters,
pressure regulators and
propellants, Chaffee and
fellow engineers attacked
problems that threatened the
success of space missions.
Chaffee clearly remem-
bers the day in 1967 when
Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil
“Gus” Grissom, Ed White II
and Roger Chaffee (no rela-
tion) died in a fi re that erupted
in their command module
during prefl ight testing. The
trio had been preparing for
the fi rst manned Apollo fl ight.
The death of Roger
Chaffee especially saddened
him. Because of their
common name, they often got
each other’s mail and phone
calls and had developed an
easygoing kinship. The three
men died when a circuit
shorted in an atmosphere of
pure oxygen, igniting highly
fl ammable materials in the
cabin. Norman Chaffee and
other NASA engineers tested
different materials inside
a faux command module,
See NASA/8A