GIRLS HOOPS: Cougars fall to Wildcats in 1a state playoffs | SPORTS, A8
E O
AST
143rd year, No. 91
REGONIAN
Thursday, February 21, 2019
WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
It takes a village
$1.50
Killer
convicted
in 1999
homicide
Vasquez-Vargas charged
with fatal November
shooting in umapine
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Shawn Lockwood, left, could barely speak after being named the Woman of the Year Wednesday at the Hermiston Distinguished Citizens
Awards.
hermiston honorees thank community at annual distinguished Citizens awards
By JAYATI
RAMAKRISHNAN
and JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
hermiston’s annual distin-
guished Citizens awards is a
gathering of mostly adults, but
one of this year’s top honor-
ees was noted as much for her
youthful nature as for her ser-
vice to the community.
shawn
Lockwood,
an
accounting manager at hermis-
ton Generating Company, was
named the 2018 Woman of the
year by the Greater hermiston
area Chamber of Commerce
on Wednesday night.
“To say that she’s the most
energetic person in a room full
of teenagers is not an under-
statement,” said New hope
Community Church paster Tim
beal, who presented the award
to Lockwood.
Though she was nearly
speechless upon receiving the
award, Lockwood said she was
completely honored.
she said she’s primarily
motivated by her relationship
with God.
“That drives me,” she said.
Lockwood spends much
of her free time volunteering
with local youth, both through
New hope and outside. she has
antonio
Vasquez-Vargas,
of Walla Walla, faces a murder
charge for the shooting death of
renee Luiz-antonio in late 2018
in umapine.
If Vasquez-Vargas is found
guilty, Luiz-antonio would be the
second man he killed.
The East Oregonian verified
Vasquez-Vargas killed 73-year-old
Floyd Murphy almost 20 years ago
in a car wreck in Walla Walla.
The EO looked
into the matter
after receiving an
email from Mur-
phy’s grandson,
Matthew
Mur-
phy, and an email
from a friend of
Vasquez-
Matthew
Mur-
Vargas
phy that contained
clippings of Walla
Walla Union Bulletin news sto-
ries about the fatal crash and sub-
sequent criminal prosecution. The
information led to finding more
archival news reports about the
fatality, a matching date of birth
and the photo of Vasquez-Var-
gas in one edition of the UB that
resembles his umatilla County
Jail mug shot.
Vasquez-Vargas, on the after-
noon of aug. 10, 1999, drove a
1976 buick Lesabre from Chest-
nut street onto second avenue,
according to the Union-Bulle-
tin’s reports, and struck a pickup.
No one was injured in that colli-
sion, and Vasquez-Vargas didn’t
stop. Moments later, he plowed the
buick into Murphy’s 1992 dodge
Caravan.
The impact knocked the mini-
van onto its top, according to the
See Conviction, Page A7
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Ford Bonney gives a speech after being named the Man of the Year Wednesday at the Hermiston Dis-
tinguished Citizens Awards.
volunteered for Campus Life,
hermiston Little League board,
has coached cross-country and
owned her own business.
beal described Lockwood’s
extensive community service
— spending a week in Cal-
ifornia with high schoolers,
processing peaches to send to
third-world countries, and lead-
ing various youth group activi-
ties — all the while keeping a
youthful spirit herself.
“This past weekend, I was
with her as she mentored kids
at Meadowood camp,” beal
said, recalling her laughing as
she sledded into piles of snow
with kids.
Lockwood said she had ini-
tially planned a trip to Las
Vegas this week, but her col-
leagues convinced her to stay,
keeping her in the dark about
the award.
“It’s terrific,” she said. “I had
no idea. I thought I was sup-
posed to get someone else here.”
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
See Fiesta, Page A7
City funding, lodging
taxes help keep business
association open
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
See Awards, Page A7
Joe’s Fiesta restaurant working on renovation
With some help from the Pendle-
ton development Commission, Joe’s
Fiesta Family Mexican restaurant
will undergo some dramatic changes,
inside and out.
already approved for a $6,230 grant
to cover 40 percent of the cost of a
façade restoration, Joe’s Fiesta owner
Joe Meda also received unanimous
approval from the commission to use
a $70,000 Jump start loan to expand
his restaurant into the neighboring
storefront.
Meda originally intended to blast off
the current façade to reveal the original
brick underneath. but when contrac-
tors began removing the façade, the
brick began to crumble along with it.
Umatilla
reviews its ties
to Chamber
of Commerce
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
The facade of Joe’s Fiesta Mexican restaurant is covered by a scaffold-
ing and a tarp as work restoring the building’s facade in underway in
downtown Pendleton.
The umatilla Chamber of
Commerce could take on a new
look and a new relationship with
the city in the near future.
The city of umatilla’s con-
tract with the chamber isn’t up for
renewal until mid-2020, but City
Manager david stockdale said
with all of the changes in leader-
ship the city and chamber have
both experienced in the past year
he felt it might be “appropriate”
to look at options for adjusting the
chamber’s structure and funding.
“I thought it would be a good
opportunity to discuss and review
the existing contract,” he said.
during Tuesday’s city council
meeting, the chamber board was
invited to sit in on the council’s
closed-door executive session to
“conduct deliberations with per-
sons designated by the governing
body to negotiate real property
transactions.” stockdale also plans
to attend the chamber’s board
meeting on Thursday night.
See Chamber, Page A7