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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 6, 2019)
HIGH-SPEED INTERNET COMING TO GRANT COUNTY PENDLETON ROUND-UP NAMED LARGE OUTDOOR RODEO OF THE YEAR LOCAL, A7 SPORTS, B1 E O AST 143rd year, No. 295 REGONIAN Friday, december 6, 2019 $1.50 WINNER OF THE 2019 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD Your Weekend • FESTIVAL OF TREES/ WINTERFEST, Hermiston and Pendleton community centers • “THE NUTCRACKER” BALLET, BMCC Bob Clapp Theatre, Pendleton • “THE CHILDREN’S HOUR,” Pendleton High School FOR TIMES AND LOCATIONS CHECK COMING EVENTS, A6 Weekend Weather FRI SAT SUN Staff photo by Kathy Aney, File 45/36 48/39 45/30 Winterfest lights up downtown Hermiston Santa Claus makes appearance at annual event By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian HERMISTON — Santa Claus made an early stop in Hermiston Thursday night, checking in with the town’s little ones about what they want for christmas at the annual Winterfest. The centerpiece of the annual event on the festival street was a roughly 45-foot Christmas tree, decked out in thousands of mul- Firefighters attack a fire last September in the We Sell Stuff building in downtown Pendleton. FIRE DEPARTMENT CALLS FOR BACKUP Pendleton Fire Department looks to recruit more reserves with federal grant By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian P eNdLeTON — compared to the multimillion-dollar grants the city of Pendleton has sought from the federal government in recent years, the $298,000 SAFER grant is rela- tively modest. Although the grant is only paying for one position, the Pendleton Fire depart- ment is hoping its ripple effect will bolster the department’s staffing levels much further than that. See Fire, Page A8 Staff photo by Ben Lonergan, File Members of the Pendleton Fire Department participate in a training with the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training in the former Pendleton Grain Growers parking lot on July 23, 2019. The training dealt with appropriate control and procedure for fighting propane tank and gas meter fires. See Winterfest, Page A8 Umatilla School District sees unprecedented absences due to illness Health Department says cases of influenza are making an earlier debut this season By JESSICA POLLARD East Oregonian UmaTiLLa — Parents at the Umatilla School district are well aware — flu season has arrived. in a letter to parents mon- day, Superintendent Heidi Sipe said McNary Heights Elementary School was seeing “unusually high rates of illness,” and some children had confirmed cases of influenza — the flu. “This is a first. We’ve definitely had trends with illness,” she said. Dirksen Fiumara Fritsch “But we’ve never had this level of absences due to illness before.” Last Tuesday, Sipe said, 24% of students were absent from the elementary school. She added that during the long Thanksgiv- ing weekend, custodial staff at the school sanitized desks and sur- faces hoping to stop the spread- ing sickness in its tracks. But come Monday, more than 25% of stu- dents were nowhere to be seen. On Thursday morning, about 19% of students were still miss- Mooney Sipe ing from classes. Kids returning to school after illness absences are getting their temperatures checked. “Now, it’s much better than it was,” Sipe said on Wednes- day afternoon. “But those are still really high absentee numbers.” The school is asking parents to keep children with minor symp- toms like congestion and coughing home. On its website, the centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists fever (but not always), cough- ing, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle aches and headaches, fatigue and occasionally vomiting or diarrhea as possible symptoms of influenza. Unlike a cold, the symptoms of influenza are often sudden. The flu can be deadly for seniors, children under 5 and people with chronic medical conditions like diabetes. The CDC estimates up to 26,000 children under 5 are hospitalized in the U.S. each year for influenza. Sipe said the high school and middle school saw up to 16% of their student bodies absent on Wednesday. The district contacted the Uma- tilla County Health Department last week. “Anytime there’s a larger than See Illness, Page A8