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