Sheriff’s deputy kills chimpanzee to help save woman | REGION, A3
E O
AST
145th year, no. 106
REGONIAN
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
$1.50
Pools up and running after lifeguard shortage
By BEN LONERGAN
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Jeff Hamilton
has been preparing for a lifeguard
shortage for six months.
“I knew in January that I was
going to have trouble,” he said.
“Not only did I have to get certified
guards, I had to recertify myself.”
Hamilton, a recreation supervi-
sor with the city of Pendleton, said
lifeguard certifications last two
years, meaning many of the guards
he certified in 2019 would need to
be recertified this year due to last
year’s closure.
Hamilton said the facility usually
starts the season with about 40 life-
guards, a number that has dropped
to 34 this year.
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Lifeguard Kyndra Nelson watches over the pool Wednesday, June 16,
2021, during an afternoon swim session at the Pendleton Family Aquatic
Center. The aquatic center faced staffing difficulties early in the season.
“I’m kind of close to what I want,
but if we’re fully ramped up I could
probably use a few more,” Hamil-
ton said.
The biggest changes this year
have come in the age of his staff, he
said. The american Red Cross, the
entity through which the city certi-
fies lifeguards, requires participants
to be over the age of 15 to receive
a certification. While 15-year-olds
always have been an option, Hamil-
ton said he typically looks to hire
youths over the age of 16 to find
more mature staff members.
“When you’re dealing with 15-
and 16-year-old kids you are still
having to work around the parents’
schedules,” he said.
This year Hamilton said he has
eight or nine lifeguards who are 15.
Restaurant rebound?
Requests for
eatery site plan
reviews in
umatilla County
have stayed
steady since 2019
See Lifeguards, Page A9
eastern
Oregon
faces RV
shortage
By CARLOS FUENTES
The Observer
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
ment shakes.
“We wanted to bring some-
thing healthy and new to the
La GRande — In an aver-
age year, the Thunder RV park-
ing lot boasts 30 to 45 RVs,
ranging from truck campers to
fifth wheels to travel trailers.
as of Thursday, June 15, there
were four recreational vehicles
sitting in the mostly empty lot
at Thunder RV — the only RV
dealership in La Grande. This
shortage has lasted a full year
now, with no end in sight.
“The shortage started last
summer right after COVId-19
shut everything down,” Thunder
RV salesman Mike Weinkauf
said. “I think it’s because people
are getting cabin fever and want-
ing to go out more.”
Thompson RV, based in
Pendleton, also has seen a large
increase in demand over the last
year. according to Thompson
RV manager Corrin Thompson,
part of this is because Thomp-
son RV is the biggest outdoors
recreational vehicle dealer in the
world.
“We’re totally sold out for the
year,” Thompson said. “We’re
actually preselling RVs up to
16 months in advance now.
someone might come in today
and want to order an RV, and
they won’t get it until the end of
2022.”
The increase in recreational
vehicle demand is not just local.
according to the RV Industry
association, RV sales in the
U.S. have significantly increased
during the pandemic, with total
2021 recreational vehicles
See Rebound, Page A9
See RV, Page A9
H
eRMIsTOn — The
past year has been
tough on restaurants,
but the industry is
showing signs of life in umatilla
County as entrepreneurs take the
plunge with new ventures.
a two-story red brick building
on Hermiston’s Main street has
been silent since the union Club, a
coffee-by-day, bar-by-night estab-
lishment, closed partway through
2020. Owners cited the combina-
tion of one owner’s cancer diagno-
sis and the COVId-19 shutdowns
as insurmountable.
now, the building is full of
activity once again ahead of its
reopening as a new location for
Pendleton-based OMG! Burgers
& Brew.
Rodney Burt, who owns the
restaurant with his wife Kimberly
Burt, said the new location will
look the same as the Pendleton
one, featuring a menu of appetiz-
ers, salads, hot dogs, chicken sand-
wiches, alcoholic beverages and
“about 20 different types of crazy
hamburgers.”
“We’re excited,” he said. “We
love the business, love the people,
love giving back to the commu-
nity.”
Pandemic restrictions took
their toll on OMG! Burgers in
Pendleton like everywhere else,
Burt said. The couple were plan-
ning to open a grilled cheese shop
in Pendleton in 2020, but COVId-
19 scrapped those plans.
Lately, however, Burt said
“I basically went to our local
swim team and pleaded with the
coach to really push how important
it was,” he said.
Hamilton’s pleading worked —
he said nearly three-quarters of his
lifeguards are swim team members,
something he said is great but can
cause problems when the swim
team has meets. On saturday, June
19, Hamilton said he had to close
half the facility and limit capacity
to keep an appropriate ratio of life-
guards to swimmers due to a swim
meet.
Pendleton Parks and Recreation
department director Liam Hughes
said an increased interest in recre-
ation activities made the staff short-
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Elizabeth Stuart-Ramirez pours a drink Thursday, June 17, 2021, at the newly opened Daily Fix Nutrition in
Hermiston.
OMG! Burgers has had its busiest
time ever in the restaurant’s three-
year history in Pendleton.
The Burts aren’t the only ones
opening new eateries in Hermis-
ton. In late March, daily Fix nutri-
tion opened, offering smoothies,
teas and coffee.
diana Pena, who opened the
shop with her husband, Felipe
Pena, said they were looking at the
11th street location they settled in
before the pandemic started, but
the shutdowns and uncertainty
caused them to pull back for a
while before finally “taking a leap
of faith” this spring.
“It’s definitely scary, because
you see so many businesses strug-
gling,” she said.
Pena graduated from umatilla
and her husband graduated from
stanfield, so they “met in the
middle” to live in Hermiston after
getting married. she said she has
been using Herbalife nutrition
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Owners Diana and Felipe Pena opened Daily Fix Nutrition this spring
on 11th Street in Hermiston.
products for about seven years,
and eventually started selling
them to other people. now, daily
Fix nutrition sells all Herbalife
products, including meal replace-
Hermiston residents celebrate Juneteenth
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
HeRMIsTOn — Tina Thomas
remembers the day in the early 2000s
when she marched to Hermiston City
Hall on Martin Luther King Jr. day.
nearly two decades after President
Ronald Reagan signed a bill desig-
nating it as a federal holiday, the city
still didn’t recognize it.
The march closed city hall. From
then on, she said, the city recognized
the holiday. Reflecting on that day,
Thomas said one word comes to mind
— change.
“What else can you say but,
change,” said Thomas, who is Black.
More than two decades later,
Thomas had a new reason to cele-
brate. she joined several dozen
community members who flocked
saturday, June 19, to McKenzie Park
for the first federally recognized
Juneteenth, the holiday commemo-
rating the end of slavery in america.
“We’re celebrating a freedom that
was years short of what it should have
been,” said Thomas, a lifelong Herm-
iston resident. “I just think about that.
How our forefathers had to keep
working for two years when they
really didn’t have to. and now we’re
able to celebrate that every year. and
now it’s a federal holiday.”
Juneteenth, otherwise known as
emancipation day, Black Indepen-
dence day or Jubilee day, commem-
orates the day in 1865 when Maj.
Gen. Gordon Granger rode into
Galveston, Texas, and told african
americans the Civil War was over
and they were free — two years after
President abraham Lincoln signed
See Juneteenth, Page A9
Bryce Dole/East Oregonian
Virginia Garcia, left, Dolores Veliz and Bonnie Gracia serve food during a Sat-
urday, June 19, 2021, Juneteenth celebration at McKenzie Park in Hermiston.
On June 17, President Joe Biden signed a law to make Juneteenth a federal
holiday.