Hermiston’s Funland rises from the ashes yet again | REGION A3
E O
AST
145th year, No. 112
REGONIAN
Tuesday, July 6, 2021
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Hermiston
rebounds
with end of
restrictions
$1.50
CELEBRATING INDEPENDENCE
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
HeRMIsTON — It’s been a challeng-
ing year for laura avila.
at 32, avila has four children, ages
5, 9, 11 and 15, and lives off the tips she
makes as a waitress at the la Palma Mexi-
can Restaurant in Hermiston. Taking care
of her kids while schools were closed was
difficult, she said.
and earlier this year, some of her
friends and family members contracted
COVId-19 — including two of her chil-
dren.
“It was really scary,” she said. “They
had a fever, their body ached. But I never
got it. I was tested and was negative.
That’s why I got vaccinated. I didn’t want
to get sick.”
When pandemic restrictions were
lifted last week, avila, like so many
others, said she felt happy. Business has
remained steady at la Palma — which
her parents opened using their life savings
in the mid-2000s — and yet things still
picked up last week. Now, her biggest
hope, she said, is for the community to
stay safe and healthy.
“We just don’t want to lose the support
that we have by people getting sick,” said
avila, who, along with her coworkers,
has been vaccinated against COVId-19.
For some business owners and
employees in downtown Hermiston, it
was a wash of relief to have masking and
distancing mandates lifted last week,
allowing customers to reenter businesses
smiling and carefree. But for others, they
are remaining wary as COVId-19 vari-
ants are on the rise and umatilla County
sits among the least-vaccinated and
most-infected counties in Oregon.
“all the guards are going down, and
there’s great potential for problems
again,” said Michael Gormley, the owner
of Neighborhood Books & Gifts in down-
town Hermiston.
Because he is a 70-year-old diabetic
with a heart condition, for which he is
undergoing testing, Gormley said he
plans to keep up the plexiglass that
divides him and customers for at least
another year. He doesn’t plan to make
customers wear masks and keep store
capacity down. But he still is wiping
down the counters and doors with sani-
tizer and wearing his double-layered
mask with books displayed on the front.
Just to be safe.
“I think we needed to move on,” he
said. “But the bad side is that people are
going to put their guards down. and
that’s the problem. Being cautious is
different from being paranoid. Overall,
being cautious is not a bad thing.”
For others, seeing people’s unmasked
faces, their smiles and expressions, has
brought joy and relief after nearly 500
days of isolation and fear.
Jeanine dilley, a partner at Bella
Grace Boutique, spent her day laughing
and helping customers as they checked
See Rebound, Page A9
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Billy Turner recites the Pledge of Allegiance on Sunday, July 4, 2021, on South Main Street, Pendleton, prior to the Fourth of July Parade.
Putting smiles on faces
Fourth of July
Parade returns
with cheers
in Pendleton
By BEN LONERGAN
East Oregonian
P
eNdleTON — after
a one-year hiatus due
to the COV I d -19
pandemic, the familiar
sound of horseshoes on pave-
ment, old cars and cheering
crowds returned to downtown
Pendleton sunday, July 4, for
the annual Independence day
parade.
“It was amazing,” said
10-year-old Tyler smith.
smith and his family gath-
ered along south Main street
to watch the parade. as passing
parade participants tossed candy,
he darted from the sidewalk to
collect it. smith’s only gripe
about the parade was a lack of
variety in the candy, though he
said it felt good to have the parade
return.
Melissa smith, the boy’s
mother, said the parade seemed
like the perfect way to kick off
a summer without COVId-19
restrictions.
“I loved seeing everyone
out and celebrating,” she said.
“There’s just this sense of pride
in the town and the country.”
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Eldon Marcum ignites a firework during the Stanfield Fourth
of July fireworks show Sunday, July 4, 2021.
Stanfield lights up the
sky for Fourth of July
By BEN LONERGAN
East Oregonian
s
TaNFIeld — For
the last 51 years Jim
Whelan has spent his
Fourth of July blowing up
fireworks over the city of
Stanfield, and Sunday, July
4, was no different.
Whelan, a career fire-
fighter and licensed pyro-
technician, got his start in
fireworks when he joined the
stanfield Fire department
in 1970. Within a decade, he
was running the annual show.
While Sunday’s firework
show started at 10 p.m.,
Whelan and a small army of
firefighters took to the Stan-
field High school football
field three hours earlier to
begin setting up the display.
“you have to take into
account surroundings and
wind,” said Whelan as he
used a rangefinder to check
See Stanfield, Page A9
That sense of pride was
noticeable to Billy Turner as
paradegoers rose, removed their
hats and recited the Pledge of
allegiance alongside Turner
before the parade began.
“It gives me and everyone else
a great sense of hope,” he said. “It
feels just amazing.”
In the minutes before the
parade’s 10 a.m. start time,
Turner took to the middle of
the street, turned toward a large
united states flag suspended
from a pair of ladder trucks and
recited the pledge into a micro-
phone.
Turner said he began reciting
the pledge at the parade roughly
four years ago as an eighth grader
in an attempt to add a more
festive start to the parade.
“It was kind of bland without a
grand entrance,” said Turner. “It
just puts a smile on everyone’s
face.”
as the parade got underway,
crowds dressed in red, white
and blue filled the downtown
sidewalks as children clutched
bags or buckets to collect candy
thrown from floats. Masks were
few and far between as people
greeted one another and cele-
brated a return to normalcy.
shortly after 10 a.m., members
of the Veterans of Foreign Wars
let ‘er Buck Post 922 turned the
corner from southwest dorion
avenue onto south Main street
as they carried the American flag.
See Parade, Page A9
Heat wave joins list of deadliest disasters
state’s deadliest
natural disaster
remains Heppner
Flood of 1903
By DOUGLAS PERRY
The Oregonian
PORTlaNd — Oregon has a
long history of terrible natural disas-
ters, and almost all of them come in
one of four bitter flavors: flood, fire,
windstorm and earthquake.
But now, with the temperature
getting as high as 116 degrees in the
past week, a heat wave can be added
to the list of the worst that Mother
Nature has thrown at the Pacific
Northwest. The brutal temps led to
the deaths of at least 95 people in
Oregon, making the hot weather
one of the deadliest events the state
has ever seen.
The worst loss of life from natu-
ral disasters in Oregon’s recorded
history comes from flooding, and
the ultimate such event, taking place
in the small Morrow County town of
Heppner, is linked to summertime
heat, not winter rain or snow.
Heppner is proud of its proxim-
ity to the Blue Mountains, embrac-
ing the nickname “Gateway to the
Blues.”
In 1903, that gate swung the
wrong way.
Willow Creek emerges from
the Blue Mountains southeast of
Heppner. In the summer there’s
See Heat, Page A9
Bruce McCurtain/The Oregonian, File
Much of downtown Heppner was a mess in 1971 after a flash flood. Smaller
floods continued to hit in later years. Nothing matched the destruction of
1903, however.