The Columbia Press
1
Clatsop County’s Independent Weekly
www.thecolumbiapress.com
New middle
school teachers
are WHS alums
50 ¢
Vol. 5, Issue 37
September 10, 2021
Industrial park gets its first tenant
Scoular plant will
process fishmeal for
pet food industry
By Bruce Dustin
For The Columbia Press
By Cindy Yingst
The old hats are back in town.
There were three teaching positions
to be filled at Warrenton’s new mid-
dle school and all three were filled by
Warrenton High School alumni, for-
mer graduates.
Ryker Thornton, a 1992 graduate of
WHS, is teaching math and technol-
ogy. His inspiration for becoming a
coach and educator is Gary McBride.
His motivation to return was to be
more involved in his children’s edu-
cation and sports. His daughter is a
freshman at WHS and his son is in
the seventh grade at WMS.
Chelsea
Anderson,
formerly
Neahring, is a 2008 WHS graduate.
She is teaching English. She was in-
spired to be an English teacher by
Gail Whitney Welch. She was asked
to return home by her elder sister,
Dionne Marshall, the elementary
school’s new vice principal.
Juanantonio Salcedo, a 2015 WHS
grad, is teaching physical education
A fishmeal processing plant – the
first occupant of the Port of Astoria’s
Airport Industrial Park – is under
construction and company officials
are ready to hire a plant manager.
“We started in late July and antic-
ipate roughly a one-year build – so
July 2022,” said Chad Gauger, gen-
eral manager for the Scoular Com-
pany’s high-value nutritional pro-
tein division.
“Nothing has changed in terms of
the scoping of the project, type of
activities or the investment – we
locked that back in the early part of
the year,” he said. “So it’s full steam
ahead at this point.”
The company plans a 14,400-
square-foot factory that will pro-
duce fishmeal, fish oil and shrimp
shell meal using the offal, or entrails
and other parts usually cast off by
local processors preparing fish for
See ‘Teachers’ on Page 3
The Columbia Press
Above: Foun-
dation work is
under way at the
Scoular plant on
Airport Way.
Cindy Yingst
Left: A Big River
Construction
crew works on
sewer lines near
Brim Aviation at
Astoria Regional
Airport.
Courtesy
Port of Astoria
See ‘Scoular’ on Page 4