The
Columbia
Press
Celebrating
our
100th year
• 1922-2022
1
50 ¢
February 18, 2022
503-861-3331
Vol. 6, Issue 7
Memorial to honor local man who died at sea
The Columbia Press
The family of a Warrenton man who was killed
last year when his commercial crab boat cap-
sized will honor him with a memorial bench at
Seafarer’s Park.
“Zach loved the river there,” Bob Zappone
told members of the Warrenton Parks Advisory
Board at their meeting on Monday. “He loved
the ocean and he died doing something he real-
ly, really enjoyed.”
The 38-foot Coastal Reign went down in rough
waters at the Tillamook Bay bar on Feb. 20,
2021.
Crew members Zach Zappone, 41, and Todd
Chase, 51, both of Warrenton, died shortly af-
ter a U.S. Coast Guard rescue team pulled them
from the water. Two other crew members sur-
vived.
The Coast Guard had been watching the area
because there were small craft restrictions due
to bad weather and choppy seas. A rescue crew
was sent immediately from nearby Garibaldi
and a helicopter from Astoria when the vessel’s
crew issued a distress call shortly before 4:40
p.m. that day.
“We’ve got lots of family members and friends
in the Hammond area,” Bob Zappone said.
“This would be a real meaningful thing for all
The Columbia Press
a market for substitute materials.
Yanyun Zhao, an OSU professor
who leads a research team focusing
on sustainable food packaging and
processing, has studied apple pom-
ace and other byproducts from pro-
cessing fruit and vegetable juice and
winemaking as an alternative for
recycled newspaper in molded pulp
manufacturing. She and the team re-
ceived a patent for the research.
“Right now, apple pomace is typi-
cally just composted or used for ani-
mal feed,” said Zhao, whose research
aims to reduce food loss and waste
There’s more to high school football
than just winning.
Warrenton High School’s football
team was one of 62 teams across the
nation to be recognized for academic
achievement.
The National Football Foundation &
College Hall of Fame recognized War-
renton – one of five teams named in
Oregon – for the award earlier this
month. Cypress Woods High School
in Texas won the top award.
The foundation created the award a
year ago to inspire and foster a culture
of academic excellence on high school
football teams throughout the nation.
“I am very proud of our student-ath-
letes’ efforts over the past three years,”
said Ian O’Brien, Warrenton High
School’s assistant principal and head
football coach. “Warrenton football
student-athletes have been recognized
for their remarkable accomplishments
in the classroom over
the past three years
and, this last year, we
were named a finalist
for the state of Oregon
with our No. 1 overall
ranking at the 3A clas-
sification level.”
The 62 schools were
selected by the in-
O’Brien
dividual states’ high
school coach associations from a pool
of semifinalists submitted by each
school’s head coach.
To be eligible, the teams had to have
a cumulative team grade-point aver-
age of at least 3.0, show superior ac-
ademic application and performance,
and have a successful football season.
See ‘Packaging’ on Page 4
See ‘Warriors’ on Page 5
Above: One of
several memori-
al benches near
Seafarer’s Park
in Hammond.
Right: Zach
Zappone doing
what he loved
on the sea.
See ‘Bench’ on Page 4
Research team building better packaging materials
By Sean Nealon
Oregon State University
Yanyun Zhao with pack material exam-
ples created in her lab.
Warrior football
team wins in
academic ways
A new study could help turn apple
waste into environmentally friendly
packaging material.
Oregon State University scientists
believe the new material would serve
as an alternative to plastic.
Recycled newspaper has tradi-
tionally been the main ingredient
of so-called molded pulp packaging
products, which have become in-
creasingly popular because they are
compostable. But the supply of recy-
cled newspaper is in decline, creating