10A • July 28, 2017 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
CANNON BEACH LIFEGUARDS
Carrying on a tradition
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Moments of reward,
exhilaration
By Brenna Visser
Cannon Beach Gazette
W
hen Jesse Willyard was growing up in
Cannon Beach, he didn’t have much
interest in becoming a lifeguard.
But his career as one started before he was
even offi cially hired to join the Cannon Beach
lifeguard team 11 years ago during his 15th birth-
day party.
“I was skim boarding north of Haystack Rock
when a kid ran up and said his brother had been
swept up in the ocean,” Willyard said. He said he
saw the child’s head bobbing up and down in the
waves and decided to swim out and bring him
back to shore.
The lifeguards on duty noticed his actions and
brought him into the program shortly after, he
said. He offi cially joined the summer of his 16th
birthday and has been a lifeguard ever since.
“I have always been comfortable in the wa-
ter. I grew up surfi ng,” Willyard said. “So I didn’t
really worry whether or not I was going to make
it — I just ran out. At the least, I thought, I could
keep his head above water.
“I’ve never been afraid of the ocean,” he con-
tinued. “I suppose that’s a good quality to have in
this line of work.”
Willyard is one of eight lifeguards in charge
of protecting the lives of the thousands of visitors
who frequent Cannon Beach during the summer.
While the position is seasonal, Cannon Beach’s
lifeguard team is rooted in decades long tradition,
and upheld by a team of people dedicated to re-
turning year after year — and for some, decade
after decade.
Where it began
The origin of the lifeguard program can be
traced to the town’s fi rst lifeguard in 1938, mak-
ing the program almost 80 years old and one of
the oldest on the West Coast. According to the
historical text “Comin’ in over the Rock,” the
fi rst lifeguard, W. W. Ross, felt strongly about the
town’s need for a summer lifeguard and placed
collection jars around town to pay for lifeguards
for several years.
Today, it is a staple of the Cannon Beach
Police Department, and almost everyone on the
team has been a lifeguard for at least three to fi ve
years, program supervisor and Cannon Beach
Police Chief Jason Schermerhorn said.
While drownings are still relatively rare on
the Oregon Coast, the federal Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention lists drowning has
the fi fth -leading cause of unintentional deaths
in the United States. The U.S. Lifesaving As-
sociation calculates the chance of drowning
on a beach with lifeguards is 1 in 18 mil-
lion.
Cannon Beach and Seaside are the
only two coastal cities in Oregon with
formal lifeguarding programs.
Seaside High graduate Kai Davidson,
left , and Darlington Nagbe of the Port-
land Timbers will be a part of the Tim-
bers’ visit to the North Coast in August.
Timbers to
stop in Seaside
A day in the life
Seaside Signal
One misconception head lifeguard
Brian Habecker likes to clarify is the no-
tion of lifeguards being “beach bums” or
“slackers. ”
“Everyone here has a college degree or is a
student pursuing one — I know at least three of
us have master’s,” Habecker said. “We’re easy-
going people, but very serious when it counts.”
Habecker has been a lifeguard in Cannon
Beach for 15 years, the last fi ve as leader. He de-
scribes his team as driven, hard-working and all
with similar passions and perspectives on recreat-
ing in the ocean. These similarities are by design,
he said.
“Part of the reason we are such a strong team
is because we recruit locally,” Habecker said. “I
taught Jesse as a sixth-grade student, and when
he got into college, I asked him to apply for the
job.”
It’s a pattern that has worked well. Habecker
himself, an English teacher at Broadway Middle
School, was recruited by John Rippey, who at the
time was an educational assistant when he was a
student and head lifeguard for 25 years. Genera-
tions of recruitment turned into one large, locally
grown family, he said.
“There is a total respect and bond in this
group,” Habecker said.
Up in the tower, Willyard said much of his day
is spent meticulously scanning the beach, and an-
swering questions like “Where is the bathroom?”
and “Why are there dead birds on the beach?”
Getting to work where he likes to play isn’t a
bad perk either, he said.
“It’s one of the best summer jobs around,” he
said.
Hours of training
But hours of training go into preparing for the
rescues that Habecker said average about one a
month. Because there are only two beach towns
with formal lifeguards, much of the training reg-
imen has been passed down generation to gen-
eration, largely created and directed by the staff
themselves, Habecker said.
Cannon Beach lifeguard Jesse Willyard
keeps a close eye on the surf and the sand
from his perch atop a lifeguard stand last
week near Haystack Rock.
COLIN MURPHEY/EO MEDIA GROUP
Every morning in the summer, lifeguards do
a half hour of either cardio or weightlifting with
Cannon Beach Fire and Rescue. Before the sea-
son starts, the group meets in June to learn fi rst
aid, conduct mock rescues out in rip tides and
rocks and swimming drills that require lifeguards
to swim all the way around Haystack Rock.
But every year is different. Some years Will-
yard has only seen close calls, others as high as
20. He has done only a handful of rescues, but
described each one as a shot of adrenaline, and
then a wave of relief.
”It can be hectic, but luckily we have people
who have been here multiple seasons,” Willyard
said. “It’s about paying attention to every per-
son.”
In most cases, the goal is to focus on preventa-
tive measures: namely, educating folks not to turn
their back to the water, identifying rip currents
and warning beachgoers to stay away from those
areas. But when that isn’t an option, Willyard
and Habecker both said the most common rescue
scenario involves beachgoers getting caught in
strong currents.
“The more you do it, the less daunting it is,”
Habecker said. “What other people see as heroic,
we fi nd exciting. The ocean brings a lot of fear
because of the unknowns, and people assume
we have the same fear, but for us it’s not an un-
known.”
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The North Coast is back on the “Rose
City Road Trip” list, the Portland Timbers’
annual tour of community events and youth
soccer clinics throughout the Pacifi c North-
west.
This year’s tour will include stops in
Seaside and Warrenton, as the Timbers
return to the North Coast as part of their
sixth-annual Rose City Road Trip, present-
ed by Providence Health & Services.
Monday, Aug. 14, Timbers’ midfi eld-
er Darlington Nagbe, midfi elder/defender
Lawrence Olum, defender Roy Miller and
Timber Joey will begin the day with a visit
to Providence Seaside Hospital from 9-10
a.m., spending time with patients before
heading to Warrenton Grade School from
10:30 a.m.-noon to help install “buddy
benches,” a project invented by 10-year-old
Christian Bucks, that gives children a safe,
nonjudgmental place to retreat.
The day continues with a youth soccer
clinic being led by the Timbers youth de-
velopment staff (which includes Seaside
High graduate Kai Davidson) for children
ages 5-13.
The clinic is scheduled for 1:30-3:30
p.m. at Warrenton Soccer Complex on
Ridge Road in Hammond. Free and open
to the public, the clinic will feature a train-
ing session, along with an autograph and
Q&A session. Participants must pre-regis-
ter online at www.timbers.com/rosecity-
roadtrip.
Closing out the visit, players and Timber
Joey will join fans at Astoria’s Fort George
Brewery, 1483 Duane St., for a Q&A, raf-
fl e, autographs and pictures from 4:30-6:30
p.m., before returning to Portland.
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