MIND GAMES
PREP HOOPS
LOCAL STUDENTS FARE
WELL AT CHESS TOURNEY
BULLDOG GIRLS FACE
HOOD RIVER ON HARDWOOD
PAGE A3
SPORTS PAGE A6
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2015
YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER
HERMISTONHERALD.COM
City, port Community remembers ‘father of Hermiston’
Local leader Joe Burns passed away Thursday
agreement
unveiled
BY MAEGAN MURRAY
HERMISTON HERALD
Not many people can
say they have met a United
States president, let alone
had a conversation with
one. Longtime Hermiston
leader Joseph “Joe” Burns,
however, met and had con-
Umatilla will buy
disputed land on
Bud Draper Road
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
BY SEAN HART
Joe Burns, right, shakes the
hand of United States Pres-
ident Ronald Reagan in this
picture, which was signed by
Reagan.
HERMISTON HERALD
After months of closed-
door negotiations, an agree-
ment to settle a zoning
dispute between the Port
of Umatilla and the city
of Umatilla was unveiled
Tuesday.
At the Port Commission
meeting, the commission-
ers approved the agreement
to sell the disputed land on
the west side of Bud Draper
Road, along with a 3.1 acre
parcel at the northwest end
of the road, to the city for a
total of $176,000.
Umatilla City Coun-
cil members will consider
the agreement at their next
meeting Tuesday.
Joseph Franell, who me-
diated the agreement, said it
allows the parties to move
forward “with a revitalized
spirit of cooperation.”
“The zoning issue in
question then becomes the
sole responsibility of the
city and is no longer a cause
versations with several
during his life.
Burns passed away
Thursday at the age of 90 in
his home in Hermiston after
serving the Hermiston com-
munity in a variety of ca-
pacities since he arrived in
1946. Burns, who also was
a B-24 bomber pilot during
World War II, had owned
and operated Burns Mor-
tuary in Condon, Oregon,
with his brother, Charles,
before coming to Hermis-
ton. He moved to the region
to take over Prann Mortu-
ary in Hermiston, which
he and his brother renamed
Burns Mortuary.
Since that time, Burns
served as a part of many
civic and service groups,
as chairman for a number
of boards, was a member of
the Hermiston City Council
and was one of a small col-
lection of prominent com-
munity members to start the
Hermiston Development
Corporation, for which he
was president for 29 years.
In his tenure with that orga-
nization, the region added
nearly 6,000 jobs.
SEE BURNS/A10
BONDING OVER A MEAL
SEE AGREEMENT/A10
TODAY’S WEATHER
Partly cloudy
High: 58º Low: 39º
OUTLOOK
• THURSDAY
Mix of sun and clouds
High: 59º Low: 38º
• FRIDAY
Times of sun and clouds
High: 55º Low: 41º
A complete weather forecast is
featured on page A2.
MAEGAN MURRAY PHOTO
Hermiston High School students Morgan Cash, right, and Megan Stone prepare a salad for the FCCLA club’s lunch Monday that was geared toward encourag-
ing students to eat a meal with their families.
FCCLA students
encouraging
families to eat
together
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FOR LOCAL
BREAKING NEWS
www.HermistonHerald.com
BY MAEGAN MURRAY
HERMISTON HERALD
On two tables in the large
Hermiston High School
commons area Monday,
a group of students neatly
arranged a table cloth and
place settings complete with
red cloth napkins. Soon after
the table was set, students set
out freshly prepared food, in-
cluding gourmet sandwiches,
two different types of salad
and freshly baked cookies.
The lunch was not in cel-
HEUDWLRQ RI D VSHFL¿F HYHQW
at least not in the traditional
sense. Instead, members of
the Family, Career and Com-
munity Leaders of America
Club sat down to enjoy a
meal together where no one
took out their phones to text
a friend or check their Twit-
ter pages. Instead, they talked
with one another and caught
up on each other’s days while
enjoying the home-cooked
offerings.
The purpose of the event,
Becky Alanis, senior and
FCCLA co-president, said,
was for members of FCCLA
to encourage other students
and their families to enjoy a
meal with one another with-
out the distractions of their
cell phones or any other tech-
nology. She said the national
FCCLA organization, for the
¿UVWWLPHWKLV\HDULVOHDGLQJD
national project encouraging
families to sit down and enjoy
a meal with one another.
“Lots of people nowa-
days don’t sit down and have
a meal together,” she said.
“Today is a chance to give
new members the chance to
go home and sit down to-
gether and have a balanced
meal with their families. It is
something we are trying to
promote with our families.”
Susie Cobb, career and
technical skills teacher and
FCCLA adviser, said sharing
meals not only help fami-
lies bond, it also encourages
communication that doesn’t
always occur nowadays.
“Many times, when fami-
lies sit down for a meal with-
out the television or the inter-
ruption or distraction of cell
SKRQHV WKH\ WDON DQG ¿QG
things out about each other,”
she said. “Many parents may
realize that they don’t know
their kids as well as they
thought they did.”
Cobb said many parents
may ask their children how
their day went or what they
learned in school that day, to
which they might get one- or
two-word responses.
“This potentially opens
the door to getting to know
your children,” she said.
According to the Family
Dinner Project, an initiative
to promote eating meals as
a family, recent studies link
regular family dinners with
many positive behaviors,
including lower rates of sub-
stance abuse, teen pregnancy
SEE FCCLA/A10
Council OKs charter ballot wording
on the May 19 ballot to revise the
city charter.
7KH ¿UVW ZRXOG FRQWDLQ XS-
dates to the entire charter to make
it more contemporary and legal-
ly valid, while also changing the
BY SEAN HART
mayor’s term from two years to
HERMISTON HERALD
four and requiring the elected mu-
Hermiston City Council mem- nicipal judge be a licensed attor-
EHUV ¿QDOL]HG WKH EDOORW ODQJXDJH ney. The second would change the
for the revised city charter but de- municipal judge from an elected
FLGHGQRWWRPDNHD¿QDOGHFLVLRQ position to one appointed by the
about animal control in the city.
City Council but would only take
At the council meeting Monday, HIIHFWLIWKH¿UVWDOVRSDVVHG
members approved resolutions to
Mayor Dave Drotzmann said
place two measures before voters the council spent many hours
Board also ponders
animal control solutions
Hermiston Herald $1.00
8
08805 93294
© 2014 EO Media Group
2
working to improve the document
and encouraged community mem-
bers to review it and vote in the
upcoming election.
While there was little discus-
sion about the charter, the majority
of the meeting concerned animal
control within the city.
In a response to complaints
from several residents at a previ-
ous meeting, City Manager By-
ron Smith presented a report that
concluded the Humane Society of
Eastern Oregon Pet Rescue met
all the requirements of its contract
with the city. He said the contract
to accept stray dogs from the city
and to be on call for 40 hours per
week to help apprehend animals
for about $30,000 per year men-
WLRQVQRVSHFL¿FVDERXWWKHHXWKD-
nasia rate, which was the primary
complaint, and the city could not
require Pet Rescue to make any
changes.
Smith said he would encourage
the shelter to utilize any available
programs to transfer dogs else-
where, such as the Oregon Humane
Society Second Chance Program,
SEE CHARTER/A10