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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 30, 2015)
Hermiston Herald WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2015 HermistonHerald.com TOP SPORTS STORIES OF 2015 Page 9 $1.00 Power lines could be headed south Swim team dives into talent show Page 6 Business page 4 STORIES OF THE YEAR FOR 2015 STAFF PHOTO BY EJ HARRIS ABOUT TOWN Drop off Christmas trees for recycling next to Butte Park The Hermiston Parks Department is accepting Christmas trees to be re- cycled. Christmas trees can be dropped off at the lot ad- jacent to Butte Park, on Northwest Seventh Street near West Elm Avenue. Trees can be dropped of at the location through Jan. 29. Morrow County Schools to conduct superintendent evaluation The Morrow County School District Board of Directors has called a special meeting for Monday, Jan. 11 at Sam Boardman Elementary School to evaluate Super- intendent Dirk Dirksen. The meeting will be- gin at 5 p.m. For more information, call the dis- trict at 541-676-9128. FILE PHOTO PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY MARK MORGAN CONTRIBUTED PHOTO W ith 2015 drawing to a close, we offer this look back at some of what the Hermiston Herald staff considers some of the big stories of the year. EOTEC The decade-long dream of a new home for the Umatilla County Fair is close to com- ing to fruition. Vertical construction started this fall for Top Left: The main building for the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center is currently under construction but expected to available for event use in the spring Top right: Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center Authority Board members Chet Prior, left, and Ed Brookshier inspect the À rst construction contract for the EOTEC site before approving it. Prior died in February and was succeeded by Brookshier as board chairman. Left: Joe Burns and his wife Arelene Burns. Above: Hermiston Mayor Drotzmann, former Hermiston Mayor Harkenrider, former Portland Mayor Bud Clark, Portland Mayor Charlie Hales. the building that will be the centerpiece for the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center. It did not come quite soon enough for the fair and Farm-City Pro Rodeo to make the move to the new grounds in 2016. That will take another year. But, the new facility will begin hosting some event this year. As 2015 comes to a close, efforts are still underway to ¿ ll in the ¿ nal big pieces of the ¿ nancing pu]]le for the project. The city of Hermiston and Umatilla Coun- ty, combined with efforts to secure state fund- ing and the sale of the existing fairgrounds to Hermiston School District have provided the bulk of the money for the project. Lo- cal donors are still being sought to step up to contribute about $2 million more dollars to build a livestock barn, permanent seating for the rodeo arena, pens panels and stalls for the arena and water and electric hookups for exhibitors in the extended stay part of the grounds. See THE year, A16 A look back: Most read stories online in 2015 News of crime and tragedy drew the most attention on the website FILE PHOTO Hermiston High School senior Stefano Peiris enjoys a Slurpee by the machine at his parents’ 7-Eleven franchise in Hermiston He posted his senior pictures taken at the store by 60 Minute Photo owner Tammy James online and became a Twitter celebrity. In the years before websites, the front page of the paper was where you would often ¿ nd the biggest or most important stories, at least those most important in the minds of editors. Sometimes editors would put some- thing lighter on the front page, for variety sake, to offer up a mix of something soft- er or sweeter to go with the salty, serious fare. But we never knew which stories were the most read. Today, at least with stories on our web- site, we can easily see which stories were See 2015, A3 STAFF PHOTO BY KATHY ANEY The Hermiston High School Á ute section marches with their bandmates during a home football game. The band will perform Wednesday at Kennison Field as a send-off for their trip to the Holiday Bowl. HHS marching band performs at Holiday Bowl Band to perform at Kennison Field before leaving for San Diego The Hermiston High School marching band will march today in the parade and halftime at the National University Holi- day Bowl as the Univer- sity of California Trojans take on the Wisconsin Badgers. The event is the ¿ rst time since 1994 that a Hermiston High School marching band has taken a trip of this magnitude. Those traveling to San Diego include 92 band members, six district staff and 11 chaperones. The Holiday Bowl Parade is American’s largest balloon parade. It includes more than 100,000 spectators along the parade route. It will be broadcast live today at 10 a.m. in San Diego on Cox Channel 4. The na- tional broadcast is Sun- day, Jan. 3 at 8 a.m. on UniversalHD. The Holiday Bowl game is tonight 7:30 p.m. It will be televised on ESPN.