WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2016
RV AND HOUSE DESTROYED IN SEPARATE FIRES
Dogs rescued from
home that provided
adult day care
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE McDOWELL
Umatilla County Fire District 1 put out an RV fire at Pioneer RV Park in Hermiston on Monday
afternoon.
you have the dogs?’”
The answer was no.
The family arrived at the
burning house, fearing the
worst about the beloved
family pets. But firefight-
ers emerged from the home
with the dogs in hand and
deposited them into the
arms of their overjoyed
owners.
“Everyone was crying,”
Poulin-Foster said.
She said they weren’t
sure what had caused the
fire, but it left the Hol-
combs with nothing but
the clothes they had been
wearing when they went to
the store. They are current-
ly living with Poulin-Fos-
ter and she said while they
have appreciated offers of
new furniture and house-
hold goods they won’t have
room to store the bigger
items for at least a few days
until they find a new place
to live.
Pauline-Foster said fam-
ily friend Roxann Fisk has
set up an online account
for monetary donations at
www.gofundme.com/rich-
ard-and-roxanne-needs-
our-help. If people have
clothing, household goods,
food or other items they are
interested in donating to the
family they can email rox-
iraccoon@gmail.com.
She said the whole fam-
ily is extremely grateful for
the support they have re-
ceived from family, friends
and community members
and want to show their
thanks for the fire and po-
lice departments, which
have been doing extra pa-
trols around the house to
make sure people don’t try
to trespass.
“The community out-
pouring has been phenom-
enal,” she said. “The police
and fire department were
amazing. They did every-
thing they could as fast as
they could.”
Umatilla County Fire
District 1 also responded
to a second structure fire
on Monday shortly before
1 p.m. at Pioneer RV Park,
1590 W. Highland Avenue
in Hermiston.
The RV was fully en-
gulfed when fire crews ar-
rived.
The owner, who was
staying at the park tempo-
rarily, was inside the RV at
the time of the fire but es-
caped uninjured before the
fire trucks arrived.
A cause has not been de-
termined.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at 541-564-4536.
Blazers visit Hermiston boy
By JADE McDOWELL
Staff Writer
Hermiston seventh grad-
er Tanner Gutcher got a
surprise visit from the Port-
land Trail Blazers last week
while he was hospitalized
at Doernbecher Children’s
Hospital in Portland.
Tanner, who has a ge-
netic disorder called An-
gelman syndrome, is in the
life skills program at Sand-
stone Middle School and
plays Challenger baseball.
His mom, Lacey McElroy,
said he was thrilled to meet
some real-life sports stars.
“Tanner was crazy, cra-
zy excited,” she said. “He
could not stop laughing.”
Angelman
syndrome
comes from a missing part
of the 15th chromosome
inherited from the moth-
er. The more of the chro-
mosome a person is miss-
ing, the more intense their
symptoms. McElroy said
Tanner’s case is more se-
vere and keeps him from
walking or talking and
causes seizures and other
health problems. He was
rushed to Doernbecher at 2
a.m. Nov. 28 for a digestive
complication.
The Mayo Clinic web-
site notes that “Frequent
smiles and outbursts of
laughter are common for
people with Angelman syn-
drome, and many have hap-
py, excitable personalities.”
Despite his many challeng-
es, McElroy said Tanner is
an “excessively happy” kid.
Still, being in the hospi-
tal is never fun, so the vis-
it from the Blazers was a
BRIEFCASE
Irrigon chamber
hosts farm, dairy
A representative from
Threemile Canyon Farms
and Columbia River
Dairy is the guest speaker
for the upcoming Irrigon
Chamber of Commerce
meeting.
The no-host luncheon
event starts with a meet-
and-greet Wednesday,
Dec. 14, at 11:45 a.m. at
Stokes Landing Senior
Center, 195 N.W. Opal
Place, Irrigon. The cost
is $8 for members or $10
for non-members.
For more information,
contact 541-922-3857
or irrigonchamber@
irrigonchamber.com.
Hermiston Herald
Two fires in two days
kept the Umatilla County
Fire District 1 busy at the
start of the week.
No one was injured in ei-
ther fire, and a pair of dogs
were rescued by firefight-
ers.
On Sunday afternoon,
fire crews responded to a
house fire in the 1300 block
of Southwest 16th Street
in Hermiston. The house
served as the home of Rox-
anne Poulin Holcomb and
Richard Holcomb but was
also the site of Sandy’s
Home, an adult day care
facility started in 2013 to
give short breaks to care-
givers of elderly or disabled
adults.
Debra Poulin-Foster,
who owned the house and
ran Sandy’s Home with
her daughter Roxanne,
said the building was a to-
tal loss.
“The whole roof is col-
lapsed in on the back end of
the house,” she said.
She said her daughter
and son-in-law were out
shopping when a neigh-
bor called 9-1-1 to report
the house was on fire and
then called her husband. He
called her, and she immedi-
ately called her daughter to
see if they had taken their
two Jack Russell terrier
mixes with them when they
went out.
“I didn’t have time to
be tactful, because I was
worried about the dogs,”
she said. “I called and said,
‘Your house is on fire; do
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
LOCAL NEWS
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO BY LACEY McELROY
Portland Trail Blazers Damian Lillard, left, and Shabazz Napier along with mascot Blaze visit
Tanner Gutcher of Hermiston in Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.
welcome distraction. Point
guards Damian Lillard and
Shabazz Napier visited
Tanner’s room first, along
with mascot Blaze. Later,
several other members of
the team and coaching staff
came in for a photo, and
Tanner got a Trail Blazers
hat and signed poster.
“They were great when
we asked for pictures and
everything,” McElroy said.
She said she and Tan-
ner turned on the television
and watched the Blazers
play the Indiana Pacers on
Wednesday.
“It’s cool to watch and
say, ‘Hey, we met them,’”
she said.
She said Tanner spent
most of the first two years
of his life at Doernbech-
er Children’s Hospital and
has made many visits since,
so she’s grateful that the
hospital provides not only
excellent care but also mo-
rale-boosting activities like
the Blazers visit.
“Doernbecher is abso-
lutely amazing,” she said.
“They have saved Tanner’s
life on more than one occa-
sion.”
Back home, she said the
Sandstone Middle School
staff has also been very
supportive in accommo-
dating Tanner’s frequent
absences due to hospital-
izations. Two other huge
supports, she said, are Tan-
ner’s grandmother Ginger
McElroy and his stepfather
Trevor Daughtery.
As of Thursday Tanner
was still in the hospital.
McElroy said she hoped
they would be given the
OK to go home soon. But in
the meantime, he still had
his Blazers hat and poster
to cheer him up.
“He likes sports a lot, so
having the guys come up
was an awesome experi-
ence,” she said.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
Retirement
gathering set for 2
A retirement reception
is planned for Morrow
County Judge Terry Tall-
man and Commissioner
Leann Rea.
The public is invited
to celebrate the contri-
butions of Tallman and
Rea to Morrow Coun-
ty. The event is Friday,
Dec. 16, from 2-4 p.m.
at the Bartholomew
Building, 110 N. Court
St., Heppner.
For more information,
contact
541-676-5613
or rlutcher@co.morrow.
or.us.
Sushi restaurant
open in Hermiston
A grand opening and
ribbon-cutting ceremony
was held Monday at Kobe
Hibachi Sush.
The celebration hosted
by the Hermiston Cham-
ber of Commerce was
held at the new restau-
rant, 1055 S. Highway
395 Suite 100, at the Cor-
nerstone Plaza Hermis-
ton.
The eatery had a soft
opening the week of
Thanksgiving. Its open-
ing follows a trend of
new Japanese restaurants
in Umatilla County, with
two recently opened in
Pendleton and another
sushi place on the way in
Hermiston.
In addition to sushi,
the restaurant also sells
steaks, seafood, rice and
noodles. It is open 11
a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday
through Thursday, 11 a.m.
to 10 p.m. Friday through
Saturday and noon to 9
p.m. on Sundays. They
can be contacted at 541-
567-6178.
Stardust takes home
hip-hop championship
By JADE McDOWELL
Staff Writer
Hermiston
High
School’s dance team
Stardust came out on top
in the hip-hop category
during a statewide com-
petition this weekend.
Ashley Seibel, who
coaches the team along
with Laura Sanchez and
Jake Royer, said the team
had 16 girls and two boys
competing in hip-hop,
with another four stu-
dents who only perform
in the team’s jazz num-
bers.
“I’ve been coaching
eight years and this is the
largest team I’ve coached
to date,” she said.
The category cham-
pionships hosted by the
Dance and Drill Coaches
Association at Greshman
High School on Saturday
were invite-only based on
scores at prequalifying
competitions.
On Saturday the team
danced to a medley of
hip-hop songs by Be-
yonce, Drake, Missy El-
liot and Lil Jon.
“It’s slow and sultry
at the beginning and in-
your-face crazy at the
end,” Seibel said of the
routine.
The routine was cho-
reographed by senior
Alex Anteau, who had
impressed Seibel with her
choreography work as an
intern at the dance studio
Dance Unlimited.
“She did really well so
I said to her, ‘You’re real-
ly good at this, let’s give
it a try and see what you
can do,’” Seibel said.
She
said
Anteau
proved her talent is “im-
measurable” and she will
“continue to have a home
with our coaching staff,
long after she graduates
this year.”
Anteau said she loves
choreography and dance,
and hopes to someday
have a job that allows her
to do both. She practiced
that as both a dancer in
Saturday’s routine and its
choreographer.
“At practice I would
be dancing with them,
and then step out and see
how it was going,” she
said. “It gets kind of com-
plicated.”
Anteau said she wish-
es more people under-
stood how much hard
work dancing takes and
how dedicated the mem-
bers of Stardust are.
In addition to singing
Anteau’s praises, Seibel
also said she was proud
of the rest of the team.
“They are projection
powerhouses,” she said.
“They just know how to
make you believe them.
They know how to sell
it.”
The first-place prize
was an improvement over
2015, when the team took
third place at the same
competition. Now that the
fall dance season is over
the team will start working
on a jazz routine to per-
form at the OSAA champi-
onships in the spring.
———
Contact Jade McDow-
ell at 541-564-4536.
Investigation leads to arrest, recovery of stolen property
Thousands of dollars’
worth of stolen equipment
was recovered by the Uma-
tilla County Sheriff’s Of-
fice this week.
Clyde Beldon Baker, 36,
was arrested and charged
with multiple felonies in con-
nection to the investigation.
According to a news
release by the sheriff’s of-
fice, on Nov. 29 a Hermis-
ton resident reported they
were missing an increasing
number of items from their
farm and suspected Baker,
a relative who was acting as
a caretaker of the property
and had moved to the area
around the time of the thefts.
Detectives Erik Palmer
and Kacey Ward contacted
Baker, a convicted felon,
and found him in posses-
sion of suspected metham-
phetamine and a collection
of property reported stolen.
The property included a
horse trailer, industrial gen-
erator, air compressor, con-
struction equipment, tools,
horse tack, firearms and
ammunition. Among the
stolen tools was a concrete
saw belonging to Knerr
Construction that the com-
pany reported went missing
from either the Eastern Or-
egon Trade and Event Cen-
ter or a construction site in
Walla Walla.
The sheriff’s office stated
that Baker admitted he was
taking property from his rel-
ative’s farm and other loca-
tions in Umatilla County and
Walla Walla County, then
selling or pawning the items.
Baker was lodged in the
Umatilla County Jail and
faces charges for several
counts of first-degree theft,
felon in possession of a fire-
arm, unauthorized use of a
vehicle, unlawful posses-
sion of methamphetamine
and supplying contraband.
Palmer and Ward are
continuing to investigate in
cooperation with the Wal-
la Walla Sheriff’s Office
and other law enforcement
agencies and expect more
charges to be added.
Advanced
Orthopedic
& Sports Medicine Institute
620 NW 11th St., Ste. 201, Hermiston • 541-289-7075
www.hermistonortho.com