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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 14, 2018)
ALL-STAR GAME GIVES A FIRST LOOK AT HERMISTON’S FUTURE COMPETITION, PAGE A9 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2018 HermistonHerald.com $1.00 INSIDE IT’S OFFICIAL Hermiston takes full control of EOTEC, signs onto new joint project with county. PAGE A3 GREEN DAY Celebrations in Heppner and Pendleton offer St. Patrick’s Day fun PAGE A4 NEW APPROACH Hermiston police will respond to all school fire alarms in light of recent shootings. PAGE A6 BY THE WAY Skid Row ready to rock in August The heavy metal band Skid Row will perform at the 2018 Umatilla County Fair. While they were still in negotiations with the band during the Jan. 27 fair appreciation dinner, fair board member Lucas Wag- ner teased the crowd with- out revealing the Thursday, Aug. 9 performers. “It should be a crowd pleaser if you’re into late- ’80s, early-’90s hair metal bands,” he said. The line-up also includes country music group Saw- yer Brown (Aug. 7), a country double-shot with Brewer’s Grade Band of The Dalles (with frontman Zac Grooms of Hermis- ton) opening for singer/ songwriter Ned LeDoux (Aug. 8); Latino Night will feature still unnamed performers (Aug. 10); and rock band Blues Traveler will take the stage on the final night of the fair (Aug. 11). Reserved and pre- mium seating for the Main Stage shows will go on sale Wednesday, April 4. Watch for further details in the March 28 edition of the Hermiston Herald. • • • If your musical tastes are more classical, the prepara- tory orchestra of the Inland Northwest Musicians is tuning up for a pair of free concerts. MORE THAN WORDS STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS Hermiston senior and student leadership president Dante Rome dances to music while greeting eighth- graders from Sandstone Middle School Friday as part of the eighth-grade fly up day at Hermiston High School. Signs point to effort of Hermiston High students to support one another By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN STAFF WRITER “ Y ou are amazing,” the sign read. “You got it, dude!” read another. The barrage of positive mes- sages greeted drivers who passed by the intersection of Highway 395 and Highland Avenue on Sunday evening, cheered on by a crowd of Hermiston High School students smiling and waving. The simple pick-me-up was orches- trated by student leadership, who started the We Care Project to let students and community mem- bers know they are supported and can ask for help. “I think we’ve got a lot of things going on inside the school going well, that we are hop- ing make a difference, and so this one is more for the commu- nity,” senior Reed Middleton said. “We’re just all here hoping to make someone happier.” Indeed, many people going through the intersection did respond with smiles, waves and honks. “Have a nice day!” junior Isel Tejeda Urenda yelled to a woman in a white car who had her win- dow down. “You too!” the woman responded, waving as she waited for the light to turn green. Leadership adviser David Rohrman said the project wasn’t in response to “any one inci- dent” but it did follow some stu- dent deaths that have occurred in recent years. “After what’s gone on with the losses we’ve experienced in the last few years through vari- ous forms of violence — we’re reaching out, just with a simple, See WORDS, A14 STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL Hermiston High School junior Isel Tejeda Urenda, left, with foreign exchange student Ellen Jakobsen and student leadership president Dante Rome hold up positive signs to passing traffic on the corner of Highway 395 and Highland Avenue on Sunday as part of the high school’s “We Care Project.” “After what’s gone on with the losses we’ve experienced in the last few years through various forms of violence — we’re reaching out, just with a simple, straightforward message.” See BTW, A14 Leadership adviser David Rohrman Seniors wait for Harkenrider Center to open in August By JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITER The Harkenrider Center building is almost complete, but Hermiston seniors will have to wait until August or September before they can move in. Commercial kitchen equipment and other furnishings will be installed once the building is finished in April, and city manager Byron Smith said the city can’t work on creating the extensive parking area planned for the center until the construction site around the building is cleaned up. “We need to do parking improve- ments, and we need to get the con- struction guys out of the way before we can do that,” he said at the start of a tour given to the city council Mon- day night. Before the tour Willard Ford- ice, the director for the senior cen- ter, told the Hermiston Herald that the seniors had been hoping to start having meals at the center during the spring or summer after moving all of their equipment and furniture in, but once the decision was made to wait to do the parking lot until the build- ing was done, the opening date was moved back for safety reasons. “We can’t bring seniors across the muddy parking lot,” he said. When complete, the single-level parking lot with a bus drop-off and extra handicapped spaces will stretch through what is currently Ridgeway Avenue and the crumbling upper See SENIORS, Page A14 STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS Hermiston Senior Center director Willard Fordice talks about the new facilities during a tour of the Harkenrider Center by the Hermiston City Council on Monday in Hermiston.