ALL-STAR GAME GIVES A FIRST LOOK AT HERMISTON’S FUTURE COMPETITION, PAGE A9
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2018
HermistonHerald.com
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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.