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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2018)
2018 SPRING SPORTS GUIDE | EVERY AREA TEAM COVERED. CHECK IT OUT. » INSIDE THIS EDITION Wednesday, March 21, 2018 E AST O REGONIAN East Oregoni an Spring WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2018 HermistonHerald.com Page 1C Sports 2 018 $1.00 INSIDE PARTY TIME WALKOUT Hermiston High School students and one fifth grader leave class to protest gun violence. PAGE A6 FIRST STEPS THE Find out which artist from The Voice is visiting Pendleton this summer. PAGE A3 HOMELESS HIKE Point in time count of homeless increased ten- fold in Umatilla County. PAGE A12 BY THE WAY Wyden to visit Eastern Oregon next month U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden will make a six-county tour of Eastern Oregon in April, including town halls in Umatilla and Boardman. According to a news release, Wyden will be at Umatilla High School at 9:30 a.m. on April 3. The following day, Wyden will visit Riverside Senior/ Junior High School in Boardman at 9:15 a.m. Since he was elected senator in 1996, Wyden has held town halls in all 36 Oregon counties every year. When he finishes this tour, he will have appeared at 887 town halls. “Throwing open the doors of government for town halls where anybody can come to ask any ques- tion is a huge part of what I call the ‘Oregon Way,’” he said in a statement. “Participatory democracy is alive and well in our state, and I look forward very much to hearing from Eastern Oregon at these town halls.” • • • This week is National Ag Week, so if you get a chance, thank a farmer or someone who contributes to our region’s agricultural industry. STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL. Charles Clupny shows off the gear he plans to take with him on a 1,000 mile trek along the Camino de Santiago. Local advocate Charles Clupny plans 1,000-mile Camino de Santiago hike for CASA By JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITER W hen pop stars and poets write of walking a thousand miles for someone, they prob- ably don’t mean it literally. Charles Clupny does. Clupny, a longtime Hermiston vol- unteer for Court-Appointed Special Advocates, plans to walk 1,000 miles through Europe to raise money for CASA this spring. Clupny will take three months hiking the Camino de Santiago through the mountains and valleys of Spain and France, exploring various historical towns and buildings along the way. “I’ve been planning this for five years,” he said. Clupny has already done 500 miles of the trek with his fam- ily when his wife Carol Clupny walked it to raise awareness of Parkinson’s disease, which she has. He said he knew then that someday he would want to do the whole thing by himself and take his time at the stops along the way. The Camino de Santiago — also known as the Way of St. James in English — has roots as a Christian pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. Its network of trails through western Europe is often symbolized by a scallop shell. Clupny said along the Camino are hostels and houses open to travelers at a low price and restaurants often have a dis- counted “pilgrim’s menu.” He plans to spend 60 to 65 euros a day (about $75 to $80 U.S. dollars) during his pilgrimage. “They’ll have four to five items (on the pilgrim’s menu) that are a three-course meal, so I’m not going to starve,” he said. He plans to travel light, with about 28 pounds of essentials in a lightweight pack, a pair of walking sticks, jacket, boots, hat and the clothes on his back. Carol, who has walked por- tions of the Camino de Santiago three times, will do 200 miles with him before splitting off to see friends. “Then I’ll have my 1,000 miles, just not all at once,” she said. She said the Camino has a “draw to it” that is hard to explain to people who have never experienced it. “I don’t know what it is,” she said. See HIKE, A18 See BTW, A18 Cinco de Mayo celebration moving to EOTEC By JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITER For the third time in six years, Hermiston’s Cinco de Mayo cele- bration is moving to a new venue because it outgrew its previous one. A free community Cinco de Mayo celebration will be held at the East- ern Oregon Trade and Event Center, 1705 East Airport Road, on May 5-6. The two-day event will include live entertainment, food vendors, a beer garden, carnival, family activi- ties and will correspond with a bull- fighting competition in the rodeo arena. “Every year it’s been growing and growing,” said Hermiston Cinco de Mayo board president Moises Lopez. A discarded idea by Umatilla County in December to create a hotel assessment to fund more tourism highlighted struggles in Hermiston to create events that attract the kinds of crowds that Pendleton sees multiple times per year. Cinco de Mayo stands out as a modest exception — Herm- iston parks and recreation director Larry Fetter estimated 8,000 people showed up to the two-day celebra- tion held at Butte Park last year, just smaller than the city’s Fourth of July celebration. In 2016 an estimated 5,000 peo- ple showed to a one-day Cinco de Mayo celebration downtown, which had become the new home of Cinco de Mayo after the event outgrew its 2012 home at McKenzie Park. See CINCO DE MAYO, Page A18 STAFF PHOTO BY TAMMY MALGESINI Sergio Barreto of Umatilla takes his horse through the paces during the dancing horse competition at the 2017 Hermiston Cinco de Mayo celebration at Butte Park.