DISCOVER EASTERN OREGON
2018 RECREATION &
VISITOR’S GUIDE INSIDE
DISCOVER
EASTERN
OREGON
175th
Anniversary of the
OREGON TRAIL
2018 RECREATION
& VISITOR’S GUI
DE
EastOregonian.com
A sign marking the
Oregon Trail stands on
the side of Highway
207 west of Echo.
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
HermistonHerald.com
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2018
$1.00
INSIDE
THE DOCTOR IS OUT
SECOND CHANCE
Drug court could be
returning to Umatilla
County
PAGE A3
IN MEMORY
Stanfield coach who died
in crash remembered for
inspiring teens
PAGE A6
GUN DEBATE
Sen. Ron Wyden talks
gun control with
students at Umatilla
town hall
PAGE A9
BY THE WAY
Increased parking
coming to downtown
The city of Hermiston
has started work on a new
parking lot downtown that
should net about 40 new
spaces for the downtown
district. The new parking
lot will stretch behind the
Hermiston Public Library
and across Ridgeway Ave-
nue to the Sunset Ele-
mentary tennis courts and
brand new Harkenrider
Center, which is wrapping
up construction. The park-
ing project, which will be
finished this summer, has
resulted in the temporary
loss of parking behind the
library.
On the bright side,
cones re-routing traf-
fic past the construction
zone for the festival street
in front of city hall were
removed this week, free-
ing up some parking in
front of the library that has
been blocked off in recent
months.
• • •
Hundreds of people
walked through the streets
of Hermiston and up to
the top of the Hermiston
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Dr. Joseph Gifford will retire this month after 44 years practicing medicine in Eastern Oregon as a family practitioner.
Gifford chose medical career after serendipitous encounter
By KATHY ANEY
STAFF WRITER
I
f not for a hitchhiking trip to Northeast
Oregon at age 17, Joseph Gifford might
never have become a doctor.
The
Beaverton-area
teenager
thumbed his way to Umatilla, then called
a friend in Hermiston from a phone booth.
The friend wasn’t home, but his father, Dr.
Wendell Ford, fetched Gifford, brought
him to Hermiston and cooked him dinner.
Partway through the meal, the doc-
tor got a phone call and learned a patient
needed an emergency appendectomy at
the hospital. The teenager tagged along,
scrubbed up and helped with the surgery.
“He had me hold the retractor,” Gifford
said.
“He had me hold the
retractor. I felt about
six inches off the
ground. I thought,
‘This is what I must
do.’ I was hooked.”
Dr. Joseph Gifford
Getting this up-close view of surgery,
Gifford, now 70, recalled a huge rush of
realization.
“I felt about six inches off the ground,”
he said. “I thought, ‘This is what I must
do.’ I was hooked.”
Fast forward more than 50 years and
Gifford will retire this month after 44
years of medicine in Eastern Oregon as a
family practitioner. Across the street from
Good Shepherd Medical Center in Herm-
iston, an urgent care clinic bears his name.
To be accepted into medical school,
Gifford said he transformed from a medi-
ocre student to an excellent one. He grad-
uated from Walla Walla University with
a degree in chemistry and entered Loma
See GIFFORD, A16
See BTW, A9
Junior wrestlers headed for Reno Worlds Championships
By ALEXIS MANSANAREZ
STAFF WRITER
STAFF PHOTO BY ALEXIS MANSANAREZ
Members of the Hermiston Wrestling youth team pose with their medals and
trophies from the 2017-18 season.
When people outside of East-
ern Oregon think Hermiston,
they often think watermelons.
After all, the fruit that will soon
be in season adorns signage and
water towers greeting passerby
and residents alike.
But there is another crop
Hermiston is known for —
something far more fierce but
also something that takes the
same amount of care and atten-
tion. The city produces crops of
grade-A wrestlers.
Producing the wrestlers that
have helped Hermiston High
School to 10 state champion-
ships starts with a strong feeder
program. That youth program,
known as Hermiston Wres-
tling, has reached the final three
months of its nine-month sea-
son and will be traveling to
Reno at the end of the week
for the 2018 Flo Reno Worlds
Championships.
Former youth wrestler, Herm-
iston and Oregon State alumnus
and now coach Kyle Larson is
taking one of his biggest groups
ever.
“Last year, we might have
taken the same amount, but we
had quite a few high school kids
and a few junior high kids that
were going with us, but for ele-
mentary, absolutely this is the
most we’ve taken for that age
group,” he said after one hour
See RENO, A16