HERMISTON’S LAST OSAA RUN ENDED IN SOFTBALL QUARTERFINALS » PAGE A10
WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2018
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HermistonHerald.com
INSIDE
FRESH START
Hermiston’s farmers
market opens with
a new location, new
management and new
night.
PAGE A3
TURNING THE
TASSEL ON TIME
Hermiston senior will graduate
from same high school 100 years
after great-great-grandmother
IN MEMORIAM
Hermiston residents
celebrate Memorial Day
with cemetery service,
private memorials.
PAGE A4, A15
By TAMMY MALGESINI
COMMUNITY EDITOR
A
lthough she never met her great-great-
grandmother, Emily Marvin of the Herm-
iston High School class of 2018 feels a
kindred spirit with Gladys West Graham.
“I bet we would be best friends,” Emily said.
The HHS senior is set to turn the tassel along with
approximately 350 classmates — 100 years after
her great-great-grandmother received her diploma
along with nine fellow graduates from the Hermis-
ton Standard High School class of 1918. Coinciden-
tally, Gladys received her diploma Thursday, May
16, 1918, and Emily will receive hers Thursday,
June 7, 2018 — the first time in many decades that
Hermiston’s graduation is being held on a Thursday.
When Emily’s grandfather, Lee Geissel, moved
to Umatilla in the early-1980s, he was visiting his
mother, Betty Geissel, in Milton-Freewater. Lee
recalls she brought out Gladys’ diploma and said
he should have it since it represented history of the
Hermiston area.
“It sat on the top shelf of my closet for years,”
Lee said.
The 14-inch-by-17-inch document had been
rolled up into a scroll. After flattening it out and hav-
ing it professionally preserved, Lee started to look at
it more often and realized the connections it repre-
sented between his grandmother and granddaughter.
SIGNING DAY
All Umatilla students
going on to higher
education were
recognized in a
schoolwide signing
ceremony.
PAGE A6
BY THE WAY
Ranch & Home not
on council agenda
The Hermiston city
council met after the Her-
ald’s deadline on Tuesday
night to discuss a re-zone
of land off Diagonal Road
and changes to an ordi-
nance about garage sales,
but one thing that was
not on the agenda was an
extension of an incentive
agreement with Ranch &
Home. The city initially
had promised to reimburse
certain development costs
if the store, being built
on South Highway 395,
gained its occupancy per-
mit by January 1. After the
store was not able to open
by the start of the year, that
promised reimbursement
of $105,675 was extended
to June 1.
Ranch & Home has not
responded to calls from
the Hermiston Herald
about the store’s opening
date but it appears it will
not open by Friday. Even
if the city council doesn’t
amend the agreement with
Ranch & Home, it can still
recoup some of its costs —
the agreement decreases
the incentive by 10 per-
cent per month, meaning
a certificate of occupancy
by July 1 would represent
a $95,105 reimbursement.
A century of similarities
STAFF PHOTOS BY KATHY ANEY
Emily Marvin stands underneath an old archway that was once part of
Union High School which preceded Hermiston High School. Her great-
great grandmother Gladys West Graham graduated from the school 100
years ago, when the school was in a different building (below) located at
East Ridgeway Avenue and Second Street.
In addition to graduating a century apart from the
same school, both were born in June — Gladys in
1900 and Emily in 2000. And the similarities don’t
stop there. Both participated in theater productions
while in school, like to read and have a common
connection with peaches.
See 100, A16
See BTW Page A16
Communities help overcome ‘opportunity gap’
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
If getting to the middle class was a
track event, some children were born
on the finish line and some have a
full 300-meter hurdle race ahead of
them.
In 23 of Oregon’s 36 counties
— including Umatilla and Morrow
— children born to the lowest 40
percent of income-earners have a
less than 50 percent chance of ever
reaching the middle class or above
as adults, according to a report by
the Oregon Community Founda-
tion. Meanwhile children born into
the middle class and above — helped
by parents’ social connections, SAT
tutors, extracurricular activities and
more — are likely to stay there.
It’s known as the “opportunity
gap,” and closing it for local children
is a challenge that consumes schools,
government agencies and charities in
every town.
“This work can’t be done in
silos,” Catie Brenaman, family edu-
cation and support director for Uma-
tilla-Morrow County Head Start
said. “This is not a one-agency job.”
The OCF report, titled “Toward
a thriving future: Closing the oppor-
tunity gap for Oregon’s kids,” sug-
gests a wide variety of solutions are
needed to improve upward mobility
for children born on the wrong side
of the gap. Those suggestions include
providing programs to encourage
post-secondary education, strength-
ening families through parent edu-
cation and helping children build
See GAP, A16
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Student ambassadors Gema Juarez, center left, and Gina Olsen, center,
have a question and answer session with a group of Hermiston High
School students during a tour Tuesday at BMCC’s Hermiston campus.