HermistonHerald.com
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INSIDE
FAIR RESULTS
Check out the full list of
winners from the Umatilla
County Fair.
PAGE A6, 7, 16
WANTED: NEW RIVALS
Hermiston High School
will be seen as the
rookies this upcoming
athletic year
SMOKE OUT
Fires in Canada, Oregon
and Washington create
hazardous air in Umatilla
County
PAGE A3
By BRETT KANE
STAFF WRITER
CELEBRATION
Two-time Latin Grammy
winner Michael Salgado to
perform in Hermiston on
Sept. 16.
PAGE A10
BY THE WAY
Harkenrider center
to open Sept. 8
Hermiston’s new senior
center, known as the Har-
kenrider Center, will cel-
ebrate its grand opening
on Saturday, Sept. 8.
The event will run from
11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Herm-
iston’s new festival street
on the corner of Southeast
Second Street and Gladys
Avenue, with a special
dedication ceremony at 1
p.m.
Hermiston
Parks
and Recreation direc-
tor Larry Fetter said
the finishing touches of
landscaping, parking lot
paint and other details are
being wrapped up now.
He said the seniors are
equipping the new build-
ing with a “spectacu-
lar” kitchen using over
$100,000 in funds they
raised for equipment, and
the new center will help
them “take it up a notch”
when it comes to activities
offered to local seniors.
The event on Sept. 8
will include free cook-
ies, and tickets for a bar-
becue are available at the
See BTW, Page A16
HH FILE PHOTO
Hermiston football players run through their new bulldog tunnel on the way to the field last year for a non-
conference game against Lewiston.
This year is Hermiston’s first
as a member of the Washington
Interscholastic Activities Asso-
ciation (WIAA) after leaving
the OSAA earlier this summer.
With that comes a major cultural
overhaul within the local athlet-
ics community. Their longstand-
ing rivalry with Pendleton High
School will be no more. In fact,
Hermiston isn’t set to face any
Oregon schools at all during their
upcoming season.
The Bulldogs will open their
football season on Friday, Aug. 31
against Pasco, which shares the
same mascot, marking their first-
ever WIAA event. Still, poten-
tial new rivals are still under
consideration.
“Rivalries are born from com-
petition,” said Hermiston athletics
director Larry Usher. “It’ll take a
few years to decide. We’re now in
the Mid-Columbia Conference —
the most competitive conference
in the state of Washington. The
coaches and kids are well aware
that things just got real tough.”
Usher says that Richland and
Chiawana are shaping up to be
their fiercest competitors. Last
year alone, the Richland Bomb-
ers took home the state champion-
ship in football and baseball, and
the Pasco Bulldogs took home the
title in boys’ soccer. Chiawana
is the newest high school in the
Tri-Cities, opening its doors in
Kennewick in 2009, but they’ve
already claimed state titles in
football in 2014 and girls’ bowl-
ing in 2016.
The schools that populate the
Mid-Columbia Conference also
dwarf the schools that Hermiston
used to face in population. While
Pendleton has a student body of
891, Kennewick, the smallest in
the conference, practically dou-
bles that with 1,600. Chiawana is
the largest with 2,543 students as
of 2017.
It isn’t just Hermiston’s com-
See CONFERENCE, Page A11
Lamb auction raises $23,200 for 4-H girl with brain tumor
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
Henry the lamb might just be the most
expensive lamb in history.
After Maddy Thomas, an 11-year-old 4-H
student from Echo, showed him at the Uma-
tilla County Fair his sale brought in $23,200
— totaling about $162 per pound at an auc-
tion where lambs were averaging $7 per
pound.
The auction marked the one-year anniver-
sary of Maddy’s diagnosis of a brain tumor,
and the money will go to help her family cover
continuing expenses related to her treatment.
Her mother Jenny Thomas said she doesn’t
have words to describe how grateful she is
for the “unbelievable” show of support.
“Anyone who has had a sick child knows
the kind of bills that come, and I’ve had to
miss a lot of work,” she said.
The lamb didn’t start out as a fundraiser
idea. Maddy just wanted to participate in a
“normal” activity after finally finding a can-
cer treatment that was working and regain-
ing some of her strength. She got Henry in
May and began walking him, feeding him
and grooming him.
“I liked him because he liked to head butt
me and he was always playful,” Maddy said.
“I liked walking him around the house.”
Jenny said the exercise was so good for
Maddy — using muscles she hadn’t used in
months and giving her incentive to stay out-
doors — that doctors told her she could drop
her occupational and physical therapy. She
lost some of the weight that steroids in her
treatment had caused her to gain, and color
returned to her cheeks.
“He gave her a purpose,” Jenny said.
When fair time came, Maddy brought her
lamb to the barns with the other youth and
See AUCTION, Page A16
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY JENNY THOMAS
Maddy Thomas, 11, sits with her market lamb Henry
during the Umatilla County Fair.