A8 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018
LOCAL
Retirement doesn’t slow Hardin down
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
When Hermiston city
councilor Rod Hardin says
he’s busier now that he is
retired, that’s no joke.
On Sunday, Hardin and
his wife Sheila attended an
open house in celebration
of their retirement from
Hermiston Christian Center
& School after 38 years of
service. Finding time to sit
down for an interview, how-
ever, was not easy. Hardin
was performing a wedding,
counseling with a former
student planning marriage,
attending a funeral, prepar-
ing for a city council work
session, hosting visiting
family and spending week-
days mowing 1,200 acres of
wheat stubble for a friend
who needed help. He has
also signed up to substitute
teach in a few local school
districts.
While Hardin retired this
summer from being prin-
cipal and teacher at Herm-
iston Christian School, he
has not retired from the city
council, where he is cur-
rently the council’s lon-
gest-serving member. He
was elected in 1992 after
deciding the private school
needed to be more involved
in the community at large.
“That’s one of the rea-
sons I ran for city coun-
cil,” he said. “I wanted to
rub shoulders with more
people.”
Beyond sitting in coun-
cil meetings every other
Monday, Hardin has thrown
himself into various city
committees and organiza-
tions, such as the League of
Oregon Cities. The Faith-
Based Advisory Commit-
tee in particular was a nat-
ural fit for Hardin, a pastor.
He has helped guide the
committee through cre-
ation of programs like Fam-
ily Promise, which matches
struggling families with
local mentors. He even
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Hermiston city councilor Rod Hardin listens to Hermiston Public Library director Mark Rose
during a Hermiston City Council work session Monday in Hermiston.
helps out with city commit-
tees he is not assigned to
— his bus-driving qualifi-
cations are in high demand
when a committee needs to
take a tour.
One of the aspects of his
position he prizes most is
the opportunity to network
with mayors and city coun-
cilors around the country.
He plans his whole summer
around the annual meeting
of the steering committee
for the national Small Cit-
ies Council, of which Har-
din is a past chairman.
“It’s become just like
a family,” he said. “It’s
become a great network, a
great resource. When I run
into a problem here I have
all of these contacts all over
the country that I can call
and say, ‘Hey, have you
dealt with this?’”
Many of the mayors and
councilors on the Small
Cities Council, particularly
those that also meet once a
year as a steering commit-
tee for the council, have
become good friends Har-
din sees year after year. The
same goes for the League of
Oregon Cities, where Har-
din is also an active partic-
ipant. This year, when he
was with the steering com-
mittee in Minnesota, he got
a “pleasant surprise” when
he saw a Hermiston shirt
and realized it was a past
president of the League of
Oregon Cities, who had
gotten the shirt from Har-
din when he hosted an LOC
event in Hermiston in 2009.
Hardin always comes
back from these conven-
tions and meetings with
a report for the rest of the
council about problems and
innovative solutions he has
seen in other cities around
the country.
“I like the mobile tours,”
he said. “You get to talk to
people and not just listen to
a presentation.”
During the Septem-
ber League of Oregon Cit-
ies conference, Hardin
said he was impressed to
see Eugene’s “community
court” program in action.
Eugene, like every city
in Oregon, has struggled
with homelessness issues,
including helping police
handle homeless citizens,
who are sometimes men-
tally ill, causing a nuisance.
Hardin said if someone is
cited for a low-level crime,
such as public intoxication
in downtown Eugene, they
can go through a diver-
sion program where they sit
down with a judge to talk
about the root of the prob-
lem that led to their behav-
ior. Instead of paying a fine,
they might be asked to per-
form community service
and be connected to local
resources or offered another
solution to their problem.
For example, Hardin
said, in one case a homeless
man needed identification
to access certain resources
or get a job, but he had dif-
ficulty waiting a long time
at the DMV and kept leav-
ing. So the judge got some-
one to help him fill out the
paperwork ahead of time
and had an officer escort
him to the DMV, where he
was allowed to jump to the
head of the line.
School retirement
Hardin said his experi-
ences in education over the
Kiosk will allow parents to buy groceries and
check their children’s grades in one stop
Booth at Walmart
can also access
local students’
attendance records
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
The Hermiston School
District is trying to make it
easier for parents to keep
tabs on their students’
progress.
The district has installed
a kiosk at the Hermiston
Walmart, at 1350 N. First
St., which has a computer
where parents can check
their child’s grades, atten-
dance record, and home-
work assignments.
The district office, at
305 S.W. 11th St., also has
a kiosk on which parents
can find the same infor-
mation about their school
children.
Jeff Kelso, the dis-
trict’s information technol-
ogy director, said it’s a lit-
tle early to tell how much
use the Walmart kiosk is get-
ting. He said many parents
have begun using the district
office station.
“We’re kind of eye-
balling demand,” he said.
“Based on observations, we
may expand the program or
keep it as is.”
Kelso said Superinten-
dent Tricia Mooney pitched
the idea, because she wanted
to offer more ways for par-
ents who don’t have regu-
lar internet access to engage
with the district.
In an email to the Herm-
iston Herald, Mooney said
the district was looking for
a different way to reach par-
ents who may have commu-
nication barriers.
“In
our
continuous
endeavor to find ways to
‘meet parents in locations
where they happen to con-
gregate or shop,’ we realized
that we all have to shop for
groceries at some point,” she
said. “We started exploring
the idea of having a kiosk at
a grocery store.”
He said the web browser
is highly constrained, and
parents can only access
school-related
informa-
tion — they can’t generally
browse the internet at the
kiosks.
Each kiosk costs about
$5,800, including installa-
tion, supplies and support.
Mooney said the district
paid for the kiosks with gen-
eral fund dollars.
years have helped shape his
approach to being a city
councilor.
“Being a teacher, I’m
always interested in learn-
ing something,” he said.
“Let’s see if we can solve
some problems, figure out a
better way to do it.”
He said he has “no
regrets” about his career in
education, but he does have
lots of memories.
Some of them were
tough experiences, such
as serving as vice princi-
pal in charge of discipline
at a public high school in
Elmira, Oregon. It was a
rough school district and he
had to handle some difficult
discipline cases with stu-
dents who were only a few
years younger than him.
“I learned after I got
there they had an under-
cover agent there to break
up a drug ring,” he said.
But mostly he has happy
memories, including com-
ing to Hermiston to run
the brand-new Christian
school, where he and Sheila
stayed for 38 years. For 18
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LANDMARK BAPTIST CHURCH
125 E. Beech Ave. • 567-3232
Pastor David Dever
Sun. Bible Classes...................10:00am
Sun. Worship Service..............11:00am
Sun. Evening Worship..............6:00pm
Wed. Prayer & Bible Study......6:00pm
www.hermistonlmbc.com
First Christian
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“Proclaiming the Message of
Hope, Living the Gospel of Love”
1520 W ORCHARD AVE
Sunday Worship Service
10:30 am Classes for Kids @ 9:15 am
SEEKING JESUS, SHARING LIFE,
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www.hermistonnazarene.org
NEW BEGINNINGS
CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
Worship Service 10:30 AM
Sunday School 9:00 AM
Pastor J.C. Barnett
Children’s Church &
Nursery Available
700 West Orchard Avenue
P.O. Box 933
Hermiston, Oregon
541-567-8441
Our Lady of Angels
Catholic Church
565 W. HERMISTON AVE.
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of those years they raised
four children in a manufac-
tured home on the church/
school property with “40
acres to run around.”
“Both of our parents
lived in Eastern Oregon and
my mom said she was going
to pray me back to Eastern
Oregon,” he said. “I said,
‘Pray ahead.’”
After getting things set-
tled, the Hardins worked
in and out of the classroom
to keep the school running.
They took students on trips
to private school conven-
tions and even hosted 600
students for one in Herm-
iston. The boys slept on the
floor of the church’s sanc-
tuary and the girls were
farmed out in groups to var-
ious homes in town.
Now that they are retired,
they are turning that energy
to other projects.
“I’ve finally gotten the
chance to do a little with my
yard,” Hardin said.
He said he and his wife
are looking at traveling
more, including a possible
cruise to Alaska.
DAILY MASS: Monday-Friday
...............................English 7:00 am
Thursday...............Spanish 6:00 pm
SATURDAY:.........English 5:00 pm
...............................Spanish 7:00 pm
SUNDAY:..............English 9:00 am
..........................Bilingual 11:00 am
..............................Spanish 1:00 pm
Offi ce..............................567-5812
The Full Gospel
Home Church
235 SW 3rd
Phone 567-7678
Rev. Ed Baker - Rev. Nina Baker
Sunday:
Sunday School........10:00 am
Worship...................11:00 am
Evening Service........7:00 pm
Wednesday Service..7:00 pm
“Casting all your care upon him;
for he careth for you.”
1 Pet. 5:7
Sunday School 9:15am
Worship Service 10:30am
567-3013
775 W. Highland Ave., Hermiston
First United
Methodist
Church
Hermiston
191 E. Gladys Ave , Hermiston OR
Sunday Worship 11am • 541-567-3002
Nursery available Check us out on Face Book
Worship Livestream at herfumc.com
Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors
Rev. Dr. Jim Pierce, pastor
Grace Baptist Church
555 SW 11th, Hermiston
567-9497
Nursery provided for all services
Sunday School - 9:30 AM
Worship - 10:45 AM
6:00 PM
Wed Prayer & Worship - 7:00 PM
“Proclaiming God’s word,
growing in God’s grace”
St. Johns
Episcopal Church
Join Us
On Our Journey
With Jesus.
Scripture, Tradition and Reason
Family service 9am Sunday
N.E. Gladys Ave & 7th, Hermiston
t. PH: 567-6672
We are an all inclusive Church
who welcomes all.
Seventh-day
Adventist Church
Saturdays
Sabbath School........9:30 a.m.
Worship Service......11:00 a.m.
English & Spanish Services
567-8241
Hermiston Jr. Academy
1300 NW Academy Lane, • Hermiston
To share your
worship times call
541-278-2678