INSIDE
SPECIAL
SECTION
INSIDE
RESCUERS
Senior center volunteers
Gary and Darlene Riesland
saved a Hermiston woman
after a fall
PAGE A3
CELEBRATE
Local schools and other
organizations offer up
events for Veterans Day
weekend.
PAGE A4
TRICK OR TREAT
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2018 | HermistonHerald.com | $1.00
See photos of children
dressed up for Treats on
Main.
PAGE A15
BY THE WAY
Election results
online
Tuesday night was
election night, but unfor-
tunately we had to go
to press before election
results were available
(we know, we’re as dis-
appointed about it as you
are).
The good news is, our
reporters stayed late in the
office on Tuesday, post-
ing election results online.
For election coverage on
local and statewide races,
visit www.hermistonher-
ald.com, or if reading the
news online isn’t your
thing, you can pick up a
copy of our sister paper
the East Oregonian on
newsstands.
• • •
The Community Fel-
lowship Dinner board
of directors is gearing up
for its second holiday sea-
son serving free meals at
Hermiston High School.
The free community
dinners are planned on
Thanksgiving Day and
Christmas Day. The meal
is open to anyone from 11
a.m. to 2 p.m.
Volunteers are needed
to assist with prepara-
tion the day before each
event and on the day of the
meals. For more informa-
tion, contact Gary Hum-
phreys, CFD board chair-
man, at cfdhermiston@
gmail.com, 541-371-9772
or search Facebook. In
addition, financial con-
tributions can be sent to
Community Fellowship
Dinner, P.O. Box 1551,
Hermiston, OR 97838.
• • •
Highland Hills Ele-
mentary School is in need
of some help.
Local churches, oper-
ating through the city of
Hermiston’s Faith Based
Advisory
Committee,
adopt schools each year.
The churches provide sup-
port by donating items
like school supplies and
coats, bringing treats for
the staff, volunteering in
See BTW, Page A16
THE
16.8 %
WOMEN IN THE ARMED FORCES
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Navy veteran Tile Hamilton works as a as a special education assistant at Sandstone Middle School in Hermiston.
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
M
any people bal-
ance military ser-
vice with parent-
hood. But having
to breastfeed while wearing a bul-
letproof vest is an experience that
belongs to a limited group of ser-
vice members.
Amber Randall, a Hermiston
Child Protective Services worker,
remembers doing that when she
served in the Air Force as a new
mom.
Her daughter’s father deployed
soon after the baby was born, and
Randall had to go back into the
field eight weeks later. She recalled
one experience where she was on
duty right after her maternity leave
ended.
“I’m out here pumping breast
milk in a temper tent, with my M-15
vest,” she said. “And I had to go to a
porta potty and dump all that breast
milk down the drain.”
According to a 2015 U.S. Depart-
ment of Defense report, women
make up 16.8 percent of the mili-
tary, or about 357,276 members.
Three local women shared sto-
ries of their time in the U.S. Military.
Though their service has spanned
nearly 20 years and three different
branches, they shared some chal-
lenges, as well as skills that have
shaped their lives post-military.
Some experiences, they said, are
unique to being a female service
member, while others united all
those in uniform.
Randall enlisted when she was
17, in 2001. She said she joined the
military to get out of a bad home
situation.
“I grew up in a really abusive
household,” she said. “Drugs, vio-
lence, domestic violence.”
She spent most of her childhood
raising her siblings, but didn’t have
any plans or interest in school. As a
senior in high school, she got a flyer
from the Navy, and started thinking
See MILITARY, Page A16
Tile Hamilton in a photo
before her deployment on
the aircraft carrier the USS
Carl Vinson in 1993.
Hermiston FFA brings home medals
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
Four Hermiston High School stu-
dents attended the Future Farmers of
America national convention, com-
peting against students from 43 other
states.
The competition was in Indianap-
olis, Indiana Oct. 22-27 and featured
students from all around the nation,
testing their skills in a variety of
subjects.
Hermiston’s Veterinary Sciences
team consisted of Kennidy Baker,
Adriann Stewart, Isel Tejeda Urenda
and Jenna Wallace. Baker took home
a gold medal, Stewart and Wal-
lace got silvers, and Tejeda Urenda
received a bronze medal. Overall, the
group made the silver team.
“With FFA, once you compete at
the national level in a certain cate-
gory, you’re never allowed to com-
pete in it again,” said Baker, a junior.
Tejeda Urenda, a senior, said each
state’s competition is structured dif-
ferently, and Oregon follows a lay-
out similar to the national level. The
challenge, she said, is that the state
and national competitions are almost
a year apart.
Baker and Tejeda Urenda said
there are many tasks and categories
in which students have to compete.
In the identification component, stu-
dents have to be able to identify 43
parasites, around 130 tools, and 150
animal breeds, and will be quizzed
on them at random.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HERMISTON SCHOOL DISTRICT
See FFA, A16
Kennidy Baker, Isel Tejeda Urenda, Adriann Stewart and Jenna Wallace won
medals at the FFA National Convention in Indianapolis last week.