INSIDE TODAY
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E AST O REGONIAN
Winter
Sports
2018-19
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2018
INSIDE
DELAYED
The I-82 bridge heading
from Washington into
Umatilla was supposed to
re-open this month but
will not open until spring or
summer of 2019.
PAGE A3
HermistonHerald.com
$1.00
LIGHTING UP THE
HOLIDAYS
GIVING TREE
Local nonprofits offer
opportunities to purchase
gifts for seniors, children
and animals with giving
trees around town.
PAGE A4
SAFE DRIVE
A driver’s ed instructor,
towing company and others
offer tips for safe winter
driving.
PAGE A9
BY THE WAY
Hermiston Herald
website gets new
look
If you visited the
Hermiston Herald web-
site in the past week, you
may have noticed it has a
new look.
The new and improved
website is part of a com-
pany-wide upgrade by EO
Media Group. It includes
features previously avail-
able on our website —
including an archive dat-
ing back to 2001 — but
will also allow us to begin
offering a better experi-
ence through new features
such as embedded Google
maps, keyword tags, user
reactions to stories and the
ability for readers to fol-
low specific writers or get
notifications when articles
containing certain key-
words are published.
We hope you enjoy the
new design of www.herm-
istonherald.com. Feel free
to give feedback or report
problems to editor@herm-
istonherald.com.
• • •
The U.S. Postal Ser-
vice suspended opera-
tions Wednesday in order
to mark the passing of
former president George
H.W. Bush. Mail that
would have been delivered
Wednesday — including
See BTW, A2
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
Hermiston will celebrate
the holiday season Thursday
with a tree-lighting ceremony
downtown.
The 40-foot fir tree decked
out for this year’s celebration
served as a Christmas tree for
the Barron family in the 1960s.
Jason Barron, the city’s
new parks manager, said after
Christmas was over that year
his mother, Shirley, and older
brother, Greg, planted the tree
in their yard. He remembers the
family putting lights on the tree
each year until it got too big to
reach the top with a ladder. More
recently, the tree has gotten too
close to power lines and its roots
See LIGHTS, Page A16
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL
TOP: Umatilla Electric Cooperative employees lower a giant
Christmas tree into a special hole built into the new festival street in
preparation for a tree-lighting ceremony Thursday.
BOTTOM: Five thousand LED Christmas lights illuminate a tree at
Hermiston’s 2016 tree-lighting celebration (FILE PHOTO).
Farm Fair was Hamm’s last as experiment station director
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
On the opening day of the Herm-
iston Farm Fair, the conference room
at the Eastern Oregon Trade and
Event Center was packed with grow-
ers and scientists listening to Phil
Hamm talk about potatoes.
Hamm’s Nov. 28 presentation,
“What I Would Do to Manage Dis-
eases if I was a Potato Grower,” was
his last as an Oregon State Univer-
sity employee. The longtime plant
pathologist and professor will retire
in summer of 2019 after a nearly
30-year career with the college, and a
nearly 45-year career studying plant
diseases.
He kept the crowd involved
during the half-hour seminar, cover-
ing the basics of four common potato
diseases and how to avoid them.
“Potato Virus Y does two things,”
he said, letting his professorial side
come out. “Someone tell me.”
He noted that the virus, which
reduces tuber yield and quality, is
difficult to control, and is vectored
— or spread — by aphids as well
as seed-borne. His recommendation
to growers: Produce PVY-free seed,
and make sure the seed has been
tested thoroughly.
After the presentation, Hamm
tried to leave but got sidetracked
about a dozen times in conversations
with people who have known and
worked with him for years.
“That’s the sad part — this is what
I’m going to miss when I finally
retire,” he said. “I had several growers
See FARM, A16
STAFF PHOTO BY KATHY ANEY
Phil Hamm, director of the Hermiston Agricultural Research & Extension
Center, speaks about potatoes on Nov. 28 at the Hermiston Farm Fair.
Hamm will retire this summer.