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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 2019)
HERMISTON BASKETBALL’S SENIORS FORM STRONG BONDS » PAGE A8 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2019 HermistonHerald.com $1.00 INSIDE SCREEN TIME Check out the Hermiston Herald’s new Screen Time insert, with 24 pages of entertainment features, puzzles, televised sports, streaming highlights, cooking programming, movie listings, and more. INSIDE. YOU’VE GOT MAIL Cupid shoots virtual arrows online NET NEUTRALITY Hermiston’s Joseph Franell, president of Eastern Oregon Telecom, testifi ed on a hot button issue in front of Congress last week. PAGE A3 SNOW DAY Hermiston students took advantage of a snow day Tuesday to get in some sledding at Butte Park. PAGE A13 BY THE WAY Iowa State’s Sam Col- bray and Oregon State’s Bob Coleman were team- mates when Hermiston won the 2016 Oregon 5A state team title in wrestling. They both won individ- ual state titles — Colbray at 195 pounds, and Cole- man at 182. Monday night, the for- mer teammates were back on the mat together, this time as competitors in a dual in Corvallis. Colbray beat his for- mer teammate 13-4 in the 184-pound match at Gill Coliseum, helping the 17th-ranked Cyclones to a 23-14 victory over the Beavers. Colbray, a redshirt sophomore, had the ini- tial takedown in the fi rst round, and led throughout. He led 6-2 after the fi rst round, and 10-4 at the end of the second. Colbray improved to 20-5 on the season, while Coleman, a junior, dropped to 13-13. • • • It’s time to imbibe in delectable cheeses and chocolates, as well as pal- ate-pleasing beer and wine. See BTW, Page A14 Contributed photos from Tashina Rushlow and Jazmin Avalos ABOVE: Tashina Rushlow and Chris Benson met online three-and-a-half years ago and are still dating. BELOW: Jazmin Avalos, 25, has been using dating apps for about fi ve years. By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN AND JADE MCDOWELL STAFF WRITERS Online dating has come a long way since Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan traded anonymous emails in “You’ve Got Mail.” While the virtual venues aren’t a magic cure- all for the ills of pursuing a relationship, many of those who met their signifi cant other online say dating websites have helped them overcome barri- ers such as shyness or an odd work schedule. When Tashina Rushlow and Chris Benson of Hermiston met on OkCupid three-and-a-half years ago, they were both working evenings. Graveyard shift made it diffi cult to attend social gatherings with other single people. “I’m not a person who goes out a lot or been very social, and I was working a lot,” Benson said. At the time, Rushlow was living in Irrigon and Benson was liv- ing in Stanfi eld. Both joined OkCupid about the same time, and after two days on the site Rushlow sent a message to Benson. “I loved his picture,” she said. “It was all bug-eyed and funny.” The two started messaging on the site, then graduated to video chats over Skype. They tried to meet up three different times, but each time Benson had something come up and ended up cancel- ing. Finally, they both committed to meeting at the bowling alley in Hermiston. “It was nerve-wracking,” Rushlow said. Benson said he remembers walking in the door and seeing Rush- low walking toward him for the fi rst time and thinking, “Yep, that’s her.” The date went well and the pair started dating seriously after that, eventually buying a house together. Benson said he thinks one of the secrets to success- ful online dating is talking to the person for a while online and building trust instead of jumping straight to meeting in person. Joshua and Tammy Nycz of Hermiston also found each other online. They have been together for about fi ve years and were mar- ried in August. Joshua said he doesn’t even remem- ber the name of the dating site where they met (he thinks it might have been Plenty of Fish), but he does remember how attracted he was to Tam- my’s smile in her profi le picture. He messaged her some- thing innocuous, and she asked if he was related to someone she knew with the same last name. Soon they were checking in regu- larly, asking how the other person’s day went. Tammy’s older sister had signed her up for the site and created her profi le, and she had been talking to a few of the men who had sent her messages. Joshua said he signed up because he’s not into drinking, and it’s hard to fi nd social gatherings for single people not centered around alcohol. See CUPID, Page A14 Snow strands Hermiston drivers on I-82 By JADE MCDOWELL AND PHIL WRIGHT STAFF WRITERS 8 08805 93294 2 Hermiston residents try- ing to get home from the Tri-Cities had a harrow- ing experience Saturday after white-out conditions and a multi-vehicle pile-up stranded hundreds of drivers on Interstate 82. Mackenzie Colgan left work at about 2:45 p.m. and didn’t get home until 11:30 p.m. “Longest trip home from the Tri-Cities ever,” she said. “It was terrifying.” Washington State Depart- ment of Transportation declared Interstate 82 closed about 2:30 p.m. but Colgan said there were no signs up to warn her when she got on the Interstate in Kenne- wick and started follow- ing a semitrailer crawling ts way through the snow storm. About 15 minutes, later the semi hit its brakes and she swerved into the shoulder to avoid it. “Once we stopped we didn’t move again until 10 p.m.,” she said. Colgan said one of her best friends, Destiny George, turned out to also be stranded less than half a mile ahead, so they stayed on the phone most of the time to keep each other company. Luckily, both of them had enough gas in their tanks to keep their cars idling and the heat on through the whole ordeal, but Colgan said she did get hungry. “I was thinking, my dad is going to be mad at me because I didn’t have any food or water with me,” she said. “But I did have blan- kets and my snow boots and a heavy coat.” She also said she learned her lesson about keeping snacks and water in the car, and about always checking to see if the roads are closed before setting out. See SNOW, Page A14 Contributed photo by Mackenzie Colgan Mackenzie Colgan snapped this photo through her windshield while sitting about seven hours on Interstate 82 while it was closed Saturday.