FROM PAGE ONE
A14 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
BTW
CUPID
Continued from Page A1
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With a Mardi Gras theme,
Imbibe @Blue offers a fes-
tive environment and raises
money for student schol-
arships at Blue Mountain
Community College. The
21-and-older event is Sat-
urday from 5-7 p.m. in the
BMCC Student Union,
2411 N.W. Carden Ave.,
Pendleton.
Advance tickets, which
are $25, are available at
Pendleton Art + Frame, the
BMCC bookstore and by
calling the BMCC Foun-
dation at 541-278-5775. If
available, tickets at the door
are $30.
• • •
Umatilla County Sher-
iff’s Office employees Jes-
sica Howard, a telecom-
municator, and Cherrie
Hutchison, a dispatcher,
are set to graduate from
Basic Telecommunications
#BT113.
They are completing the
two-week course offered
through the Oregon Depart-
ment of Public Safety Stan-
dards and Training. The
public is invited to the gradu-
ation ceremony, which is Fri-
day at 11 a.m. at the Oregon
Public Safety Academy in
Salem. Capt. Kathy Lieual-
len, also of the sheriff’s
office, is the guest speaker.
The Oregon academy is
recognized nationally for
innovative training pro-
grams. For more informa-
tion, visit www.oregon.gov/
dpsst.
• • •
The upcoming Eastern
Oregon Forum presents
Our Music featuring J.D.
Kindle and Friends.
The event is Tuesday,
Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. in ST-200
(Science and Technology
building) at Blue Mountain
Community College, 2411
N.W. Carden Ave., Pend-
leton. Tickets are $5 at the
door and free for students.
In addition to is role as
frontman of James Dean
Kindle & the Eastern Ore-
gon Playboys, Kindle is in
his fourth season as execu-
tive director of the Oregon
East Symphony.
The Eastern Oregon
Forum is a collaborative
effort between BMCC,
InterMountain
Educa-
tion Service District, the
East Oregonian, Amer-
ican Association of Uni-
versity Women and Har-
riet Isom, a former United
States ambassador. For more
information, contact Karen
Parker at 541-966-3177 or
karen.parker@imesd.k12.
or.us.
• • •
The Harkenrider Senior
Activity Center will be
serving chicken enchiladas,
Spanish rice, salad and des-
sert for lunch on Feb. 14.
The menu for Feb. 19 is
hamburger or hot dog, baked
beans or potato salad, fruit
and dessert.
———
You can submit items for
our weekly By The Way col-
umn by emailing your tips
to editor@hermistonher-
ald.com.
“There’s not a whole lot
of places to meet people in
Hermiston other than a bar,
and I’m not interested in
that,” he said.
About a month after they
started talking, they took the
plunge and met in person.
Tammy was nervous about
meeting a stranger, so she
arranged for them to meet
in public at the Umatilla
County Fair and brought her
sister along.
At first, they acted more
like friends than roman-
tic partners, Tammy said.
But as they started hanging
out she knew Joshua was
still talking to other women
online and she told him she
“wasn’t a fan of that.”
“After that we started
talking a lot, and he apol-
ogized and said he just got
really scared because he
hadn’t felt this way about
anyone in a long time,” she
said.
The couple tied the knot
in August and Tammy is cur-
rently on strict bedrest wait-
ing on the arrival of triplets
— two girls and a boy.
“It’s going to be an
adventure,” Joshua said.
Still looking
Not everyone has been
struck by Cupid’s virtual
arrow yet. Jazmin Avalos,
a 25-year-old Hermis-
ton native, said she has
been using dating apps for
about five years. She got
them in college, but didn’t
start using them regularly
until she moved back to
Hermiston.
“When I came back to
Hermiston, I met no one
— everyone here has baby
mama drama or has been
with one of your friends,”
she said.
Avalos, who is bisexual,
uses a few apps: Tinder,
Bumble and Hinge, as well
as Her, a dating app for les-
bian, queer and bisexual
women.
Initially, Avalos said,
she went on the app hop-
ing to find a more serious
relationship. But when that
didn’t pan out, she said she
decided she was open to
anything.
Her radius is set to 45
miles, meaning she usually
finds people in the Hermis-
SNOW
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Oregon State Police Sgt.
Seth Cooney said he was
out that day with a rash of
crashes on Interstate 84 west
of Boardman and stopped
into the Love’s Travel Stop
in the town. Folks there
inundated him with ques-
tions on how to get to where
they wanted to go.
“The first thing I tell
everybody is look up Trip
Check,” he said, refer-
ring to www.tripcheck.
com, which the Oregon
Department of Transporta-
tion uses to provide infor-
mation about road condi-
tions and closures. “They
really need to take a look at
that, because ODOT is very
good about keeping it up to
date.”
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2019
ton, Boardman, Pendleton
and Tri-Cities areas.
Though Avalos has
about 600 matches on Tin-
der, she said she doesn’t
message back unless their
profile seems legitimate.
She said one problem with
online dating is catfishing,
slang for when a person
isn’t who they say they are
on their profile.
Avalos said she’s had
a couple of experiences
where she met up with the
person and they looked
completely different from
their profile or had heavily
edited their photos.
“After that experience,
I have a verification pro-
cess,” she said. “To make
sure they’re not serial kill-
ers and they are who they
say they are.”
Avalos said once she
matches with someone,
she adds them on as many
social media platforms as
possible, and asks them to
send her selfies. She also
doesn’t agree to meet with
them before talking with
them for a couple of weeks.
Though Avalos said her
experiences have ranged
widely, they’ve been more
positive than negative.
“I met my ex on there,
through an app, and that
was real,” she said. “You
can find what you’re look-
ing for on there.”
Stacie Ketchum of
Hermiston started using
dating apps last year. The
38-year-old had been mar-
ried twice, and had recently
gotten out of a long-dis-
tance relationship.
“I said, ‘I’m going to see
what dating is like in my
30s,” she said.
Ketchum said initially
she was apprehensive
about the concept of online
dating, as she thought it
felt impersonal. But she
decided to give it a try, and
soon started going on dates.
“I downloaded Tinder
and Plenty of Fish,” she
said. “It was really interest-
ing — I was not expecting
to get a response like I did.”
In her profile, Ketchum
said she was very clear that
at first, she was just looking
to meet people, and not for
a serious relationship.
“My stepdad said some-
thing that I thought was
really poignant,” she said.
“You’re not ready to be in
a relationship until you’re
OK with being alone. So I
decided to just see what’s
out there.”
She said she was ner-
vous to go on her first date,
as she hadn’t dated since
high school. Fortunately,
she said, the man was nice,
and the two of them are still
friends.
Ketchum said she has
had some really good dates
with people she met online.
The bad ones, she said,
have made her tougher.
“I have a much thicker
skin now,” she said.
She admitted that one of
the risks of online dating is
that you don’t know what
you’re getting — a problem
she said goes both ways. In
one date, after talking on
the phone and exchanging
some photos with a man,
she agreed to a date. But
when she arrived, he told
her she didn’t look like her
photo, and said he didn’t
want to go on the date.
Ketchum said she did
look like her photo, and she
felt he probably just wasn’t
interested. In those situa-
tions, she said, she prefers
the person just be honest,
and that most of her dates
have appreciated it when
she’s told them — politely
— that she doesn’t feel a
connection.
“My theory is that if you
don’t have any connection
— physical, emotional —
something’s not going to
blossom out of that,” she
said.
Ketchum has since
deleted the apps, and is cur-
rently in another long-dis-
tance relationship with a
man she met through an
online gaming community.
“Things are progressing,
and we’re seeing where
they’re going,” she said.
“So I did meet him online,
not online dating, but in a
sense.”
Both
Avalos
and
Ketchum said the pool of
dating options in Hermis-
ton is slim.
“All you see out here
are cowboys,” said Avalos.
“That’s fine, but it’s not my
type.”
Both women said when
they did end up matching
or meeting with someone,
they were usually people in
the Tri-Cities.
“I’m pretty picky when
it comes to guys with kids,”
Ketchum said. “My step-
daughter is now 19, and I
came into her life when she
was five. I’ve dated some-
one with kids before, but
I don’t really want to do
it now. And it’s very dif-
ficult to find a man in his
30s who doesn’t have that,
especially in Hermiston for
some reason.”
But they said it is pos-
sible to meet someone and
have a successful relation-
ship that started on an app.
“I feel like there’s a
stigma that they’re only
for hooking up, but not
always,” Avalos said. “Half
the people are on there for
serious relationships.”
She said it’s important
to be clear about what you
want in your profile.
“People don’t think bios
are important, and they
are,” she said. “I know
what a good bio is. If you
explicitly say, ‘I’m look-
ing for this, this and this,’
you might find a match
who’s looking for the same
thing.”
For travelers with-
out internet access, they
can also dial 511 on their
phones to listen to updates..
Cooney also suggested
drivers plan for alter-
nate routes. With I-82 shut
down, he said, you could
take Highway 730 east to
Highway 12 to Pasco. He
said road crews do a good
job of keeping that route
open.
“Those are the two big-
gest things — look at the
road conditions and look
for an alternate route,” he
said.
Cooney added if you
don’t have to travel in this
weather, don’t.
Jaymie
Hathaway,
another Hermiston resident
stranded Saturday, said she
learned not to travel at all
during a blizzard if it isn’t
an emergency.
Hathaway had gone up
to the Tri-Cities to purchase
a van. Her father, Brad
Hathaway, drove her up,
and offered to drive the van
on the way back because it
would be less reliable in the
snow than his SUV. They
got on the road about 2 p.m.
Hathaway said they had
made it just past Coffin
Road when people started
hitting their brakes. After
she stopped, she said, two
pick-up trucks slid around
her and her dad managed to
stop sliding just feet behind
her.
“I was just waiting for
the impact,” she said. “I
was so scared.”
The van didn’t have
much gas in it, Hathaway
said, so her dad turned it
off and got in the SUV with
her as they watched that gas
gauge creep farther below a
quarter tank.
About 8:30 p.m. a group
of cars in front of them were
given the OK to start mov-
ing, and everyone cleared
off their windshields and
re-started their cars. Hatha-
way said she was at the
head of the line for the sec-
ond batch of cars that was
let through.
“So many times I
couldn’t see anything,”
she said. “It was just pure
white. I just kept going
straight and hoping I was
on the road.”
She stopped at a gas sta-
tion as soon as she hit Uma-
tilla, and said she would
encourage everyone to
fill up their tank any time
they’re heading out in bad
weather.
While all the stranded
travelers were off the inter-
state before midnight, the
road did not open again
until Sunday afternoon.
The National Weather
Service issued a winter
storm warning Monday for
a swath from outside Fossil
to Pendleton and covering
the rest of northeast Ore-
gon. That warning means
“severe winter weather
conditions
will
make
travel very hazardous or
impossible.”
Forecaster Rob Brooks
with the federal agency said
back-to-back winter storms
are covering the region,
with one heading north
toward the Tri-Cities. That
could provide a break in
snowfall Thursday, but the
next weather system moves
in Friday with more snow.
Contributed photo from Joshua Nycz
Joshua and Tammy Nycz met online about five years ago and are now married, with triplets
on the way.
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