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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (July 22, 2020)
WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2020 HermistonHerald.com EasternOregonMarketplace.com NEED FOR SPEED New Hermiston gym off ers ‘speed school’ for athletes By NADA SEWIDAN STAFF WRITER W hen the Hermis- ton Athletic Club opens, it will be the fi rst gym in Ore- gon to have a Parisi speed school, according to its manager. The gym, set to open Monday, July 27, boasts the regular ameni- ties of an athletic club, with added extras, such as the Parisi speed school, a program designed to help athletes improve their speed and endurance. “There isn’t something like this clear to California,” Roger Adams, manager at the athletic club, said. “And Hermiston, Oregon, is going to have that.” According to Adams, the Parisi school trains professional athletes. He said the school has trained pro- fessional basketball players, NFL players, college football players and other high-level athletes. At the Parisi speed room, peo- ple will be able to do resistance training, side shuffl es, sprints and backpedals, among other training and conditioning. They also have a vertical tester and a full assess- ment program that they run ath- letes through. “We’re excited about having this here,” he said. “We have peo- ple from as far as the Tri-Cities and Yakima talking about coming out.” Adams said the gym overall has some great tools to help create great athletes that want to take it to the next step. “Hopefully, we’ll see athletes break through to that Division I level,” he said. The Hermiston Athletic Club sits on the site of the former “THERE ISN’T SOMETHING LIKE THIS CLEAR TO CALIFORNIA. AND HERMIS- TON, OREGON, IS GOING TO HAVE THAT.” Staff photo by Ben Lonergan Staff hang a large graphic on the wall of the main workout space at the new Hermiston Athletic Club on Highway 395 in Hermiston. The club will open on Monday, July 27, 2020. Roger Adams, manager of the new Hermiston Athletic Club Columbia Court Club, which was gutted by a fi re in 2016. The own- ers of that gym originally planned to reopen, but after two years of arguing with their insurance com- pany, owner Steve Watkinds even- tually told the Hermiston Herald he had decided to sell. The new owners then experi- enced delays of their own during the process of extensively remod- eling the damaged building. COVID-19 has also posed some challenges for the facility, includ- ing delaying their opening and causing the club to modify some plans in terms of social distancing. This means all contact sports will have to be postponed until it is safe to resume. “We still have to follow social distancing,” Adams said. “We need to be safe, so that means no con- tact sports for right now. We want to train, but we want to do it as safely as possible until we all get through the tough times we’re in right now.” He said they are following the Staff photo by Ben Lonergan See Gym, Page A8 Free weights sit on racks awaiting use at the new Hermiston Athletic Club on Highway 395 in Hermiston. The club will open on Monday, July 27, 2020. Umatilla forges ahead on back-to-school plans By JADE MCDOWELL NEWS EDITOR As Umatilla School District plans its socially distanced return to school, Superintendent Heidi Sipe is also working to help stu- dents return to the classroom statewide. Sipe is serving on the newly formed Healthy Schools Reopen- ing Council, made up of edu- cators, students, public health experts and legislators from around the state. The council gives feedback to the Oregon Department of Education on pro- posed rules for reopening schools and works on problem-solving for the challenges presented by social distancing restrictions. One of the topics they tack- led at their most recent meeting was what metrics they can pro- vide districts to help them make decisions about when they should temporarily move to online-only in the event of an outbreak. “There has been a pretty clear and consistent emphasis in recog- nizing that a statewide approach would be very challenging,” Sipe said. “What Helix or Echo can do, with the size of their classes, is very different than what I can do, or Hermiston or Pendleton.” Each district also has differ- ent demographics. In Umatilla INSIDE Staff photo by Ben Lonergan, File Graduates parade through Umatilla following Umatilla High School’s commencement ceremony on June 4, 2020. The school district is now making plans for returning students to in-person classrooms in the fall. School District, nearly three- fourths of the students are Latino, more than half are English Lan- guage Learners, and more than 95% qualify for free or reduced lunch based on their family’s low income. In a statement about the Healthy Schools Reopening A2 Church off ers Vacation Bible School to go Council, Gov. Kate Brown said as most districts switch to a hybrid model of in-person and online learning, one of the council’s tasks will be to fi nd ways to make sure that model works for every single student. “I am pushing school offi cials to make sure underserved and A3 Umatilla County Fair plans for unusual fair week marginalized students — our kids of color and our low-income kids — get the support and opportuni- ties they need. We cannot allow our response to this pandemic to increase racial disparities in edu- cational outcomes,” Brown said. While each district faces its own unique set of circumstances, A3 Door-to-door COVID-19 testing coming to Hermiston Sipe said there are some common themes that all districts in the state are grappling with. One, for example, is the safety of teachers who fall into categories that put them at higher risk from COVID- 19 than most of their students. “The complexity of that chal- lenge is present in every conver- sation,” she said. Sipe said locally, she has been having discussions with staff who, due to age or underly- ing health conditions, have seri- ous concerns about returning to school while COVID-19 is still active in the community. She said she is having discussions with the unions about how to handle leaves of absence and other issues surrounding that discussion. Hermiston School District hasn’t released concrete details about its plans for next year, but Superintendent Tricia Mooney said during a recent city coun- cil meeting that it will likely be a hybrid model of online and in-person learning, with in-per- son contact prioritized for the younger grades that have more diffi culty learning online. Umatilla School District plans Umatilla School District has ordered Umatilla Vikings buffs for See School, Page A8 A7 Hermiston residents continue to wait for unemployment benefi ts
