HERMISTON
HERALD
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
HermistonHerald.com
EasternOregonMarketplace.com
INSIDE
JUNE 8–15, 2022
Listen
Courthouse
concerts
Watch
‘Honky Tonk
Angels’
Celebrate
Shakespeare
Festival
PAGE 3
PAGE 7
PAGE 9
WWW.GOEASTERNOREGON.COM
’62
Days
in Canyon City
PAGE 8
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
Whiskey Gulch Gang cancan girls get into their high-kick
dance routine during Canyon City’s ‘62 Days parade.
Go! Magazine
Popular magazine details the best in local
entertainment. INSIDE
LOCAL NEWS
Let’ s
celebrate!
Kathy Aney/Hermiston Herald
Newly minted Echo High School graduates take a moment to celebrate with confetti
during a graduation ceremony on Friday, June 3, 2022.
New board
Hermiston Chamber of Commerce welcomes
new leaders. A3
Local school districts boast
of high levels of student
success, hard earned
during the pandemic years
SCHOOLS
BY ERICK PETERSON
Hermiston Herald
Kathy Aney/Hermiston Herald
t one upcoming ceremony, hundreds of students are
scheduled to pass a major rite of passage.
Hermiston High School students are planning to
gather on Thursday, June 9 for a graduation ceremony at
the Toyota Center in Kennewick. It starts at 7 p.m.
According to Briana Cortaberria, Hermiston School
District communications officer, 355 students were in
the running to graduate on time. She added that the high
school has 382 seniors, plus eight students from the dis-
trict’s Next Steps program.
This makes for a big crowd.
While there are things that make every graduating
class unique, the students finishing high school in 2022
are extra special, according to local administrators. These
students, they pointed out, endured the COVID-19 years.
They adapted through lockdowns with online learning
and returned to classrooms to complete their schoolwork.
Javon Curiel smiles from a gift table set up in the Echo gym. Curiel and 15
other Echo seniors graduated in a ceremony on Friday, June 3, 2022.
See, Grads/Page A13
A
Graduation time
Photos show happy local grads. A6 & A7
COMMUNITY
Ag award
Bob Coleman takes home another
Walchli title. A8
OUTSKIRTS
Irrigon
Superintendent discusses the failed
school bond.. A9
UMATILLA COUNTY
BMCC layoffs
College makes tough budget cuts. A11
Engaging the threat
Local police chiefs
explain procedures
for taking on school
shooters in wake of
Texas massacre
BY JOHN TILLMAN
Hermiston Herald
Some local police chiefs ad-
dressed their departments’ proce-
dures and training when it comes
to taking on a school shooter.
Hermiston Chief of Police Jason
Edmiston said no one can know
how individual officers will re-
spond when their own lives are on
the line, but he was adamant about
his force’s protocols and training
for active shooter situations.
“The lesson Columbine taught
us, now almost 25 years ago, was
that you can’t wait to form up
a team to go in, much less for
SWAT, which we don’t even have
in Eastern Oregon. Oregon State
Police SWAT takes four or five
hours to get to us.”
All Hermiston police offi-
cers have a master key that opens
all doors in all schools, Edmis-
ton stated.
Hermiston Herald, File
Officers from multiple law enforcement agencies clear classrooms of victims during an active shooter drill April 13,
2018, in Boardman.
“Our officers arrive and go in,”
he said. “It’s not practical to wait
for a team to form to eliminate
the threat. Create a distraction.
Buy time for kids or customers to
evacuate. Even if just one or two
officers, we train to enter, find and
engage the threat, while commu-
nicating with others.”
Edmiston said if reports of of-
ficers waiting an hour for a SWAT
team prove true, it would be “a huge
step back and a slap in the face. It’s
a black eye for all police sworn to
serve and protect. The profession
we’ve chosen means we’re willing to
risk a suicide mission to save lives,
especially young lives. Time is life.”
Hermiston police has three
school resource officers. Several
HPD members have received Ad-
vanced Law Enforcement Rapid
Response Training, Edmiston
added. The ALERRT Center at
Texas State University is widely
considered to offer the best re-
search-based active shooter re-
sponse training in the nation. And
the department spends $70,000
per officer to make sure they have
all the equipment they need.
See, Threat/Page A13