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ELECTION RESULTS
Gomez is front-runner in competitive
Seaside School District board race
Seaside Signal
Sondra Gomez held a
decisive lead late Wednes-
day in her bid to represent the
Seaside School District Zone
5, Position 1 board seat.
In unoffi cial results from
the Clatsop County Board
of Elections, Gomez earned
more than 51% of votes cast.
“I’m excited to con-
tinue to serve and support
the school staff and students
of Seaside,” Gomez said
Wednesday.
Gomez won 927 of 1,724
votes cast; Mills, 690 votes
for 38% of the total; and
Dunzer, 189 votes, 10% of
the tally. There were two
write-ins.
Gomez is a local oper-
ations manager at Vacasa
and served in the consulting
offi ce at the Seaside School
District from 2016-18.
See SSD race, Page A7
Morrison is winner; Chapman holds
lead in tight four-way SEPRD race
Seaside Signal
A tight four-person race
showed John Chapman with
a narrow lead in the Sunset
Empire Park and Recreation
District race for Position 4
late Wednesday.
In unoffi cial results
from the Clatsop County
Board of Elections, Chap-
man held about 26%, of
the total votes cast, earn-
ing 313 of the 1,195 votes
counted. Candidates Katha-
rine Parker and Marti Wajc
each received 25% of the
vote; Parker with 300 votes,
one more than Wajc, who
OLYMPIC HOPEFUL
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For Seaside Signal
Over the past three years, Seaside
High School senior Gretchen Hoek-
stre has orchestrated the perfect blend
of natural talent and hard work to pro-
duce the type of nationally recognized
success most high school athletes
dream of. In her mind, though, she’s
just getting started.
“I was nervous that I would peak
somewhere in high school, but I’m still
getting better and I’m still succeed-
ing,” said the track star, who captured
another title at the state championship
last weekend. “I have the natural abil-
ity to push my body to its limits, and
that has been something I love.”
Hoekstre’s always possessed a viv-
idly competitive nature, one that she
previously channeled into team sports,
including basketball, softball and vol-
leyball. After butting heads with the
softball coach her freshman year, she
decided to give track a try and the
sport clicked right away. Although
See Hoekstre , Page A7
STATE CHAMPION
Senior Gretchen Hoekstre, winner of two state
titles at the Class 4A meet in Gresham.
A10
Katherine Lacaze
Seaside High School senior Gretchen Hoekstre has achieved notable success as a track star in high school, but is now ready to take her talents to
the next level. She is headed to Brigham Young University in the fall and also has her sights set on the Paris Olympics in 2024.
garnered 299. Shirley Yates
received 278 votes, 23% of
the total.
The Position 4 seat came
vacant after current board
member Edward Hassan
announced plans to move
outside the district.
See SEPRD race, Page A7
Construction
traffi c headed
to Spruce Drive
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Spruce Drive and nearby residents
will see a bump in construction traf-
fi c as work begins on The Heights
Elementary School, Cary Bubenik of
Hoffman Construction told the Seaside
School District’s School Construction
Citizen Oversight Committee on Tues-
day, May 14.
With the district’s architect and con-
struction teams fi nalizing schedules,
work is expected to begin in June and
continue through summer 2020. The
Heights will be closed to all commu-
nity access this summer.
The renovation at The Heights is
part of the $99.7 million plan approved
by voters in 2016 to move schools out
of the tsunami zone. Students from
Gearhart Elementary will join students
in the Heights’ renovated building Sep-
tember 2020.
Workers on the middle and high
school site have been using Beerman
Creek Road, including most concrete
and heavy materials delivery.
Hoffman Construction, BRIC
Architecture and the school district will
be presenting their plans at a barbecue
at the Heights on June 8, Bubenik said,
with the goal of reaching out to local
residents.
“The push this summer will be
the metal (gym) building and the site
work for the existing school, and seis-
mic upgrades to the extent we can get
it done,” Bubenik said. “There’s going
to be a lot more truck traffi c for the
Heights.”
Expected traffi c includes workers
coming and going to the site and mate-
rials for the gym building.
Once the access road from the
Heights to the middle and high school
building is complete, Beerman Creek
Road access will “go away,” Bubenik
said, with the exception of large con-
crete or material trucks.
Work at The Heights gym is expected
to be fi nished by the end of the year.
Work ahead at the middle and high
school site include water and stormwa-
ter management, electrical, data, gas
and sewer line work.
Further uphill, the city will begin
work on a new reservoir concurrent to
meet the new school’s water needs.
After completion of the access road,
the bulk of the high school work will
come up Spruce, Bubenik said.
By summer’s end, masonry, gravel,
and concrete trucks will be “some-
what minimized,” project manager Jim
Henry added.
Apricot Irving reads from her memoir of Haiti
By EVE MARX
For Seaside Signal
On Wednesday, May 8, Apri-
cot Irving, recipient of the 2019
Oregon Book Award for cre-
ative nonfi ction, gave a talk
and read from her memoir,
“The Gospel of Trees” at Beach
Books as part of the Lunch in
the Loft series. The memoir
retraces the story of Irving’s
family, missionaries working in
Haiti, and the shattered history
of colonization.
“These are the stories we
didn’t talk about,” Irving said
to her audience, many of whom
had already read the book.
Irving and her family arrived
in Haiti when she was six years
old. Even at her tender age, she
was aware of her privilege. Her
father was deeply interested in
ecology.
“His fi rst language was
trees,” she said.
Years after the family
returned to Oregon where her
parents have a blueberry farm,
the Haiti experience was not a
topic for discussion. Irving said
she felt her parents were trapped
by the weight of the burden of
their expectations. Despite hav-
ing lived in Haiti for much of
her childhood, Irving said she
was never taught during that
time any Haitian history. Nev-
ertheless, she learned to love
Haiti.
Her parents weren’t tradi-
tional missionaries, Irving said.
“They were recruited to run
this agricultural center in the
north of Haiti in the 1980’s,”
she said. “We were surrounded
by sugar cane fi elds.”
Irving went to a “tiny,
English-speaking missionary
school,” as the family tried to
fi gure out how to become part
of the community.
“Later we moved to a hos-
pital compound, a cluster of a
dozen houses. We celebrated
American holidays, not Hai-
tian ones. We postured our-
selves as if we had a lot to
teach Haitians, but not that we
Eve Marx
See Memoir, Page A7 Apricot Irving