In “Rocky IV,” Rocky Balboa looked upon his future opponent, the U.S.S.R.’s Ivan Drago, and thought of him as a machine. Though the Soviet powerhouse would later prove himself to be a mere mortal, his strength and will gave others the impression he was something beyond human. I think many pe…
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Blaine Harden’s book “Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West” is dedicated to “The Tribes of the Columbia Plateau,” but it tells a s…
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At some point, I’ll ratchet up my complaints about young people. I’ll diss their fashion, their morals, their work ethic and their adherence to technology. I’ll say, they aren’t as good as kid…
I love fall — October and November typically marks that hoodie season is in full swing.
Halloween is past, Thanksgiving nears and Christmas is within eyeshot. Soon, we will shop for our loved ones, and many people are already worried. Even if we have the money for gifts, will we …
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A worker at a local pharmacy gave me a booster shot, further vaccinating me against COVID-19. It is worth reporting what he told me, just in case there is someone out there who has not yet mad…
Like many families in our area, we just wrapped up the annual ritual of the fall youth soccer season. It’s a mix of growth opportunity, spectator entertainment, and community building.
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What would you do if you were able to suddenly empty out your desk and walk out of your office, without plans of ever returning?
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As October is Anti-bullying Month, we should honor those people for whom kindness is natural. We should 1. learn from their example, and 2. try to root out our own personality defects. We shou…
If you haven’t already put a pen to paper for the Hermiston Herald’s true scary story contest, I urge you to do so.
My minutes are numbered, and I have to work fast.
Children across the country and around our communities are returning or have returned to classrooms. However, parents, teachers and students have expressed significant concern. How do we make …
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Now, I have finished a full month at the Hermiston Herald, and I have already noticed a pattern in my column. So far, my columns tend to have one of two underlying messages. They are as follow…
From our bleacher seats in Eastern Oregon, the redistricting process can seem labored and, ultimately, futile.
How does a person live a good life? Everyone has their take: religious devotion, thoughtfulness, financial success or luck. Entire libraries have been written on the topic, and it’s likely tha…
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Our story recently on Andrew Morris, a local man who contracted COVID-19 even after he was vaccinated, showed a man who did everything right to prevent an infection and who ended up asking, “W…
If you haven’t driven through Stanfield lately, I’m here to provide you with a public service announcement — road construction is taking place on Highway 395 and it wasn’t very well marked whe…
We all have busy lives filled with activities from the moment we wake up until our head hits the bed. Yet quite often, at some point in the day, you might hear “I’m bored” or “I don’t have any…
The first chapter in the Echo-Stanfield Girls Soccer journey has been quite incredible.
In recent days, I have been hearing a lot about “the Oregon Way.” I still do not know the etymology of the phrase, or even what would make the Oregon Way different from the Washington Way; the…
Over and over again, the people of our area remind me they are amazing helpers. The kindness I have seen lately has been so great, I hardly know where to start.
Gov. Kate Brown, in a recent op-ed, made the case for urgent action to help salmon and steelhead in defense of her decision to have Oregon litigate over the future of salmon and hydropower and…
In a park early this morning, I had a thought about the joy I have been experiencing lately. The feelings I experienced following this initial thought started with guilt but then morphed into …
It’s back-to-school time. After this last year, our children experienced many futuristic forms of back to school. Very few were what we would consider normal with the pandemic happening around…
While John and I don’t have children, we consider our pets as our canine kids. And this time of year is special in our house.
Over the many years I have engaged with stakeholders and tribal partners about a path forward in the Columbia Basin, one thing is clear: The status quo isn’t working. Iconic salmon and steelhe…
The man yelled before reaching the dam on the Umatilla River — “Pelican! Pelican!”
County fair season has arrived in Oregon. This month, generations will come together to celebrate the hard work of those involved in programs like 4-H and FFA.
I remember Camp Pine Valley because it was the site of my first kiss, delivered by a sweet nerdy guy named Frank.
Oregon, like the rest of the West, is staring down a dry summer. In an executive order, Gov. Kate Brown instructed state agencies to trim water use in preparation for what can only be called a…
We’ve added a new feature to our websites across the six eastside newspapers of EO Media Group that I think is needed and, unfortunately, necessary.
Is anyone else disturbed that one of the fastest-growing sports isn’t even played on a field or court and doesn’t require being in good physical shape? I’m talking about esports.
They’re dubbed “news deserts” and denote a community that lacks any type of independent news sources such as a daily or weekly newspaper.
Practice is key to mastery, and this is for sure true when it comes to young readers. Students who read during the summer have often maintained or even improved their reading skills. It also h…
It was 102 degrees in Medford on June 1, 2021. Let me say that again just in case it didn’t fully sink in: Medford suffered temperatures as high as 102 degrees in spring, making it harder for …
Al Davis, the manager of the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center deserves a lot of praise for his actions last week. As temperatures climbed, he made the decision to open the facility so peo…
Education is a marathon, not a sprint. And most of the students, families and educators in the Hermiston School District at some point in the past 15 months experienced hitting the metaphorical wall.
As I prepare to leave Hermiston, I have been thinking about what last bit of parting advice I might give the community.
Next week’s Hermiston Herald, on June 30, will be my last as editor.
One harsh reality of the pandemic often goes unnoticed: the continued need for foster parents.
With dog ownership, there’s a learning curve.
Every week as I write up highlights from the week’s police activity for the Hermiston Herald’s police log, the same phrase pops up over and over.
It’s hard to believe school is out for the summer or soon will be. There was no in-person schooling all year in some places, and others had all different modes of learning happening.
A year ago this week, the front page of the Hermiston Herald featured the headline “Hermiston’s Black Lives Matter protests continue.”
On May 8 the Umatilla Museum reopened its doors to the public, Thursday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., each day.
Dear graduating seniors,
Understanding the world around us is the goal we want all our children to achieve. We want them to understand and explain what they see, hear, and read.
Northeast Oregon is home to some of the most rich and fertile farmland in the state, producing products like potatoes, onion, carrots, peas and numerous other variety of crops for consumption …
Remember at the beginning of quarantine, when we used to talk about what we would do when “this is all over,” as if one day we would be in complete lockdown and the next we would be throwing a…
There wasn’t any fanfare, no balloons and no banging of cymbals — much like when I left EO Media Group a little more than a year ago.
In 2020, so many more people died in the United States than would be expected in a typical year that the average life expectancy here declined by more than a year. While it was an unusually la…
Recently about 200 volunteers spread out over Hermiston to cheerfully weed flower beds, sweep sidewalks, wash cars and do other chores. The activity was one of many “I Love My City” events hos…
Some of you may have seen a picture that made the rounds online recently, of a sign at a restaurant asking people to be patient with how short-staffed they were, sadly proclaiming that “No one…
Election season is upon us once again, this time for local taxing districts.
