That 825 Oregonians died in a single year by suicide is a sobering assessment of our collective ability to help those who feel trapped in their own despair.
I used to consider the semicolon the unwanted child of punctuation. It is usually misused or mistakenly typed on the keyboard if you forgot to hold shift while pressing for the colon button. I…
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration when I say that my class has gone through a lot.
As the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Hermiston, I have the honor and privilege of officiating at many weddings. A greater honor and privilege for me is to work with the engaged couple as …
I could have been born on April Fool’s Day.
Hermiston is a family-friendly place to live. There are parks, a bowling alley, a roller rink, and in the summer an incredible aquatic center. But with an ever-growing population of younger pe…
The best advice I’ve ever seen on the internet may be the meme that advises, “Dance like no one is watching, email like it may one day be read aloud in a deposition.”
Everywhere we go, we are bombarded with requests for money.
If you’ve been paying attention to recent online conversations, you may have noticed that social media has become the popular place of blame for this generation’s depression.
I was diagnosed with an eating disorder (some in the community call it ED) my sophomore year of high school. It’s been a difficult thing for me to talk about.
“You can have any tree on the lot for five bucks,” he joked as I backed up to the growing pile of discarded Christmas trees.
Have you ever felt like life is unfair? I have. I’m sure that if you’re like me, there have been plenty of times when you have experienced situations when you thought that you were the only on…
Dear Hermiston Herald readers:
Resolutions … smesolutions. While I don’t really get into the whole thing, I decided to read about making New Year’s resolutions.
When I was about 12, my parents came to the conclusion that most parents come to at some point: My three younger brothers and I had gotten too focused on the “getting” part of Christmas instea…
Bill Belichick is the National Football League’s version of the Grinch. The head coach of the New England Patriots recently said Christmas is very inconvenient — coming in the middle of the fo…
With Halloween just around the corner, what better way to celebrate the holiday than having a fright-fest.
Election season is always exciting for journalists.
I recently returned after embarking on a round-trip encompassing more than 800 miles and 40 years.
Dear Hermiston residents of 2068,
I finally decided to attend my 40-year high school reunion.
Evidently I’m old-school.
Community Editor
I might have created a future journalist at a recent career day at Stanfield Secondary School.
Agriculture is a big player in the eastern Oregon economy. More than 37 percent of the workforce in Umatilla County is either directly or indirectly employed by the agriculture industry. And f…
I remember the first time I sat in a government meeting, put my head in my hands, and thought, “what is the point of this?”
I’m a Winter Olympics junkie, but several things connected with things happening in PyeongChang have me scratching my head.
Downtown Hermiston is a mess right now — there’s no denying it.
Combing through old editions of the Hermiston Herald to put together our regular Hermiston History feature this month gave me a few chuckles.
One of the great experiences of my professional career has been Leadership Hermiston, a chamber of commerce program intended to give people a crash course on what makes this community tick.
Four out of six staff writers in the news department will have the jury message line on speed dial during the month of February.
The Hermiston Police Department and city of Hermiston just concluded the 48th annual Christmas Express program. Each year since I took over in 2004 we have tried to fine tune and make the oper…
What’s the point of making a New Year’s resolution?
At the end of a long day last month, my boss came up to my desk. After a few minutes of pleasantries, he sat down, something clearly on his mind.
If you’re stressing out about preparing a Thanksgiving turkey, I may be able to offer some tips.
Greg is a lovely name, but it causes a lot of confusion for the good people of Umatilla County.
I started writing this column last fall after the #NotOkay posts went viral on social media.
There are many ingredients to a great sports rivalry.
Although I stifle the fact like many bury family secrets, I was born and raised a city kid. Worse, actually — a suburbanite. I’ve spent and loved the last three years in rural Oregon, but stil…
I get so tired of the continuous calls from telemarketers and the incredibly annoying, “This is your last chance regarding renewal of your car warranty.”
It seems there are certain occupations where people think you’re always on duty.
We sang a rousing round of “Happy Birthday” Monday morning in celebration of Lucifer’s eighth birthday.
I spent a few moments the other day rummaging through boxes in my garage trying to find one of the squeeze coin purses Frank Harkenrider gave to me in the late 1970s.
While selfies may have increased in popularity over the last decade, millennials certainly weren’t the first generation to snap photos of themselves.
I’m looking forward to the Umatilla County Fair taking place in its new digs at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center
As the preparation for the 2017 Umatilla County Fair and Farm-City Pro Rodeo continues to increase in pace, the board of directors of the Friends of the Fair and Rodeo Inc. wanted to take a mo…
I hate traffic.
We have become a society of commercialization.
I don’t like the dentist .
I spent 45 minutes and left a penny on the headstones of 75 veterans Monday at the Hermiston Cemetery.
Although not even close to the fiasco a recent United Airlines passenger experienced, I was thinking back about some of my travel woes over the years.
I’ve done some odd jobs over the years — some odder than others.
I recently spent a week firmly planted on my daybed with my right hand wrapped in an icepack resting on a pile of pillows.
I think of myself as a fairly law-abiding citizen.
I recently got electronically put in time-out.