UNION â Union School District Superintendent Carter Wells starts each day expecting to be surprised.
Still, none of his wildest expectations could have prepared him for the surprise he received on Monday, May 3.
Wells received the Doug Flatt Memorial Leadership Award.
âI was extremely shocked,â Wells said, also noting nobody dropped the faintest of hints about possibly receiving the award.
The Mid Columbia Bus Company and InterMountain Education Service District sponsor the award. Flatt was the chief executive officer of Mid Columbia who died in a plane crash in 2003. The purpose of the Doug Flatt Leadership Award is to recognize a school administrator in a district Mid Columbia serves who exemplifies the same qualities Flatt was well known for.
HERMISTON â Some stood near the warmth of fires in the parking lot of the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center in Hermiston, eating, drinking and sharing stories under the light of a nearly full moon on a clear, crisp and windless New Yearâs Eve.
Dozens more sat in their cars nearby, waiting for the fireworks that would mark the end of a truly arduous year.
Two men stood perhaps 100 yards away, in the dark beyond the Festival of Lights, preparing nearly 100 fireworks that would âblow out the old (year) and bring in the new one,â pyrotechnician Tom Ramsey said.