After more than a year of closure, the Umatilla Museum is preparing to reopen.
Unless Umatilla County gets shut down with additional COVID-19 restrictions, board member Judy Simmons said, the museum plans to hold a grand reopening on Saturday, May 8. The museum closed during the initial COVID-19 shutdowns in spring 2020 and hasnât been open to the public since that time.
Simmons said volunteers for the museum will hold a cleaning party on Saturday, April 24, to dust shelves and do other things needed to prepare.
The museum used to have a paid employee, but no longer does. Simmons said the Umatilla Historical Society, which runs the museum, is in need of volunteers who can work shifts during the museumâs hours, Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Hermiston School District has announced it will opt out of state testing for the current school year.
School districts usually have students participate in state assessments in reading, math and science each spring. But Superintendent Tricia Mooney said this year the district will forgo those assessments in order to maximize the in-person instructional time students have left instead.
âThis is really about supporting our kids and supporting our teachers,â she said.
Usually, state testing takes between one to two weeks for students to complete. Even with much shorter tests this year, it would still mean time not in front of a teacher for students who just returned to in-person classes. Mooney said testing often creates anxiety for students, as well, and the district doesnât want to add to what has already been an anxious time.
There were plenty of congratulations to go around on Friday, April 2, as the Umatilla Chamber of Commerce handed out its Distinguished Citizen Awards for 2019 and 2020.
Salud Campos, executive director for the chamber, said after last yearâs awards banquet was canceled at the last minute due to the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, the chamber wanted to make sure those who would have been recognized still got their award. She visited those awardees, as well as a new group honored this year, to hand them their plaque and offer congratulations.
âThey were thrilled,â she said.
Some winners said they were honored, while others described themselves as humbled or surprised, she said. After a long year for everyone, Campos said it was nice to be able to recognize the good in Umatilla.
A swarm of volunteers in neon vests spread out up and down Sixth Street in Umatilla on Saturday, March 13, to plant 73 new trees downtown.
Esmerelda Horn, development and recreation manager for the city of Umatilla, said the trees are a mixture of hornbeam trees and red maples. The city plans to make the tree planting an annual springtime event.
âWeâll hit up a different area every year,â she said.
The city put out a call for volunteers to show up at 8:30 a.m., anticipating it would take until about 11 a.m. to get all the trees in. Instead, so many volunteers came out to help that it took an hour. Some showed up as individuals or families, while groups also showed up from organizations, including the InterMountain Education Service Districtâs Migrant Education program, Umatilla School District, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
UMATILLA COUNTY â As longtime Umatilla County residents surveyed the rushing waters of the countyâs flood of 2020, it brought to mind another scene, from 1996.
The county marked the 25th anniversary of the flood of 1996 â generally considered the last âbig oneâ before 2020 â on Feb. 9.
When an
East Oregonian reporter found Hermiston Irrigation District Manager Annette Kirkpatrick surveying where flood waters had overtopped the districtâs gates along the Umatilla River during the 2020 flood, she immediately made the comparison.
âEven â96 wasnât as bad as this,â she said at the time, echoing the thoughts of others interviewed that day.
The numbers bear out that, at least in terms of water height, the 2020 flood was worse. In 1996, the