10 years ago this week — 2013

CANNON BEACH — The most formidable enemy of an unfinished work of art is the artist’s inability to stop looking at it.

“The longer you look at it, you start convincing yourself it’s right,” Steve Gevurtz said while draping his sculpture of a lithe nude dancer in clay garments.

Gevurtz, a self-taught artist from Sandpoint, Idaho, had already spent about 120 hours on his dancer piece, “Finir En Beaute,” which translates to “finish with a flourish and beauty.”

Gevurtz toiled before a rotating audience of about half a dozen people in the back corner of Cannon Beach’s Primary Elements art gallery.

He was grateful when onlookers prodded him with questions, drawing his attention away from the miniature enchantress taking shape beneath his plying fingers.

“You constantly have to be looking away to get fresh eyes,” he said.

The weekend was the 26th annual Stormy Weather Arts Festival in Cannon Beach.

Cheers went all around for Englund Marine & Industrial Supply Thursday during an Assistance League monthly meeting.

The Astoria-based company was given the National Operation School Bell Award for financial support of the program that gives clothes to schoolchildren in need.

The more than 60 Assistance League members in attendance were surprised with a $5,000 donation and heard about how athletic scholarships are helping students.

“Thank you so much for what you do for our kids and our community — and especially for our kids at Astoria High,” said Howard Rub, athletic director at Astoria High School, who was a guest speaker.

SEASIDE — If you like low-scoring, defensive football … Broadway Field was not the place to be Friday night.

The South Umpqua and Seaside football teams definitely did not showcase their defenses in the loser-out, Class 4A regional plan-in contest.

To their credit, Seaside’s defense made the one stand that counted, as the Gulls forced a four-and-out in the final minute, inside their own 20-yard line to preserve a 50-47 win.

His eyes began watering. He started to sweat. His arms began tingling. And then he threw up.

No, Ted Barrus does not have the flu. It’s just a typical day at the office for the 39-year-old Hammond resident who makes his living on YouTube, where he is known as “The Fire Breathing Idiot.”

And on Monday, he ate a Jay’s Red Ghost Scorpion chili pepper at The Daily Astorian office just for kicks.

50 years ago — 1973

Site investigations and design planning work are well underway for a new 74-bed full-service hospital in Astoria to replace Columbia Memorial Hospital’s existing two-unit facility.

Elmer Blomquist, Columbia Memorial Hospital administrator, said one potential site has been nailed down and a rough conceptual design for a building to fit has been drawn.

The search for the Neah-Kah-Nie Mountain treasure has begun again by a four-man group from Tillamook County.

A spokesman for the group, John Hathaway, said it is applying for a permit to dig in three or four possible sites in Oswald West State Park on the north side of the mountain.

The State Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee has recommended approval for the permit following the presentation to the committee, Hathaway said.

American Metal Climax Co. opposes holding up its permit application to allow construction of a smelter at Warrenton until an estuary study is complete, a company spokesman said.

Environmentalists have supported that position and Diarmuid O’Scannlain, head of the Department of Environmental Quality, indicated Monday his agency may adopt that line of reasoning.

Barney McPhillips, chairman of the Environmental Quality Commission, which sets Department of Environmental Quality policy, said today, “We agree there is a need for long-range, detailed study of the entire Lower Columbia Estuary.”

McPhillips said even though such a study may cost millions of dollars and last several years, it may be advisable to hold up the company’s permit request until the study is complete.

The Tongue Point Job Corps Center is moving into a new era — the era of regionalization.

Regionalization means that women assigned to the Tongue Point Center will be primarily from the Pacific Northwest, northern California and Alaska rather than from the east, especially the southeast.

The most obvious byproduct of regionalization will be a radical change in the racial composition of the enrollment at Tongue Point.

Until regionalization became a reality, the Tongue Point Center’s population was 70% percent Black. Now it will be 70% white.

And while the Job Corps will have a lower visibility in Astoria as a result of the racial shift, that isn’t the reason for regionalization.

Regionalization came about as an attempt to link a corpswoman’s training more to the needs of the area in which she lives and works.

National Job Corps officials now believe training a woman in a cultural setting in which she feels comfortable will be more beneficial than uprooting her and sending her to a faraway, almost foreign place.

The old frame bus barn that workmen have been tearing down at 18th and Franklin streets was the original home of Astoria’s first automobile agency and one of the state’s oldest — Lovell Auto Co.

The Lovell firm is the third oldest, still operating in Oregon, according to its present head, Robert Lovell, son of the founder.

Founded in 1910, it is two years younger than Ralston Motors, of Albany, and one year younger than Wentworth and Irwin, of Portland. Lovell is unsure if the Ralston firm still is in business.

75 years ago — 1948

There is no conclusive proof that an influx of striped bass in the Columbia River would be damaging to the salmon fisheries, John Garrett, fish commission biologist at Bay City, informed Astorians.

Many fishing industry spokesmen have expressed concern over the appearance of striped bass in the river this year.

However, Garrett said that there have always been a few striped bass caught in the Columbia River for several years. He added that there is no real evidence of any sizable run of the bass developing in the river at the present time.

Astoria’s principal traffic safety need is traffic signal lights on busy intersections, Chairman Neil Morfitt of the mayor’s traffic safety committee said in a verbal report to the city council Monday night.

Morfitt submitted a list of requirements for additional traffic signs at various danger spots in the city.

Beach residents along the Oregon Coast today checked damage to homes from storm-borne logs and debris left by gale-like winds and high seas. Houses and beach cottages from the Columbia River south were hit by waves and debris. Docks were smashed. Bayocean was marooned by the high seas.

A 200-foot wide flood rolled over the neck of the community’s peninsula, stranding 70 persons.

Storm wreckage was noted from the mouth of the Columbia River to Newport as 50 mph winds coincided with high tide. Debris at Seaside was reported worse than the 1939 storm.

Twenty-two U.S. Navy fighter and torpedo bomber planes put on an unannounced aerial show for Astoria citizens Thursday morning, circling over the city several times.

The planes were engaged in maneuvers, but their nature was not disclosed.

A ground force of 20 men from the Seattle Naval Air Station established itself at Clatsop Airport Wednesday to refuel the planes in case they needed it but disclosed no information to airport authorities.

Unknown persons who have torn down and destroyed road and bridge signs are endangering county log truck traffic, Bob Shelfler, county engineer, warned Friday morning.

On Thursday night, a warning sign was removed from a steel bridge at Olney near an old quarry site, Shefler said.

This bridge is dangerous for loaded log trucks to attempt to cross and the county at present has no sign to replace the one which was removed.

A sign also has been removed from the Big Creek Bridge, where loaded log trucks should not attempt to cross.