The Port gets a facelift

Published 4:33 pm Wednesday, February 18, 2026

High school class takes art outside

At the end of the first month of 2026, Mickey Cereghino and his 14-student community art class put the finishing touches on their semester-long art project: painting a series of barriers at the Port of Astoria’s Pier 1.

When put end to end, the seven barriers create a single contiguous mural showing off iconic sights and scenes in Astoria. Strategically placed, the art will be a welcome sign to passengers arriving on cruise ships.

Cereghino said he is proud of his students’ work. “It’s a super talented group,” said Cereghino. “My job is organizing them — but they’re the ones (who) come up with the ideas.”

The project started with a request from Stacy Bandy, the environmental compliance and permits manager at the Port of Astoria. Bandy pitched the idea to Cereghino’s students and the class’s unanimous decision was “yes.”

The project was not without unique challenges for the young artists including times of harsh weather plus the limited time in the school day.

“At the beginning of the semester we had days where we would start up down there and it was just gorgeous,” Cereghino said. “You’re on the water, it’s 68 degrees and you’re standing there watching ships go by as you paint.”

After the weather turned, they were forced to work inside a small maintenance shed which could only hold three barriers at a time.

“Huge shoutout to the maintenance guys at the Port,” said Cereghino. “We kind of invaded their space.”

Cereghino said getting the barriers moved into place was also challenging. He had to send Bandy emails requesting the moves, which required a forklift each time.

Cereghino said one of the other challenges was time.

By the time they arrived at the Port for their weekly painting sessions, his students would only have about 45 minutes to actually paint before cleaning up and getting back to their other classes.

“Most of the work ended up being done outside of the normal school day on their own time,” Cereghino said.

And as the project neared its fruition — “where you could start to tell what (the walls) were going to look like” — everyone was anxious with anticipation, even the Port’s maintenance crew. “They were getting more excited than the students,” he said. “They were awesome to work with.”

Cereghino said the best part of the project was the “real world” product his students produced and could be proud of.

“I’m sure it’ll go on a couple resumes and job applications, for sure.”