It is Northwest Cherry Festival weekend.  Activities are beginning today (Friday) with the Family Pit Party at 4 p.m. on the main stage, plus the opening of the Open Air Market and the Davis Shows Carnival.  Saturday features a whole list of events, including the annual Tonkin Subaru Cherry Festival Parade starting at 6th and Webber at 10 a.m., featuring over 100 entries.  The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Lisa Farquharson says it will take the usual route through the downtown area.  The royalty coronation and community breakfast at Mid-Columbia Senior Center will precede the parade at 8 a.m.  Entertainment on the stage begins at 1:30 on Saturday and 9 a.m. on Sunday.  And the Bicoastal Media/Bishop Sanitation Home and Lifestyle Show is open today from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.  Cherry Festival Event Guides are available at gorgeradio.com.

Hood River County Commissioners discussed what to do about the request from NORCOR for an increased payment for Fiscal Year 2019-20 during a special worksession on Thursday.  Commissioner Bob Benton, who is Hood River County’s representative on the NORCOR board and its chair, asked for the meeting to present information on the request for a $262,000 increase, which is up from the $212,000 included in the fiscal plan the County budget committee is considering.  All the commissioners indicated they think NORCOR is well run and programs that have been instituted in recent years have reduced recidivism.  But they also noted every dollar increased for NORCOR reduces another area of the County budget.  Benton said the major increases in NORCOR expenses come in the areas of food, PERS liability, a capital fund line item to address aging facilities, and wages and compensation increases currently in negotiation.  Commissioners will consider the information Benton presented and hold another worksession next Thursday to provide him direction to take back to the NORCOR panel.

Boys Lacrosse

Lincoln 11, Hood River Valley 5

Girls Lacrosse

Oregon Episcopal 11, Hood River Valley 7:  Alex Willis scored three goals for the Eagles.

Boys Soccer

Stevenson 2, LaCenter 1:  The Bulldogs scored the Trico League win by outscoring the Wildcats 4-2 in the penalty kick shootout.

Baseball

Hood River Valley JV 13, Dufur 1

Track and Field

Lyle-Wishram’s boys were second and girls seventh in an all-EWAC meet at Mabton.  The Wildcat boys had five first place finishes, as Brandon Montoya won the 100 and 200 meters, David Bernier took the 800, Jarron Leslie was first in the javelin, and Gerry Kindrick won the triple jump.

FISH Food Bank of Hood River County will mark 50 years of helping those in need with a celebration Friday evening at the Columbia Center for the Arts.  FISH board chair Marianne Durkan says the event is free and open to all in the community.  Durkan says FISH started with a notice in the Hood River News in 1969 that a group of churches had acquired a phone number to help people with a variety of needs.  FISH eventually evoled into the food bank that it is today.  Friday’s celebration will run from 5:30 to 7:30 at Columbia Center for the Arts, with snacks, music, and art.

Columbia Gorge Community College is expanding its community education offerings this summer.  CGCC President Marta Yera-Cronin says catalogs for summer offerings and previews of what is planned for the fall will be arriving in area mailboxes soon.  Yera-Cronin noted they want to increase engagement with the community and get more people onto their campus.  She added their Community Ed program emphasizes The Dalles, where there were fewer opportunities of this type available.  The catalog will also be available at cgcc.edu.

The Port of Hood River has cancelled today’s (Thursday) planned full closures of the Hood River-White Salmon Interstate Bridge. Electrical and engineering crews working overnight detected instrumentation issues that they were unable to resolve. The work will be rescheduled.

The Hood River County School District has selected a finalist for its superintendent’s position.  The district announced Tuesday that Dr. Sara Hahn-Huston is their lone finalist after interviewing four candidates on Monday.  Hahn-Huston is currently the executive director of secondary education at Gresham-Barlow School District, where she has worked since 2015.  She has nearly three decades experience as an educator, including 10 years as a teacher and experience as a principal in dual-language schools.  District board vice-chair Rich Truax says they were excited about Hahn-Huston’s success in diverse, multi-lingual, multicultural school communities.  The district has scheduled two meet-and-greet sessions this Monday for community members to ask questions and submit feedback.  The first will be from 3:30 to 4:30 at Wy’east Middle School, followed up with another session from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Hood River County School District board room.

A 30-day comment period for the City of The Dalles’ Americans with Disabilities Act Transition Plan is underway and will continue through May 22.  The plan focuses on developing a transition schedule for eliminating existing physical barriers with transportation system right-of-ways.  Planned changes include installation of curb ramps at intersections and accessible pedestrian signals to provide sound indicators along with lighted crosswalk signals where traffic lights are installed.  Implementation would occur over sixty years.  The entire draft ADA Transition Plan and a three-question survey are available online at thedalles.org/engineering or in paper format at the Public Works Department, Mid-Columbia Senior Center, and The Dalles-Wasco County Public Library.  The City of The Dalles booth at the Northwest Cherry Festival Community Fair will feature the ADA Transition Plan.

The Hood River County School District held its second community forum on changes in school boundary lines.  A committee has been working the topic for the last two months, dealing with buildings that are full in the Lower Hood River Valley and available classroom space in the mid- and upper-valleys, and much of the feedback from those impacted was not positive.  Superintendent Dan Goldman acknowledges the district won’t make everyone happy, but they have to address the enrollment disparities in the elementary and middle school buildings.  He does say they have gotten questions about keeping children in schools they are already attending, and different timelines for changes are being studied.  The committee will give a recommendation to Superintendent Dan Goldman to take to the district board, and that’s expected to be sometime in May.

Softball

The Dalles 12, Pendleton 11:  The Riverhawks’ Bailey LeBreton hit a grand slam to give The Dalles a 10-2 lead after three innings, but then they had to hang on as the Buckaroos came back.  The Dalles moved to 5-1 in the Intermountain Conference, staying tied for first with Ridgeview.

Hood River Valley 5, Redmond 0:  Lauren Decker pitched a five-hit shutout to give HRV its fourth straight win and keeping them within a game of the league leaders heading into a doubleheader in The Dalles on Friday.  Aunika Yasui homered and tripled for the Eagles.

King’s Way Christian 16, Stevenson 0

Mabton sweeps Lyle-Wishram 19-6 and 20-13

Baseball

Redmond 5, Hood River Valley 4:  The Panthers scored in the bottom of the seventh inning thanks to two hits, a hit by pitch, and a sacrifice fly.  The Eagles fall to 4-2 in the Intermountain Conference, but remain tied for first place with The Dalles and Pendleton.

Pendleton 12, The Dalles 2

Columbia split with LaCenter, winning 1-0 with Davis Koester and Dominic Raether combining on a two-hitter, but falling in the nightcap 6-4

Stevenson split with King’s Way Christian, losing 15-1 in the first game, but coming back for 6-4 win.

Sherman 16, Stanfield 6

Cle Elum-Roslyn 16, Goldendale 3

Boys Tennis

Hood River Valley 8, Pendleton 0

Redmond 7, The Dalles 1

Girls Tennis

Pendleton 7, Hood River Valley 1

Boys Lacrosse

Hood River Valley 12, Cleveland 3