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• Ways to honor veterans, pg 2 • Five Rivers salutes veterans, pg 3 • Veterans’ bios, pgs 4-9 • Local veterans’ memorials, pg 10 • United in service, united in gratitude: honoring Oregon’s veterans, pgs 11-12
Headlight Herald
Salute to Veterans Special Section
Cheesemakers Advance In Playoffs Page B1
Inside
Headlight Herald
Tuesday, November 11, 2025 | Vol. 137, Issue 45
Winds batter Tillamook as winter weather arrives
With SNAP in limbo, food bank braces
WILL CHAPPELL
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Headlight Editor
everal storm systems lashed Tillamook County with high winds and more than two inches of rain in the first week of November, also generating a waterspout off Oceanside on Wednesday and causing multiple power outages and damage. Meteorological conditions were exacerbated by the season’s first King Tides from November 5-7, which saw high tides peak at ten feet each day. Storm systems began moving across the county on Monday, November 3, but matters intensified on Wednesday, November 5, as wind gusts recorded by the National Weather Service climbed to 60-70 miles per hour across the county. Around 4:35 p.m., the high winds generated a waterspout roughly one mile west-northwest of Netarts, which moved slowly northeast toward the beach, before fizzling out near the shoreline. Rainfall totals were relatively low throughout the week in coastal areas of the county, with the National Weather Service measuring 2-2.5 inches at most of its low-lying posts See WINDS, Page A3
WILL CHAPPELL
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A sailboat was grounded during the storms in Rockaway Beach. Photo by Mike Kukral
AWARD WINNING
Tillamook Fair Board President Larson wins award, poster also feted WILL CHAPPELL
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Headlight Editor
illamook County Fair Board Member Bob Larson and volunteer Richard Love were selected Fair Board Member of the year and fair supporter of the year at October’s Oregon Fairs Association annual conference in Salem, while the fair’s 2025 poster was selected as best fair poster. Tillamook County Fairgrounds Manager Camy Von Seggern said that both volunteers contribute to the fair in multiple ways and extolled their contributions. Larson has been on the Tillamook County Fair’s Board of Directors for 13 years, assuming the presidency this year. Von Seggern said that Larson consistently brought new ideas to the table, including adding three new carnival rides to the fair this year and that he was a jack of all trades during fair week, completing tasks ranging
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from bringing water to announcers in the grandstand arena to coordinating with a neighboring farmer to use a field for 250 overflow parking spaces. “He is just on top of things continually,” Von Seggern said. “He’s always looking for new ideas for the fairground, and our board is a working board, so they get out there as well.” Love is a longtime volunteer at the fairground, whose father once served on the board. During fair week, Love oversees the volunteer vendor lot, arriving at 6 a.m. daily and bringing donuts to gate crew volunteers. The rest of the year, Love chips in on projects around the property, including a renovation of the Tillamook County Pioneer Society’s building. “He’s just done a lot, so we thought he was very deserving, and I guess the committee thought so too,” Von Seggern said.
Headlight Editor
s funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan payments for November remains unsure amid the ongoing federal government shutdown, the Tillamook branch of the Oregon Food Bank and its partner food pantries are preparing for an uptick in demand. Oregon Food Bank’s Tillamook Regional Manager Julia Wentzel said that the uncertainty and potential lack of benefits was going to further strain a system that was already overburdened, and that looking ahead, the issues only promise to get worse as components of the Republican spending bill passed this summer come into effect in January. “I think that it’s important to think about this as a spike in an ongoing crisis,” Wentzel said. “We were in a moment of pretty severe food insecurity before any of this happened and we are looking at permanent changes to SNAP that will have really dire consequences for SNAP families but also for our entire local economy.” The apparent status of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plans (SNAP) payments for November morphed throughout the week through a series of legal rulings. On Monday, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must disburse at least half of monthly payments to SNAP recipients, while another court ordered full benefit payment on Friday, though the administration challenged both rulings. Oregon leaders, along with those in several other states, indicated early on Friday that they planned to send participants full November benefits, even in the face of the pending legal battle. In Tillamook County, about 15% of the population, or 4,5000 people, receives SNAP benefits averaging just under $7 a day, Wentzel said. Under normal circumstances, the food bank and pantry system serves as a safety net for people waiting for SNAP benefits to begin, those without permanent legal status or as a bridge source of food at the end of the month. In an average month, 5,000 visits occur at local food pantries, though Wentzel said they do not have a way to identify repeat visitors. In the last week of October,
Tillamook Fair Board President Bob Larson and Fairgrounds Manager Camy Von Seggern at the award ceremony. Photo courtesy Camy Von Seggern
See SNAP, Page A3
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