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Nestucca Students Learn Tourism, Hospitality
Mook Tees Off on 101st Anniversary Page A3
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Headlight Herald
Tuesday, July 15, 2025 | Vol. 137, Issue 28
Dialysis clinic reopens
FAIR COUNTDOWN
Pig-n-Ford races turn 100
WILL CHAPPELL
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Headlight Editor
century ago, Tillamook residents awaited their lateSeptember county fair with great anticipation, as a new domed exhibit building was under construction at a cost of $27,000, part of a $1 million bond approved in 1921 to move the fair to its current home. Another momentous change was also afoot, as for the first time, racers brought their Ford Model Ts to the fairground and hauled pigs through a two-lap race, giving birth to the Pig-n-Ford races, which are celebrating their 100-year anniversary at this year’s fair from August from August 6-9. The idea for the event was spawned when Joe Bell found a loose pig on his property one day in the early 1920s. Bell gathered the squealing swine, crank started his Ford Model T and returned the pig to its owner, and in recounting the incident to his friends around Tillamook, the idea for a competition was born. In its early days, the races were open to all comers, with participation varying year to year, but in the early 1950s, the Model T Pig n’ Fords Association was formed, establishing ten franchises that would participate in the event each year. More than seventy years later, those same ten franchises still exist, with many owned by descendants of the original owners from the 1950s. Parry Hurliman, a franchise owner who has been a member of the association for 52 years since he joined as a driver at the age of 16, recently sat down with the Headlight Herald to reminisce on his time with the association. Three of Hurliman’s uncles owned franchises in the 1950s and
WILL CHAPPELL
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Photos courtesy of Parry Hurliman
(Top) Drivers in a 1970s race scramble to corral pigs from their pens at the beginning of a race. (Bottom) Jim Martin works to hold on to his pig during a crank start in the 1980s as Bobby Wasmer runs to his car in the background.
it was with one of them that Hurliman began racing in 1973, as soon as he turned 16. Hurliman’s father had purchased a franchise in 1970, and Hurliman eventually drove for him before inheriting the franchise. In his early days in the association, Hurliman said that things were See RACES, Page A3
Healthcare education building at TBCC ‘starting to finish’ WILL CHAPPELL
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Headlight Editor
nterior and exterior finishes are being installed at Tillamook Bay Community College’s new healthcare education building, keeping the project on track for a fall completion and January 2026 opening to students.
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When complete, the building and associated plaza will transform the college’s campus, encouraging students, staff and community members to circulate among the buildings and enjoy the outdoor space, according to Tillamook Bay Community College (TBCC) President Paul Jarrell. “I think it’s important to understand that our goal is to really create that kind of campus feel and really encourage students Will Chappell/Headlight Herald and staff to move from Tiling being installed on the new healthcare education building’s exterior that will be painted to building to building match the main building. so that we’re not so isolated,” Jarrell said even after complicated wastewater a bus stop. during a recent tour of the new Installation of exterior siding management systems were found building. to be necessary early in the project. panels was also underway in early Work on the new July. Once complete in mid to late As of early July, groundwork 28,000-square-foot building began had begun on a sitting wall and July, the tiles will be painted the last June and its $23.8-million same color as the college’s main planter in the plaza between the budget is being supported primarbuilding, as will the college’s cenhealthcare education building and ily by a voter-approved bond. ter for industrial technology and the college’s main building. When Jason Lawrence, TBCC’s Director a wellhouse for the Pleasant View complete, the plaza will feature of Facilities and Safety, said that utility district that sits on campus, varied plantings, grassy and paved the project has remained on sched- areas, and be next to a new solarule and there are still contingency powered kiosk abutting the colfunds remaining in the budget, See TBCC, Page A2 lege’s roundabout that will serve as
Headlight Editor
fter months of review, a final inspection was completed at the Tillamook Kidney Center on June 27, and Dialysis Clinic, Inc. received final paperwork allowing the center to begin operations on July 9. Patients are now being transitioned to care at the center, ending a year-and-a-half ordeal that saw them forced into multi-hour roundtrips three times weekly for their life sustaining treatment. Tillamook dialysis patients were first thrown into uncertainty in January 2024 when the then-operator of Tillamook’s dialysis clinic, U.S. Renal Care (USRC), announced its intention to close the unit, citing low patient numbers making the clinic economically unsustainable. Following the announcement, Tillamook Adventist Health President Eric Swanson swung into action, seeking a new partner to operate the center and spare patients commutes to Lincoln City, Astoria or Forest Grove for treatment. On a tip from a consultant, Swanson reached out to Dialysis Clinic, Inc. (DCI), a Nashville-based nonprofit that runs dialysis centers across the country, whose leaders immediately expressed an interest in helping to reopen the center. In September, DCI staff reached out to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to inquire about the possibility of transferring USRC’s license for the center to the new center but were informed that USRC had returned its license to OHA and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), making a transfer impossible and triggering a new review for the proposed center. That review process generally takes six months to a year, an OHA official told the Headlight Herald in March, and includes reviews of the physical environment by the OHA’s Facilities Planning and Safety Program and fire and life safety elements and mechanicals by the Oregon Fire Marshal’s Office. The fire marshal office’s inspection was completed in late February and the physical environment review in March. Following those inspections, the center needed a review of its operations by CMS, which pays for many dialysis patients’ care. The center began serving one patient with private insurance in June to demonstrate operations and OHA contractors completed two inspections on behalf of CMS, with the second, a fire and life safety check, occurring on June 27. With those inspections complete, DCI’s Tillamook Kidney Center received its certification of operation on July 9. Sharon Marti, DCI’s Senior Operations Director, said that center staff are now working to transition patients from other centers to Tillamook for treatments, prioritizing care based on medical need and in a way to ensure the staff can acclimate to patient needs. Marti said that the center was treating three patients as of July 11, with 17 on the waitlist to be dialyzed there. Currently, the center is licensed to operate five treatment stations, according to Marti, meaning that it will likely be necessary to add treatment shifts on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in addition to the current Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. Marti said that DCI is in the planning process for two additional treatment stations, which it hopes to have operational by December.
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