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Morning Press: Recruiting police, oil emergencies, digital expo, McKibbin funeral

By The Columbian
Published: April 25, 2016, 6:15am

What’s on tap for this week’s weather? Check our local weather coverage.

In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories of the weekend:

More cops on the street? That doesn’t just happen

After spending six years in the U.S. Coast Guard, Ridgefield native Ethan Ogdee began searching for a job in law enforcement closer to home.

Ogdee, 25, started testing for positions in April 2014, but it took more than a year of applications, tests and reviews before he landed a job at the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.

“It was difficult and it was time-consuming,” Ogdee said. He also said that it was expensive: “This isn’t a poor man’s game.”

As law enforcement agencies across the country look to bolster their forces following the recession, many are met with a shortage of new recruits. Though law enforcement agencies in Clark County aren’t seeing a large drop in interested candidates, some agencies are still having trouble getting to full staff.

Herrera Beutler pushes to help first responders in an oil-by-rail disaster

U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler is championing a measure to help first responders prepare for an oil-by-rail spill or explosion.

On Friday morning, she listened to local fire officials express the challenges they face, from understaffing to limited financial resources, and their desire to develop regional coordinated responses for hazardous material incidents.

The measure Herrera Beutler is advocating would direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to consider grant requests for hazmat operations, including training and planning, a priority.

Local tech industry plans digital expo

Just when we learn some new technology in today’s workplace, something newer and supposedly better comes along to replace it. Then we have to learn again.

Or we don’t learn and get further behind competitors and the up-and-comers in our professional fields. It’s not much of an option.

Helping businesses and their employees fire up their digital technology skills is the challenge that Chandra Chase, the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce’s programs and communications director, and a large contingent of local technology professionals hope to address at Vancouver’s first Digital Technology Expo on Thursday. It’s a mostly free event that showcases local resources as well as companies that are building the foundation for a growing digital technology job sector.

John McKibbin memorial: “We wanted to make sure all of you were awake”

“To me, he is, and always will be, Butt-Head,” Rob Costa said. “And I will always be Beavis.”

Costa’s tribute to his friend and brother-in-law was one of many at a memorial service punctuated with laughs and the occasional off-color moment Saturday afternoon at Columbia Presbyterian Church, where hundreds gathered to honor and reflect on the life and memory of McKibbin.

One of Clark County’s best-known citizens, McKibbin died at 69 late last month when, while flying with passenger Irene Mustain, his World War II-era plane plunged into the Columbia River near Astoria, Ore.

The Kiggins Theatre is 80

Fantastic movie palaces with vast screens have mostly surrendered to clusters of tight, anonymous boxes featuring steep “stadium seating.”

But the historic Kiggins Theatre keeps firing up its big old marquee, selling tickets from its classic freestanding box office and welcoming cinema lovers into its spacious 340-seat auditorium. The place first opened its doors, dimmed its lights and cranked up its projector exactly 80 years ago — on April 24, 1936.

Sunday, the Kiggins  revived the “Golden Age of Hollywood” with vintage big-band music, complementary 1930s-style hair and makeup services and — since national Prohibition was repealed in 1933 — a completely legal beer garden. The Kiggins’ block of Main Street  was closed to cars and opened to pedestrians.

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