Hermiston is the largest school in Eastern Oregon. Umatilla is surrounded by other schools within their league that is in within easy driving distance.
There are two schools of thought, one I do believe Oregon needs to re-align their classifications and reduce the numbers that they actually have. If you think Washington is watered down with the classifications, look at Oregon. They have about half of the population that Washington has, but have an extra class (going from 1A-6A). So yes, this is an Oregon problem that needs to be re- aligned and re-figured.
On the other hand, being the largest high school in Eastern Oregon Hermiston was traveling up to 4 and 6 hours one way. Trips to bend, the dalles, hood river, portland, as far south as medford. With all of the their sports and activities combined, they could have went around the world 3 times with the combined mileage. On top of that students were missing a large chunk of school. Particularly any three sport athlete's, who were missing over a month of school due to travel.
My stance is this, other states do it so its nothing unheard of and not as unusual as everyone thinks. It seems to be the ones who are getting beaten by a Hermiston kid are the ones who are complaining. So yes, it is about the kids. And by having Hermiston compete in Washington, and particularly in wrestling it does nothing but raise the level of competition. What you should be worrying about instead is making wrestling better in Washington. While Oregon is adding college wrestling programs left and right...Washington cant even support the one's they have. While our athletes are choosing not to even wrestle in college because of the out of state price tag attached to it. Or if they do, they never come back and coach because they stay in a place like Iowa or Ohio and are actually valued.