Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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The WP Tigers are 14-0 after beating the Bulldogs in Dayton on Tuesday. Assistant coach Bart Baxter said the team is trying to break another record by scoring 100 points in the season. "We're just three points away, and we have two more games to go," he said Tuesday evening. The Tigers defeated Dayton 11-0. Francisco Gonzales and Omar Virgen scored three goals, Lino Diaz scored four and JV player Alberto Sandoval scored his first goal of the season. Three assists were made by Kevin Or...
WAITSBURG - People want to know what Jan Cronkhite will do now that she's retired from her post of 32 years as director of the Weller Public Library on Main Street in downtown Waitsburg. "I don't have any plans," the longtime resident said Monday. "I've always got my big garden, but no real special or different plans." Will she continue to be a part of the little community library where she has lovingly kept house and introduced a whole generation of children to a passion for books and reading?...
PRESCOTT - Friday afternoon the WP Tigers play at home for Prescott's Homecoming game. Assistant coach Bart Baxter is excited about the game. "It should be pretty fun," he said. "St. George will not want to lose again." The Tigers are ranked second in the state for 2B/1B teams and first in Eastern Washington with their 10-0 record. Friday's game will be against Spokane area's St. George's School, a tough team the Tigers routed earlier in the season 3-2. Saturday the Tigers defeated N...
DAYTON - The hard-working Bulldogs soccer team hasn't had a win yet, but they're edging closer with each game and just two weeks ago they tied against Northport in a tough game played in Spokane. "Each week the team is just playing better and better," said head coach DJ Frame. "We just keep picking one aspect of the game, and they're getting it. The coolest thing about this team is they are playing absolutely to the end of the game. You can't ask for more than that. They just don't give up." Frame said the team not only plays hard together, bu...
Cross Country runners in both Waitsburg-Prescott and Dayton continue to keep pace with personal goals and edge their way up the rankings. Waitsburg sophomore Seth Deal beat his personal best and finished a three-mile race in 16:22.88, taking first place at the Richland Invitational cross country meet Saturday. He was up against 94 other runners in that race. WP runners recently experienced a hot day on a slow course, as coach Joanna Lanning put it, at the Pasco Invitational last weekend. H...
DAYTON - Close to 200 people packed the Dayton Liberty Theater last Wednesday evening to hear candidates in this year's controversial general election sound off during the annual American Association of University Women forum. "We only have 150 seats, so rarely do we get this many people coming in here," said theater manager Reid Helford. Helford said the last time anywhere close to this many Columbia County voters flocked to the forum was the first time Terry Nealey ran for state representative. Sherrie Flaman Keifer, co-president of th...
DAYTON - Columbia County Commissioners will convene Friday at 10:30 a.m. for a special meeting to adopt an ordinance raising excises taxes in the county. The new ordinance will increase what's known as the E911 Excise Tax from 50 cents to 70 cents on the use of all taxable switched access lines, radio access lines and interconnected voice-over Internet protocol services lines in Columbia County. W h a t this means for taxpayers is simple. All phones in the county that had previously charged users a 50-cent excise tax each month will see th...
DAYTON - Landowners like to experiment when it comes to problem solving. Should we leave a field in summer fallow this year? Do we mow or burn the wheat stubble? Several property owners in Columbia County are now looking at old ways to solve a persistent problem - bringing back grazing to control invasive, unwanted grasses and brush. "You might say we've come around in a circle," said Doug Warnock, a Walla Walla grazing management consultant who worked for many years in the county's WSU...
DAYTON - Columbia County Commissioners fired Public Health Director David Riggs last week in an effort to fix a budgetary crisis in the department that's been escalating since the spring. In March, one of the county's half dozen public health employees was "stricken ill and has yet to return to work," according to Commissioner Chuck Reeves. The department's budget took several hard hits with this loss - first when the employee tapped into a sick-leave bank, then when the county hired a replacement and finally when the department dis...
The Waitsburg-Prescott Tigers have a handful of league games left to play, but assistant coach Bart Baxter is already looking ahead to state. The first-year soccer team hit the ground running and hasn't stopped. The Tigers are going into the fifth week of the season undefeated. "No 2B team has ever gone to state undefeated in Washington," Baxter said. "We could set the bar in a lot of places this year. Some of these things have never been done before." In a practice game at Milton Freewater's...
DAYTON - Anne Higgins was so excited to get out from behind a computer, be out in the community and meet new people that when she heard the Shell Service Center, right here in Dayton, might be up for sale, she jumped on it. She spoke with Sean Casseday, of Dayton Chemical, a few years ago about the purchase. Since its construction 15 years ago the Shell on Main Street has been owned and operated by Dayton Chemical, but the timing for a change just wasn't right. Then, this year, Casseday ap...
WAITSBURG - If there's one gal in Waitsburg everybody knows and loves, it's Jane Butler. Though she isn't a Waitsburg native, she has become as much a part of this community as any member of its original pioneer families. "I know everybody who knows her just loves her," said longtime friend B.A. Keve. "She's just a darling, and she continues to amaze me. I don't think there's anything she can't do and do well. So many people appreciate her." Next weekend Butler's friends and family will hav...
Bob Chalfant has big shoes to fill. For almost three decades, Gary Lentz worked as the ranger in charge of Lewis and Clark Trail State Park. For years Lentz maintained the facilities while providing interpretive programs extolling his extensive knowledge of the history and biology of the region. But at the end of June, the Dixie man retired from his post. Now Chalfant, a 31-year veteran of the parks system, has been assigned to the task. "My goal is to enhance what Gary has done here," C...
RICHLAND - The Dayton Bulldogs fell to the Liberty Christian Patriots Tuesday night, losing their match in three games 25-21, 27-25 and 25-21. "We just lacked motivation, made too many errors and weren't consistent," head coach Shannon Turner said. "We did not play our game." The team, she said, "will learn from it and move on." After this second loss in a week, the Bulldogs are 1-2 in league competition, but it hasn't been a bad season so far at all. The Bulldogs played a close match against the Asotin Panthers last Tuesday night only...
PRESCOTT - Just few weeks into the season, the brand new Waitsburg-Prescott Tigers are already ranked third among the state's 25 B2 teams, and perhaps they should be even higher. "We beat the number one-ranked team twice," head coach Rickie Hamilton reWP under his breath during Tuesday afternoon's rout of the Dayton Bulldogs 19-0. "But I'd rather be at the bottom so we don't have a target on our backs." The team Hamilton referred to is Yakima's Riverside Christian Cougars, which the Tige...
DAYTON - Trees in this part of the state are a precious commodity, so when they start looking sick and dying, property owners want answers. If they're smart, they start asking questions, and if they're lucky, they get the Forest Tour. U.S. Forest Service entomologist Lia Spiegel and pathologist Craig Schmitt, both from La Grande, joined forest insect specialist Mike Johnson with the Eastern Washington Department of Natural Resources earlier this month in Columbia County at the request of local...
DAYTON - Members of the Columbia County Public Hospital Board of Commissioners have lifted the health district's firing freeze placed in May following the firing of former Rural Clinics Director Julia Mead and the subsequent resignations of several medical staff, physicians and the director of nursing services. After a special executive session Thursday night at the St. Joseph's Catholic Church Fellowship Hall in Dayton, the board voted unanimously to reinstate CEO Charlie Button's full responsibilities as head of the health district. "I th...
WAITSBURG - Ring the bells, toot the horns, strike up the band - the cyclists are here ! Waitsburgers went all out to greet the more than 2,000 Cycle Oregon participants Tuesday as they pedaled into town after a nearly three-hour ride from Starbuck. Members of the local Special Olympics skiing team, the Bluewood Bombers, erected an archway and decorated the finish line near the fairgrounds on Caroline Street. Local school children, Waitsburg-Prescott cheerleaders and the high school band waited...
YAKIMA - The new Waitsburg-Prescott soccer team beat the socks off much more veteran players over the weekend, taking opponents by surprise and thrilling head coach Rick Hamilton. "I'm very pleased so far," he said. "I think the kids are starting to gel, starting to play together and have an idea of I'm wanting." The Tigers squashed Walla Walla Valley Academy in an away game Thursday. The final score was 8-2. "I played a lot of my JV even against WWVA," Hamilton said. "We made two little mistakes, giving them the penalty on one shot and o...
When the American Cancer Society approached Dayton resident Delphine Bailey about starting up a local Relay for Life event, Bailey was worried she wouldn't be able to rally enough people to make it work. "But I have been totally amazed at the people that have come forward to help with this wonderful event," she said Monday. This weekend, Saturday, Sept. 18, through Sunday, Sept. 19, supporters will rally again, for the third year, at the Dayton Sports Complex to raise cancer awareness and money for the American Cancer Society at the Rel...
MILTON FREEWATER - The Waitsburg-Prescott varsity volleyball squad warmed up for the season this Saturday in their match against McLoughlin High School (Mac-Hi), easily winning the first three games to take top score 25 - 12, 25 - 17 and 25 - 22. Coach Jesse Buehler, while excited to have her team win its first game of the season, reported that player stats were uncommonly low. Only Waitsburg senior Genesis Pearson had enough kills to note, making five during the evening's games, she sai...
DAYTON - The untested Waitsburg-Prescott Tigers swept the field defeating both Dayton and Walla Walla Valley Academy at the league's soccer jamboree in Dayton Tuesday evening. "We take our hats off to the WP team," said Dayton assistant coach Jerry Dedloff after the game. "They live it and love it. They're at the level we hope to be at." Though the scores at Tuesday night's jamboree don't count toward the three teams' overall rankings, Tigers head coach Rick Hamilton was pleased at the r...
DAYTON - Expect the unexpected this year at the Columbia County Fair. That's the advice fair manager Shane Laib has for the roughly 5,000 people he predicts will attend this year's 120th anniversary event. "Assume nothing," Laib said Monday, as he and dozens of others began work to prepare the fairgrounds for opening this Friday. "Some c omp o - nent of virtually every part of the fair will be different this year." This is Laib's first year as fair manager, but he's been busy. Together with a...
DAYTON - Columbia County officials agreed Tuesday morning to look into the possibility of taking over the easement of about seven miles of U.S. Forest Service road leading to Ski Bluewood, including two miles of road on privately owned property. Following a presentation given by Marcene Hendrickson, a member of the county's Economic Steering Committee, county commissioners tasked Drew Woods, county public works director, with completing a quick, but in-depth, study into the feasibility of such an action. The need for immediate resu...
DAYTON - Television host Grant Goodeve agrees with local business owners and planners. Dayton doesn't have to dress itself up and pretend to be something it isn't. Dayton is a carefully preserved piece of Washington history. "It's almost like a (Hollywood) set, and I mean that as a compliment," Goodeve said Tuesday morning while visiting the Dayton Historical Depot. "So much is already here and offered that you don't have to set anything up. It's authentic, and everything is so darn clean a...
