Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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DAYTON -- A transient man who is suspected of breaking into a Dayton church preschool and may also have broken into several homes in town during the past two months is in custody. Daniel Baxter, a 34-year-old drifter with ties to Montana, California and Pennsylvania, was arrested by Columbia County Sheriff's deputies late last Thursday afternoon after the officers discovered his hiding place in the basement of an empty home owned by Dayton's Community Bible Church on South Second Street....
DAYTON -- Eric Van- Zandt, a 28-year-old Dayton man who was arraigned in Columbia County Superior Court last Thursday on 12 felony charges including theft of firearms and residential burglary, could be sent to prison for many years if convicted of these crimes. VanZandt was arrested on a warrant from Walla Walla County after a neighbor reported a fight at VanZandt's residence at 1531 S. Second St. in Dayton just before 4 a.m. on Jan. 29. According to the certification of probable cause, "three m...
WAITSBURG -- Three teenagers who attended Preston Middle School in Waitsburg are suspected of vandalizing and removing a Baby Jesus doll from the front of the First Presbyterian Church in December, according to law enforcement and school district officials. Two of the three have admitted to the acts against the Christian symbol that upset many in the community and both have written letters to the Rev. Bret Moser expressing their remorse. "I wasn't thinking," Moser quoted one of the letters to...
WAITSBURG - To say the city of Waitsburg is stumped by the future of the collapsed bunk house east of the McGregor plant is putting it mildly. No one came forward to put in a salvage bid for its materials. The fire district doesn't want to burn it as part of a training exercise because it contains hazardous materials. And now it appears the city is in violation of its own code by just letting sit there. "It's been a worrisome issue," said Mayor Walt Gobel. "We may need to bite the bullet and get it squared away." The council voted unanimously...
DAYTON -- As close as Curtis and Sandy Seiss can tell, Woody's tavern started as Burdett's pool hall in about 1898. And that could make the iconic bar on Dayton's Main Street one of the oldest watering holes in the state. There's a few other saloons that claim that distinction: the Brick in Roslyn and Bickelton's south of Yakima. But whether Woody's -- soon to be renamed Threshers -- is in the top three oldest or not, there's no question the down-home establishment with its spectacular wooden...
ROYAL CITY -- The WP Tigers wrestling team brought home two fourth-place medals from a big regional meet in Royal City on Saturday after reeling in two pins at a smaller meet in Ritzville on Thursday. "I'm happy with the improvements and performance out there," Tigers head coach Lanny Adams said. The Royal City meet was among the largest meets in which the WP team has participated so far. Fifteen teams attended from WP, Royal City, Pomeroy, Reardan, Riverview, Wahluke, Davenport, Burbank, St....
DAYTON -- One year after Shawn Kemp became the first former NBA star to visit Ski Bluewood, another basketball celebrity is destined for the mountain this season. A.C. Green, who started his career at the L.A. Lakers and retired from the Miami Heat with detours through Dallas and Phoenix, is expected to spend the day at the resort on Saturday, Feb. 4. "He's not really into the cold," said Brenda Ford, the Walla Walla-based co-founder of the 3BA International basketball league for which Kemp and...
WAITSBURG -- As clear as day, Craig Funabashi remembers the first time he saw his grandmother's Story & Clark Victorian pump organ. He was six and visiting the Seattle area with his parents from Long Beach. As they would for many years to come, he and his family traveled up to Whidbey Island for his grandmother's Sept. 5 birthday and family reunion. They would meet at the cabin where Vangee Johnston kept the ornate wooden instrument and played many old- time Ragtime favorites for her grand kids...
DAYTON - For the second game in a row, officials applied the mercy rule to speed up a game in which the undefeated Dayton Bulldogs took a runaway lead over its opponent. The team in white almost shut out the TOR Nighthawks, 79-13, with head coach Roy Ramirez rotating his bench onto the court midway through the third quarter. The Nighthawks barely managed to score 6 points in the first quarter, 3 points in the second quarter, none in the third and 4 points in the fourth, while the Dogs kept sinking it through the hoop for one of their...
WALLA WALLA -- The recent downshift in weight classes for the four WP wrestlers saw an immediate payoff during the Tigers' meet last week at Walla Walla High School. Meeting opponents from Wa Hi, Mac Hi and Pomeroy, the boys brought back three wins. Dalton Larue won two of those, including one pin. " It's starting to come along," head coach Lanny Adams said in between his students' matches. "They're getting exposure to some bigger schools with more competition for them." Larue, who switched to...
PULLMAN -- Former Bulldogs running back Dain Henderson once had a dream to join the football team of a small to medium-sized college . He didn't exactly fulfill his dream the way he had originally envisioned: as a player. But he did join one of the best-known teams on the West Coast. Since he graduated from Dayton High School last year, he has been on the PAC 12 Cougars football team as a manager. "I've played football since second grade -- 12 straight years and I still have the itch to play,"...
DAYTON - It was almost as though time stood still when Nicole Lambert got ready to release the basketball for a trey attempt with less than a minute to go in the game at the TOR Nighthawks on Tuesday night. It was a gutsy move. The seconds were flying off the clock and the Lady Bulldogs were behind, 53-48. They needed a minor miracle to keep their three-game winning streak going. With all eyes on the ball as it arced towards the bucket, the Dayton High School gym exploded in cheers as the perfec...
WAITSBURG - The Waitsburg Knowledge Bowl team didn't know the answer to the question "What branch of mathematics was pioneered by the Islamic mathematician al- Khwarizmi?" To score the point in round three of Monday's Knowledge Bowl meet at the Waitsburg Christian Church they didn't really need to know the exact response. They just needed to be fast on the buzzer and take the 15 seconds they had to use logic and the process of elimination to figure out that it might algebra, derived from the...
DAYTON -- Imagine the concrete staircase in a bigcity office building. Now picture walking up one flight to a landing and another flight to the second floor in full bunker gear - 75 pounds of boots, pants, a coat, a helmet and an air tank. Repeat this 69 times, seeing the red hand railing, red utility lines and a black sign with white letters showing the floor number. At least three times, your ears will pop from going from sea level to 788 feet. Occasionally, you might run into other firefighte...
DAYTON -- Right after she scored the first two points in the game against Lacross Washtucna Friday afternoon, McKayla Bickelhaupt knew this match was going to be different than the others her team had played so far this season. The junior, who laid it up the bucket from a steal, knew right away the Bulldogs were going to beat the Tigercats and put a "1" in the victory column next to the 8 losses from the first part of the season. "We came out with a lot of confidence," Bickelhaupt said about the way her team took the court in the consolation...
BOARDMAN, Ore. - Tiger wrestler Dalton Larue brought home the first gold medal for the new WP wrestling team, defeating two other wrestlers to win in his new 160-pound weight class during the Riverside Rumble Invitational Wrestling Tournament on Saturday. Meanwhile, at the Tigers' statewide meet in Pullman last Wednesday, Gabe Escalante won his first pin as a WP wrestler, beating Dally Ratliff from Prairie High School in Vancouver, Wash., barely a minute into the second of three rounds. Head WP...
DAYTON -- For the undefeated 2011 Bulldog boys basketball team, the third annual Dayton Holiday Tournament was about milestones. Not only did the boys become the first Dayton team to win the three-year-old winter tournament, but senior Garett Turner passed the 1,000-point mark for his high school career, a feat equaled by only two other Bulldogs in more than a generation. The moment in which he crossed the 1,000-point marker first passed unnoticed about a minute before the end of the third quarter during the Bulldogs' victory over Kiona Benton...
DAYTON - Dayton alumna Nicole Lockard and her teammates were a bit worried about playing the younger Bulldogs in the second annual alumni game last Tuesday. After all, the dozen former high school players who hit the court weren't exactly in the best shape. But they decided it was more about coming out and playing, which they did and then some. The alumni, whose graduation dates went clear back to 1986, beat the 2011 team, 31-19, showing they have what it takes to put games away and have a good...
POMEROY - The Tigers' wrestling performance at the team's second meet in Pomeroy in as many weeks Tuesday was an athletic déjà vu. Dalton Larue pinned one of his opponents in the second round of his first match, then was pinned by his next opponent - none other than state champion Tory Knebel, whom Larue held off well into the second round of that match. The other Tiger team members were again defeated fairly quickly, but head coach Lanny Adams was encouraged by the team's improvement over l...
DAYTON - At one point during the men's alumni game, two Bickelhaupts were ganging up on a third. That kind of family ribbing is possible when two teams draws from two generations of Bickelhaupt basketball players. Tuesday's night second annual men's Bulldogs alumni game reached even farther back in time than the women's alumni game with Dean Bickelhaupt (1977) playing beside his older son Garett (2009) against the younger, current Bulldog Colton (2012). The two older Bickelhaupts found...
DAYTON - The Lady Bulldogs lost to Asotin, 61-52, Saturday but there was much to be optimistic about for Dayton players and coaches. Despite the points on the scoreboard, Dayton had by far its best game of the season against the Panthers. "That was the best effort we've had all year," head coach Clayton Strong said after the game. "Tonight we just relaxed and played. I think we overcame our fear of failure." Asotin opened the scoring drive with a two-point shot and although Lady Bulldog Nicole...
DAYTON - The Dayton Bulldogs went 6-0 after beating Asotin, 56-41, Saturday in a game that quickly turned into a route for the Panthers. "We definitely felt we had control of the game," Bulldog Joey Schlachter said after the home court encounter. "We were worried about getting outrun, which we didn't let them do." The Bulldogs had a close game against Waitsburg- Prescott on Friday, but the team seemed much more comfortable in the game against the Panthers. Dayton opened the scoring drive and...
WAITSBURG -- The WP Cardinals aren't just the toast of Waitsburg, which honored the team with a special dinner sponsored by the Commercial Club at the Town Hall last Thursday -- the 2011 2B state football champions are the toast of the entire state. Quarterback Zach Bartlow last week was named Player of the Year on the Washington Associated Press All-State football team as voted by writers and editors from around Washington. It's the highest honor any football player can receive in his division. His father, WP head coach Jeff Bartlow, was...
DAYTON - On the eve of the year-end holiday season, the Columbia County Sheriff's Office is warning homeowners that an elusive burglar is still at large in the Dayton area. The sheriff has also released a general description of the man, who has been sighted by several witnesses, but not close enough for a police sketch. Authorities describe him as a "tall, white male, between the ages of 25-50." The suspect has been targeting vacant homes inside the city limits for the past several months, forcibly entering them, stealing personal property and...
POMEROY - Dalton LaRue pinned for the second time this season, beating Gabe Davis of Gar Pal in the second round of his first match at the WP wrestling team's first big meet in Pomeroy on Tuesday. "Davis had the length," head wrestling coach Lanny Adams said about the Gar Pal wrestler's fourinch height advantage over LaRue. "But Dalton outmatched him based on his knowledge of the moves." LaRue was the first and only WP athlete to pin during an informal unscheduled meet in which the Tigers...
