Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 201 - 225 of 589
SKI BLUEWOOD -- I resisted it last year, miraculously. But my 14-year-old son was relentless at the outset of this year's ski season. I had to try it. I promised (in a moment of weakness) that I would give it a go. So, last week on a quiet day just before Christmas, I finally did it.I walked into the lodge at Ski Bluewood and signed up for a lesson in snowboarding . Of course my reluctance to "boost" on a "stick" was somewhat generational. When I first stood on skis at the age of 9, the Beatles...
WAITSBURG -- A group of Waitsburg residents wants to resurrect the town's defunct flood control district, a prospect city officials say they welcome. "We want to keep Waitsburg safe and beautiful," said Allison Bond, who spearheaded a recruiting effort that has yielded the required number of volunteers to serve on the district next year. "There are a lot of people willing to put the time in," she said. "And they have great ideas." Citing concerns about the stability of the levees along the local rivers, the ongoing risk of decertification by...
DAYTON - Barely three months ago, Dayton-based real estate broker Blaine Bickelhaupt sold a 1,700-acre farm in Whitman County for about $1,600 an acre. If he sold the same property today, he could probably get $1,900 per acre. "I have investors from across the country looking for farm ground," said Bickelhaupt, owner of Windermere Real Estate/Blue Mountain realtors, who has a client base of about 10 potential buyers interested in crop land in the Pacific Northwest. Two years ago, he had perhaps...
Nostrant Gets New Liver S EATTLE -- When Dennis Nostrant received an urgent call on his dedicated "transplant" cell phone at 2 a.m. on Dec. 4, he learned he had six hours to make it from his home in Thronton, south of Spokane, to the University Medical Center in Seattle. He had reason to be somewhat skeptical. Three times over the previous months he had received similar calls from his medical coordinator at the center calling him in to be ready for a liver transplant only to be told that, for...
DAYTON -- The Lady Bulldogs put up a good fight in the second half of Tuesday's game, but the effort wasn't enough to overcome the Pomeroy Pirates' commanding lead. Dayton lost its fourth game of the season, 58-27, Tuesday night, its record slipping further to 4-0. Yet the at-home loss wasn't quite as bad as the 54-20 defeat against the Pirates earlier in the season and girls stuck together until the bitter end. The game started as a largely defensive one. The first points didn't materialized...
DAYTON -- In their second victory over Pomeroy Tuesday night, the Bulldogs quickly forced the Pirates to walk the plank, and then danced circles around them as they plunged the frigid waters surrounding the ship. Dayton keelhauled their younger neighbors to the East, 82-38, with the 40-point spread prompting the mercy rule that lets the game clock run continuously in the fourth quarter until it runs out and ends the game. The Bulldogs are now 4- 0, hosting Waitsburg- Prescott on Friday and...
WAITSBURG -- It seems like a grinch, or perhaps a group of young grinches, was bent on stealing the spirit of Christmas last week. Police and citizens' reports indicate they stole outdoor Christmas lights, decorations and even absconded with a plastic likeness of Baby Jesus. The spate of vandalism and theft throughout the city started last Tuesday and continued through the weekend. Some called it the worst the town has seen in years. In all, half a dozen reports of stolen or damaged Christmas...
WAITSBURG -- WP's new athletics director JP Thew introduced the Cardinal and Tiger sports award evening as a moment to "celebrate the greatest fall sports season" the combine has ever had. And with that, coaches from cheerleading, cross country, volleyball, soccer and football recognized the exceptional student athletes who made it so. Cross country coach Joanna Lanning introduced the half dozen members of her team as "a family," who looked out for each other and "uplifted each other...
DAYTON -- So far so good for the Bulldogs this season. "Roy's boys" won their first three games, going 3-0 after beating the Riverview Panthers, 49-33, at their home court on Tuesday night. " The effort has been great," head coach Roy Ramirez said after the game. "We're struggling a little from the field, but that will come. It's nice to coach these boys. They know how to play basketball. It will be a pretty special year." Dayton won its first game away against TOR, 58-44, on Nov. 29, then ran...
PRESCOTT - After operating a convenience store in Prescott for eight years, the Walla Walla Farmers Co-op said it will close the retail operation just before Christmas, leaving only one grocery store in the town. "It wasn't profitable for us," said Doug Nelson, the co-op's controller in Walla Walla. "It was more a service to the community." The fueling station will remain open, though customers will need to open an account with the co-op to get gas and diesel because the station will not...
Man's Best Friend T he winter sun had already gone down on the western horizon, but it was still quite light in the hills east of Waitsburg when Dizzy and I went for our run late one afternoon last week. Several times a week, we pick a different country road to jog. We like Bolles Road. Whoop Em Hollow Road is a favorite. We've been up Lower Hogeye and down Whiskey Creek. This time, we chose Smith Hollow, following Eighth Street out of town past the cemetery under the eye of Butter Cup and up...
DAYTON -- In previous years, Ski Bluewood may have waited to open with a minimal snow base of 20 inches. But this year, the new owners were prepared with the right equipment to pack a solid foundation for the rest of the ski season. Ski Bluewood opened last weekend and will remain open just on weekends until a high pressure system surrenders its grip on the Pacific Northwest and allows some more moisture into the region for additional snow fall on the mountain, coowner Mike Stephenson said Tuesday. About 70 percent of the mountain is open to...
TACOMA - The 2011 WP Cardinals became the first football team in history to win the 2B State Championship trophy for their communities on Saturday. The 14-0 team beat Morton/White Pass 33-7 in the state title game at the Tacoma dome in the same convincing fashion as it defeated most previous opponents the past several seasons. The Cardinals were the first to score and never looked back. They were up 14-0 at halftime. Morton/White Pass scored early in the second half and for a few moments, it...
VISTA HERMOSA - - WP Tigers' head coach Mark Grimm had a few select words to describe each of the players on his championship team during the annual fall soccer banquet Monday night. Aldair Escalante, the diminutive junior super dribbler, showed his leadership going up against opponents several heads higher for balls coming from the sky, Grimm said. "That's how you give it up for the team." Luis Torres can afford to reign in his emotions on the field a little more, but shouldn't lose that "chip...
About Needs & Good Deeds WAITSBURG - - A Waitsburg resident who prefers to remain anonymous told the Times that she takes full advantage of the prescription drugs drop-off program co-sponsored by Elk Drug, Columbia County Health Systems and the City of Waitsburg. In her late seventies and describing herself as "lowincome," she has limited mobility and even more limited resources to pay for gas to go to Dayton, so she benefits from being able to swing by the Waitsburg Clinic to pick up...
SUMNER -- In only its second season as a high school soccer combine, the Waitsburg Prescott Tigers beat the defending state champions Saturday and brought home the coveted trophy. It's the first time WP has won a state title as a combine, the first time a team has won it for Prescott in 35 years and the first time in 109 years since a team has brought a state trophy home for Waitsburg. An eight-man PHS football team won the state title in 1976. A 1902 WHS football team won the then-equivalent...
PASCO - After being tripped up in the playoffs by the mighty Bulldogs two years in a row, the WP Cardinals finally took the puppies from Colfax to the pound 42-13 Saturday at Edgar Brown stadium in Pasco and became the first-ever combine team to go to Tacoma for the state championship game in football. quot;It's no longer a dream,quot; one of the WP assistant coaches told the elated players after their semifinal victory. quot;Pinch yourselves. We're going to Tacoma!quot; The Cards were the first to score and went up 28-7 by halftime. At no...
WAITSBURG -- The Cardinals find themselves exactly where they were last year -- undefeated (12- 0) and facing the equally undefeated Colfax Bulldogs (11-0) in the semi-final game of the state playoffs. Even emotionally, the WP players are as confident and as ready as they were last year to take on their Eastern Washington rivals, who have knocked them out of the playoffs two years in a row. "We want to win and we think we can," head coach Jeff Bartlow said. "The kids are really hungry. The kids really want it." But some of the factors that go i...
SUMNER - Only in their second year as a high school soccer team, the WP Tigers fought their way to the top of their sport in the state. After defeating their tough rival St. George of Spokane 2-1 on Friday evening, Tigers went on to take on the Highlanders, defending state champions. Francisco Gonzalez scored the winning goal and goalie Pedro Mendoza was instrumental in keep the Providence shots at bay to clinch the victory. More in this week's print edition Thursday....
DAYTON - Sure, the Bulldogs wanted to go further . The 2011 football would have loved to face WP in the playoffs this weekend instead of being knocked out early by the Ritzville Broncos. The 2011 volleyball team had high hopes to go to district and return to the state playoffs as they did last year. The 2011 soccer team would have been thrilled to win a few more games against a few more teams. Yet all expectations aside, Dayton's 2011 fall sports season gave the Bulldogs every excuse, as...
WAITSBURG -- When the Cardinals meet the Broncos in the quarterfinals this weekend, one observer may have a bit of a deja vu. Dean Bickelhaupt, head coach for the Dayton Bulldogs whose season just ended, will be there, burning with curiosity to see if WP can do what his team couldn't: beat the tough scrappy team from Lind-Ritzville-Sprague that suffered only a single onepoint loss (14-13) against the dreaded Bulldogs from Colfax who denied WP a state championship last year. "It will be a good...
MOSES LAKE -- A playoff win against Moses Lake Christian was predicted for the WP Tigers, but what was not foreseen was the time it took for the team to score its first goal. Just as they did earlier in the season, the Tigers beat the Lions by a wide margin, this time 6-1, but they weren't the first to get on the scoreboard. The win gives the Tigers a 14-2-2 record for the season and sends them to the semifinals against St. George in Sumner on Friday. Last year, they were knocked out of the...
PRESCOTT - In the end, the Tigers' playoff game against Spokane's St. George Saturday wasn't all about winning or losing. After the teams tied each other twice this season, the seeding game was to determine who would continue the state playoffs as numbers one and two. WP has one more playoff game before the state championship tournament in Sumner in two weeks. But that game is against a team they beat handily earlier in the season. St. George won the match 2-1 after striker Erik Muelheims...
WAITSBURG -- Call them the bone yards of the industrial age: old factories, warehouses, stock yards, substations, fabrication shops, foundries. You can find them everywhere, including in our towns right here in the Touchet Valley. Just think about Wait's Mill after it burned or the apple packing plant near the railroad tracks. These structures of the past aren't just empty buildings, hangars or basements. They have an economic biography and a body of work in the form of the products, tools,...
DAYTON -- The Bulldogs' choice was easy. Lose to Asotin, place fourth in the league and face the other Bulldogs in the playoffs, the ones from Colfax. Or, beat Asotin, place third in the league and take a chance at the first playoff opponent. "We knew we had to win that," Dayton's head coach Dean Bickelhaupt said about last Friday's game against the Panthers on their home turf. "I told them that with all the hard work they've done all season, they deserved it." Dayton pounded out their 34-22 win against nevereasy to-beat Asotin, which missed...
