Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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Twelve miles up and out of the Touchet Valley, I sat down with friends Robert and Janet Phinney to discover we have more in common than I might have thought. I'm a musician; the Phinney's are equestrians. Spend a little time with them, and you'll realize they are philosophers. In life, all things really are connected. Their ranch in the Blues' foothills is populated with evergreens and five quarter horses: Madison, Ruby, Annie, Jasper, and Cholo. Alongside the log cabin Robert designed, a...
Jon Rampey: Wand Maker 2020 has taught us how to make lemonade out of lemons. Jon Rampey, a newcomer to Dayton, makes art using this philosophy of resourcefulness. "Creating something is better than buying it," he said. Like many of his generation, 27-year-old Rampey loves the Harry Potter universe and knows nearly everything about it. Years ago, he decided he must have his own sorcerer's wand like Professor Dumbledore's. Wands being a bit pricy, he decided to carve his own. In 2009 he made his...
Like many Christmas trees, ours is a time-measuring tree. We have so many ornaments now, there are too many for one tree to hold! We have a couple of small table trees that help out, but when you choose which ornaments will be hung, you’re choosing which will not. Some of our ornaments have been gifts from many friends over time. One is the cup of hot chocolate, knitted by our friend Joan Helm. Some we have given to ourselves during the years. We have one cut from wood that says, “Peace on Ear...
I've known Waitsburgian Erin Murphy and her husband Nathanial for many years. It occurred to me recently: these people are always in school, always taking classes, always working toward another degree. I sat down with her recently to ask about her commitment to learning. Last year she earned her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Educational Studies and began teaching music at Starbuck school as a paraprofessional. It was the realization of a childhood dream, but other degrees came first-along with...
When Juniper Kerr was in middle school, her basketball coach kept saying, "Every shot not taken is a shot missed." It stuck with her. But it's not just about basketball now; it's about life and her love of taking pictures. I've been noticing her stuff and wanted to sit down and chat with her. I'm glad I did. First, she started very young. "When I was four years old, my mom helped me start my first business selling my pictures on cards at the Bellingham Farmer's Market," she said. And she never...
DAYTON-You can easily estimate the time it takes to machine quilt a piece of functional art, but who counts the hours of piecing it together? Or the love stitched into it? On a recent chat with Wendy Frame, of Dayton, she showed me two quilts brought to her by clients of her longarm quilting business, The Quilting Frame. "A customer found this quilt her mother had pieced during the 1930s," she said, referring to the project he was quilting during my visit. "She didn't know she had it. It was...
My recent visit with Starbuck's new Mayor, Zonia Dedloff, was a revelation for me. First thing I learned: she has lived there for 50 years. She and her late husband, Jerry, parked a trailer here in the late 1960s, along with many others, to work on building the Little Goose Dam. Jerry, a diamond driller, was one of many who traveled the U.S., following jobs like this. "It really was one long vacation," she said of those years. The dam work temporarily swelled the little hamlet's population....
Those of us who may be familiar with one Becky Wilson in Waitsburg will be tickled to learn that there is now a second Becky Wilson in town. Recently, this Becky Wilson purchased the old Hofer farm property on Highway 12, about a mile south of Waitsburg. The four-acre property includes the house, a massive barn, garage, a large shop building, and two towering Locust trees. Wilson closed on the place in June, parked her Airstream trailer next to the house, and went right to work on restoration....
Jeromy Phinney, Chief of Columbia County Fire District 3, is a good man to have a conversation with right now. He's cool as a cucumber, with a large framed photo of John Wayne on the wall beside his desk. He has the confidence you want in a fire chief while wildfires rage around the Pacific Northwest. "Everything's dry, and dry conditions happen every year. It's nothing new," he said. "But yeah, this summer has been tough." Twenty-one years ago, Jeromy Phinney was a kid fresh out of college. He'...
Recently the Liberty Theater in Dayton received a message from a woman in Walla Walla: "My friend told me she was getting rid of some old puppets that belonged to her parents. She said she was going to give them to Goodwill. I thought, no, they need to go to a theater!" These are Indonesian rod puppets, in the native language Wayang Golek which were procured by the previous owner's parents sometime during the 20th century during a visit to that country. The age of the puppets is not known;...
A conversation with Julia Mead When Julia Mead graduated from high school at the age of 17 and started college, she decided her motto would be, "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way." She finished nurse's training in Walla Walla in 1982. A year later, she met her first and only blind date, Charles "Skip" Mead IV. When asked, "Who is Julia Mead?" her answer is, "A transplant to Columbia County who sank her roots down." Two sons, six grandchildren, and 37 harvests later, she hasn't...
David Ocampo, General Manager at Columbia County Public Transportation (CCPT), is proud of what the agency has done over the years, but even prouder of the way it has found its niche during COVID-19. And now, to add to its unique role in the community, CCPT has added two new "XL Hybrid" vehicles to its fleet. XL stands for "extra large." "Before COVID, on a really busy day, we were putting as much as 5,000 miles a month on a transit bus," Ocampo said. "We were running twelve round trips a day. N...
Dayton-Licensed Massage Therapist Kahla Harrington describes herself as an introvert. She can appear shy, but she's acted on stage before. She's apprehensive about being in front of crowds, but her smile can light up a room. And behind that smile lies a competitive spirit that strives for excellence. She has been an athlete all her life, playing soccer for 15 years and then distance running. In the first year of her work as a massage therapist, she once was told, "You'll never be better at this...
DAYTON–When Levi David Sowerby was 17 years old, a physician told him that a spinal injury he suffered during a gymnastics competition, was so severe it would result in paralysis. He would never walk again. Despite having been raised in a profoundly religious family where authority was not questioned, Sowerby knew at that moment that he could not accept that diagnosis. Though he continued to experience pain related to the injury, he was still walking. From that day to this, Sowerby's journey h...
DAYTON-Regina Weldert, of Dayton, has been many things in her life, including a goat farmer, sheepherder, and factory worker. She went back to school later in life and became a fish biologist. I've known her as a coffee roaster and coffee shop owner. To her fans, she is the finest roaster in Southeast Washington. For four years, she has owned and operated her coffee shop, Rey's Roast, on Main Street in Dayton. The COVID-19 pandemic has now altered her course, but it hasn't stopped her from...
Waitsburg–My long-time friend Maria Garcia and I were recently sitting (six feet apart) in her back acre, talking about how the pandemic has affected us personally. We hadn't planned it. I had stopped by for a brief hello. But then we decided to share a glass of wine outside in the shade. We've known each other for a very long time and are the best of friends. In no time, we were discussing the psychological and emotional impacts we and others have experienced, due not solely to the pandemic o...
When the Times last wrote about the Liberty Theater in Dayton, we described the efforts and planning that went into the staging of their celebratory 20th anniversary variety show. Set to open on Friday, March 20, 2020, the event was sadly derailed by the coronavirus. The program was to feature favorite musical numbers from the Touchet Valley Arts Center's live theater productions over the past 20 years and was being directed by Peggy and Cara James. Since that time, theater staff and board have...
DAYTON-Closing the doors of the Liberty Theater, clearing the marquee, wiping everything down with sanitizer, cancelling all our film bookings for the time being and issuing notices of postponement for all the live shows we have been planning...none of this is happy work. It is sobering. It wakes you up to the things you took for granted and hope you won't ever take for granted again. Michael and Cathy Lee Haight of Dayton, have generously responded to the crisis with a gift of $10,000 to...
Over the last few years I have not only learned an appreciation for short films, but I have come to love them. I am now a fan of Vimeo, a short film presentation venue (look it up!). I am constantly amazed at the ingenuity, creativity and risk involved in being able to tell a story in 10-20 minutes. Some great things come in very small packages. The Manhattan Short Film Festival is something folks have come to expect and anticipate at the Liberty Theater each year. This is an artistic showcase...
A column by Liberty Theater Manager Mike Ferrians In a February edition of the Times, the Americanism of the week was a quote from Annie Proulx, author of The Shipping News: “One of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music.” Without music, there is no life. For decades, music has been an “elective” in the public school sys- tem, taking a backseat to classical educational elements deemed primary. But the Performing Arts are not electives in life. They are mandato...
I’ll be honest here: I paid no attention to the first Paddington movie that came out a few years ago. In fact, I don’t remember hearing anything of Paddington until we decided to bring Paddington 2 to the Liberty. I’ve been out of that loop. If I heard anything about it I probably passed it off as a kid’s movie, some toy tie-in from a popular teddy bear or something. Well, I’m chastened (again). I discover Paddington 2 stars some of my favorite players: Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey); Ben Whishaw (that smart young “Q” agent in 007’s Skyfall);...
I confess, I would rather have seen the Seattle Seahawks lose the Super Bowl last week by one point, than to have won it the way they did. From the beginning, I heard nothing except how strong Seattle was defensively, and how strong Denver was offensively. I heard great things about the great Peyton Manning. The teams were both 15-3 going into the Super Bowl. We were all expecting an exciting and dramatic game. It was anything but. I don't know what happened to the Broncos. I'm sure the analy...
Have you ever stopped to think about how we gather together in the Touchet Valley? How we meet one another and work together? How we build relationships? How we find friendship and support? Let me list the ways: Parks and resorts. Shops and markets. Cafes and restaurants. Festivals and fairs. Businesses and public offices. Shops and markets. Hospital and clinics. Churches and theaters. Libraries and schools. Historical sites. Athletic events. Clubs. These all are the ways in which we gather. Please notice I am not talking now about ...
Confession time: I don't do surveys. I have never agreed to answer questions for a phone survey, never partici- pated in an internet or news media survey, and never spent time on a product survey. I never fill out res- taurant or motel surveys. Come to think of it, I don't remember ever getting a call from Gallup or Barna or any big media pollsters. They only call a few thou- sand people at a time (with an error margin of plus or minus three percent, right?), so the odds would be low anyway....
