Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 27
DAYTON - They were denied by 2 points the last time the played the Asotin Panthers. But on Thursday night, the Bulldogs simply put their long-distance opponents away, winning the match in three games 25-17, 25-21 and 25-22. "It was sweet," head coach Shannon Turner said. "They did everything we work so hard on in practice." Not that it was easy. After winning the first two games handily, the Bulldogs suddenly faced a Panthers team determined to claw its way back in the third game. Asotin took an early lead and Dayton stayed behind by as many...
DAYTON - Shortly before midnight Tuesday an empty boxcar broke free on the main rail line in Dayton and made a freak, high-speed getaway, waking residents throughout the Touchet Valley and eluding sheriff 's deputies before it finally slowed enough to be secured just past Prescott. No damage or injuries were reported from the runaway car, which exceeded speeds of 60 miles per hour and barreled without warning past numerous unguarded crossings in Dayton, Waitsburg and Prescott. It also crossed...
October 7: Terrie Mason, Rachel Townsend. October 8: Mark Tabor, Adelle Ganguet, Laurie Withers, Denise Hoon, Jim Mitchell, Debbie Webber, Gabriel Wood. October 9: Clare Reese, Nancy Doering, Jennifer Baker, Jim Schulke, Lora Abbey. October 10: Sereta Robinson, Brad Patton, Carolann Angell, Lyle Erikson, Christopher Carpenter, Jennifer Hilton. October 11: Val Woodworth, Betty Branson, Michael Flannigan, Tracy Fine, Melody Harris, John Doty, Kim Porter. October 12: Logan Dozier, Brian Krause, Pat Abel, Theo Byergo, Kelly Piersol, Bob Hulce, M...
Columbia County department heads will present their 2011 budget proposals to commissioners this week in a series of budget review workshops beginning Wednesday at 9 a.m. and continuing through Friday. These workshops are open to the public. Commissioners will not adopt the final 2011 budget until later this year....
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...
ORV LAW BACK ON TABLE DAYTON - The ORV ordinance that went down on a split vote last month will be back on the Dayton City Council's agenda for a revote Monday night. Ordinance proponent Jeff Turner said he approached the city about the way the first vote was taken in the absence of Mayor Craig George, which meant Merle Jackson served as Mayor pro tem and abstained from voting. Turner argued that Jackson still should have voted in his capacity as a member of the council. To avoid getting into a legal debate about process, George said he decided...
I was invited to a local organic grower's harvest party this weekend. She invited several familiar faces, and we all got down on our knees, picking and pulling the last of summer's bounty. We then grilled our lunch of thick-sliced, colorful vegetables piled high on fresh Chapata bread slathered in garlicky aioli. We poured bottles of chilled Castillo De Feliciana 2007 Semillon, a local winery fairly new to the scene. Feliciana winemaker Ryan Raber's ability to stretch the wine drinker's imagination is evident in this wine. Ryan's nine months...
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...
Ten Years Ago October 19, 2000 Toga Day is just one of many events for Homecoming week at Waitsburg High. The week includes volleyball against Touchet and football versus Pomeroy, concluding with the Homecoming Dance Saturday night. A flurry of donations from individuals has moved Ye Towne Hall Roof fund to within $500 of reaching its goal before the $15,000 project starts on Oct. 23. Twenty-Five Years Ago October 3, 1985 An attempted break-in was reported to the marshal on October 1 at a local tavern. Someone entered the grocery store in...
A wave of burglaries has hit Walla Walla, Columbia and Garfield counties in the past few months, prompting some local law enforcement officials and citizens groups to get better organized. They're asking for help from residents and hunters to be on the lookout for suspicious activities, hoping citizens' tips will lead to arrests. During the past several months, cabin owners, businesses and residential households alike in the mountains and down in the valley have experienced a spike in break-ins and vandalism. In Columbia County alone, 16...
STUDENT/PARENT NIGHT WAITSBURG - Parents will receive their first opportunity to meet with Waitsburg High School teachers to review student progress this Wednesday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. This conference is arena style - no appointments will be set, and all teachers will be located in the gym. Parents are invited to come meet and eat chili and chips with the teacher and students. The next conferences will be March 9 and 10. These conferences are parent- and teacher-requested conferences. The last conferences of the 2011 school year are s...
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 - The eight-mile trip home must have seemed like an eternity for the Cardinals volleyball team Tuesday night after they lost in three games against the Bulldogs. It was WP's second loss of the season against their cross-valley rivals. Despite a sizeable Waitsburg crowd that showed up to rally its players about as hard and loud as their Dayton counterparts, the Cardinals lost 22-25, 19-25 and 19-25. "I had a good feeling going into it, and I was happy with the first game," Ca...
DAYTON - The last time the Bulldogs won a football game, Hayden Fullerton was a freshman. Now a junior and strong safety for the Bulldogs, Fullerton is relishing his team's first victory since Dayton defeated Tekeo-Oakesdale during Homecoming 2008. Friday's 13-3 win over Tri Cities Prep is particularly sweet as it comes a week before this year's Bulldogs Homecoming and ends one of the longest winless spells in the high school's football history. Dayton squares off against the undefeated WP Card...
WAITSBURG - The Irish may have put up a fight against WP teams the last few weeks, but it wasn't enough to escape the broom. From middle school to high school and football to volleyball, it was a clean sweep for WP competitors against DeSales, their arch rivals from Walla Walla. Starting out with the Cardinals' high school varsity volleyball team taking the Irish in three games 25-13, 26-24 and 25-12 on Sept. 24, the streak continued a week later with the WP Mustangs' 34-25 win over their...
WAITSBURG - The win wasn't quite as sweet as last year. The crowd didn't take the field after the whistle, and the final score of 27-14 didn't seem as unbelievable as WP's last-minute 2009 victory over DeSales. But that's precisely why WP head coach Jeff Bartlow said the team has even more reason to celebrate last Thursday's defeat of the Irish than the one the year before. "Last year, we felt we could beat them but knew it would be close," he said. "This year, we came out with a swagger. It...
1-4: Theft. Game department property reported stolen on Little Turkey Tail, Dayton. Littering. Someone reportedly dumped a large amount of trash in the backyard of a building on Main Street, Dayton. Theft. Bicycle on 4th Street, Dayton, reported stolen. 10-3: Theft. Theft of chainsaw reported on 4th Street, Dayton. 10-2: Reckless Endangerment. Subject arrested on E Street in Prescott on charges of reckless driving, possession of drug paraphernalia, hit and run and reckless endangerment. 10-1: Burglary. Items reported stolen from unlocked...
It's oftentimes viewed as a cliché, but voting is a duty of citizenship. For decades, many Americans have given their lives so that all of us would have the opportunity to influence the direction and type of governance we deem best, not only for our personal comfort but for the general welfare and common good. That being stated, I enthusiastically and unequivocally endorse Mark Franklin for Columbia County Sheriff. My reasons for doing so are quite clear. Since moving to Dayton seven years ago, I have had many opportunities to observe Mr....
It's not our habit to run a photograph in this editorial column, but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, as they say. In this case, it certainly counts for a lot. Last Wednesday, the WP Cardinals volleyball team played against Tri Cities Prep at Kison Court, but the home crowd was a bit thin, and few, if any, stood to cheer the girls. It didn't help that quite a few of the WP high schoolers had gone to watch the WP Mustangs play against DeSales. Head coach Jesse Buehler said sh...
This is the year when we all talk about schools, and why the school system in our country is in crisis. Of course, there hasn't been a year I can remember when we haven't talked about the crisis in our schools. It's become something of a national mantra. The question needs to be revisited. I was thinking about this lately when I read a letter written by my dad when he was nine - a letter of such artistic proportion and elegance of style that Shakespeare would have sat up and marveled, "Man,...
