Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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Dear Editor: I am the President of the Walla Walla County Sheriff's Search & Res- cue. We have received several questions about a phone and mail solicitation by Search & Rescue Charities. Citizens have reported being pressured to contribute to this group. They were offended when they found it was not our local search & rescue group as implied in the phone call and mailed materials. Search & Rescue Charities donation requests are mailed from Olympia, asking that contributions be sent "lo- cally" to 1934 E. Isaacs, PMB230. From there, it is...
Taking the Plunge Waitsburg team takes a cold dip for Special Olympics KENNEWICK - The Kennewick Polar Plunge was held on Saturday, Jan- uary 19 at Columbia Park boat dock, where over 600 brave souls were treated to a dip in 38-degree water. Our small group, "The Plunging Poultry," consist- ed of two Waitsburg stu- dents - E.J. Merserve and Chris Philbrook - and me. We cannonballed off the dock into the Columbia. This year, I raised $1,921 for our Special Olympics athletes. I was the...
I n our last two issues, we have shared stories of exchange students from China and Belgium who are experiencing life at Waitsburg High School. In upcoming weeks you'll read about foreign students at Dayton High school as well. In the process of meeting with students, teachers and host families, we are reminded of just what an exceptional growth opportunity these foreign exchange programs pro- vide for all involved. Through these programs the exchange student has the opportunity to truly immerse himself in a culture in a way that is not typical...
I ' m 99.9% sure that there's an article about the local Knowledge Bowl teams somewhere in the paper you're holding. Before you continue with reading this week's column, please search out that article and read it. It will help you understand the jargon. Is it there? If not, feel free to slap me silly the next time we bump into each other. Did you read it? Good. This week, I thought I'd give you an inside view of Waitsburg's Knowledge Bowl team. We're not nearly as serious as one would be led to believe. For example, two of our members toted...
Dear Editor, We are presenting a re- sponse to Dan Groom's col- umns in The Times regarding why some Dayton High School students choose other activities other than playing sports. The students in our AP Civics class take excep- tion to some of what was said in the columns and would like the opportunity to pres- ent other possibilities. The students in the class got together and wrote a letter in response to Groom's columns. We are not al- lowed to include the students' names with the letter since most of the students are under the age of 18....
Dizzy and I rolled into the burg on a sunny Sunday afternoon earlier this month. You re- member Dizzy. He is the black labradoodle I adopted from the Walla Walla Hu- mane Society as a puppy a few years ago and almost lost on a dark winter's night off Smith Hollow Road last time I wrote a column about us. Of course he was alive and well that night, sitting patiently by the back door after I searched for him for hours up and down the fields and almost gave up. He was there, back home, just like a...
This week's Times includes our monthly business sec- tion. Often the businesses we feature there are new, or they are businesses in transition - hopefully a positive transition. This week we introduce Mike and Ann Spring, who re- cently purchased Skye Book and Brew in Dayton and are reopening it as Chief Spring's Fire and Iron Brew Pub. The Times is also preparing to publish our annual Spring- Summer Visitor's Guide. (We publish an annual Fall-Winter Visitor's Guide as well. So, for those who are counting, that makes our Visitor's Guide...
It is an honor to serve a legislative district that is within the energy hub of the Pacific Northwest. To the north of the 16th District, the Columbia Generating Station nuclear power plant at Hanford generates 1,150 megawatts of electricity. The Snake and Columbia rivers with their hydro power dams are directly in the district. One of the earliest and larg- est wind farms in Washing- ton was built on Hopkins Ridge near my hometown of Dayton. We've long enjoyed low power rates in our state be- cause of the abundance of energy. But I'm...
My mother walked into the computer room to find me staring at a blank Word docu- ment. "Um, hi," I said. "Hi," she offered in return. "Writer's block?" "Yup," I said. "Nothing happened last week. Abso- lutely nothing." "Well," she pointed out, "nothing happened the week before last and you still squeezed a column." "Yeah. A column about something that happened over Christmas break." "Well," she said, "your seeds arrived last week. Write about that." "Well, yeah, but that's hardly a whole...
He looked at me as if I were the only thing he could see and said, "When the moon hits your eyes like a big pizza pie, that's amore." It wasn't very romantic. Taking advice from music usually isn't a very good idea, but there is one thing I always seem to take away - food and ro- mance go hand-in-hand. Even the rapper 50 Cent made the connection in the early 2000s singing "I love you like a fat kid loves cake." Clearly, the man can't help being a hopeless romantic. But when we mix food and love,...
Last time we checked, the city of Dayton contained about 2,700 souls. They make up a large portion of the total population of Columbia County, which stands at around 4,200. The city and county each has its own legislative body, and each oversees important services for its constituents. Dayton residents get many services from both entities. And some services overlap. Many years ago, Dayton had its own police department. After much discussion and negotiation, some of it very con- tentious, the police department was disbanded and the city...
Over Christmas break, my grandma got something in the mail. It was a catalogue. A seed catalogue, to be more specific. It wasn't terribly glossy, and it wasn't a famous sup- plier. But boy, that thing was thick. It had a beautifully illustrated cover, a water- color painting of flowers, herbs, and vegetables. And inside, it had for sale more flower, herb, and vegetable seeds than I knew existed; each described concisely and accompanied by a fullcolor picture. Oca. Quinoa. Purple-skinned tomatoes. Fifty-pound squash shaped like pink bananas. I,...
High School athletics are a funny thing. In high school, I was more involved with band and the occasional theater production than I was with sports. Plus, golf was my sport and it's not as geared toward spectators as basket- ball, football or volleyball at the high school level. In towns like Waitsburg, Dayton and Prescott, high school sports are important because we don't have quite as much going on every night like we would in a bigger city like Walla Walla. Don't get me wrong, we have a lot...
New York has the Knicks and LA has the Lakers. Seattle hashellip;well, hopefully the Sonics soon. Here in the Touchet Valley we have the Waits- burg-Prescott Cardinals and the Dayton Bulldogs. This week, the Lady Bulldog and Lady Cardinal basketball teams are in the playoffs. Several WP wrestlers have moved on to regional tournaments. Rooting for them all gives us a chance to be fans of the hometown team, even if we don't live in NY or LA or Seattle. In a three-part column in The Times last month, sports reporter Dan Groom addressed the...
Whoo! January's almost over and I still can't remem- ber what year it is. Yessir, February officially begins this Friday. Just an- other number to mess up on essay headings. That makes this Saturday Groundhog Day. Or Candle- mas, to some people. Or, for a certain girl I know, corona- tion day. Hannah Grant is (like me) a sophomore at Waitsburg High School who is (like me) active in Leo's Club and Knowledge Bowl and (also like me) expects to be recruited into the National Honor Society this February. Unlike me, however, she is also active in...
We know the benefits of getting enough sleep. And we have all heard the praises of getting enough exercise. But we never talk about breaks. Sure, getting out of the house is nice, but none of us really have the time to sleep and exercise, let alone take a vacation. Then there's the money. Oh, the money. There never seems to be enough of it for our day- to-day operation, let alone enough to whisk away to an exotic locale where an at- tractive and attentive service staff brings bottomless gin and...
Local taxpayers long ago agreed to provide support for Dayton's hospital and other local healthcare ser- vices through the formation of the Columbia County Hospital District, which includes the Waitsburg area, as well as all of Columbia County. A portion of the taxes paid by each property owner in the district goes to support local healthcare. However, for the management and directors of what is commonly known as the Columbia County Health system, the ultimate goal has been to maintain a break-even operat- ing margin. That means that the...
Having been in band at Waitsburg’s Preston Hall for two years, my son Niko knows what it takes to get ready for performances. But his most recent “gig” was a bit different. Niko, who plays guitar in jazz band at Bainbridge High School, along with three dozen of his fellow band members, received a surprise last-minute invita- tion to a special event last week. How last-minute? Let’s just say they had a mere five days to practice four pieces, three of which were original arrangements of songs t...
The Coalition for Youth and Families ( CYF) in Dayton, of which I am a member, discussed Dayton School District’s drug and alcohol policy during its meeting last week. The policy is being solidified for students who end up in trouble for the use, possession or distribution of drugs or alcohol. The policy is still in prog- ress, and it aims to get students “into the system” – not necessarily with the intent to criminalize them, but to help the school and local authorities reach out and help st...
Sometimes it can be troubling when a local name is almost better known as a fine wine label than it is as the Native American tribe it recalls. But most residents of the Touchet River Valley know that "Cayuse" refers to the people who once roamed the hills now planted in wheat and peas, and into the Blue Mountains beyond. Located largely between the Columbia and Snake rivers, Cayuse villages and territory were as far as the Upper Grande Ronde and as close as the Tucannon and Touchet rivers them- selves. Waitsburg was pretty much smack in the...
