Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 1135 - 1159 of 2504
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On the front page of The Times this week is a tragic story about a young Dayton man who is being charged with multiple counts of child rape. Besides being terrible for those involved, stories like this present one of the most difficult dilemmas that those of us who put out newspapers face. This young man and the other people close to this story are obviously going through a very difficult time. Having the charges against him publicized on the front page of a local newspaper, even in vague...
As I am about to depart for college, I have been doing an extensive amount of research concerning what I need to bring with me, and I have found out that nobody on the internet knows anything about packing for college. But just to be safe, I’ll compare what I’ve already bought to this authoritative-looking list: •Alarm clock. Check – there’s an alarm function on my phone. •Bed linens/towels. Check and check, although I took the liberty of substituting bed flannels for the bed linens. •Ca...
Emergency services have been on the minds of Touchet Valley residents a lot this summer, what with four major building fires in Dayton and the Blue Creek Fire in Walla Walla County. None of the causes of these fires has been determined for sure, but they’ve kept a lot of firefighters and other emergency personnel up a lot of nights in the last few weeks. So it’s fitting that this week, Dayton and Waitsburg residents got to see many of these emergency management people during daylight hours and...
I’m an avid Dear Abby reader, and I’ve always thought that I’d be good at writing something like that. The only problem seems to be that nobody wants my advice. So I’ve decided to write down everything that’s been on my mind this week, put it in a safe, unlock the safe as soon as time travel is possible, answer my own questions, and send them back to today. Here are the results of this experiment: Dear future self: I’m in the process of writing a novel. I’m almost to the exciting part, but I c...
It’s better to want what you have than to have what you want. ~Ancient proverb Those are good words to ponder if you’re looking to have a more satisfying life. But they beg one other question: What if you have a lot of stuff you don’t want? Answer: hold a yard sale. Last weekend, many of us who live on the South Touchet Road near Dayton took part in the third annual South Touchet Yard Sale. In our case, we passed the first two years. But as proud owners of a large barn, we felt we were guilt...
I had glorious plans for this week which involved Bennington Lake and my little blue kayak, but due to the wildfire situation, Bennington Lake is closed to boaters lest they be unwittingly scooped up by water-carrying helicopters. But because I’m still in a lake-y state of mind, I think I’ll reminisce about the wonderful trip to Lake Pend Oreille I took a couple weeks ago. Five of us went – me, my mom, Chris, Chris’s friend Kyle, and my cousin Ariel. We traveled to Sandpoint, Idaho, in my grandp...
As The Times was going to press on Tuesday, many of our local firefighters and emergency responders were busy helping out at the Blue Creek Fire, east of Walla Walla. That fire was called in shortly after noon Monday, and by Tuesday afternoon, it was reported by the Blue Mountain Interagency Dispatch Center to cover 5,000 acres. Teams have been called in from around the northwest to help fight that blaze, including multiple aircraft. One home and several outbuildings had been destroyed as of Tue...
I am supposed to be folding the clothes right now. I’m also supposed to be running a few errands and getting ready to vacuum the carpet in my grandparents’ motorhome. I have done none of that yet. But wait – I have a good excuse! I haven’t done anything because I was doing my homework! I know what you’re thinking. “But Emma,” you are thinking, “It’s summer! You don’t have homework!” As a matter of fact, yes I do. Whitman College sent me a link to a personal and community safety course. I started...
Hey, everybody, guess what day it is! (Well, not today, necessarily. I think it might be this weekend, or it might have been last Monday, but it’s this week and this is a weekly newspaper, so just play along.) That’s right, it’s National Embrace Your Geekiness Day AND National French Fry Day! On the same day! It’s my favorite holiday for obvious reasons. Obvious Reason #1: I am a geek. Big time. Obvious Reason #2: I am a French fry connoisseur. I have an authoritative Top 10 list of the best fr...
Back in the fall of 2010, the Dayton City Council and many city residents had a contentious debate over whether to allow limited use of off-road vehicles on some city streets. In the end, in a split vote, the council decided to kill the proposal. As we report on the front page this week, the issue is back on the council’s to-do list. But a lot has changed in five years. In 2013, the Washington State Legislature created a new category of vehicle, called a WATV, or wheeled all-terrain vehicle. T...
Dear Editor Just a note of thanks. After twenty five years working for Government at Hanford, (father also worked thirty years there) and several years for Boeing, I retired and with wife Olga bought the small lavender farm here. Yes, we are new farmers in town but full of energy retirees learning more every day. We are grateful to community: members of commercial club for opinions about lavender field uses, city office for consulting and at the hardware store people for advise and for finding perfect pets for our home, and for helping us...
Dear Editor, I find it positively exhilarating having been informed that Bill Clinton’s wife, Hillary, plans to invite Caitlyn Jenner to be her vice president. Imagine their apparelers’ grins as these grand ladies stroll the inaugural runway among flowers and more flowers! America is at war between the inner-city savages and the robots of the suburbs, and I wonder if this curious political marriage can appease the combatants. David Castleman Dayton...
Washington Legislature Slogs On Last week, the Washington State Legislature was within hours of passing a biennial budget, wrapping up business and going home. But a glitch developed at the last minute. Here’s how State Representative Terry Nealey, of Dayton, put it in an email message: Unfortunately, there’s some bad news. Due to some 11th-hour sabotage from Senate Democrats early Wednesday morning, the operating budget is now in jeopardy. The reason is Senate Democrats, despite an agr...
Do you remember those commercials (I think they were for Charter) that listed an implausible sequence of events resulting from having ordinary cable TV? (Example: “When you have expensive cable bills, you feel helpless. When you feel helpless, you want to do something about it. When you want to do something about it, you take karate. When you take karate, you want to use it. When you want to use it, you become the Fist of Justice. When you become the Fist of Justice, you crash through a glass r...
I grew up in the heyday of Smokey the Bear. Smokey drilled into our heads the message that we needed to stir our campfires until they were dead out, and that we must never ever throw a lit cigarette out our car window. Smokey doesn’t get the press he once did (he died in 1976, at the age of 26) but his message is as important as ever - perhaps more so. As The Times’ Dian Ver Valen has been reporting the last couple of weeks, we’re in a drought. River levels are at record lows and tempe...
I’ve always loved studying environmental science for two basic reasons. One is the large amount of impressive vocabulary you pick up and can use in everyday contexts– e.g., “That’s eutrophication for ya!” and, “I sense the formation of a positive feedback cycle here”. The second is how much of it applies to life and society in general. High school is an ecosystem, and it’s much easier to navigate when one thinks of it in terms of resource niches, apex predators, and keystone species, as opp...
Dear Editor, Take a moment and thank your volunteer firefighters in Columbia and Walla Walla County (Waitsburg). They are on duty for us, providing first class, responsive fire and property protection, including education for rural forest homeowners. Our volunteers choose to protect us. They serve our rural communities at the their own expense, skipping time with their families, especially in our time of need. They are on duty during holidays, weekends and after midnight. Our quality of life here is much improved by the sacrifices these...
I’m sure I don’t totally understand how emergency services operate in and around Waitsburg, but here’s how I can best explain it: The city of Waitsburg has a fire department that puts out fires and responds to other emergencies within the city limits. The area of Walla Walla County surrounding Waitsburg has its own fire department (WW Co. Fire District 2) that responds to emergencies outside the city, but within the county. Then there’s an area in Columbia County that’s nearer to Waitsburg...
There are pros and cons to computers. One pro, of course, is that you can work on multiple things at once. One con, however, is that you can work on multiple things at once. Take this seemingly simple dovetail: Working on signing up for college classes while trying to write a chapter for a “collaborative fiction project.” I started off by booting up the Internet and attempting to log into my course manager. While that was loading, I typed a few paragraphs, trying to flesh out my character withou...
Twenty years ago this week, the Dayton Chamber of Commerce attempted an experiment. They decided to hold a car show on Main Street. Dayton's Main Street had recently undergone a complete reconstruction, from the new water and sewer lines to the tops of the new trees and light poles. It was the pride of the city, and the Chamber wanted to show it off. Dayton's State Farm Agent, Bette Lou Crothers, was already a 10-year veteran on the Chamber board, and she agreed to head up the committee to try t...
I’m not sure that my subconscious knows that I’ve graduated yet. For the past two nights, I’ve had dreams about being late for school, which I still apparently need to attend. The night before that, I dreamed that my grades were lousy – not oh-heaven-help-us-it’s-an-A-minus lousy, but give-us-the-diploma-back lousy. According to the omniscient internet, dreaming about school “most often represents social concerns, insecurities or anxieties.” I have no idea what on earth that’s about. After al...
Dear Editor, I want to take this opportunity to say “Thank you” for all of the notes, cards and well wishes on my retirement. A special thanks to Dinah Lindsey for organizing and Dr. Clarke for hosting the event. Margie Douglas College Place...
On that warm June evening in 1973 when I graduated from high school, I can still remember experiencing feelings of anticipation and excitement for the future. In my case I was mostly looking forward to the near future: I had a party to go to later that night, and I couldn’t wait. (And, just for the record, it wasn’t at my parents’ house.) After high school, and the big party, I went on to college for several years, with a break or two mixed in. The thing that surprised me most about colle...
On Friday night, the senior class of Waitsburg High School graduated. I’m sure there’s a lovely article about this somewhere in this paper, so I won’t go into much detail. On Monday morning, all the classes of Waitsburg Elementary School went to the Bruce Mansion to learn a bit of hands-on history on Pioneer Day. There’s probably a story – or at least a few pictures – in here somewhere. If not, check back next week. [Thanks for the tip, Emma. We’ll get on it. – Ed.] I attended both events – the first one as a graduate, the second as a demonstra...
