Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 1502 - 1526 of 2504
Dear Editor: It is very important that the citizens of Dayton and Columbia County pass this bond to renovate the high school and do parts of the grade school. There are too many problems to describe in a letter as to what needs to be done to bring the school up to present day standards. The last major renovation was done in 1985 and badly needs to be improved. We do not only need this for the students but we also need this for the survival and improvement of our community. Currently, the school has major roof, electrical and other...
The price of wheat is stronger now than at any point since last fall in late October. Many market observers are citing the Ukraine/Crimean crisis as a factor, although the winter wheat crop planted in the Ukraine is in reasonably good shape and there have been no interruptions in export activities. The Crimean deep water port of Sevastopol is not a major export point for Ukrainian wheat, with only a small percentage of their grain moving through that point. Still, the potential for violent disruption of business activities presents an u...
Dear Editor, As a citizen and tax payer I believe our students today and in the future need your help. Our parents, grandparent, great grandparents and community members provided the facilities we needed while we were student, now it is our turn. A recent study and survey conducted by architects and engineers identified three deficiencies related to Dayton's school facilities. These include; Mechanical systems (heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing and electrical) Safety, health, and security Classroom availability and size A c...
I was hammering away at an essay in Spanish class the other day when half the class suddenly shut down their computers, gathered their books, and filed out the door. At first, I was curious, but then I had a flashback from the previous year's second semester - a handful of kids on the auditorium stage dancing with invisible actors as the teacher read the lines of seven absent classmates. Spring sports, it would seem, are now upon us - along with, perhaps more shockingly, spring itself....
OLYMPIA - Some Washington drivers could see a new fee added to their vehicle- tabtransactions starting next year. Both the Senate and House agreed on a bill that would add a $5 fee for vehicle- registration renewals and purchases and a $12 fee for title transactions through public offices. Unless the bill is vetoed by the governor, a rare occurrence, it will become law. The money generated by the new fees would pay for a third 144-car ferry. Currently, private businesses that offer these services already charge an administrative fee, online...
From Safeco Stadium to the Qwest Field and Exhibition Center in Seattle, lottery revenue has been the winning ticket for various cash-starved state accounts. A proposal in the Legislature would turn lottery proceeds into new classrooms across Washington State. In 2000, voters approved Initiative 728, a measure that directed lottery revenue from the state general fund for K-12 education, including class-size reduction. However in 2009, funds were reallocated into the the state general fund for the 2009-2011 biennium to cover a projected b...
Dear Editor, On March 18, 2014, at the Annual Meeting of the Waitsburg Commercial Club, we will continue our long standing tradition of honoring a person or persons who have gone to extraordinary efforts to help make our community a great place to live and to do business. In addition, we will take time to elect a new slate of officers and board members to lead the economic development organization known as the Waitsburg Commercial Club. The Waitsburg Commercial Club was incorporated in 1903 as a 501C6 economic development nonprofit...
Dear Editor, As a recent resident of Waitsburg I have discovered myself in a position most of you are familiar with - sometimes you have to leave Waitsburg for everyday shopping needs. Surely it's easier and cheaper (gas- wise) to shop here rather than surrounding towns. Sometimes I have to go to Dayton (bigger grocery, pharmacy, restaurants), Walla Walla (more restaurants, even bigger groceries and more pharmacies, plays and concerts), or even the Tri-Cities (Costco & other big box stores). Sometimes it's just a lot less expensive to get...
(This is a public service announcement courtesy of the West Seventh Street Institute for Juvenile Health.) Cold and flu season is almost over, but parents of high-school juniors in the greater Waitsburg area shouldn't let their guards down just yet. A crippling new disease is ravaging the normally vivacious and hardy Class of 2015, a disease which knows no treatment and can beleaguer its victims for months before symptoms grind to a halt. The cause of this dread condition, if not the cur...
The Waitsburg Commercial Club is a venerable organization that sometimes gets taken for granted and forgotten about. Club President Joy Smith thinks that might be partly because of the name. Whatever the reason, she and the group aim to change that perception; and Waitsburgites should pay attention. As Dena Wood reports on our front page this week, the club is working with a group called 501 Commons to create a one-year strategic plan for Waitsburg's downtown. A committee made up of Smith, Robbie Johnson and Leroy Cunningham will work with t...
Ten Years Ago March 11, 2004 A small group of Waitsburg citizens has held the first caucus of the eligibility period Sunday at the home of H. V. "Bill" and Jan Zuger, nominating three-year councilman Marty Dunn as mayor and former Waitsburg City Clerk Nancy Parker to join incumbents Mark Shively, Bettie Chase, Debara Whitmore and Markeeta Little Wolf. Jean Hinchliffe was nominated as City Treasurer. Whitney White, 18-year-old daughter of Pepper White and Becky Martin, Dayton, was named queen of the 2004 Walla Walla Fair and Frontier Days at th...
OLYMPIA--A new economic forecast predicts recreational-marijuana businesses will bring millions to the state, and the fight is underway for how the proceeds will be spent, with cities vying for a share. Recreational-marijuana business is expected to bring in $51 million in state revenue during 2015-2017, according to a recent financial report released by the Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council. During 2017-2019, marijuana tax revenue is projected at $138.5 million. The new source of revenue represents a fracti...
It was a gorgeous room. The walls were glossily white, wainscoted in pale hardwood. The floor was carpeted in earthtones, a troddable quilt of loops and whorls and geometric flowers that somehow managed to look both formal and organic. Huge chandeliers hung from the ceiling, gigantic disks of crazed glass from which dangled dozens of white and gold bubbles on wires too thin to see from the floor, as though they were floating beneath the huge lights. It was stuffed with chairs, black vinyl-cov...
On the front page of Last week's Times we ran a story about a crime that was particularly awful. A man in Dayton is alleged to have repeatedly raped his stepdaughter over a period of years. (That story ran next to an unrelated story about another awful crime: Another man in Dayton is accused of severely injuring an 11-month-old baby.) We got a lot of reaction from the rape story. Some people told us we were wrong to make the story so prominent and include as much detail as we did. They were g...
Dear Editor: We would like to express our sincere thanks for the support of friends and family in Waitsburg and Walla Walla after the passing of "Woody" Woodward. We greatly appreciate all the cards, meals, prayers and expressions of caring. A special thank you to Walla Walla Hospice who helped us through his final days. The Arland and Woodward families...
Ten Years Ago March 4, 2004 The Waitsburg Cardinal boys are state- bound for the first time since 1996. Later this month, Wait-Hi's Knowledge Bowl team will compete in the state meet in Vancouver, Wash. The team includes Emily Hogan, Katie Brodhead, Lindsay Auchterlonie, Maggie Pietila, Ben Bloor and Brad Green, advisor. Observing thirty-four years of active volunteer community service, the board of the Waitsburg Ambulance Service held its annual meeting on Thursday, February 26, 2004. Board members include: Jack Otterson, president; Bill T...
"I' m from the government, and I'm here to help." Everyone jokes about this overused phrase, as it represents skepticism of government overreaching in our lives. As a Republican, I too often see proposals and stories where our government has gone too far. It's amazing sometimes to see how many bills we pass that are unnecessary or that must be passed simply to fix something government messed up in the first place. However, in the case of the recently-implemented Family Assessment R...
I'm sitting in the back room staring at a computer screen full of blank white pixels. At the other end of the house, my mother and brother are watching Monsters University. Our house is a small one, so I can hear the cheers, the screams, the fanfares, the obligatorily mopey three-quarters-of- the-way-through-the-story soundtrack. It occurs to me that this might actually offer a small glimpse of what college is like, so I take a moment to pray that my higher education experience will involve c...
Each week during the school year, The Times almost always devotes the front of our second section to high school sports. Athletics are an important part of school life, and in our small towns, they are an important part of community life. When WP or Dayton win a state championship (as WP football and soccer did two years ago, and Dayton basketball did way back in 1995), it's as big a deal to us as the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl is to Seattle. But some of our high school students excel at things other than athletics. This week, we had t...
Ten Years Ago February 26, 2004 An 18-foot "History Pole" will not be going up in Preston Park any time soon, the Waitsburg City Council decided after discussion of the idea last week. Mayor Randy Halley proposed the concept as a way to obtain an easement for the City through property owned by Craig Burdine. The Preston Hall girls' basketball team played two home games last week and beat Prescott on Feb. 17, 29-19 and Pomeroy 22- 19 on Feb. 19. Against Prescott, Caris Cole scored five points in the first quarter and Felicia Brown scored two p...
