Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 1617 - 1641 of 2504
OLYMPIA - Washing- ton's leading agricultural groups representing tens of thousands of family farmers and food processors throughout the state have announced their strong opposition to Ini- tiative 522, calling it a costly, unfair and misleading food labeling measure. More than 30 agricultural groups and growers' organi- zations throughout the state, representing thousands of family farmers, have joined a broad coalition that has come together to defeat the measure, which will appear before voters on the Novem- ber 2013 statewide ballot....
A n idyllic English classroom sits on the third floor of a ven- erable high school. Its tall windows are open and au- tumn sunlight spills over the semicircle of gray Formica tables where a handful of earnest eleventh-grade schol- ars discuss the latest turn of events in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible." Lopsided piles of candy-colored binders and textbooks teeter at the elbows of each student in the classroom, and the big round clock on the wall above the teacher's desk displays a time...
A s The Times was going to press this week, our subscribers in Dayton and Walla Walla were still patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) wait- ing for last week's edition to arrive in their mailboxes. As of Tuesday, several hundred copies of The Times were lost somewhere in Post Office-land. We are working to find them and we will do everything we can to get our readers outside of Waitsburg their belated copies of the October 10 issue of the paper. Until now, when we delivered papers to the Waitsburg Post Office, the copies addressed to...
Why bother voting? There is a slew of races for local positions on this year's ballot for the gen- eral election, but none of them are contested. So we already know who's going to win. Well, okay, there's one contested judicial election, but heck, we've never heard of either of those guys. So who cares? There are a couple of state-wide initiatives, but nobody really pays any attention to those either. And anyway, who cares? Well, here at The Times, actually, we care. We go to a lot of city council and school board and hospital board meetings. M...
One time last winter when Dizzy and I were alone at the Seven Porches Guest House, I heard some inexplicable sounds in the big empty house at night. The hinge of a downstairs door open- ing while it was windless outside. Dizzy sat up and issued a low growl. I told him not to worry. It was just Stella, I assured him, and she was friendly. He relaxed as though he had understood me or maybe it was the lack of apprehension in my voice. Stella Stimmel, who, along with her husband, had our house on...
Mom warned me about waiting too long to start typing. "Do it as soon as you can, before you feel any worse," she said. "It'll be easier on you." I mumbled something in reply and continued plowing through my PSAT practice. My throat ached just a bit, my nose was beginning to stuff up, and I had a low- grade fever that disappeared right about when I reached the critical reading section. I didn't see any harm in finishing the sample test, or in grading it, or in the minimeltdown that ensued when...
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers has been busy the past couple of weeks. I know this because I get three or four emails a day from her office telling me about all of her activities. These emails also keep assuring me what a great world we'd live in if only those darned Demo- crats would quit being so unreasonable. As The Times was going to press, much of the federal government was still shut down and federal debt limit was getting closer and closer. The Republican leaders in House of...
I had a visit from an old friend recently. He came all the way from Viet- nam. Some of you may recall how just a few years ago, I wrote a series of articles for this page about the work of Clear Path International (www.cpi.org). I co-founded this organization with three friends from Bainbridge Island and Vermont. It's mis- sion to help survivors of land mine accidents. For nine years, I was involved in the creation, development and growth of CPI until I left the western part of the state to...
I am excited. On the day this paper comes out, I will turn sixteen. That's exciting, but that's not why I'm excited. On October 16, I will be sixteen years, one week, and six days old. I will also be taking the PSAT (also known as the Painful, Slimy and Atrocious Torture). That is most definitely not why I'm excited. Five days after the afore- mentioned ordeal, I will hopefully have a sufficient number of functioning brain cells to participate in the first Knowledge Bowl meet of the year. That...
A s The Times went to press Tuesday, the federal gov- ernment was shut down and politicians of all stripes were playing the blame game. So were newspaper editorial writers. Some pundits think linking Obamacare to a federal budget extension is a form of hostage taking. Others deem it a totally responsible reaction to the will of the people. We won't jump on any of those bandwagons, mostly because there wouldn't be enough room here once we got started. But we took a few minutes to search some internet news sites, so we could share some of the...
Dear Editor, We've just finished our annual task of compiling lessons learned from this year's Pioneer Fall Festi- val. We were again blessed with great weather although maybe a little warm, and the mud storm was nice enough to hold off until everything was put away. We received very positive feedback on the exhibits and displays in our three buildings and for the music and food. We're still trying to find the best balance for the food so that visitors can enjoy our his- toric downtown if they so choose and have something to eat there, or to...
Vinton, Iowa - Maya Garcia, of Waitsburg, is one of 190 Vinton-based young people serving in the nation's second class of FEMA Corps; a new unit of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) solely devoted to emergency management and long-term recovery activities. During her 10-month term of service, Garcia, 21, is providing important support to disaster survivors and gaining significant training and professional experience in emergency management. Serving on teams of 10 to 12 people, FEMA Corps members both travel to di-...
Ladies and gentlemen, the long dry season is over – it’s Knowl- edge Bowl time! Yessiree, for the next seven months, my life (or at least my Friday mornings) will be jam-packed with buzzer-slapping, brain- wracking, inside-joking, cookie-munching fun. As a result, my columns will be similarly stuffed with refer- ences to these antics. Last year, I started writ- ing columns in the middle of the Knowledge Bowl season. The first column I wrote on the topic never reached your eyes – I sent two c...
Doug Warnock, a retired WSU Extension Agent, re- ceived the National Association of County Agricul- tural Agents' Hall of Fame Award at the association's annual meeting in Pittsburg, Penn. on September 19. Warnock served in three Washington counties: Walla Walla (1961-1973), Asotin (1973-1978 and Kittitas (1978- 1996). He now lives near Prescott. Warnock's 35-year career with Washington State Uni- versity began in 1961. He started the "Steer, Lamb and Hog of Merit" youth programs that helped...
A trend that has always puzzled me somewhat is the concept of "distressed" jeans. For the uninitiated, distressed jeans are jeans that are damaged with rips, fading, or acid washing - and then sold just like that in reputable stores at a hefty markup. They are considered very fashionable at the moment, and it is more than socially acceptable to wear them in public. But even when the stains on your jeans aren't from acid or dye, but rather a drip- ping chocolate ice-cream cone, people still...
I t might seem a bit early to talk about Halloween, though some supermar- kets and stores are already in the spirit for the scary event with displays and candy. But a radio news item last week reminded me of an incident that happened on Halloween some years ago when I walked a much- younger Niko (our son) to the school bus. First, I have to explain this happened on Bainbridge Island, where motorists tend to be quite polite, except perhaps when it comes to getting to the Seattle-bound ferry on...
The day after this paper went to press, the Columbia County Board of Commissioners was scheduled to hold a public hearing and most likely impose a one- year moratorium on the production and sale of marijuana within the county. Walla Walla County and the City of Dayton are also considering similar measures. The city of Waitsburg already passed a moratorium back in December. The statewide initiative that passed last fall, legalizing recreational use of small amounts of pot, may well turn out to be a good thing in the long run, but it has created...
On behalf of more than 1,800 members, the Washington As- sociation of Wheat Growers is strongly opposed to Initiative 522 on the Novem- ber statewide ballot. I-522 would force Washington farmers and food companies to implement costly new labeling, packaging, distri- bution and recordkeeping re- quirements that do not exist in any other state - whether or not they grow or produce genetically engineered crops (GE) or food products. "I-522 is a costly and misleading measure that would hurt Washington's family farmers and consum- ers," said WAWG...
Between the start of school and the Columbia County Fair, it's been a very busy week. Talk about an embarrass- ment of riches - the events of the past seven days could constitute a whole month's worth of columns. Here's a highly condensed version of events: School started on Tues- day the 3rd. I was pretty excited - visibly so, in fact, to the point where someone passing me on the sidewalk remarked that I was "too happy to be at **** school." (This had little to no effect on my mood.) My first-p...
We can't resist this play on words once more: the "spirit" of Waitsburg is in a bottle and it's reaching shores in some very distant lands, not to mention our own. Thanks to two entrepreneurs, Kirby Kallas Lewis and Paul Gregutt, who branded their tasty and tastefully labeled vin- tages after our town, the Waitsburg name is getting out there and raising some worldwide interest. Waitsburg Bourbon, now in its eighth batch since its launch only a few years ago, can be found in stores, bars and restaurants in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California,...
