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  • “Love Letters” to Me

    Feb 6, 2014

    My 'thing' with the mail began in the fifth grade, when I entered an essay contest. Our teachers informed us that if we won, we would be sent a letter of notification. So every day after she came home from work, I forced my mother to take me to the post office and check the mail. I didn't win that contest. But shortly afterwards, I entered another one, and the ritual began once more. To this day, when Mom comes home from work and we've briefed each other on the day's events, I'll ask her if she...

  • Ken Graham: From the Editor

    Feb 6, 2014

    My road to becoming a mature adult be­gan with Bill Caudill (a.k.a.,"The Inspector"). Cau­dill was the "closer" for the Seattle Mariners for a couple of years in the mid-eighties. (A closer is a pitcher who comes into the game in the ninth inning when his team has a slim lead.) Whenever Caudill came into the game, the theme from "The Pink Panther" would play in the stadium (a.k.a., "The Kingdome"). I loved the Mariners and Bill Caudill. I was in college in Seattle when the Sea- hawks joined t...

  • Political Cartoon

    Feb 6, 2014

  • Market Bullets

    Gary Hofer, The Times|Jan 30, 2014

    For the 11 trading ses­sions ending Tues­day, Chicago wheat prices have traded within 20 cents per bushel of the lowest price since July 2010. There is doubt in the minds of would-be buyers; those that normally like to try to buy bottoming patterns, those that think seasonal patterns are likely to be completed now and those that are holding very profitable short-sold trades established at much higher prices over the last couple of months. There are signs that US wheat is working its way into competitive global wheat marketing channels. Egypt pu...

  • Go! Yeah! Run! Don’t get tackled!

    Jan 30, 2014

    At one point, the Na­tive American tribes of the Great Plains termed barbed wire "the Devil's rope." From this terminology, we can infer that at that point in time, no Plains Indian had attempted to make a bracelet of European 4-to-1 chainmaille. As Super Bowl mania is currently seizing America, I figured I'd better get in on the act. I decided to do so subtly, with a handmade metal bracelet of interlock­ing rings of blue and green. I surfed the Web until I found a pattern I liked - simple, v...

  • A Helping Paw for Pets

    Jan 30, 2014

    In the United States, about 85 million dogs and 95 million cats are kept as pets. That's according to the Humane Society of the United States. More than half of all U.S. families have at least one pet dog or cat. And here's another impressive statistic: According to the American Pet Products Association (yes, of course there's such a thing), Americans spend more than $50 billion per year on cats, dogs and other com­panion animals. But animals are different than appliances or cars. When a pet owner decides they no longer can take care of their...

  • Political Cartoon

    Jan 30, 2014

  • Achieving Goals: Why it is Time for Passage of the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act

    Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers|Jan 23, 2014

    In the words of the civil rights leader we honor this month, "We must never al­low ourselves to become satisfied with unattained goals." Decades later, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words still ring true for all of us, including those who have disabilities. What are these goals for people with disabilities? They include education, employment, active partici­pation in a community, and living as independently as possible. They are the same goals we all share. As the mom of a 7-year old son, C...

  • Correction

    Jan 23, 2014

    In last week's story on the new leadership in American Legion Post #35 we stated that Dorne Hall had been Legion Commander since 2013. It should have read that he was Commander from 2005-2013....

  • My Own Polar Vortex

    Jan 23, 2014

    The Seahawks were everywhere. People passed us on the street decked out in cloudy navy blue and lime green. That ubiquitous styl­ized bird’s head turned up everywhere, from the back windows of station wagons to the hairy chests of thir­tysomethings in swimming trunks. Flashing store signs, after informing passing cars about clearance sales and zero-percent financing, trumpeted “Go Seahawks!”, as did more than one public transit vehicle. And it was just killing a friend of mine, even more th...

  • School, EMS Levies Deserve Support

    Jan 23, 2014

    It's a fact of life that many of the services we often take for granted in our communities actually involve choices. There's no rule that says school staffs can't be cut further, or that emergency service providers can't get by with less modern equipment. We get to choose whether or not those things happen. Waitsburg area residents will face two of these choices on the ballot that is due back February 11. One involves the Waitsburg School District. The district is asking voters to approve a $1.08 million maintenance and operations...

  • Political Cartoon

    Jan 23, 2014

  • PIONEER PORTRAITS

    Pioneer Portraits|Jan 16, 2014

    Ten Years Ago January 22, 2004 Sen. Mike Hewitt, R-16th District, has been appointed chair of the Capital Budget Committee within the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Legal documents are pending, but an old-fashioned gentlemen's handshake has tightened the agreement between Columbia County Hospital District No. 1 and John A. Wood Jr. for a new location of the Waitsburg Clinic. At the January 15 board meeting, the Columbia County Hospital District was given an official not to proceed with plans to build a new clinic at the corner of 3rd and Main...

  • editor’s note

    Jan 16, 2014

    A decade from now, when readers of The Times get into their self-driving cars to be whisked automatically to work, many of them will probably lean back and pe­ruse the electronic version of this newspaper (ignoring the beautiful Touchet Val­ley Scenery, I'm afraid). It'll come right up on their dashboard screen, no doubt. In the Pioneer Portraits section of the January 18, 2024 edition of The Times (that'll be a Thursday - I checked), those passive automobile passengers will be able to read e...

  • Nebraska!!!

    Jan 16, 2014

    Words simply can­not express the degree to which I am bothered when the peo­ple in my life misconstrue my beloved Knowledge Bowl as a sport for those who have had the part of their brain containing the sense of humor removed in order to accommodate more quadratic functions. English translation: They think we're cyborgs. I don't blame them en­tirely - after all, that's sort of the way geeky types get portrayed in the me­dia. But first of all, most Knowledge Bowlers aren't geeks in the least (th...

  • Quote of the Week:

    Jan 16, 2014

    ~Marshawn Lynch, Seattle Seahawks running back, after he scored two touch­downs in Saturday's playoff win against the New Orleans Saints....

  • Kudos to Law Enforcers

    Jan 16, 2014

    Here at The Times, we have a love-hate relationship with crime stories. Under current management, we're trying to focus more on positive stories and less on negative ones. And anyway, we don't like the fact that crimes are happening around here any more than anyone else does. But reporting on crime, such as the recent rash of thefts from cars in Day­ton, is important. Readers want to learn about these stories, and they need to. Besides, as most TV viewers would agree, the criminal mind is fascinating. Crime stories can be positive too. For...

  • Political Cartoon

    Jan 16, 2014

  • Teaching Award Should Be #1

    Jan 9, 2014

    Dear Editor, I am curious as to where our priorities lie, when a teacher in Waitsburg winning a National Teaching award is only ranked #10 by The Times instead of #1? She should be the #1 story in my way of thinking. We have great teachers here, let's say thank you to them. Rank them #1, not #10. Karl Newell Waitsburg...

  • “What, Me Worry?” Syndrome

    Gary Hofer, The Times|Jan 9, 2014

    One of the occupational hazards of being a wheat producer or landlord is that most of the time spent on analyzing wheat prices is focused on determination of "why the price should go UP." The problem is a kind of blindness to reasons why the price should go DOWN. The psychological basis for ignoring negatives is obvious, but it can cause a wheat marketer or trader to wait too long to sell. Then, often near the lows for the year, emphasis shifts to "damage control" instead of optimization. That period is at hand. Wheat prices are suffer- ing...

  • PIONEER PORTRAITS

    Pioneer Portraits|Jan 9, 2014

    Ten Years Ago January 15, 2004 The Carnegie Art Center in Walla Walla opened January 13 featuring "The Artists of Columbia County," with a reception from 5-7 p.m. The show will run through February 21. Works featured will include bronze sculpture by Keith McMasters; pastel paints by Mon- ica Stobie; taxidermy by Roger Samples; pottery by Brian Manselle; glass by Joan Monteillet; watercolors by Paul Strohbehn, Jill Ingram and Jackie Penner; paintings by Iola Bramhall and Becky Leventis; mixed media pieces by Debbie Baxter and Anne Strode; and...

  • Happy 2-0-1-4!

    Jan 9, 2014

    My goodness, it's the New Year al- ready! 2014. The year my little brother enters high school, my cousin and two of my best friends pass on to the netherworld known as "col- lege", and that ancient can of hominy tucked in the back of our pantry finally goes bad. It will be stamped on the prom invitations my class passes out this spring, and glitter-painted on the home- coming posters we plaster in the school hallways come fall. It will crouch in fifty- two weeks' worth of Times margins, over...

  • How to Make a Newspaper, Part III (or is it IV?)

    Ken Graham, The Times|Jan 9, 2014

    I don't know how to run a newspaper, Mr. Thatcher; I just try everything I can think of. ~Charles Foster Kane, from the movie "Citizen Kane" W hen Blue Mountain News stum- bled out of the gate in 2007, I noted in the first column I wrote there that my main qualification for the job of newspaper publisher was that I had been an avid reader of newspapers for a long time. (That, and I learned how to type in the ninth grade - on a typewriter.) Over the past seven years, I've thought of lots of ways...

  • Political Cartoon

    Jan 9, 2014

  • A Big, Fast-Paced Adventure

    Jan 2, 2014

    A fter having served for four years as your publisher, where do I even start to sum up what this time has meant to me? Perhaps the easiest way to say it is: a lot! From the moment the Bakers took our photo in front of the old Linotype ma- chine in the back room when our purchase was announced just before Thanksgiving 2009 to the pictures I took at the last Hometown Christ- mas parade this December, my time at The Times has flown by as one big and fast- paced adventure. I'm melancholy closing thi...

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