Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 1765 - 1789 of 2505
Sometimes national news hits home. It did recently for the Columbia County Health System when CFO John Hennessey announced that the local health service will likely see a reduction in Medicare payments of around $93,000 in the next 12 months. The federal budget sequester, which made across-the- board budget cuts to many federal agencies, also caused reductions in Medicare payments to healthcare providers. "Our income is about 55% Medicare," said CCHS CEO Dale Polla, stressing that any changes in that federal pro- gram have a big effect...
Last week was one of those "Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink" weeks in terms of column material. I was busy all week doing all kinds of fun things (it was Spring Break, after all), but all of the aforementioned fun things fall into one of three categories - A, not long enough to fill a whole column; B, too long to fill a column but not quite sus- penseful enough to serialize; and C, top-secret material not meant for civilian ears. So, expressly for your benefit, I have...
I t appears that an invi- tation from Waitsburg Mayor Walt Gobel to the Confederated Indian Tribes of the Umatilla Reserva- tion has been well received. Earlier this year, Gobel sent a letter to the tribes asking them to join the May 18 parade marking the 100th anniversary of the Days of Real Sport. According to the April edition of the Confederated Umatilla Journal, a group on the reservation is form- ing an all-volunteer parade contingent to prepare for the tribes' participation in the...
I t seems like we're just recovering from a rough election season, and it must be too soon for another. But, in fact, a long slate of local non-partisan positions is coming open this year in Columbia and Walla Walla Counties. They include city and school board positions, along with several commission seats. The list below includes the open positions in our area, along with the names of the incumbents. The filing period for all of these positions is May 13 - 17. For any position receiving more than two filers, a primary runoff will be held...
A student chior shown in a photo on Page 5 of last weeks Times was incorrectly identified as the Waitsburg High School Choir. The photo actually shows the Round Valley High School Show Choir from Round Valley, Arizona, which was per- forming for students at Waitsburg High during an assembly. The choir was on a tour around the Northwest U.S....
Since we have recently read about so much dishonesty with a Walla Walla car dealership, I felt compelled to share a story of integrity, honesty and just all-around good people in that same industry. Recently, my husband and I purchased a used Lexus RX 300 with low miles. We did not purchase an extended warranty, accepting it as-is. Three weeks after owning it, I was driving to Dayton and heard a loud knocking and squealing. I pulled over and called the tow truck. We ended up taking it to Abaji- ans to have it diagnosed and were informed that...
I remember walking into the tiebreaker room the same way I had walked into Arlington High School - shuddering and wilted. My teammates were vigorously trying to calm me down, as- suring me that we had beaten this team in the preliminary rounds, but nothing helped. My head swam. My heart throbbed. I knew we were doomed. A student from Davenport was assigned to keep score. Using a fat green marker, he printed SUDDEN DEATH MATCH: WAITSBURG vs. DAVENPORT on the room's whiteboard. The moderator, a ba...
When the owner of the Inland Octopus Toy Store in Walla Walla wanted to put a new sign on the front of his store in 2010, he showed his plan to the City planning department. He was told that his pro- posed sign - a mural showing a cartoon-like image of an octopus - at the size he wanted to paint it would violate the city's sign code. Over Labor Day weekend that year, he put it up any- way. After numerous legal challenges, and even more nu- merous newspaper articles reporting on them, the sign- owner lost his final appeal to the U.S. Supreme...
Some say they prefer not to wake up to this smell of coffee. Most Waitsburgers are familiar with it. It comes in the form of smoke billowing from a stack at the anony- mous storefront between the old La Monarca Mexican restaurant and the Waits- burg Grocery store on Main Street. Local residents have put up with the emissions from Dyer Straits Coffee for years, but it has begun to affect other businesses downtown and some of the business owners want some- thing done about it. Before I get...
I am a self-proclaimed lover of technology. It's a passion that has caused me to be called a few names, and it occasionally costs me a little more money than I should be willing to part with. But it's an incredible and overwhelmingly won- derful field. Technology is a pretty broad term and I am fond of that. Of course my love for all things that go "beep" in the night isn't constrained to the MyFace status updates or those six Chirper posts every second. My love for technol- ogy isn't even...
The Waitsburg High School Knowledge Bowl team placed ninth at state this year. Last year, we were young- er, less prepared, had poorer team communication, and lacked the snazzy coordinat- ing T-shirts that the Booster Club gave us for the 2013 trip to State. But we managed to place fifth that year. Yes, I'm upset about the drop in ranking. But I'm also relieved that we even man- aged to bring home a plaque. I was shaking as our team walked into Arlington High School last Saturday morning. Having placed first in Regionals, our team would be comp...
Despite being heir to a fortune, Booth Gardner was a humble soul Almost a quarter century ago I worked as a public in- formation officer for the then Department of Trade & Economic Development in Olympia. Among other things, I wrote news releas- es, newsletters and briefing materials about the agency's activities. These included in- ternational trade promotion, small business assistance, tourism, film location servic- es, economic development and business retention. John Anderson ran the...
Assistant Editor Morgan Smith is leaving her posi- tion with The Times after this issue. Smith started with the times in February 2012 as a freelance writer and came on board as a full time reporter in May. Smith came to The Times after a stint as editor of the Daily Evergreen, WSU's student newspaper. She also was a regular columnist there. Her understanding of good reporting and editing, newspaper layout and working to deadline (at the Ev- ergreen, every day was deadline day) have been invalu- able at The Times. Smith became a fixture last...
Waitsburg's annual city government elections are take place Monday, April 1. No Joke As the only city in Washington still operating under its territorial charter, Waitsburg has the honor of bring- ing its mayor and city council members before the voters each April. This year, all of the incumbents are running, along with one city council challenger: Mayor - Walt Goble City Council - Deb Callahan Martin Dunn Kevin House K.C. Kuykenall Scott Nettles Karl Newell The top five vote-getters among the council candi- dates will take office for the...
Last week was the single busiest week of my high school career thus far. I'll start with Sunday. Sunday was the final perfor- mance of this year's TVAC variety show, 'The Good, The Bad, and Everyone Else.' I was in that production. I hurried to the dressing room half an hour before the show started, shucked off my street clothes and threw on a full-body leotard, a green shirt, a leather belt, a pair of canvas boots and a boyish wig. A few swipes of earth- tone makeup later, I was Peter Pan. Over the course of two hours, I dashed in and out of t...
PULLMAN - As a mem- ber of the Washington News- paper Publishers Associa- tion, a group that represents smaller newspapers like The Times, I was invited to be a publisher-in-residence at WSU for two days earlier this month. In front of about a dozen different classes and groups of students, I explored the importance of fundamental writing skills in my career and theirs. They were from different majors, including journalism, public relations, advertising and marketing. I also met with the staff...
We reported last week on the creation of the Jack Smiley Memorial Scholarship Fund and are pleased to announce that The Times will be making a modest contribution to the fund set up in honor of one this area's most respected sports figures. We encourage our readers, particularly those in Prescott and those who knew Jack and what he stood for, to do so as well if they can, even if it's merely your week's coffee money. Prescott alumni are encouraged to contribute the equivalent of their graduation year, so if you were a senior in, say, 2005,...
The Liberty Theater started the month with the Oscar-winning comedy/drama, "Silver Lin- ings Playbook." The rest of the month will bring crime, excitement, humor and some animation to entertain the masses this March. This weekend, the crime thriller "Side Effects" will be playing. The film stars Rooney Mara, Channing Ta- tum and Jude L aw and was directed by Stev en Soder- bergh. When Emily Taylor's husband is sent to prison, she suffers from severe depres- sion that persists after her husband...
I n last month's review of SketchUp, I credited the discovery to Pinter- est. Truth be known, nearly all displays of astounding creativity and impressive know-how on my part can be attributed to Pinterest. For those unaware, Pin- terest is a visual bookmarking site with a social twist. Users create "boards" in different categories, then "pin" relevant photos and captions. A click on the photo takes you to the original blog or website. Unlike browser bookmarks which often leave me mystified as to...
Dayton resident Roslyn Edwards is well known in the Touchet Valley as a terrific actress and great supporter of local live theater. Roslyn doesn't know a stranger and is one of my favorite book friends. It doesn't matter where we meet or how long we have to chat, the topic of books - what we're reading or have recently read - always comes up. She usually has two or three books going at one time and isn't afraid to try different genres. As librarian at Dayton Elementary School for the past 15...
