Ken Graham: FROM THE PUBLISHER

When I was in high school in the outskirts of Vancouver, Wash., our football team sucked. Actually, most of our sports teams did. And I always thought it would be a lot more fun to be at a school that won the state championship.

Waitsburg got to experience a state championship five years ago, when coach Jeff Bartlow led the Waitsburg-Prescott Cardinals to victory in the Tacoma Dome in 2011. In the 2B state championship game that year, the Cardinals crushed Morton/White Pass 33-7, to cap an undefeated season. Coach Bartlow led his team to many league championships as well.

After the 2014 season, Bartlow handed the reins to the Cardinal football team to long-time assistant, Troy Larsen. He had coached the team for 16 years.

Bartlow also coached Waitsburg's track and field team for many years. In the spring of 2013, the WP boys' track team finished third in the 2B state championship meet.

Last week, as we report on Page 1, Bartlow resigned his teaching and coaching positions in Waitsburg, after accepting a counseling job at Pioneer Middle School in Walla Walla.

It's true, I think, that we sometimes make too big a deal out of sports, especially at the expense of many of the other great and important things kids do. But high school sports are one of the few things that draw small communities like ours together. And being the home of a state championship football team was something that Waitsburg and Prescott could be very proud of.

Coach Bartlow is a very competitive person, and whenever I talked to him about his teams, he was always thinking about what his football team could do to win more games, or what his track athletes could do to win more events.

But it was also clear that he cared very much about helping kids be successful in life. Whether holding sports camps for "little kids" or leading YoungLife, Coach Bartlow devoted much of his personal time to helping improve kids' lives.

We should all wish him the best in his new career.