PIONEER PORTRAITS

Ten Years Ago

September 22, 2011

It was a day of Victorian fashion, museum tours, buffalo, corn on the cob, and Butlers at Waitsburg’s Fall Festival on Sunday. The attendance was anything but sparse.

Bill Thompson was a good friend. I share that distinction with scores of folks in this community and extending the population to Palouse. He died September 17, 2011, in Waitsburg. He was 81 years old.

Nancy Metro has been recently hired by the Walla Walla Catholic Schools in the new position of director of admissions and community relations.

[Photo caption] Colleen Delp shows mini cheerleader Amy Wyatt how to root for the Bulldogs last Thursday at the Dayton football game.

“This corner of the world (and state) is a diamond in the rough,” said Suzanne Fletcher, who was appointed director of the Washington Tourism Alliance.

Twenty-Five Years Ago

September 7, 1995

Seventy-two seventh and eighth-grade students began school this week in Preston Hall, the school building that hasn’t been used much since 1985 and opened Tuesday as a showpiece for the Waitsburg School District. “After all these years, it’s alive,” beamed principal of the junior high grades, Dan Butler, sitting inside one of the new classrooms in the refurbished three-floor school on Main Street.

[Headline] First Savings offering Walla Walla’s first bank in a grocery store

They’re slick and slithery and coming to Dayton. Sure to be a hit at this year’s Columbia County Fair is the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry’s unique display of rare and exotic reptiles, amphibians, turtles, and other crawly creatures.

[Photo caption] Jenny Maners of Waitsburg washes her prize-winning pig before showing at the Frontier Days Fair in Walla Walla last week. Maners, a student at Waitsburg High School, was a winner in the competition. Fair attendance topped 105,000, a new record for the 129-year-old fair.

Fifty Years Ago

September 17, 1970

Local wheat growers will help host five prominent Japanese millers who will visit grain production and marketing facilities in the United States this month. The group will arrive in Walla Walla on Friday, September 18, and will be the guests at an informal dinner in the Empire Room of the Eddie Mays Inn at 6:30 p.m.

Word has been received here of the death of a former longtime Prescott resident, Mrs. Blanche Hardy, of Battle Creek, Mich., who died there on Sunday.

Whitman College’s Harper Joy Theatre will present a season of nine productions for 1970-71, including one American premiere and one American college premiere, theatre Director Jack Freimann has announced.

Seventy-Five Years Ago

September 21, 1945

Local CampFire guardians this year are Mrs. Homer Reed, Mrs. J. N. Carson, and Miss Barbara Woods. Assistant guardians are Mrs. Hollis Hawks, Mrs. Melvin Combs, and Mrs. Roy Danielson.

Mrs. and Mrs. Denzil Mock, Miss Elsie Broeckel of Walla Walla, Sgt. Darrell Mock and Miss Velma Mock were Sunday guests at the home of Miss Broeckel’s Uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Phil Broeckel at LaCrosse.

Philip Marbach, who has farmed the C.B. Preston ranch for the past few years, is leaving to farm his father’s ranch northwest of Walla Walla. Don Thomas has rented the Preston farm.

One Hundred Years Ago

September 24, 1920

Dorothy Call entertained a number of her friends at her home Friday evening of last week. Those present were Marion Ballard, Vera Woodworth, Alice Lewis, Margaret Cutting, Ruth and Edna Eichelberger, Verna Atkinson, Dorothy Dixon, Amanda Barnes, Francis Samuels, Elzada Thomas, Henry Roberts, Walter Snodgrass, Fred McConell, Donal Duncan, Gordon Keiser, Everett Thomas, Vernon Rice, and Harold Rice.

Mrs. Al Brouillet of Spokane is visiting her niece, Mrs. Riley Wise, for a few days. The Brouillet family will be remembered here by many oldtimers, as they formerly lived here, Mr. Brouillet being engaged in the blacksmith business.

One Hundred Twenty-Five Years Ago

September 27, 1895

A plan is on foot for a grand coyote drive. Not for many years have coyotes been so numerous as they are this year, and a drive would doubtless result in bushels of fun as well as rid the country of one of the worst nuisances.

On Wednesday night, thieves carried off J. W. Coles double-trees, single-trees, axe, etc. and played the same contemptible trick on Grandpa Hicks. When will this thing end?

Mr. and Mrs. T.L. Fine, who have been visiting their son T.M. Fine and family for the past three weeks, left this week for their home in Joseph, Ore.

Wm. and Miss Ada Philips and Ed Kimmel have gone to Pullman to attend the Agricultural College.