Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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DAYTON -- One year after Shawn Kemp became the first former NBA star to visit Ski Bluewood, another basketball celebrity is destined for the mountain this season. A.C. Green, who started his career at the L.A. Lakers and retired from the Miami Heat with detours through Dallas and Phoenix, is expected to spend the day at the resort on Saturday, Feb. 4. "He's not really into the cold," said Brenda Ford, the Walla Walla-based co-founder of the 3BA International basketball league for which Kemp and...
DAYTON -- Imagine the concrete staircase in a bigcity office building. Now picture walking up one flight to a landing and another flight to the second floor in full bunker gear - 75 pounds of boots, pants, a coat, a helmet and an air tank. Repeat this 69 times, seeing the red hand railing, red utility lines and a black sign with white letters showing the floor number. At least three times, your ears will pop from going from sea level to 788 feet. Occasionally, you might run into other firefighte...
BOARDMAN, Ore. - Tiger wrestler Dalton Larue brought home the first gold medal for the new WP wrestling team, defeating two other wrestlers to win in his new 160-pound weight class during the Riverside Rumble Invitational Wrestling Tournament on Saturday. Meanwhile, at the Tigers' statewide meet in Pullman last Wednesday, Gabe Escalante won his first pin as a WP wrestler, beating Dally Ratliff from Prairie High School in Vancouver, Wash., barely a minute into the second of three rounds. Head WP...
DAYTON -- For the undefeated 2011 Bulldog boys basketball team, the third annual Dayton Holiday Tournament was about milestones. Not only did the boys become the first Dayton team to win the three-year-old winter tournament, but senior Garett Turner passed the 1,000-point mark for his high school career, a feat equaled by only two other Bulldogs in more than a generation. The moment in which he crossed the 1,000-point marker first passed unnoticed about a minute before the end of the third quarter during the Bulldogs' victory over Kiona Benton...
DAYTON - Dayton alumna Nicole Lockard and her teammates were a bit worried about playing the younger Bulldogs in the second annual alumni game last Tuesday. After all, the dozen former high school players who hit the court weren't exactly in the best shape. But they decided it was more about coming out and playing, which they did and then some. The alumni, whose graduation dates went clear back to 1986, beat the 2011 team, 31-19, showing they have what it takes to put games away and have a good...
POMEROY - The Tigers' wrestling performance at the team's second meet in Pomeroy in as many weeks Tuesday was an athletic déjà vu. Dalton Larue pinned one of his opponents in the second round of his first match, then was pinned by his next opponent - none other than state champion Tory Knebel, whom Larue held off well into the second round of that match. The other Tiger team members were again defeated fairly quickly, but head coach Lanny Adams was encouraged by the team's improvement over l...
DAYTON - At one point during the men's alumni game, two Bickelhaupts were ganging up on a third. That kind of family ribbing is possible when two teams draws from two generations of Bickelhaupt basketball players. Tuesday's night second annual men's Bulldogs alumni game reached even farther back in time than the women's alumni game with Dean Bickelhaupt (1977) playing beside his older son Garett (2009) against the younger, current Bulldog Colton (2012). The two older Bickelhaupts found...
SKI BLUEWOOD -- I resisted it last year, miraculously. But my 14-year-old son was relentless at the outset of this year's ski season. I had to try it. I promised (in a moment of weakness) that I would give it a go. So, last week on a quiet day just before Christmas, I finally did it.I walked into the lodge at Ski Bluewood and signed up for a lesson in snowboarding . Of course my reluctance to "boost" on a "stick" was somewhat generational. When I first stood on skis at the age of 9, the Beatles...
WAITSBURG -- A group of Waitsburg residents wants to resurrect the town's defunct flood control district, a prospect city officials say they welcome. "We want to keep Waitsburg safe and beautiful," said Allison Bond, who spearheaded a recruiting effort that has yielded the required number of volunteers to serve on the district next year. "There are a lot of people willing to put the time in," she said. "And they have great ideas." Citing concerns about the stability of the levees along the local rivers, the ongoing risk of decertification by...
DAYTON - The Lady Bulldogs lost to Asotin, 61-52, Saturday but there was much to be optimistic about for Dayton players and coaches. Despite the points on the scoreboard, Dayton had by far its best game of the season against the Panthers. "That was the best effort we've had all year," head coach Clayton Strong said after the game. "Tonight we just relaxed and played. I think we overcame our fear of failure." Asotin opened the scoring drive with a two-point shot and although Lady Bulldog Nicole...
DAYTON - The Dayton Bulldogs went 6-0 after beating Asotin, 56-41, Saturday in a game that quickly turned into a route for the Panthers. "We definitely felt we had control of the game," Bulldog Joey Schlachter said after the home court encounter. "We were worried about getting outrun, which we didn't let them do." The Bulldogs had a close game against Waitsburg- Prescott on Friday, but the team seemed much more comfortable in the game against the Panthers. Dayton opened the scoring drive and...
WAITSBURG -- The WP Cardinals aren't just the toast of Waitsburg, which honored the team with a special dinner sponsored by the Commercial Club at the Town Hall last Thursday -- the 2011 2B state football champions are the toast of the entire state. Quarterback Zach Bartlow last week was named Player of the Year on the Washington Associated Press All-State football team as voted by writers and editors from around Washington. It's the highest honor any football player can receive in his division. His father, WP head coach Jeff Bartlow, was...
DAYTON - On the eve of the year-end holiday season, the Columbia County Sheriff's Office is warning homeowners that an elusive burglar is still at large in the Dayton area. The sheriff has also released a general description of the man, who has been sighted by several witnesses, but not close enough for a police sketch. Authorities describe him as a "tall, white male, between the ages of 25-50." The suspect has been targeting vacant homes inside the city limits for the past several months, forcibly entering them, stealing personal property and...
POMEROY - Dalton LaRue pinned for the second time this season, beating Gabe Davis of Gar Pal in the second round of his first match at the WP wrestling team's first big meet in Pomeroy on Tuesday. "Davis had the length," head wrestling coach Lanny Adams said about the Gar Pal wrestler's fourinch height advantage over LaRue. "But Dalton outmatched him based on his knowledge of the moves." LaRue was the first and only WP athlete to pin during an informal unscheduled meet in which the Tigers...
DAYTON - Barely three months ago, Dayton-based real estate broker Blaine Bickelhaupt sold a 1,700-acre farm in Whitman County for about $1,600 an acre. If he sold the same property today, he could probably get $1,900 per acre. "I have investors from across the country looking for farm ground," said Bickelhaupt, owner of Windermere Real Estate/Blue Mountain realtors, who has a client base of about 10 potential buyers interested in crop land in the Pacific Northwest. Two years ago, he had perhaps...
Nostrant Gets New Liver S EATTLE -- When Dennis Nostrant received an urgent call on his dedicated "transplant" cell phone at 2 a.m. on Dec. 4, he learned he had six hours to make it from his home in Thronton, south of Spokane, to the University Medical Center in Seattle. He had reason to be somewhat skeptical. Three times over the previous months he had received similar calls from his medical coordinator at the center calling him in to be ready for a liver transplant only to be told that, for...
DAYTON -- The Lady Bulldogs put up a good fight in the second half of Tuesday's game, but the effort wasn't enough to overcome the Pomeroy Pirates' commanding lead. Dayton lost its fourth game of the season, 58-27, Tuesday night, its record slipping further to 4-0. Yet the at-home loss wasn't quite as bad as the 54-20 defeat against the Pirates earlier in the season and girls stuck together until the bitter end. The game started as a largely defensive one. The first points didn't materialized...
DAYTON -- In their second victory over Pomeroy Tuesday night, the Bulldogs quickly forced the Pirates to walk the plank, and then danced circles around them as they plunged the frigid waters surrounding the ship. Dayton keelhauled their younger neighbors to the East, 82-38, with the 40-point spread prompting the mercy rule that lets the game clock run continuously in the fourth quarter until it runs out and ends the game. The Bulldogs are now 4- 0, hosting Waitsburg- Prescott on Friday and...
WAITSBURG -- It seems like a grinch, or perhaps a group of young grinches, was bent on stealing the spirit of Christmas last week. Police and citizens' reports indicate they stole outdoor Christmas lights, decorations and even absconded with a plastic likeness of Baby Jesus. The spate of vandalism and theft throughout the city started last Tuesday and continued through the weekend. Some called it the worst the town has seen in years. In all, half a dozen reports of stolen or damaged Christmas...
WAITSBURG -- WP's new athletics director JP Thew introduced the Cardinal and Tiger sports award evening as a moment to "celebrate the greatest fall sports season" the combine has ever had. And with that, coaches from cheerleading, cross country, volleyball, soccer and football recognized the exceptional student athletes who made it so. Cross country coach Joanna Lanning introduced the half dozen members of her team as "a family," who looked out for each other and "uplifted each other...
DAYTON -- So far so good for the Bulldogs this season. "Roy's boys" won their first three games, going 3-0 after beating the Riverview Panthers, 49-33, at their home court on Tuesday night. " The effort has been great," head coach Roy Ramirez said after the game. "We're struggling a little from the field, but that will come. It's nice to coach these boys. They know how to play basketball. It will be a pretty special year." Dayton won its first game away against TOR, 58-44, on Nov. 29, then ran...
PRESCOTT - After operating a convenience store in Prescott for eight years, the Walla Walla Farmers Co-op said it will close the retail operation just before Christmas, leaving only one grocery store in the town. "It wasn't profitable for us," said Doug Nelson, the co-op's controller in Walla Walla. "It was more a service to the community." The fueling station will remain open, though customers will need to open an account with the co-op to get gas and diesel because the station will not...
Man's Best Friend T he winter sun had already gone down on the western horizon, but it was still quite light in the hills east of Waitsburg when Dizzy and I went for our run late one afternoon last week. Several times a week, we pick a different country road to jog. We like Bolles Road. Whoop Em Hollow Road is a favorite. We've been up Lower Hogeye and down Whiskey Creek. This time, we chose Smith Hollow, following Eighth Street out of town past the cemetery under the eye of Butter Cup and up...
TACOMA - The 2011 WP Cardinals became the first football team in history to win the 2B State Championship trophy for their communities on Saturday. The 14-0 team beat Morton/White Pass 33-7 in the state title game at the Tacoma dome in the same convincing fashion as it defeated most previous opponents the past several seasons. The Cardinals were the first to score and never looked back. They were up 14-0 at halftime. Morton/White Pass scored early in the second half and for a few moments, it...
VISTA HERMOSA - - WP Tigers' head coach Mark Grimm had a few select words to describe each of the players on his championship team during the annual fall soccer banquet Monday night. Aldair Escalante, the diminutive junior super dribbler, showed his leadership going up against opponents several heads higher for balls coming from the sky, Grimm said. "That's how you give it up for the team." Luis Torres can afford to reign in his emotions on the field a little more, but shouldn't lose that "chip...
