Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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WAITSBURG - Sheriff John Turner doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. The Walla Walla County's new, top law-enforcement offi cial is thrilled he can make adjustments to the patrol schedule that provide 24/7 coverage in his jurisdiction. He's pleased some members of his new team bring many years of law enforcement experience they can use to offer in-house training to his deputies. He's also happy to see that the new administration, sworn in earlier this year, has created a better work...
On one of the first sunny mornings of spring, I took the bag Thomas Reese gave me the day before and looked inside. There they were: beans from three different continents, some dark tan, some dark brown, some with a flat coat and some with an oily sheen. I stuck my nose in the bag and inhaled without hesitation . A deep, toasted fragrance filled my nostrils. Few things in life smell like coffee. This was going to be good. After weeks of cupping single-origin beans and blends from various parts o...
DAYTON - While the wind and early spring rains still descend on the Touchet Valley more than the rays of the sun, Erin Horan is already busy planting this year's garden at the Monteillet dairy farm. The heartier items - peas, radishes, Lima beans, fava beans, spinach and potatoes - are in the ground, with beats and carrots soon to follow. It's one of the lessons the manager of the Monteillet farm's CSA (communitysupported agriculture) has learned from last year, when she first planted the...
DAYTON - Amidst the excitement of announcing the court and program for the Columbia County Fair this weekend was the anxiety country fairs across the state share these days: funding from Olympia. With horse racing already nixed this year for Dayton Days, fair organizers fear another blow to a local cultural tradition if lawmakers cut $2 million in state subsidies for fairs across Washington and, of this, $31,000, or almost half the budget, for the Columbia County Fair. "With the loss of the fund...
DAYTON - The mellow, late-winter sun cuts in low across the Bulldogs track field as various athletes practice their specialties. Courtney Fuller is taking another run at the hurdles. Davy Phillips and Ammar Alkohlani are trying their javelin reach. Samura Miller and Briana Fulbright get in position to take straddle jumps at the high bar. They laugh as minor things go wrong. After all, this is one of their first practices, and the students are still finding their groove in their new or revived...
WAITSBURG - A Walla Walla judge has issued a warrant for the arrest of Adam Hermanns, who is charged with the theft of automotive components and a fire arm. "We are actively seeking Mr. Hermanns," said Eddie Freyer, Undersheriff for Walla Walla County. "Any calls and tips related to his whereabouts will be pursued vigorously." In addition, the sheriff's office is interested in talking to Hermanns about the Jan. 25, 2011, garage fire at the residence of his parents, Pam and Andy Hermanns. That...
WAITSBURG - Track and field may not be a team sport, but the Waitsburg Prescott Cardinals do have a team goal for the season: hang on to their status as district champions, which they've held six of the last seven years. New head coach Jeff Bartlow said that from what he has seen of the 2011 team after nine practices, he believes the Cardinals can do it. "I think we can defend our title," Bartlow said this weekend, as he was putting the finishing touches on this year's roster of athletes. "The t...
WAITS- BURG - Bette Burgoyne's idea of doing a drawing 11 inches wide and 10 feet long had several sources of inspiration. There was M.C. Escher's "Metamorphosis," the mindbending left-to-right journey of a crossword like text that changes into blocks, lizards, a beehive, fish, a flock of birds, a mountain town, a chess game and finally back to a text. There were the Chinese landscape paintings that unroll from top to bottom and are so long they could only be displayed in a very high stairwell....
WAITSBURG - Waitsburg voters have another choice for city council. Grocery clerk and volunteer fire fighter Greg McVey put his name on the ballot for a seat on the five-member body, saying he wants to throw his weight behind Bart Baxter's bid for mayor. "I would like to see this town grow," said McVey, who has not held an elected position before and was asked by Baxter to run for council. "I think Bart has a lot of great ideas." At a caucus at Deanne and Larry Johnson's home in Waitsburg last...
The water crests and curls before it pounds the beach. Its foam spreads across the sand before the effervescent edge of the Pacifi c, rolls back by a few feet and another wave roughly takes its place. This is Shi Shi. This is La Push. This is Long Beach. One day in the early part of the 19th century this was Cape Flattery, and not far from this extreme Northwest point of the continental United States, three shipwrecked Japanese sailors found their way ashore after 14 months adrift at sea. One...
WAITSBURG - Charles Smith's idea for the former American Legion hall on Waitsburg's Main Street is simple: turn it back into the kind of bar the town needs. Expected to be called the "Anchor," the planned new drinking establishment in the building just south of the Whoop Em Up Hollow Cafe will serve light beer, "comfort" snacks, standard cocktails, have a big-screen TV, a country music jukebox, and feature games like pinball and fuss ball. In other words, it will be everything the jimgermanbar...
SPOKANE - The 2011 Cardinals already went further in the state playoffs than last year by placing in the Final 8 at University High School. And during the fourth quarter of their first game against the Bear Creek Grizzlies at the arena Friday, it seemed possible they might go even further. The game went into overtime after the teams tied at 47-47. But in the end, the hardfighting WP team hit a wall on Friday in the form of their opponents' speed, which pushed the outcome in the Grizzlies'...
WAITSBURG - It may not have brought quite as many people to town as Cycle Oregon did last year. But in the world of youth wrestling, Waitsburg hit the big time this weekend as host of a 17-team tournament that attracted close to 2,000 visitors on Saturday. "It was exciting," said Kari Newman, co-founder of Waitsburg's Matbirds club, which is affiliated with the larger Washington State Little Guy Wrestling Association, an organization that has 70 clubs statewide. For five weeks starting in early...
SPOKANE - In their playoff game against the Brewster Bears Friday, the Cardinals showed it once again. They have a number of strategies to get their buckets. The men have tireless rebounding from the likes of Matt Hamilton, Kris Cady and Guillermo Hern andez. They have fast breaks and la- yups from Dustin Wooderchak and T.J. Hofer. They have treys from Wooderchak, Hofer and now Tyler Baxter. They have everything in Zach Bartlow's bag of tricks - long distance, fast breaks and rebounds. Now they...
SPOKANE - The Lady Cardinals' perfect season came to an end this weekend after WP struggled with its competitors' rough, anything goes court style that, at times, seemed to bounce up against the very edge of good sportsmanship. Still, the Cardinals had their heads held high after their two losses, leaving the University High School teary-eyed but proud of their historic winning streak and exceptional teamwork. "The season was awesome," Cardinal Kayla Huxoll said. "We played our hardest. I'm...
WAITSBURG - The last time Jeff Hofer played in an alumni basketball tournament, he had a great time being out on the court again. At the Waitsburg Alumni Tournament four years ago, he had a chance to relive some of the glory from 1985, when the Cardinals placed fourth in the state. Back then, Hofer was a senior varsity player on the squad. Recently, he has been enjoying basketball success vicariously through his kids - senior T.J., who is on the winning 2010 Cardinals team, and Katie, who is a...
SPOKANE - Cool and confident, the Cardinals rolled up their sleeves and went to work like it was just another day at the office, dismantling the Brewster Bears 63-50 in the first round of the state playoffs Friday. They are now in the final eight, returning to Spokane next to play Redmond's Bear Creek Grizzlies at 2 p.m. on Thursday. The Brewster Bears' offense kept up with WP's hoop barrage for a while, but the Cardinals' methodical productivity gave them a leading edge during much of the game...
WAITSBURG - They may not perform their "sport" in front of a hometown crowd. They may not generate "edge-of-your-seat" excitement just before the clock runs out. They may not get a rousing sendoff when they leave town as would-be champions later this month. They may not even leave in a yellow bus. But all that aside, this team from Waitsburg High School is also going to the state "playoffs" in Spokane to test their academic knowhow against other competitors from around the state. The 2011 Knowle...
DAYTON - In the predawn hours on a Thursday morning two weeks ago, Derek Katsel woke to the sound of his dog barking. "I got up and went outside to see what was going on," he said. "When I came around the corner, there was a cougar five feet from my porch, looking at my Jack Russell at the door." Katsel went back into the house to dress and get his pistol. When he came back out, the puma took off running toward his shop with three of his dogs in hot pursuit. They quickly had the lion treed a sto...
WALLA WALLA - How did they do it? One word: Belief. Belief in themselves, belief in their teammates, belief in their coaches, belief in their community, belief in victory. Belief was a recurring theme in comments from everyone interviewed about the 2011 Cardinals basketball teams' success in the past two weeks. That belief, combined with a hunger to win and a depth of physical talent, lined up for something that has never happened before in history. Both Cardinals teams - the women still...
WALLA WALLA - The Cardinals and the Irish traded the lead in their district tournament game nine times, indicating how close the game was until the final minute or so. That's when DeSales' fouls finally caught up with the WP opponent and senior Cardinals Genesis Pearson, Megan Withers plus junior Krystal Harris put the game away 40-36. "That was exciting," head coach Jerry Baker said with more than a hint of the understated. "I knew it was going to be a tough game. But we played good defense...
WALLA WALLA - A field shot from Bulldog Garett Turner circled the hoop and spun out instead of going in. Minutes later, on the other side of the court, Cardinal Matt Hamilton battled for the ball time and again until he finally had the rebound. His efforts, among others, won him applause when he was subbed at the end of the game. In the end, it was a mixture of luck and a margin of superiority that gave WP its district tournament win over Dayton Friday. But the Bulldogs, who were on fire from...
WALLA WALLA - Business entities from the Touchet Valley attended a presentation of a "way finding" initiative Thursday that would use road signs to brand the 30-mile travel corridor from Dayton to Milton Freewater. Representatives from the Port of Columbia and the newly formed Touchet Valley Tourism Alliance joined others from Walla Walla-area businesses and organizations to offer feedback to the first phase of a long-term signage overhaul program for the region proposed by Tourism Walla Walla....
DAYTON - With the Cardinals and Bulldogs heading for the district tournament and NCAA playoffs just around the corner, why not add a little February Madness? It will be coming to town in the form of a visit from a basketball giant. The Reign Man of the Seattle Supersonics, sixtime NBA All Star Shawn Kemp, is expected to come to Ski Bluewood next week to promote a new kind of fast-action basketball game among youths. The sport is called 3BA, a 3-on-3 full-court game co-founded by Walla...
WAITSBURG - There will be no pari mutual horseracing this year in Waitsburg, Dayton and Walla Walla. The Washington State Horseracing Commission decided Thursday to give only six days of racing to the Class C "Bush" circuit and they all went to Sun Downs in Kennewick. The decision, which came as a disappointment to many in the region's horseracing community, does not necessarily spell the end of nearly a century of racing in the Touchet Valley. But changes will have to be made in state law and in the way racing is funded to pave the way for...
