Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 467 - 491 of 589
WAITSBURG - The Waitsburg City Council agreed last Wednesday to put back on the agenda the BMX track proposal for a parcel of city-owned land on the edge of town. All but one of the five council members said they did not object to Mayor Walt Gobel's request to discuss the proposal at the council's next meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 19, after track proponents used the public comment session to ask for a full hearing. Orville Branson was the only one who did not want the item back before the...
WAITSBURG - Though they had to shake off some nerves during the first half of their game against Weston-McEwen, the WP Lady Cardinals came out regrouped after their break and beat the Tigerscots confidently in a lob-sided 45-19 victory. Head Coach Jerry Baker said he wasn't surprised his team came out a bit flat-footed in their first game of the season against an opponent that already had five games on the court, but he was pleased with the way the girls turned on the heat in the second h...
STARBUCK - The Port of Columbia will end its lease of Lyons Ferry Park with the U.S. Corps of Engineers, which means the recreational facility across the river from Lyons Ferry Marina will not reopen unless the Corps can find another tenant. The Corps is now looking for new operators for its Lyons Ferry and Central Ferry parks on the Snake River after the latter's operator too ended its lease with the federal agency. Lyons Ferry Marina, which is operated by P.M. Farmjam LLC, is not affected by the change. Farmjam owners Jim and Angela Mac...
WAITSBURG - Waitsburg City Public Works Director Dan Katsel points to a long, vertical gauge painted on the concrete structure under the Main Street bridge across the Touchet. Against a white background, the river's ever- changing water level is indicated in black, one foot at a time. It starts at about the 1 and runs all the way up to the 11, with a red mark at the 8 - flood stage. On Tuesday, the level was below one foot. But last winter, the river reached six feet, and Katsel, who mon...
DAYTON - Lisa Ronnberg, executive director of the Dayton Chamber of Commerce for the past three and a half years, has announced she will leave her position there to become the business manager for the Columbia County Public Works Department. "It's an exciting opportuDirector for me," Ronnberg said about her new job under public works director Drew Wood. "I'm looking forward to it." The change is effective the first of the year. Ronnberg's assistant, Amber Phinney, who joined the Cha...
DIXIE - No one seems to know exactly how tall the Northwest Grain Growers elevator in Dixie is, but even those who work there say it's no higher than 130 feet. That means the small town's tallest item, which is visible from Highway 12 tucked back in the fields south of its outskirts, will soon be eclipsed by an even loftier structure. Inland Cellular is set to build a 180-foot cell phone tower at 9970 East Highway 12 near the elevator this spring and is seeking public comment on its proposal under the National Preservation Act of 1966. Local...
WAITSBURG - Crowning one of the best fall sports seasons in its history, the WP athletics combine handed out annual awards Monday to the individual athletes who made happen in cheerleading, volleyball, football and cross country. The WP Tigers' soccer awards will be presented at Vista Hermosa at 5:30 p.m. on Friday. "Before our cross-country season began, I was unsure of how it would play out, if this small boys team, half of whom were freshmen, would be able to make our third consecutive...
WAITSBURG - Carlos Norris entered his first BMX race when he was 6. It was at the Walla Walla Valley BMX track where the Waitsburg youngster got his first taste of a course sanctioned by the American Bicycle Association, the excitement of competing with other racers and the cheers from his family. "I liked going over the hills and stuff and go after a trophy," said Norris, who is now 8. But Norris hasn't raced in two years. His mom, Lisa, who works in Walla Walla, had to come all the way back...
WAITSBURG - Less than eight months after it was repaired by Haskins Co. of Spokane at a cost of 140,000, the Waitsburg grain bin that split and spilled several thousand bushels of wheat last year failed again in the same spot, Northwest Grain Growers officials said Tuesday. "This should not have happened," said David Gordon, general manager for Walla Walla-based Northwest Grain Growers. "But when these things happen, you correct them." Gordon said about 1,500 bushels spilled from the bin t...
PULLMAN - To say Monday night's 21-14 semifinal loss to Colfax was bittersweet would be an understatement. The narrow defeat to the number one-ranked team in the state was not what the Cardinals had hoped for on the chilly snowbound turf at Martin Field. A first-ever state championship game in Tacoma on Saturday was more what they had in mind after a first-ever undefeated season. But in the wake of the heartbreaking playoff drama at the big Pac 10 stadium, the 2010 Cardinals drew wi...
PULLMAN - WP Head Coach Jeff Bartlow had a sleepless night on Monday. After the semifinal loss against the Colfax Bulldogs, he kept running different plays, different strategies and different outcomes through his head, wondering what he could have, should have, would have done to win the game he feels the Cardinals had within their grasp. "It was easier last time, when we lost 39-0 (in the 2009 playoff game against the Bulldogs)," Bartlow said about coming to terms with that year's results....
New Defenses In Place In Time For Flood-prone Seasonbordering WAITSBURG - Like many residents of the Touchet Valley, Phil Monfort has lived through two floods. So he gets worried when the weather patterns start to look like they did in 1964 and 1996. Walla Walla County emergency management officials said last week that the coming winter could be the worst in more than half a century, potentially generating the kind of snowfall, freezes and sudden thaw that contributed to the floods. M...
Pre-winter Snow & Ice Just TheBeginning Of A La Nina Year That Could See Flooding In The Touchet ValleyWAITSBURG - What has kids and skiers so excited worries local authorities and area residents who recall the infamous winter of 1996. This week's early snow indicates the beginning of a cold season that could be a great year for Ski Bluewood but disastrous for a Touchet Valley vulnerable to flooding from the Touchet and Coppei rivers. Almost a foot of snow fell earlier this week in Walla Walla and Columbia counties, thwarting drivers, closing...
WAITSBURG - Half a decade after it was opened by the Columbia County Farm Bureau, the retail store at the Cenex gas stathough tion on the corner of Preston (Highway 124) and Coppei (Highway 12) is closing. The self-service pumps will remain in operation 24/7, accessible to credit card and co-op account card holders. Access to the propane gas will be discontinued because it needs to be handled by a trained employee and the station will no longer be staffed. Wednesday, Nov. 24, the day be...
DAYTON - If there were one big award for an entire high school fall sports program, it might go to Dayton High School and it would say "Most Improved." From football to soccer and cross country to volleyball, each DHS team saw hopeful signs of progress thanks to good coaching, the unquestioning efforts among individual athletes and a die-hard home crowd. Some would even say progress came in much bigger leaps and bounds than expected. "I thought this would be a building year and it would ta...
PASCO - Three weeks in a row now, the Cardinals have come out against their playoff opponents like a house on fire and put at least 35 unanswered points on the board, leaving the other team wondering what just hit them. Saturday's quarter-final game against DeSales was no exception. The only difference was that WP's confidence was even higher and its execution even more deadly against the stunned Irish. "Everyone believes now," WP head coach Jeff Bartlow said, referring to the team, their f...
WAITSBURG - When WP head coach Jeff Bartlow and his Colfax counterpart Morgan met halfway Sunday to exchange videos of their teams' games, Morgan asked Bartlow a rhetorical question. "Aren't we the luckiest sons of a gun in the state?" Morgan said as the two men shook hands like they've done many times over the years, this time in Central Ferry before the snow started piling up. Bartlow knew exactly what he meant: two well-coached and talented teams, both undefeated, facing each other in t...
YAKIMA - The Lady Bulldogs came home empty handed from their state playoffs here Saturday. They were knocked out of the tournament after winning their first match Friday but losing the two that followed later that day and on Saturday. Still, just getting to the giant SunDome with its fivenonstop-volleyball courts, and teams and hometown crowds from all over the state was the well-deserved cap on a winning season for the team that took the district title at home a week before. "We improved a l...
WAITSBURG - Seven Cardinals and two Bulldogs were elected all league in the District 9 Southeast 2B football league this season. For the Cardinals, this is more than in any other year in recent memory. Head coach Jeff Bartlow was elected Coach of the Year. Quarterback Zach Bartlow, running back Kris Cady, receiver TJ Hofer and offensive lineman Tre Brannock were elected by the league's coaches for their positions on offense. Defensive back Justin Armstrong, linebacker Grant Germain (...
COLFAX - Dean Bickelhaupt and his Bulldogs knew their odds of beating Colfax were slim. But that wasn't really the point of being in the playoffs at this stage in the team's reconstruction. Colfax beat Dayton 47-0 a week ago last Friday, ending the Bulldogs' first season under Bickelhaupt as head coach. But in many ways, it was one of the best seasons in a decade. The team won three games, including the two tiebreakers to qualify for the playoffs. Two of its players, Colton Bickelhaupt and...
WAITSBURG - The Cardinals were the only Touchet Valley team still standing in the playoffs this weekend after trouncing Oroville 49-13 at home Saturday. The win ends the Hornets' season while pitting WP against DeSales for a rematch at 5 p.m. on Friday at Edgar Brown Stadium in Pasco. After a fruitless Hornets drive on first possession, the Cardinals got on the board quickly with a 12-yard Bartlow pass to TJ Hofer for a touchdown and the same combination for the two- point conversion rev...
Saturday's quarter final game against DeSales will be different for the Cardinals in two important respects: it will be an away game on the neutral territory of the Edgar Edgar Brown stadium in Pasco, and the stakes will be much higher in this loser-out hurdle on the way to the semi final. But in almost every other way, WP is preparing once again for the Irish' versatile repertoire of ground and air assaults against a defense that has had the grip of artificialturf under its cleats only once before this season. DeSales quarterback Jere( m...
DAYTON - All's well that ends well. The participants in Thursday's move of the historic Smith Hollow school house can say that with some relief now that the various parts of the building are safely at their destination on Front Street behind Skyline Fluid Power and Sunnyhill Gardens. After nearly two decades since the idea of relocating and restoring the one-room school house came about, the main structure, roof and cupola have arrived at their new location on Dayton's historic pathway. "I t 's...
SPOKANE - In a business development that's good borrowers and the Touchet Valley community but bad for shareholders and mixed for employees, the holding company of American West Bank has announced restructuring plans through Chapter 11 bankruptcy while selling its banking operation to a California-based investment company. The sale has a local historical dimension since it means the end of the road for the investors from Walla Walla, Waitsburg and Dayton who put up the capital in the 19...
DAYTON - With a stunning five-game come-from-behind victory against Liberty Christian Saturday night, the Lady Bulldogs swept into state before a jubilant home town crowd. It's the first time in five years since the Bulldogs have gone to state. Their first game is on Friday morning at the Sundome in Yakima. Last time, Dayton went to state, they placed third. quot;I knew we could do it,quot; team captain and senior Kayla Turner said. quot;I told the team to play calm and composed and we could go to state. We just had to take a deep breath and...
