Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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The town of Malden taken from a Whitman County Sheriff Department drone on Tuesday, September 8, 2020. The day before much of the town was destroyed by a wildfire that spread due to high winds. The Babb Road Fire started in Spokane County before spreading across the county line and raging through Malden and the neighboring town of Pine City. The fire quickly consumed thousands of acres of Palouse wheat fields, forcing Malden’s roughly 200 residents to evacuate, according to o...
WALLA WALLA—A Pendleton man is facing felony charges after being arrested last week in Waitsburg for sex crimes. Robert Miguel Aguilera, 37, was booked into Walla Walla County Jail on felony charges of sex trafficking, rape, and assault. Court documents show Aguilera allegedly purchased a female under the age of 18, missing from Richland, Wash. The documents state that Aguilera forcibly raped the victim at various locations in Walla Walla, Dayton, College Place, and Milton Freewater, t...
DAYTON—Columbia County Prosecuting Attorney Dale Slack said it took jurors just 45 minutes to return a verdict of Guilty of Assault in the First Degree in the trial for the State vs. William Fletcher. Fletcher had been charged with First Degree Assault for allegedly beating Laura Romig, in her Dayton home, in Jan. 2019. Romig is wheelchair-bound, and the assault left her with substantial injuries requiring treatment in a Spokane hospital. Slack said jurors agreed to a special verdict of D...
WALLA WALLA—Skylar I. Glasby, 32, was extradited from Walla Walla County Jail back to Umatilla County Jail, where he awaits a retrial from an incident in 2016. Glasby was convicted on charges of kidnapping, robbery and assault of a Milton-Freewater man in 2016. He successfully appealed the conviction on grounds that he was denied permission to either get new counsel or act as his own legal counsel during the trial. He was released pending a new trial scheduled for January 2021. Glasby faces felony charges of first-degree kidnapping, f...
Prescott School District kicked off the start of school with a bus parade....
Pumpkin spice and almost everything nice will happen this Fall, as Governor Inslee continues to update COVID-19 agritourism guidelines. Activities including hayrides, animal viewing, and bonfires are permitted in counties that have reached Phases 2 and 3 of the Safe Start Washington plan. Agritourism is defined as a commercial enterprise that links agricultural production and processing with tourism to attract visitors onto a farm, ranch, or other agricultural business for the purposes of entertaining and educating the visitors and generating...
The date for the Waitsburg City Council’s September meeting has been moved up one day. The meeting will now be held virtually on Tuesday, September 15 at 7 p.m. The call-in number is (701) 802-5221 and the meeting access number is (509) 858-672....
A devastating wind event swept through Washington on September 7, Labor Day. Weather experts said that a strong cold front moved down from Canada, creating wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour in some areas. In Whitman County, the town of Malden was consumed by one of three wildfires. Whitman County Sheriff Brett Meyers estimated that nearly 80 percent of the town was lost to a fast-moving fire that started near Babb Road in Spokane County, leaving many of the 200 residents without homes. Homes...
WAITSBURG—The Taggart Road Extension project is underway on the east end of town, and the City of Waitsburg is looking for name suggestions for the resulting road. The new road connects Taggart Road and Highway 12 by extending the straight stretch that already exists on Taggart Road. The new extension will connect with Highway 12 just before the speed limit change. City Administrator Randy Hinchliffe is asking that suggestions be sent in by September 11, to administrator@cityofwaitsburg.com....
WAITSBURG—The Waitsburg Gun Club switched over to their winter hours on Labor Day and wants to remind range visitors to ‘think hunting hours.’ The gun range will be open from 8 a.m through dark. Tuesday night trap shooting practice will still happen under the lights every Tuesday from 6 p.m-8 p.m. For membership, event, and range information, visit www.waitsburggunclub.org or call (509) 386-9991....
DAYTON—Kiwanis Club of Dayton invites members and guests to this week’s presentation, featuring Columbia County Sheriff, Joe Helm. The public is invited to attend. The weekly meeting starts at noon via Zoom (“doors” open at 11:30 a.m.). Signing in a few minutes early helps to get the meeting started on time. Zoom Meeting: Kiwanis Club of Dayton bi-weekly meeting Time: Noon, Thursday, September 10th, 2020 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5598153650 Meeting ID: 253 439 9797 No Passcode Required...
DAYTON—The Dayton School District has been approved for the Summer Food Service Program model through the end of December. All students 18 years of age and younger are eligible to receive breakfast and lunch at no charge. Students who are enrolled in the distance learning program, as well as any child in the community who meets the age criteria, can pick up meals (breakfast and lunch) from 11-11:20 a.m. in the elementary school bus area, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays and no school days. Preorders are appreciated. Let the school k...
The Columbia and Walla Walla County Conservation Districts would like your input on draft restoration actions identified for the Touchet River and its tributaries, as characterized in a draft conceptual restoration plan under development. The plan addresses an area from the headwaters of several Touchet River forks down to the town of Prescott as well as associated tributaries. The public is invited to attend an upcoming virtual meeting Thursday, September 17th from 6 to 8 p.m. The first 30 minutes will be informal Q&A in a virtual open house...
The ALS Association Evergreen Chapter says there is no better time for partner walking and fundraising than September. On September 19, join the fight against ALS with A Walk in Your Neighborhood. The Evergreen Chapter covers nearly one million square miles, the largest chapter in the Association, and has been helping families affected by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis since 1999. The ALS Association had 11 different walk events planned before the coronavirus pandemic struck, so this year they are hosting the #ALLWALKS1DAY event, asking that...
DAYTON—On Tuesday of last week, Columbia County Commissioner Ryan Rundell reached out to the Times to present the County’s side of the story regarding talks with the City of Dayton for law enforcement, dispatch, emergency management, and district court services, which have stalled. The City has said the County has not been negotiating in good faith and has asked the County to enter into mediation to renegotiate the Interlocal Agreement or to draw up a new contract. Rundell said the County inf...
DAYTON—Dayton School District Superintendent Guy Strot presented updates on the opening of schools to the board of directors at their workshop last week. “The beginning of the school year has been relatively normal. Teachers are teaching, students are learning, and there have been no real discipline issues since the start of school on Aug. 25.,” he said. Eighteen students at the elementary level, 17 at the middle school level, and 18 in the high school are currently in distance learning mode. El...
Voting by mail should replace voting at the polls in its entirety. The two institutions that can definitely be trusted is the County Board of Elections and the United States Postal Service. The money saved by eliminating the need for poll workers could be used to offer free postage on the envelopes used to vote by mail. The person voting would also have more time to consider what they are voting for and would not be confined to the hours of the polling place. It would also prevent unwanted entry to schools and churches from anyone trying to...
While confirming addresses for the 2020 Census, Joe Huether took a picture of this combine accident on Hatley Gulch Road. "I have no info on the accident, but the tire tracks tell the story all too clearly," said Huether....
DAYTON—Who is caring for the kiddos when mom and dad go back to work, now that there are only two licensed daycare providers in Dayton, Susan’s Home Daycare and Demaris Daycare? Demaris Daycare is currently operating with only two students, a situation Sylvia Demaris hopes will change in the next month depending on her husband’s health. Port of Columbia Executive Director Jennie Dickinson talk about the lack of daycare options at a community round table conversation, on Aug. 13. She said enrol...
WALLA WALLA—Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) has been diligently changing policies to safeguard employees and incarcerated individuals against the COVID-19 virus. In Walla Walla, The Washington State Penitentiary has had 134 incarcerated individuals test positive for the coronavirus with zero deaths. Twelve staff members have tested positive. The outbreak was contained in one housing unit, and the facility continues to test all staff coming into the penitentiary, as well as r...
Recently the Liberty Theater in Dayton received a message from a woman in Walla Walla: "My friend told me she was getting rid of some old puppets that belonged to her parents. She said she was going to give them to Goodwill. I thought, no, they need to go to a theater!" These are Indonesian rod puppets, in the native language Wayang Golek which were procured by the previous owner's parents sometime during the 20th century during a visit to that country. The age of the puppets is not known;...
There are less than four weeks to respond to the 2020 Census, and the counts for the area are less than satisfactory for many area residents. With just over three weeks left, Eastern Washington was about 35 percent away from being fully enumerated: Far below the national average and a likely representation of primarily rural communities, like Waitsburg and Walla Walla, across the nation. Of 39 Washington Counties, Walla Walla ranks 13th with a response rate of 67.9 percent. In 2010, Walla Walla...
Baseball lost two Hall-of-Famers this week. Tom Seaver and Lou Brock passed within six days of each other. Tom Seaver was seventy-five years old, and Lou Brock was eighty-one. During their careers, they would face each other one hundred and fifty-seven times. Brock hit .250/.274/.362 off of Seaver with ten doubles and a home run. Seaver struck Brock out twenty-one times and walked him four times in all of those at-bats. The two first met in a locker room before the 1967 all-star game. Tom Seaver...
When I’m not in the mood to watch one of the binge-worthy shows on Netflix or Prime, I turn to TCM and watch old movies, some of which are art to me. Recently, I watched a movie that I hadn’t seen in years, called The Egg and I with Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. The movie is very old, in fact, it was released before I was born. It’s the story of newlyweds; Fred MacMurray (the groom), has just announced that he has purchased a ramshackle old farm, and they are going into the busin...
WORLD WIDE WEB—It’s not nearly as fun as getting out the rod and heading down to the lake, returning hours later with a cooler full of fresh fish. It’s quite the opposite. Phishing is the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers. To appear legitimate, scammers will add counterfit logos to the top of their emails sent from similar-sounding, but not-q...
