Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 621 - 645 of 1333
Dear Editor: The Waitsburg Historical Society is planning a special display of historic Days of Real Sport memorabilia in conjunction with the celebration and events to be held on Saturday, May 18, 2013. We have several items in the collection such as programs, buttons, some photographs, and the photo finish camera but we would like to borrow some additional items that may be of general interest to the public. If anyone has photographs, banners, jockey apparel, or any other items having to do with the DRS over the years we would be interested...
A lice Andison's Standfast ranch is somewhere in the hills near Waitsburg, per- haps just across the county line in Columbia County. Our town isn't described in any great detail in "All Roads Lead Me Back To You,' the debut novel by Walla Walla-based author Kennedy Foster. It's the place the main characters pass through on their way to Walla Walla and it's home to Alice's sister Janet and her kids who help out at Standfast where Alice, the lone patrona, is woe- fully shorthanded until a Mexican...
Why would anyone want to visit little towns like Dayton, Waitsburg, Prescott or Starbuck? They're out in the sticks - hundreds of miles from the nearest big city. There's nothing to do but watch the wheat grow, right? Wrong. As we've been working on preparing the latest edition of the Touchet Valley Visitors' Guide, we're struck once again by the amazing number of great things there are to see and do in our area. We encourage all of our readers to be travel promoters and guides, inviting your friends to visit and then blowing them away with...
I t started out as a bit of daredevilish investigative reporting. It ended up being the worst two hours of my entire weekend. The trouble began Mon- day before last, when a rather disturbing announcement was made at school: A group of students had set up a Facebook page where teen- agers from Waitsburg could express their, er, true feelings about one another. Some- times, apparently, that sim- ply meant saying that they thought someone was attrac- tive. Other times, it meant anonymous...
The Washington State Su- preme Court recently struck down a requirement for a two-thirds vote in the Legis- lature to increase taxes. The two-thirds majority rule had been approved five separate times by voters in a series of initiatives. The requirement was challenged by a coalition of House Democrats and education groups, who had grown increasingly frus- trated by the inability to "raise revenue" (buzzword in Olympia for raising taxes) to address budget shortfalls. This year, the Legislature must close a budget short- fall of just under $1 bi...
I think we can all agree that movingww is stress- ful. It's time-consuming and exhausting. Last weekend, my boy- friend and I moved out of our rental house and into an apartment, and all of the things I despise about mov- ing came rushing back. Every stage of moving is "the worst part of moving" to me. Packing up all of my worldly possessions - that's worst part of moving. An- other 9x13 pan? What am I, a one-woman bakery? Then there's the physical act of moving all of the box- es, the...
I n a presentation to the Commercial Club in Waits- burg last month, Waitsburg school superintendent Dr. Carol Clarke spoke about the changes she sees in the school, the greater community and the country. In the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, school security and bullying issues are a high priority right now with all schools, including the ones Dr. Clarke Runs. It's an unfortunate fact of life. In the Times editor's column on Page 5w, Clarke talks about the hope she has for improving the level of personal interaction, not only within...
Like you, I am shocked and saddened by the mur- ders that have occurred in our country. The slaughter of innocent children in Newtown, Conn. still con- tinues to haunt me as my heart aches for the families of the victims. People suf- fering with mental illness are responsible for these horrific deaths, and no legislation will ever be able to prevent all of these atrocities. The state Legislature is carefully considering several approaches to ad- dressing gaps in our cur- rent laws that could help prevent some of these mass shootings. School...
Dear Editor: I am the President of the Walla Walla County Sheriff's Search & Res- cue. We have received several questions about a phone and mail solicitation by Search & Rescue Charities. Citizens have reported being pressured to contribute to this group. They were offended when they found it was not our local search & rescue group as implied in the phone call and mailed materials. Search & Rescue Charities donation requests are mailed from Olympia, asking that contributions be sent "lo- cally" to 1934 E. Isaacs, PMB230. From there, it is...
Taking the Plunge Waitsburg team takes a cold dip for Special Olympics KENNEWICK - The Kennewick Polar Plunge was held on Saturday, Jan- uary 19 at Columbia Park boat dock, where over 600 brave souls were treated to a dip in 38-degree water. Our small group, "The Plunging Poultry," consist- ed of two Waitsburg stu- dents - E.J. Merserve and Chris Philbrook - and me. We cannonballed off the dock into the Columbia. This year, I raised $1,921 for our Special Olympics athletes. I was the...
I n our last two issues, we have shared stories of exchange students from China and Belgium who are experiencing life at Waitsburg High School. In upcoming weeks you'll read about foreign students at Dayton High school as well. In the process of meeting with students, teachers and host families, we are reminded of just what an exceptional growth opportunity these foreign exchange programs pro- vide for all involved. Through these programs the exchange student has the opportunity to truly immerse himself in a culture in a way that is not typical...
I ' m 99.9% sure that there's an article about the local Knowledge Bowl teams somewhere in the paper you're holding. Before you continue with reading this week's column, please search out that article and read it. It will help you understand the jargon. Is it there? If not, feel free to slap me silly the next time we bump into each other. Did you read it? Good. This week, I thought I'd give you an inside view of Waitsburg's Knowledge Bowl team. We're not nearly as serious as one would be led to believe. For example, two of our members toted...
Dear Editor, We are presenting a re- sponse to Dan Groom's col- umns in The Times regarding why some Dayton High School students choose other activities other than playing sports. The students in our AP Civics class take excep- tion to some of what was said in the columns and would like the opportunity to pres- ent other possibilities. The students in the class got together and wrote a letter in response to Groom's columns. We are not al- lowed to include the students' names with the letter since most of the students are under the age of 18....
Dizzy and I rolled into the burg on a sunny Sunday afternoon earlier this month. You re- member Dizzy. He is the black labradoodle I adopted from the Walla Walla Hu- mane Society as a puppy a few years ago and almost lost on a dark winter's night off Smith Hollow Road last time I wrote a column about us. Of course he was alive and well that night, sitting patiently by the back door after I searched for him for hours up and down the fields and almost gave up. He was there, back home, just like a...
This week's Times includes our monthly business sec- tion. Often the businesses we feature there are new, or they are businesses in transition - hopefully a positive transition. This week we introduce Mike and Ann Spring, who re- cently purchased Skye Book and Brew in Dayton and are reopening it as Chief Spring's Fire and Iron Brew Pub. The Times is also preparing to publish our annual Spring- Summer Visitor's Guide. (We publish an annual Fall-Winter Visitor's Guide as well. So, for those who are counting, that makes our Visitor's Guide...
It is an honor to serve a legislative district that is within the energy hub of the Pacific Northwest. To the north of the 16th District, the Columbia Generating Station nuclear power plant at Hanford generates 1,150 megawatts of electricity. The Snake and Columbia rivers with their hydro power dams are directly in the district. One of the earliest and larg- est wind farms in Washing- ton was built on Hopkins Ridge near my hometown of Dayton. We've long enjoyed low power rates in our state be- cause of the abundance of energy. But I'm...
My mother walked into the computer room to find me staring at a blank Word docu- ment. "Um, hi," I said. "Hi," she offered in return. "Writer's block?" "Yup," I said. "Nothing happened last week. Abso- lutely nothing." "Well," she pointed out, "nothing happened the week before last and you still squeezed a column." "Yeah. A column about something that happened over Christmas break." "Well," she said, "your seeds arrived last week. Write about that." "Well, yeah, but that's hardly a whole...
He looked at me as if I were the only thing he could see and said, "When the moon hits your eyes like a big pizza pie, that's amore." It wasn't very romantic. Taking advice from music usually isn't a very good idea, but there is one thing I always seem to take away - food and ro- mance go hand-in-hand. Even the rapper 50 Cent made the connection in the early 2000s singing "I love you like a fat kid loves cake." Clearly, the man can't help being a hopeless romantic. But when we mix food and love,...
Last time we checked, the city of Dayton contained about 2,700 souls. They make up a large portion of the total population of Columbia County, which stands at around 4,200. The city and county each has its own legislative body, and each oversees important services for its constituents. Dayton residents get many services from both entities. And some services overlap. Many years ago, Dayton had its own police department. After much discussion and negotiation, some of it very con- tentious, the police department was disbanded and the city...
Over Christmas break, my grandma got something in the mail. It was a catalogue. A seed catalogue, to be more specific. It wasn't terribly glossy, and it wasn't a famous sup- plier. But boy, that thing was thick. It had a beautifully illustrated cover, a water- color painting of flowers, herbs, and vegetables. And inside, it had for sale more flower, herb, and vegetable seeds than I knew existed; each described concisely and accompanied by a fullcolor picture. Oca. Quinoa. Purple-skinned tomatoes. Fifty-pound squash shaped like pink bananas. I,...
