Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 417 - 441 of 997
WALLA WALLA – Waitsburg’s Joanna Lanning can breathe a little easier these days. More than a month ago, the part-time caretaker of the Pioneer Park Aviary in Walla Walla was dusting off her resume after getting a layoff notice from the city. She was starting to make calls and send off emails to organize a massive foster home placement effort for the 150 birds at the facility. And she was getting deeply depressed at the thought of emptying the pens and closing down the feathered friend...
DAYTON - The Dayton boys basketball squad got a little larger and a bit younger thanks to a school board decision during the Dec. 19 board meeting that allows eighth-grade students to play junior varsity basketball. The proposal, agreed to by Southeast 2B members and granted under Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) rules for schools with low turn-out, will also allow eighth-grade girls to practice with the high school, though not play. Only 15 boys and 17 girls turned-out for basketball from Dayton high school's student...
DAYTON - Columbia County Health System board members are prepared to bend the by-laws a bit to help keep the board consistent for new Chief Executive Officer Dale Polla at the monthly hospital board meeting on Thursday, Dec. 27. The board moved to keep current chairman Ted Paterson for six months, half of a normal term beyond the year he already served as chairman, to offer continuity for Polla. Polla was hired on Oct. 1 for a two-year term. The vote was unanimous. Board member Jim Kime initially moved to keep Paterson for a whole year, but P...
DAYTON - Thirty-three- year-old Donald Cowden was arrested Wednesday, Dec. 26, and charged with seven counts, including burglary and theft of a motor vehicle. Cowden, a Milton-Freewater resident, was arrested in Columbia County and has been charged with burglary in the second degree, a Class B felony, theft of a motor vehicle, a Class B felony and possession of a stolen vehicle, a Class B felony, each of which carry a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment and/ or a $20,000 fine. Cowden has also been charged with theft in the second deg...
WAITSBURG - With the first tenant already in hand, the Port of Walla Walla plans to break ground for its new Waitsburg Business Park north of town in January, according to Jim Kuntz, the agency's executive director. "We think it's going to be a magnet for other businesses," Kuntz said in a presentation last Tuesday to members of the Waitsburg Commercial Club. "We're excited about it." The 12.6-acre industrial site will have seven lots of varying sizes. The first order of business is the constru...
WAITSBURG – A group of Waitsburg community leaders is determined not to let the 100th anniversary of the Days of Real Sport go unnoticed or, better yet, make the third weekend in May a full-fledged horse- centered extravaganza with or without the return of pari- mutuel racing. “We’re just getting off the ground,” Waitsburg Mayor Walt Gobel said about the group that met for the first time on Dec. 17 to plan for the 2013 DRS commemorative festivities. “But I’m really excited about it. Ther...
DAYTON - The 2012 Dayton Chamber of Commerce honored employee of the year doesn't see herself as the best employee in the community, but a positive attitude and dedication to the Weinhard Café earned her community-wide recognition. Jennifer Smith-Villaro was born and raised in Dayton where she still lives with her husband, 11-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter. After Smith-Villaro's 11 years working at the Weinhard Café in Dayton, she was recognized at the 2012 Dayton Chamber banqu...
WAITSBURG - Attendance at the recent WHS Harvest Ball was down compared to the Homecoming Dance earlier in the school year, according to Waitsburg School District officials. Only 40 kids showed up for the second of three annual school-facilitated dances. Short of a student body survey, it's hard to know why fewer students attended the event, but school officials are concerned some would-be dancers stayed away because of the controversy over dance rules and parent access to the kids' social activities. "I think it's sad our kids are i...
DAYTON - The Dayton City Council revisited one of about 76 ordinances that should have been part of the city's municipal code but were inadvertently omitted. The ordinance, title five, chapter 12, section 840 of Dayton's Municipal Code, creates an appeal period of 21 days from the date of an administrative decision and/or an interpretation of an administrative code, city Clerk-Treasurer Trina Cole said at the city council meeting Monday night. The ordinance was apparently inadvertently appealed in 2001, Cole said, and was reinstated at the...
DAYTON - Two men were arrested, one for burglary and one for theft, in separate incidents in Columbia County Sunday, but there's no indication in court documents that either one is connected to any of the commercial burglaries or car thefts committed in the area recently. The suspect in the first incident, Andrew Gatz, 34, listed as homeless, appears to have been caught up in a domestic dispute with a woman he dated on Rose Gulch Road. He was charged with one count of residential burglary and one count of malicious mischief for breaking do...
WAITSBURG - The Times of Waitsburg has hired former Blue Mountain News Editor and Publisher Ken Graham as its new editor following the departure of Jillian Beaudry, who left the Times on Dec. 7. Graham will begin at the weekly newspaper on Jan. 2. The Times also announced it has promoted Morgan Smith to Assistant Editor, a position in which she will support Graham in coordinating news coverage and production. That appointment is effective immediately. The new composition of the Times' news t...
DAYTON - On the eve of Ski Bluewood's 2012 open- ing, the resort's owners have hired new managers to run the mountain and get it better known in the region. With more snow in the forecast this week and into the weekend, Ski Bluewood looks poised to open at 10 a.m. on Friday, the new managers said this week. WWG Ski, the Tri-Cities- based group that bought Ski Bluewood more than two years ago, has hired Jody and Brandy Ream, a veteran ski industry couple from the Midwest to become the re- sort's...
The Times will be closed on Dec. 24 and 25, and on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1. Please submit deadliine materials normally due on Tuesdays at noon by Friday at noon the week before. Please call with questions: 509-337-6631....
WAITSBURG - Waits- burg's American West Bank made a donation that will keep a lot of neighbors fed during the winter months, giving a whopping $1,600 to the Waitsburg Resource Cen- ter, the biggest donation the bank has given to the local resource center to date. American West Bank Branch Manager Andie Holmberg said the bank tries to make a donation to the food bank every year. At the corporate level, the American West Bank allocates funding as part of their community reinvest- ment act,...
PRESCOTT - The Walla Walla County Rural Library District has purchased an $85,000 property from the Prescott School District to build a new home for the Prescott Library as part of an effort to revamp its county wide branch system. Aletha Bonebrake, the district's interim director, said her organization district had been looking for a location in Prescott to build a new 2,600-square foot library, which would be nearly three times the size of the current 900-square-foot facility. The district, wh...
WAITSBURG - The re- cent Thanksgiving holiday appeared to have been the perfect timing for burglars to target locations on Main Street. Between Nov. 21 and Nov. 25, three burglaries and one attempted burglary were reported to the Walla Walla County Sheriff's Office. All of the burglaries called in were from locations on Main Street, according to information from the sheriff's office. In the recent events, burglars made off with a laptop computer, digital projector and a guitar. No one has yet been arrested in connection to the recent Waitsburg...
DAYTON - Eight bomb threats were made in the state of Washington on Nov. 15, one of which to the Columbia County Courthouse forced law enforcement to re-evalu- ate its bomb plan. The caller who made the threat on the courthouse said a bomb would go off 25 min- utes after the call was placed, Columbia County Sheriff Walt Hessler said in a city council meeting on Nov. 26. The call was reported in the police log at 3:17 p.m. The threat was ultimately empty, which Hessler said made the whole event a...
DAYTON - While citizens of Dayton were in the dark during a power outage on Monday, Nov. 19, one of the three pumps that provides clean water for the city was failing, despite several safeguards to protect it, city officials say. As to not put too much work on the one pump the city has left, it is asking citizens to conserve as much water as possible. Water pumps in the city pump water from the ground water into a reservoir. The water in the reservoir is then distributed to customers. The pump, referred to as well pump number one by public...
WAITSBURG - Some par- ents believe their legal rights were violated when they were asked to leave the Homecoming dance last month because of new rules created by the Associated Student Body and staff members. The new rules were a collabo- ration to help end complaints of inappropriate dancing at school functions. However, after the Oct. 20 Homecoming dance for Waits- burg High School students, school board Chairman Ross Hamann said last week parents complained about having limited access to attend the dance. The new rules, dated Sept. 10,...
DAYTON - After a nar- row margin of votes between candidates for the Columbia County Commissioner District 1 Seat Two in the first count of the General Election, Mike Talbott main- tained the victory over Tom Bensel by 120 votes in the first recount on Friday, Nov. 9. On the first count Tues- day, Nov. 6, Talbott received 1,029 votes, or 52.45 per- cent of the submitted votes. Bensel received 912 votes, or 46.48 percent. On a second count Nov. 9, more ballots were counted and Talbott received...
WAITSBURG - Six residential burglaries have been reported in the Waits- burg area since the end of September and Walla Walla County Sheriff's Office officials say they're con- cerned because in some of the burglaries firearms have been stolen. The first burglary was reported on Sept. 23 on Bolles Road. Since that time, five others have been reported, about one each week, until the most recent burglary on Oct. 27 on Whetstone Road. Undersheriff Edward Freyer with the sheriff's of- fice said a rise in residential burglaries has been occur- ring...
