Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 1312 - 1336 of 5665
WALLA WALLA—An anonymous Advisory Committee comprised of representatives from twenty-three Blue Mountain region organizations have recently awarded grants of $99,000 to Blue Mountain Action Council (BMAC); $14,460 to Providence St. Mary Foundation, and $25,000 to Project Timothy (Dayton). In disbursing resources from the Walla Walla Valley COVID-19 Response Fund, the committee prioritized local needs including food insecurity and hunger, homelessness, health and mental health. The BMAC food bank program, which includes Columbia and Garfield c...
WAITSBURG—Waitsburg School Superintendent Mark Pickel and Secondary principal Stephanie Wooderchak met with their staffs on Monday, April 13 to discuss plans for a continuous learning model now that the schools will remain closed through the end of the 2019-2020 school year. Grade 6-12 students will be moving to a remote, or digital learning model on April 27. Teachers at those grade levels will be presenting instruction via such platforms as Google Classroom and email. Until that time, the teachers have been connecting with their students t...
Columbia County's second largest employer and third-highest taxpayer began an orderly shutdown of its wheat-straw pulp mill on Sunday, March 29, and completed the suspension of operations on Tuesday, March 31. Although classified as a critical manufacturing facility according to Gov. Inslee's Stay Safe, Stay Home declaration, the Board of Managers decided to layoff 93 salaried and hourly workers, retaining only eight employees. "This action was taken to protect employees and their families and...
"This year's Celebration Days weekend of 'family friendly' fun events are cancelled due to Washington State health concerns about COVID-19," said Lisa Naylor, President of the Waitsburg Celebration Days Committee. The board met last Wednesday, April 1st, utilizing Zoom and phone conference calls. During the meeting, board members discussed the impact of COVID-19 in Walla Walla and surrounding counties, with some members of the board weighing in with their personal concerns about potentially...
WAITSBURG—Preliminary election results for Waitsburg’s mayor and city councilmembers were tallied Monday. With a total of 318 votes cast, voters will return Kevin House and Jim Romine to the council and adds Karen Gregutt, Karl Newell and David Paxton as new councilmembers. The election will be certified on April 15 at the next Waitsburg City Council meeting. The meeting will be conducted remotely via conference call. Interested community members who would like to listen in on the meeting should contact Waitsburg City hall for call inf...
OLYMPIA—Gov. Jay Inslee announced a month-long extension of his 'Stay Home, Stay Healthy' emergency order on Thursday, April 2. The order, which banned all gatherings and temporarily shuttered non-essential businesses, will continue through May 4. “Epidemiological modeling from the University of Washington predicts we will have at least 1,400 deaths this year,” Inslee said. “We are yet to see the full toll of this virus in our state and the modeling we’ve seen could be much worse if we don’t continue what we’re doing to slow the spread.” Publ...
When Governor Jay Inslee delivered his 'Stay Home, Stay Healthy' declaration on March 13 announcing the closure of all public and private K-12 schools in Washington state, school leaders across the state were suddenly confronted with the problem of providing distance education to their varied students. Waitsburg Superintendent, and elementary school principal Mark Pickel reacted quickly, calling a stand-up meeting of all staff that afternoon. His elementary staff spent the upcoming weekend preparing “binders, packets and folders for six w...
WALLA WALLA—The Blue Valley region is fortunate to have an option for an additional temporary inpatient hospital should there be a surge in hospitalizations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Providence St. Mary Medical Center has been working 12-hour days for the past three weeks to prepare the former Walla Walla General Hospital building at 1025 S. Second Ave. in Walla Walla to receive patients. The temporary hospital is located at the Providence Southgate Medical Park and will be an extension o...
The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommend that people wear cloth face coverings when they are in public settings where they may not be able to maintain six feet of distance from others. This might include trips to the grocery store, pharmacy, hardware store, health clinic or similar places of significant community-based transmission. This is not a mandate that you must wear a face covering. It is considered an...
DAYTON-The Blue Mountain Artists Guild has been adorning Dayton's public spaces with their artistic endeavors every month, since the Guild was started by local artist Vivian Eslick McCauley, in 2008. This is how it works: The artists paint according to monthly themes, which are selected for the entire year, usually in November. The current month's theme is hung in the Delany Building, during the Guild's regular business meeting, which takes place on the last Tuesday of each month. The prior mont...
DAYTON—Dayton Historic Depot Manager Tamara Fritze is busy with important behind the scenes museum work, pending museum reopening on May 4. She said work continues on inventory of the museum’s entire collection of artifacts. Fritze said thorough historical research must be completed and a written description of all that is known about the artifact will be included in their database. “This helps us create interesting exhibits and helps us provide answers to our visitors’ questions,” Fritze sa...
THE DIRT-Gardening is a great way to mitigate that lingering hopelessness associated with these unpredictable, and socially distanced times we face. Here's a little patch of dirt you can control, when so much else is out of hand. And it's good exercise. Plus, food and flowers! Waitsburg resident, Susan Tarver, reached out to share some of her garden progress. Last year Tarver had great luck with frost tolerant beets and radishes, so she planted more just before the snow. Those little seeds...
The Washington State Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) developed a list of financial resources for Washington consumers impacted by the Coronavirus. Resources include information on mortgage assistance, student loans, emergency loans and more. Links to each resource are listed below. Unemployment Assistance If you are out of work, Washington State’s Employment Security Department at https://esd.wa.gov/newsroom/covid-19 provides support services to individuals affected by COVID-19 in Washington. The Employment Security Department has a...
WALLA WALLA, Wash. — Due to the demand for services at the Sudbury Landfill, the City will reopen the facility to the public from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. on weekdays beginning tomorrow, Thursday, April 9, and also on Saturdays beginning April 18. Due to a variety of health-related issues, the facility has been operating with reduced staffing. In addition, personal protective equipment (PPE) has been in short supply because the Public Works Department gave most of its PPE to the Fire/Ambulance Department for use by first responders. Based on these f...
This much green is a hopeful sign. Spring is here!...
WALLA WALLA-Providence Medical Group is now offering drive-through screening and testing at Urgent Care for people with symptoms of COVID-19. The Fast Track Clinic is located at the white tent on the north side of Urgent Care, 1025 S. Second Ave. in Walla Walla. The drive-through is open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week. The Fast Track Clinic allows people to be rapidly screened and, if appropriate, tested without leaving their cars. They also receive COVID-19 information and directions for...
DAYTON—At the Columbia County Health System board meeting last week, CEO Shane McGuire shared his concerns about financial stability, emergency preparedness, and possible impact on patients and health system staff, in light of the potential for a serious local outbreak of COVID-19. McGuire said, “We have stopped all non-essential visits in physical therapy, imaging, and the clinics. This volume generates about half of our monthly revenue. . .This is happening at the same time that we are spe...
WAITSBURG-Electric and hybrid cars continue to grow in popularity. The City of Waitsburg recently embraced this growth, and in early February, City Administrator Randy Hinchliffe oversaw the installation of a public-access electric vehicle (EV) charging station at the city shop. "My goal was to give people traveling through the city another reason to stop," said Hinchliffe. "With more and more electric cars on the road, I thought a charging station between the Tri-Cities and Clarkston was a...
WAITSBURG-The Waitsburg City Elections are scheduled to be held on April 6, 2020. The City Council has three seats open, after council members K.C Kuykendall, Kate Hockersmith, and Terry Jacoy decided not to run for re-election this year. Karen Gregutt is on the ballot for a return seat on the City Council. She hopes that by contributing her professional experience, she will bring fresh ideas to Waitsburg and its citizens. Gregutt's career includes 30 years as the managing partner at Kaye-Smith...
Since the statewide directive to shelter-at-home, the streets of Waitsburg have become eerily quiet. The Times has received information that the streets may not be as empty as they seem. Several anonymous sources have sent photos of encounters with what appear to be beasts who walk upright on oversized feet. Could these springtime sightings be proof there are hatchling Sasquatch in our area?...
DAYTON-Shellie McLeod brings her experience as an innkeeper to her new job as Events and Membership Coordinator for the Dayton Historic Depot Museum and the Boldman House Museum. She said she worked at the Weinhard Hotel for Dan and Ginny Butler for ten years, before she and her husband, Gary, bought the hotel from the Butlers in 2008. "As an innkeeper I organized events for our guests such as Murder Mystery Weekends, private retreats for clubs and organizations, as well as weddings, memorials,...
DAYTON-What does it mean to be the new Boldman House Museum manager in a museum that is closed through May 1 because of the concerns around the novel coronavirus? Amy Rosenberg is now conducting virtual live tours of the museum on Facebook, every Saturday at 2 p.m. "I'll be exploring different areas of the house and the collection every week," Rosenberg said. "There's so much to see, I'm sure I have months of content." Rosenberg has been a museum volunteer for the past couple of years and is...
While continuing to shelter at home, we have tried to be productive; working, unpacking and organizing the homestead. We have been working in the yard, dragging flagstone, bricks and cinderblocks from scattered locations to one area. Now when I look at the Northeast side of our backyard it looks like a mason resides here. We have also been unpacking Daniel’s boxes, mostly cookbooks, (30 boxes to be exact). It’s difficult to unpack the books and not look at the titles since I am a cookbook fan, and it certainly beats looking at my ret...
Some wannabe philosopher on the internet – the quarantine seems to be bringing them out of the woodwork in droves – recently commented that all this isolation is forcing people to face their true selves and some folks aren’t handling the introduction very well. I’d beg to differ. In the nearly three weeks I’ve spent hunkered down, the only thing I’ve learned about myself is that my bangs don’t fluff up overnight if I brush them out before bed. Granted, I was a fairly solitary person before...
The first book I ever read cover to cover was Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne, and now, many decades later, it remains the best book I ever read. I mention this because the special relationship between Christopher Robin, and Edward Bear, aka Winnie the Pooh, is very much like the relationship I enjoy with my dog Cookie. Like Pooh, who adored honey, Cookie has a nose for good food, especially bacon, but also whatever happens to be cooking at the moment in the kitchen. And much like Pooh, Cookie...
