Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 2601 - 2625 of 5638
WAITSBURG – The 'Burg will be hopping this weekend as folks come from far and near to participate in Waitsburg Celebration Days. The three-day event, held the third weekend in May, was organized as a placeholder for the former popular Days of Real Sport which featured horse racing at the Waitsburg Fairgrounds. State spending cuts forced horse racing to fall by the wayside for smaller venues, but WCD organizers jumped in to offer another kind of ride. Karen's Ride, a poker run named in honor o...
WAITSBURG – The Bruce House Museum and adjoining Wilson-Phillips House, which features revolving displays, will be open to the public following the Waitsburg Celebration Days parade on Sat. May 19. Waitsburg Historical Society member, Mary Phillips, has been hard at work organizing a new display in the Wilson-Phillips House, featuring the history of the towns of Prescott and Lamar. Prescott native Mary Grant Tompkins, who donated several items in the display, will be on site at the museum to sha...
DAYTON—Vicki Zoller from the newly formed Friends of the Dayton Community Pool Committee was present at last week’s city council meeting to talk about efforts the committee is making to help raise funds for repairs at the Dayton City Pool. The city recently decided to close the pool because it has significant infrastructure problems. Zoller said the committee is working with the Columbia County Community Network to set up a 501c3 organization under their umbrella. “This will insure that all monies are used in proper accordance, and help to pr...
For many of us, our exposure to watercolor is limited to the plastic paint sets our parents picked up at the box store. In less than an hour, the neat little ovals of 12 separate colors turned into a mass of mess, and that's saying nothing about what the painting we worked on looked like. Lesson learned early: watercolor painting is not child's play. But done by the right hands – those of a skilled and competent artist with hundreds, or thousands, of hours of practice and experimentation -- w...
WAITSBURG – Luke Chavez and John Avery are hoping to celebrate in a big way over Waitsburg Celebration Days weekend: with the opening of their brand-new coffee shop. Ten Ton Coffee, located in the Ten Ton Press building on Waitsburg's Main Street, is slated to open this weekend. Renovating the building has involved a lot of blood and sweat (if not tears), and has been a true family endeavor. Chavez' mother, Lane Hill, allowed the partners to transform half of her building's first level into a w...
DAYTON—At last week’s city council meeting, City Administrator Trina Cole said the public works staff was to meet with the Washington Dept. of Ecology on May 15 to talk about the wastewater treatment plant and the financing for it. Planning Director Meagan Bailey discussed successes with code compliance enforcement, particularly yard debris at a house on Clay Street which has been cleaned up. “Just this week we had 15-16 grass letters go out and about half of them have called to tell us they have mowed the grass,” she said. Bailey assured the c...
DAYTON--Mule Mania begins its Class list schedule of events for mules and donkeys, on Saturday, May 26, at 8 a.m., at the Columbia County Fairgrounds. The Mule and Donkey show features riding and driving competitions throughout the day, and on Sunday, from 7:30 a.m. until sometime in the afternoon, said Bev Rising, Mule Mania president and show manager. Rising said there should be a great show this year. “Bobbie Jo and Barney Chambers are bringing a lot of mules, and lot of people with them, to compete,” she said. Rising is also expecting som...
CEO Shane McGuire also reports on tele-psychiatric services, palliative care DAYTON--Speaking at the Hospital District board meeting for April, CEO Shane McGuire talked about the outreach and business enhancement initiatives that he and other CCHS staff have been working on. Contracts with the University of Washington to provide psychiatric support for CCHS patients are being finalized. Plans also include provision of tele-psychiatric services, so that patients can have face-to-face time with psychiatrists, he said. “We are particularly e...
WAITSBURG – Jill Wood couldn't hold back the tears when she learned that she and her husband John had been selected the 2018 Waitsburg Celebration Days parade marshals. "It means a lot because of the history. We lived Days of Real Sport from the time the girls were selected to court in the spring until the end of September. Days of Real Sport was a huge part of our lives," said Jill, who spent 20 years chaperoning DRS courts with John by her side. John and Jill have strong community roots. T...
WALLA WALLA – Candidate filing for 2018 local and state elections opens Monday and runs through Friday. In Walla Walla County, Candidates may electronically submit declarations of candidacy through our website at: https://weiapplets.sos.wa.gov/onlinecandidatefiling?countycode=wl. Walla Walla County candidates may also file in-person at the elections office at 310 W. Poplar St. or by mail. Office hours are Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Walla Walla County positions that are open this year include Assessor, Auditor, Clerk, C...
DAYTON—Columbia County Public Works Director Andrew Woods has accepted a job in Olympia, where he will be the compliance and data manager at the state’s County Road Administration Board. “What I will miss most are my co-workers and the community,” said Woods. Woods is also proud of the grant funds the county has received for road and bridge projects and for fleet and facility modernization during his time with Columbia County, he said. Woods has served as Columbia County Engineer since January 2006. He said his last day on the job will be June...
DAYTON – Beginning Thursday night and running for two weekends, the Liberty Theater lifts the curtain on this year's May Melodrama, "A Bad Day at Gopher's Breath." The setting is the Old West. The notorious Rawlins gang is getting ready to ride into Gopher's Breath to rob the bank. Never particularly adept in their careers as outlaws, the gang is finding success particularly difficult this time around, with the town's corrupt sheriff also in pursuit of the loot. Thrown into the mix are a b...
DAYTON--There are some timely reminders coming from the WSU Dayton Extension Office regarding noxious weed control, 4-H and local crop tours. The county's Noxious Weed Control Coordinator, Rachel Hutchens, said the Weed Control Board is funded by county assessment, and there is some cost sharing available, for chemical costs, application costs, or both, to control of some of the county's worst noxious weeds. They include yellow star thistle, Japanese and Bohemian knotweed, leafy spurge and...
DAYTON-Audrey Bensel joined the Dayton Chamber of Commerce staff last month as assistant manager. She will share duties running the office in Downtown Dayton with newly hired director Melissa Bryan. Bensel was circulations manager at the Dayton Chronicle for about a year, before accepting the Chamber position. "This is right up my alley," she said. "I like to host parties." Bensel grew up in Dayton and graduated from Dayton High. She went on to WSU and graduated with a BA in Theater Arts in...
WAITSBURG – It takes a lot to keep a schoolkid's attention on a sunny Friday, but Allison Bond managed that minor miracle last week at Waitsburg Elementary. In the school cafeteria, 150 five-inch saplings sat in boxes on the tiled floor as Bond showed them off to an awestruck crowd of students. They'd each get to take one home, she explained, and plant it in celebration of Arbor Day. Soon, the tiny trees would grow as tall as the one by the school's front door. They'd clean the air and p...
DAYTON-When the 2018 election is over, there will be several new faces in key positions in Columbia County government, and Chuck Amerein hopes to be one of them. Amerein is running to represent District 3 on the Board of County Commissioners, to replace Merle Jackson, who is retiring at the end of the year. Amerein said he has been attending the BOCC meetings for the past several months in order to develop an understanding of the issues, and he has been shadowing Commissioner Jackson, to...
WAITSBURG – In spite of a strong public response in favor of tearing down the Waitsburg Fairgrounds grandstands on an advisory ballot item vote last month, the Waitsburg City Council is still torn on how to move forward. The recurring action item was once again tabled on the April 18 council agenda in order to take a closer look at the possibility of reinstituting a Parks & Recreation District to raise funds for the fairgrounds. Of the 211 citizens voting on the April advisory ballot item, posed to gauge community opinion on whether to demolish...
Thanks to the entertainment industry, which in the last 100 years has shaped societal perspective on reality, many people think of someone in a paint-spattered smock and beret, grasping a palette, and acting in a less than rational manner. “Oh don’t mind him, he’s an artist, you know,” somebody sniffs. But artists, like art itself, are unique and individual, and textile artist Catherine Little, of White Bird, ID, who creates home décor gift and wall hangings depicting wildlife and country scenes, looks and acts like a likable, normal person w...
