Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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DAYTON – How many people does it take to run a 9-hole golf course in Columbia County? The logistics and complications relative to this question have troubled county commissioners, public works employees, country club members and local golf aficionados for the last month or so. This week, arrangements were made in a commissioners' workshop to appease the majority of interested parties for at least another season. Operations will not likely change this year, and fees will increase by just over 8...
Waitsburg High grad Jim Mitchell (r) was named 2014 Booster of the Year at Saturday's Waitsburg vs. Dayton basketball games.......
DAYTON – Dayton criminal defense attorney C. Dale Slack will become Columbia County's new deputy prosecutor beginning April 1, according to Rea Culwell, the county's prosecuting attorney. "I'm excited," Slack said. "I think I can do a lot of good there and continue to serve the county, just in a different role." Current deputy prosecutor, Abbie Broughton-Marsh, is leaving the prosecuting attorney's office at the end of March to take a job in Phoenix, Ariz., as an assistant U.S. attorney for the...
WAITSBURG – Each Tuesday, local seniors gather in the basement of the Waitsburg Presbyterian Church where they enjoy a hot meal and welcome fellowship. The meals are provided through the Walla Walla Senior Center's Senior Round Table program and have been taking place in Waitsburg for close to 30 years, according to the center's executive director Howard Ostby. The center prepares the meals and delivers them to Waitsburg where local volunteers take over serving, collecting donations and d...
WAITSBURG – "Bluegrass at the Plaza!" a benefit concert for the Touchet Valley Acoustic Music Project will take place Friday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. at Waitsburg's historic Plaza Theater (208 Main St.). The concert will feature the bands Switchgrass; Rock, Salt & Nails; the Kuykendall Family and Kate & The Bluegrass Gentlemen. Proceeds from the event go to support TVAMP, which is directed by Kate Hockersmith and operates under the umbrella of the nonprofit Rural Youth Enrichment Services. TVAMP is a...
WAITSBURG – At least one Preston Hall classroom will stay cool once temperatures start to rise this spring, thanks in large part to a donation from Young’s Heating and Cooling and their distributors. Several months ago, the Waitsburg school district accepted an offer from Young’s to install a ductless mini-split heat pump in one classroom at no cost to the district for equipment and labor. The only cost the district would incur would be supplying electrical service to the unit. The heat pump...
WAITSBURG – The Waitsburg man arrested at the end of December for a string of local burglaries is scheduled for trial in Walla Walla County Superior Court beginning April 7. Mason J. Bates, 31, was charged in early January with two counts of residential burglary, theft in the third degree, malicious mischief in the third degree, and possession of burglary tools. His arrest on Dec. 28 came after a resident on West 6th Street filed a burglary report and other tips and burglary reports followed, coming from neighbors on West 6th and West 7th s...
WAITSBURG - Up against a deadline to make a recommendation regarding the preliminary plat proposal for the Whoopemup Meadows subdivision here, the Waitsburg Planning Commission chose to recommend disapproval on Sunday evening. However, they appeared to make that recommendation anticipating that the Waitsburg City Council will reject it and will instead require the commission to gather more information. This would allow the city and developers, Warren Land Co., the time they need to make...
DAYTON – Columbia Pulp plans to break ground at its building site on Highway 261 near Lyons Ferry this March or April, according to Company President John Begley. “And it will be about a year until we’re up and running,” he told The Times last week. Melissa Shumake with the Columbia County Planning Department told county commissioners in their board meeting last week that Columbia Pulp plans to “bring in a check” for its building permits on the first day of February. County Planning Director Ki...
WAITSBURG -- Early this school year, Waitsburg High School special education teacher Patty Hazelwood happened upon a small dresser desperately in need of refinishing. It occurred to her that such a project would be ideal for her life skills students: Coe Richards, Austin Baker and Rachel Gradwohl. The trio successfully transformed the eyesore into a work of beauty, learning new skills and experiencing the satisfaction of a job well done along the way. Hazelwood has over twenty years experience...
DAYTON - Residents of the Touchet Valley and across southeast Washington lost phone and Internet service for several hours on Friday when a CenturyLink fiber line was reportedly cut. Columbia County residents lost the ability to call 911 for over two hours, until the Columbia County Public Safety Communications Center was able to get 911 calls rerouted to an emergency call center in Everett, according to Columbia County Emergency Manager Lisa Caldwell. The outage began at approximately 2 p.m., a...
DAYTON – Although the board didn’t take official action last week, the Dayton School District has announced that it intends to place an $800,000 capital-improvement levy on the April 10 ballot. “The board hasn’t taken action yet because the resolution and ballot measure are still being written,” said Superintendent Doug Johnson. “But unofficially they said, ‘Yeah, this is a good thing to do.’” The board will vote on the official language and timing of the ballot measure at its regular Feb. 4 me...
Dayton Elementary School Teacher Ginger Bryan is hoping to raise enough money through www.donorschoose.org to buy six iPad mini tablets for her combined second/third grade classroom this year. As of this week, 13 donors have contributed $996. Bryan has $1373 to go. "My school is filled with hardworking students who [are] actively engaged in the learning process every day," Bryan posted on her donations page. "They are responsible and hard-working kids who need opportunities to excel with cutting...
DAYTON – The Columbia County Health System board of directors decided last week to hire an outside firm to help them determine how best to spend the $5.5 million bond approved by voters in November. The hospital district will contract with Stroudwater Associates, a national firm whose consultants design solutions for healthcare, according to Interim CEO Jon Smiley. “They will evaluate our need and provide us with recommendations,” Smiley said. The assessment conducted by Stroudwater will cost...
DAYTON – Dayton resident Marshall Hernandez, 53, of 605 Country Village Court, has been arrested on suspicion of arson, reckless burning, and possession of stolen property. Hernandez was arrested last Thursday morning without incident, after it was reported that he had set fire to a fifth-wheel travel trailer, a residence and a bag of garbage in the 200 block of South Willow Street in Dayton. Residents at the location were able to extinguish the fires before any major damage was caused. The f...
DAYTON – Dayton teens Katie White and Mary McHaffie have been announced as this year's Columbia County Fair Hostesses. White, 16, is the daughter of Luke and Dawn White. She is a high school student attending Walla Walla Community College this year. Mary McHaffie, also 16, is the daughter of Robin and Bill McHaffie. She is homeschooled. These childhood friends and fellow participants in various 4-H programs, Community Bible Church events, Awanas programs and swim team events will represent C...
WAITSBURG – Debra Callahan, a member of the Waitsburg city council and the fairgrounds advisory committee, has been working hard to organize events she hopes will create a stronger sense of community among locals while drawing visitors to the area. At last week's city council meeting Callahan reported on several event reservations for the Waitsburg Fairgrounds, possibilities for a Fourth Friday music festival during the summer months, and Waitsburg's first National Night Out celebration. C...
BREMERTON, Wash. – Waitsburg native Wyatt Withers, son of Laurie Withers and the late Ian Withers, and grandson of Jack McCaw and the late Laurette McCaw, has done his family proud by receiving recognition as the 2014 Sailor of the Year for Submarine Squadron 5 out of Bremerton. Withers graduated from Waitsburg High School in 2010 and followed in "Grandpa Jack's" footsteps by joining the Navy, where he pursued a career in nuclear engineering. He excelled early on, finishing 13th among 320 s...
WALLA WALLA - The Blue Mountain Lodge #13 Free and Accepted Masons will present awards to top officers from four local agencies in their 2014 Officer of the Year Awards ceremony on Feb. 4. Deputy Richard Schram, Walla Walla Sheriff’s Office; Officer Gunner Fulmer, Walla Walla Police Department; Officer Ashley Daschofsky, College Place Police Department; and Trooper Shawn Williams, Washington State Patrol were selected by their respective agencies for this special recognition. Deputy Schram is a Sgt. Thomas E. Bowman Deputy of the Year award win...
WAITSBURG - Establishing a quorum at Waitsburg planning commission meetings may soon become a bit easier. Uniquely qualified Waitsburg residents Stan Bly and Larry Johnson have each applied to fill two currently vacant seats on the board. Approval of the applicants is on the agenda for Wednesday night’s city council meeting. The six-position planning commission is chaired by William Potolochio and made up of commission members K.C. Kuykendall, who is also a city council member; Karen Gregutt; a...
DAYTON – The Columbia County Health District's board of directors will decide Thursday whether to hire an outside firm to help them determine how best to spend the $5.5 million bond approved by voters in November. "We really need to be good stewards of the public dollar," said Ted Paterson, a member of the board. "That's why we're looking at turning to an outside firm before we race into selecting an architect and a contractor and progress into a final design." In November, voters in the h...
DAYTON – A 2013 report published by the Washington State Department of Health states that one in six adults in Columbia County currently smokes cigarettes. Bearing those statistics in mind, the Columbia County Health System's Wellness Program each January is focused on tobacco cessation. Beginning next week, CCHS is offering a "5 Days to Quit" class that is open to the public. The classes, taking place from Jan. 26-30, will be from 7-8 p.m. in the cafeteria at Dayton General Hospital. R...
DAYTON – Have you ever wondered who pays for those gorgeous baskets of flowers that hang in downtown Dayton through the spring and summer? Or who is responsible for the creation of the new playground located next to the Dayton Historic Depot by the caboose? One part of the answer is the dedicated members of the Dayton Development Task Force and its partner organizations; the other part is – you. The task force, which has been working to improve downtown Dayton over the last 31 years, is a tax...
WAITSBURG - Eastern Washington University broadcaster and Waitsburg native Larry Weir is pleased to join the ranks of his longtime role model, Bob Robertson, by earning the title of National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Washington Sportscaster of the Year. Weir, who has provided the play-by-play for EWU basketball and football games for over 20 years, was selected as the 2014 award recipient on Jan. 7 and will be honored at a ceremony in Charlotte, N.C., in June. The 1979...
