Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 4778 - 4802 of 5705
Kristine Warren pins an Eagle Scout badge to son Matthew . . ....
DAYTON – The Dayton School Board has scheduled a public informational meeting for Wednesday, March 4, to provide background on the proposed capital-improvement levy planned for an April 10 election. The regular board meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. with the public meeting at 7 p.m. The board had planned to take official action last week and decide on the language of the $800,000 ballot measure; that vote was postponed again after the board requested that the planned projects be described a...
KENNEWICK – Waitsburg resident Steven Ray Long, 27, was arrested Jan. 30 while driving a car near the blue bridge in Kennewick just minutes after the vehicle was reported as stolen from a nearby apartment complex. The Kennewick resident, Joel Madigral-Nava, told police that he had started his car at about 2:45 a.m. Friday and left it running to return to his apartment momentarily. When he returned, the car was gone. A Franklin County Sheriff’s Office deputy spotted the car minutes after hearing of the theft over the radio and pulled Long ove...
DAYTON – Relay for Life of the Blue Mountains has set the date for this year’s annual fundraiser kick off, which will take place at the Best Western Hotel at 507 E. Main Street in Dayton on Tuesday, March 24, at 6:30 p.m. The Relay for Life event in Dayton will start on Sept. 19 at 3 p.m. and conclude at 7 a.m. on Sept. 20 at the Dayton High School track. The Relay for Life committee hopes to get teams formed and registered in March; the theme for this year’s relay will be announced, infor...
DAYTON – For nearly two years, Columbia County Emergency Manager Lisa Caldwell has reported on her department's failing computer systems, which include the 911 phone system and the computer-aided dispatch software that county public safety communications employees use to track calls for service and the location and activities of emergency services personnel in the field. The phone system is still on hold – at least until July, she told commissioners Monday, at which time the state will det...
DAYTON – Start saving your plastic and set aside April 22 for an afternoon with your kids, because the Best Western Plus Hotel and Suites in Dayton is once again bringing its Earth Day celebrations to town. "Earth Day is a good reminder for us all to focus on recycling," said Dayton's Best Western General Manager Eleanor Specht. "To date, we still cannot recycle plastic in Dayton." And so for Earth Day, Best Western Plus of Dayton, which has won several awards for its efforts at being e...
WAITSBURG – For Suze Wood, landing in Waitsburg was a case of a left turn being the right turn. Wood had spent years bypassing Waitsburg as she traveled from her parent's home in Walla Walla to Cheney, where she attended college. It was years later, while seeking a change of pace driving from Walla Walla to her Seattle home, that she decided to take the back way and finally made that left turn off Highway 12 and onto Waitsburg's Main Street. Wood said she was so captivated by what she saw t...
DAYTON – Dayton resident Andrew J. Churchill, 43, was arrested last week and formally charged Monday with three counts of assault and threats to kill. Witnesses called in the incident on Jan. 27, after Churchill allegedly pulled a gun on an adult male family member in the back parking lot of Blue Mountain Station. Churchill and his wife operate a business that sells items at the Port of Columbia facility. Witnesses stated that Churchill did not fire the gun but did finally put it away; he t...
WAITSBURG – Warren Land Company owners Gene and Mary Warren, developers of the proposed Whoopemup Meadows subdivision, say they are confused by the process Waitsburg's planning commission has taken in deciding to approve or disapprove their preliminary plat proposal to Waitsburg's city council. "Their own ordinances say they can approve, disapprove or approve with conditions. Instead, I guess they're disapproving, but it's really not a disapproval," said Gene Warren. The developers are h...
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...
