The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

STARBUCK- Homemade flower petal jellies and screen-printed Starbuck T-shirts resembling the coffee logo were just two of the unique items for sale in Starbuck's annual communitywide yard sale last Saturday.

Motorcycles, old arcadestyle upright console video games, new boots, framed pictures, puzzles, household items, cookies and lemonade were also among the goodies for sale.

The first yard sale greeting out-of-town visitors, located just off Highway 216, was at Zonia Dedloff's 40-year-old homestead.

Her young granddaughter Angie Dedloff and Angie's friend, Lila Hutchins, were helping with the sale, which featured a pair of gas and briquette barbeques, children's toys, household items and all the jellies a person could dream of spreading on toast.

Many of the jellies were flavored with flower petals - roses, dandelions and pansies- to name a few. Other jellies included mint, grape and raspberry.

"I normally sell these jellies at the Dayton Farmers' Market," Zonia Dedloff said. "But today my loyalty was with the community yard sale event here in Starbuck."

Dedloff said many people came from Pomeroy, a few from Walla Walla and even one from Salem, Ore.

Another yard sale, just inside town, was at the home of Allen "Shorty" Harris and his wife Cindy, where her mother, Laverne, lent a hand as well.

Starbuck's communitywide yard sale has been an annual event for the past five or six years, Cindy Harris said. The number of participants was down a bit this year, she added, with nearly 10 yard sales scattered around the town, where the population is about 150.

While numbers may have been down, the one-day Starbuck yard sale ranks right up there with the church activities, including the Christmas program, and such school activities as the end-of-theyear potluck.

"My wife (Cindy Harris) wouldn't let me go around to other yard sales in Starbuck," a grinning Allen Harris said. "She said that we were getting rid of stuff not buying it."

That didn't stop Cindy, however, from buying a nice quilting kit at another yard sale that will soon be a Christmas quilt.

"We have several yard sales here in Starbuck all in one day," a yard sale organizer, Sue Wharton, said. "That way, we get more people to come from out of town and it's worth the drive for them."

Wharton's family used to run a motorcycle shop on the west side of Washington before moving to the smaller confines of Starbuck.

Wharton's sale included small motorcycles, motorcycle video game consoles and motorcycle parts. The motorcycle memorabilia was in storage prior to the sale.

Wharton also makes printed T-shirts that celebrate the Starbuck community with a logo that resembles the Starbucks coffee brand.

"While we were traveling one time, a coffee shop didn't want to sell us coffee because we were wearing our Starbuck city T-shirts," she said. "We had to explain to them it wasn't a Starbucks coffee logo to finally get service."

Wharton said about 50 people stopped by before 10 a.m. and she expected 150 by the end of the day.

Darrel and Bette Huwe, run Huwe's Café, which was participating in the community event with a garage sale. The most interesting items in their sale were a couple of saws, one an old hand saw in a clamp that slid back and forth to cut.

"My dad thought I'd need this old saw. He gave it to me but I've never needed it," Darrel Huwe said.

Another table saw was for sale, a newer, more conventional style electric saw from Sears.

Neighbors and friends JoAnn Thatcher and Sheila McIlroy ran another yard sale featuring a ball cap collection of 40 years, boots, puzzles, odds and ends and a new computer printer.

"Sheila and I are friends and neighbors just like almost everyone else in Starbuck," Thatcher said.

Thatcher's sale had about 60 people arrive before 10 a.m.

"We have probably spent more money at other people's yard sales (today) than we will probably make at ours," Thatcher said. "Maybe we'll break even before the day is over."

Thatcher said different people and families host yard sales each year in Starbuck, and she predicted that the tradition would continue for years to come.