Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 926 - 950 of 2119
It is late July in Walla Walla and the dust kicked up at Borleske Stadium is from teams playing for the American Legion state AA baseball title. The rosters, made up of high school players juggling time with jobs, other off-season sports and more, round up summer on the diamonds with this. If things go right, they may win a championship before dropping the mitts and stepping up into a harvest truck or reaching for a football helmet. The Pullman Posse is in the thick of state tournament contentio...
Uniontown’s sidewalk-extension project, expected to be started by August, has been placed on hold as Washington Department of Transportation forms are filled out and returned by the town. Funding is expected to come from a $306,000 grant from Washington’s Transportation Improvement Board and $60,000 from Palouse Regional Transportation Organization. The concrete sidewalks will be located within the existing right-of-way of Highway 195. Total length of new sidewalks will be .5401 mile. “Th...
Sunlight through leaves, the flowing river at the edges of grass and music from the flatbed trailer: the annual Palouse Music Festival is set to return to Hayton Green Park Saturday. This year’s lineup features a range of styles culminating in the rhythm and blues of Heather and the Soul Motions in the 7 p.m. hour singing Stax Records and Motown. “We try to end the day with something funky that people can dance to,” said Paul Smith of the Palouse Arts Council, which organizes the event with...
In the 100th year of the Lions Club International, it marks 50 years in Palouse. It began in 1967 when the Palouse Jaycees organization started to phase out. The Pullman Lions chapter sponsored a new charter in Palouse. Home Economics students from Palouse High School provided dinners for the new chapter’s meetings, and the group got to work; cutting and selling firewood, putting in new bleachers at the school, replacing the football scoreboard, building Lions Club park, sponsoring the Boy Scout...
Sandi Cochran stands inside of Hen House Chicks at its new location in Colfax. She is a co-owner with sister-in-law Nancy Cochran. The Hen House Chicks store in Colfax has found a new nest. A vintage and vintage-inspired furniture and home décor business, which was in the S. 100 block of Main Street for 11 years, moved north to what was formerly the banquet room of Events On Main. The store opened at the new site July 13. The search for a new location originally stemmed from a frozen city...
Above: The public restroom in Uniontown is a key feature of the park for locals and commuters. Right: The town council’s posted sign explains the reason for the closure. The Uniontown town council is deciding on options to continue to offer a public restroom after closing their facility along Highway 195 in late June. The restroom building, which was built 15 years ago with funding from Washington Department of Transportation and the American Legion, was shut down by a council vote June 14. I...
A standing-room-only crowd came out Wednesday night, July 12, in Uniontown for a wide-ranging town council meeting. Topics covered included water, roadwork, the closed public restroom, burn pile, the “pigeon house” and more. Mayor Dave Jacobs convened the meeting at 6:30 p.m. at city hall, and the first report (“All is hunky dory”) came from Uniontown Community Development Association’s John McCann. It followed with Police Chief Dan Hargraves. “It’s nice to say it’s been a slow month... only o...
Hilltop restrictions on how high a house can be – and what counts as part of a house – will be up for further consideration by county commissioners after they delayed a full decision July 3 following a hearing with County Planner Alan Thomson. At issue are notices about applications for cluster residential districts and height requirements. These rules are for unincorporated areas in the county, as opposed to subdivisions inside towns and cities. Chapter 19-12 of the Whitman County Code, for...
A former Army diesel mechanic, Tim Myers joined Whitman County Parks as a ranger on Aug. 1, 1986. He got here by way of the line between West Germany and Czechoslavakia in the Cold War and the “Irish Railroad.” He retired in May after 31 years with Whitman County Parks. Tim Myers also served as fair director, county facilities director and director of developmental services. His last day was May 31, fulfilling his requirements and concluding his career alongside his wife, Jennie, who ret...
The Whitman County waste transfer station tank replacement project is set to begin Aug. 14 with contractor M.A. DeAtley of Clarkston. The project will replace an evaporation pond with two 10,000 gallon tanks. County road department workers demolished the original pond last week. The total project is scheduled to be done in November with no disruption in service at the transfer station expected. All told, two 10,000-gallon steel tanks will take the place of the former 90x90 foot, 180,000-gallon...
The Palouse Fire Department has found its new truck. After a search begun last year to replace the ‘87 Pierce pumper-tanker – to keep the fleet at 30 years old or less – the department has bought a 1997 pumper-tanker from the town of Lawrenceburg, Tenn., with 1,000 gallons greater capacity and a closed, four-man cab. The price was $88,000. Bruce Beeson, a retired member of the department, will fly to Tennessee July 25 and drive the truck across country to Palouse. The department will move the l...
A new federal requirement to re-rate all bridges for weight limits will begin in Whitman County later this month with two consulting engineers hired at the end of June. Nicholls Kovich Engineering of Spokane Valley and Sargent Engineering in Olympia will act as consultants for a federal requirement to update bridge ratings in light of changes in truck design which can mean heavier loads. County bridges, which are inspected every year, were last rated for weight limits in the 1990s or eary...
Kendyl Druffel takes the big stage of the 60th Distinguished Young Women National Finals representing the state of Washington. She later performed a new tap dance routine to the song “Real in Rio” from the movie “Rio.” Reporter Colton High School 2017 graduate Kendyl Druffel returned July 2 from the 60th Distinguished Young Women National Finals in Mobile, Ala. Named Washington's Distinguished Young Woman last August, Druffel flew to Mobile June 18 to meet 50 representatives of the other s...
This plaque was taken from the demolished bridge on Sand Road near the state line. The Edmondson Bridge held on Sand Road from 1916 until three weeks ago when Whitman County Public Works demolished the Luten-style span. The Whitman County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the theft of a 1916 brass plaque from the now-demolished Edmondson Bridge on Sand Road near Pullman. Last week during the demolition, county workers had the plaque, still connected to concrete, separated from the bridge at t...
The fifth year of Oakesdale’s revived Old Mill Days will launch Friday evening and continue through Saturday night. It will include an adult and kids’ triathlon, parade, egg toss, beer garden and music from the Senders. Preparations now enter the final days for Gail Parsons, Old Mill Days chairman, and many volunteers. “It looks like things are going very well,” Parsons said. It starts Friday with bingo from 6 - 9 p.m. at the McCoy Valley Museum along with pulled pork sandwiches and colesla...
A tentative plan is set for Sept. 6 for the next meeting between representatives from the county, the City of Pullman and Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport on the question of how to align land-use rules for the expanding facility. A meeting June 12 in Pullman began the airport overlay safety zone discussion. The airport is now part of a $119 million runway realignment and lengthening project. Pullman Mayor Glenn Johnson, County Commissioner Art Swannack, Moscow City Attorney Rod Hall, representati...
Colfax School Board met Monday night and approved new curriculum additions, hiring of two teachers and the Jennings Elementary annual fall trip to Camp Grizzly. At the start of the meeting, Superintendent Jerry Pugh introduced English/Language Arts teacher Kelli Cox who will come to Colfax after six years at Lincoln Middle School in Pullman. Pugh also reported Michael Heitstuman of Pasco will be the district’s new agriculture teacher, replacing Rainey McKiernan, who submitted her resignation in...
The 10X16 shed arrives earlier in June at the Dahmen Barn in Uniontown. It now contains kilns and supplies for clay classes. The loafing shed at the Dahmen Barn has been open for close to a year; it may be considered finished this week. With the 3,600-square foot shed’s opening last July, the Dahmen Barn started to offer pottery classes, moving in three kilns with six clay wheels donated by Colton School after its recent remodeling and expansion. People signed up quickly. “Classes have been so w...
The giant Brotherton seed-cleaning building in Tekoa is being torn down. Bought by Larry Heaton a year ago from Brotherton Seed of Moses Lake, Heaton hired Butch Drott of Tensed to take down the original 10,000 square foot, three-story building at the west edge of downtown. The early 1900s building was used until 2005. “It’s a hazard,” said Heaton. “It’s good for nothing now, not operable.” While the main building will be taken out, with its myriad of wood beams salvaged, two flat houses at e...
Whitman County Commissioners have set a hearing for Monday on two proposed zoning changes dealing with ag cluster zones. At issue are notices about applications for cluster residential districts and height requirements for building houses on hills. These rules would be for unincorporated areas of the county. The hearing will be Monday, July 3, at 11:15 a.m. in the commissioners’ room at the courthouse. Whitman County Code for cluster residential districts now requires living spaces of d...
Trees would be thinned or removed as part of proposed work which may be funded by the Cohn endowment at Goldenrod Cemetery. A planning meeting took place June 9 with Tekoa Mayor John Jaeger and two of the three city appointees who make up the trustees for Goldenrod Cemetery. The subject was $2.2 million endowed to the cemetery by the late Eleanor Cohn, a Tekoa accountant/bookkeeper who died in 2009. Another meeting is planned for July to discuss what needs to happen before the money may be used...
Garfield’s LaDow Grange members will be given a 90-day notice of a vote to disband, due to a continued lack of officers. A letter will be sent next week to all residents of Garfield and Farmington by James Woomack, secretary/treasurer of LaDow which was formed in 1931. Without a required slate of officers, the Grange will be forced to close, according to its bylaws through the Washington State Grange. Wayne Miller, deputy for the state Grange, came to the Garfield chapter’s meeting last wee...
Lee Burchfiel bought Tekoa Hardware June 1 after spending 16 and-a-half years working in software in the Seattle area. It was the bus ride from Bothell into downtown Seattle that did it. It took Lee Burchfiel to his job in the I.T. Department of Nordstrom, after 15 years working for Amazon and Microsoft. But that commute ultimately took Burchfiel, his wife Kelsey and three daughters to Tekoa, where he is the new owner of Tekoa Hardware. “In Bothell, I’d work on projects around the house alm...
The Colfax School District Board met Monday night and covered various items, including approving a 2017-18 enrollment projection, hiring a new custodian for Jennings Elementary and announcing a final cost for the new track. The meeting began with comments from Superintendent Jerry Pugh, who commended safe trips to Silverwood for the eighth-grade and for the class of 2017 before they graduated June 3. It was the district's first online-accessible graduation, in which Pugh noted a hit from Alaska...
Joy Abramson of Omak hangs on for a win in the cow riding with a 68 score. Colton Nebe holds on after coming out of the chute in the PeeWee boys calf riding event Saturday. Libby Lyle of Colfax heads for the finish after clearing the last barrel for a win in the Little People class. The 42nd Colfax Junior Rodeo went off last weekend at Palouse Empire Fairgrounds with 167 competitors vying to win a saddle as Top Cowboy and Top Cowgirl. Competing across five divisions from ages 3-18, Dallen...
