Hot rods and stolen hearts
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 8 years, 3 months AGO
Joel Martin/Columbia Basin Herald A 1940 Oldsmobile gleams in the sun at the Moses Lake Classic Car Club show Saturday.
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | May 28, 2018 10:38 PM
MOSES LAKE — You could easily fall in love a dozen times walking up Third Avenue in Moses Lake Saturday.
Arrayed along both sides of Moses Lake’s main drag was a display of vehicles representing every part of the 20th century (and bits of the 21st), gleaming in the sun and filling viewers with a longing to get behind a wheel and go flying down an open road.
This was the 37th annual Moses Lake Classic Car Club show, and the first held in conjunction with the Moses Lake Spring Festival. In past years it’s been held at the park next to the library, and later on side streets, according to club president Karen Crook, but this year the Spring Festival committee wanted it to take a more prominent role.
All in all, 139 cars were on display, said Crook. Events included a traditional poker run and a walking poker run among the businesses downtown during the show.
Although hot rods and muscle cars from the 1950s and ’60s were well represented, entries included vehicles as diverse as a 1929 Essex, a 1983 Buick Riviera and a 15-passenger Ford bus from 1931. There were even a couple of motorcycles and a couple of vintage bicycles interspersed among the cars.
Tom Isham of Ephrata exhibited a 1986 Buick hearse, complete with skeletons in the front seats and a disembodied head named Waldo in the back. The skeletons, he explained, were his ex and her boyfriend, while Waldo was merely a passenger who had a bit too much to drink the night before.
Not far away, Gary Johnson of Yakima soaked up the sun behind his two-tone 1940 Oldsmobile. “Fourteen and a half red cows died” to make the Olds’ red leather interior, a bystander quipped.
Rick Volk of Moses Lake had a piece of his youth on display in the form of a blue 1966 Chevy II Nova.
“I’ve had it since 1979,” Volk said. “It was my first high school car. I let it sit for about 15 years, then started fixing it up around 1999 or 2000. Did all the work myself. I put a new engine in two years ago.”
“I think it did fine (compared to past years),” Crook said. “The Spring Festival did a lot. The committee worked hard on it, doing extra things for us.”
Crook credited the club’s volunteers as well as the City of Moses Lake, for the show’s success. But the real stars were made of steel and chrome and rubber. And dreams.
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Quincy National Night Out scales down
QUINCY — Quincy’s National Night Out was more compact this year, which worked out well, said QPD Sgt. Joe Westby, who’s in charge of event planning for the Quincy Police Department. “National Night Out is a big event, and the fact that we’re able to shrink it up is like a breath of fresh air,” Westby said. “If you're always doing the same thing, it's kind of nice to switch things up and see how it works.” National Night Out took place Thursday on the block of C Street next to the police station, a shift from previous years when it was held at Lauzier Park. The smaller space meant fewer emergency vehicles for children to explore, but it also meant less walking for attendees. Grant County Fire District 5 brought a fire truck, and the Grant County Sheriff’s Office had a patrol boat. Renew, the Grant County behavioral health agency, had a booth and so did Quincy Partnership for Youth. Veterans Operation Creation sang the national anthem, and the Quincy Animal Shelter brought kittens that piled over each other making friends with passersby. As before, the QPD served grilled hot dogs.
Quincy Police retirements leave big shoes to fill
QUINCY — There are some big shoes to fill at the Quincy Police Department. “We’re losing 48 years of experience between them,” Quincy Police Chief Ryan Green said at the retirement party for Capt. Jorge Trujillo and Det. Damon Powell Thursday. Trujillo, who grew up in Sunnyside, has been with QPD for 19 years, he said, coming on as a patrol officer fresh out of the military. From there he served as a field training officer, a detective and finally captain. “I consider him my left-hand man,” Green said. “He runs the operations side of the house … He knows the agency very well, and he knows the community.” Trujillo has some projects around the house to tackle now that he’s retired, he said.
Big fun on a small scale
Wheat Land Communities’ Fair opens Thursday
RITZVILLE — The Wheat Land Communities’ Fair isn’t as big or as flashy as some of the county fairs around central Washington, but the folks who keep it going like it just the way it is. “It’s somewhere you can go and get an old-time traditional feeling, and you’re comfortable letting your kids roam the grounds and experience all that it has to offer,” said Board Member Lori Williams. “It’s more of a feeling than (one) specific thing,” The fair starts Thursday in Ritzville and runs through Sunday. Starting Friday, the 56th Ritzville Rodeo will take place alongside the fair at the rodeo grounds. This year the entertainment budget was expanded, Williams said, to be able to offer more fun that’s covered by the cost of admission. For the kids, there’s face painting, balloon art, Lego crafts, races, contests and games. Children can also ride on a little train towed around the fairgrounds behind a tractor.