Pioneer Memorial Gardens carries on ceremony on Memorial Day
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 6 years, 4 months AGO
Marcia Cordell places flowers on the graves of her in-laws Waco and Naomi Cordell at the Memorial Day ceremony at Pioneer Memorial Gardens in Moses Lake Monday.
Joel Martin/Columbia Basin Herald
Flags line the path at Pioneer Memorial Gardens for the Memorial Day ceremony Monday.
Joel Martin/Columbia Basin Herald
Kids play on a monument while their elders visit graves at Pioneer Memorial Gardens Monday morning.
Joel Martin/Columbia Basin Herald
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 26, 2020 11:54 PM
MOSES LAKE — The Memorial Day ceremony at Pioneer Memorial Gardens cemetery brought out a scattered crowd of people Monday morning to visit graves and pay their respects to fallen heroes.
As in past years, flags lined the pathways of the cemetery, located east of Moses Lake, and smaller ones marked the graves of those who had served in the armed forces. The gun salute ended up being only two shots, as the third blank in the rifle was a dud.
“We only had a week to prepare,” said rifleman Ross Bacon, a member of the Grant County Light Foot militia, whose hat proclaimed him an Iraq War veteran.
Taps was blown by two buglers, one of whom was Fil Rivera, a retired Green Beret and veteran of the Vietnam War and the Dominican Civil War.
“Most people don’t remember that one,” Rivera said of the invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965. The U.S. intervention came when President Lyndon Johnson sent troops to the Caribbean nation to prevent what he thought was going to be a communist revolution similar to Cuba’s.
“We came to liberate what didn’t actually happen,” Rivera said.
Former state senator Harold Hochstatter addressed the gathering, speaking on courage, risk and sacrifice.
“I want to address you on the idea — we’ve all heard it — ‘if we can save just one life, it’s worth it,’” Hochstatter said. “Let me tell you about some people who didn’t believe that. The people who went out and shot the king’s troops didn’t believe that. They went out and risked their lives for this country.”
With allusions to the Alamo, Abraham Lincoln, the biblical apostles and Joe Hooper, for whom Moses Lake’s American Legion post is named, Hochstatter spoke for about five minutes on the importance of stepping up and putting one’s life on the line.
“(Winston) Churchill said that the prime virtue is courage; it makes all other virtues possible. I think we need to be reminded of the other side: cowardice is reasonable. We can find all kinds of reasons to back out of things. Courage says ‘we’ll take them on.’ And this country has a history of doing that,” Hochstatter said.
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Endless battle
Noxious Weed Control Board works to keep invasive plants under control
MOSES LAKE — Some of the nastiest plants in Grant County were the topic of a class led by Jay Johnson, a consultant with the Grant County Noxious Weed Control Board, Tuesday. The Noxious Weed Control Board, as its name would suggest, is tasked with keeping weeds under control in Grant County. That’s not a small job; the board’s website lists 129 species of noxious weeds that are found around Grant County. A noxious weed is defined as an invasive, non-native plant that threatens agricultural crops, local ecosystems or fish and wildlife habitat, according to the Noxious Weed Control Board. Washington state law requires that these weeds be identified and their spread kept to a minimum, if not completely eradicated. “We’re one of those agencies a lot of people don’t really understand,” Johnson said. “We’re a county office and … our funding is tax-based assessment. When you get your tax bill and you look down at all the expenses that you pay for, there we are.”
BASIN EVENTS: Oct. 16-24
COLUMBIA BASIN — Whether you feel like shopping, crafting, learning or seeing a show, there’s something happening for you this week in the Basin. Oct. 16 ‘My Family (Mi Familia)’ screening Spanning three generations, “My Family (Mi Familia)” is a heartfelt drama that follows the Sánchez family as they build their lives in East Los Angeles. Through love, hardship, triumph, and sacrifice, the film explores the immigrant experience, the strength of family bonds, and the traditions that connect one generation to the next. Lowrider show and taco truck before the screening. Sponsored by Columbia Basin Allied Arts, EDUBS C/S and the Moses Lake Creative District. $12 per person. Doors open at 6 p.m., film begins at 7 p.m. at the Moses Lake Civic Center Auditorium, 401 S. Balsam St. Tickets and info: www.cba-arts.org.
Moses Lake author encourages women to look beyond church culture norms
MOSES LAKE — A Moses Lake author’s book, “A Christian Woman Striving to Live Her Faith in a Man-Controlled World,” takes aim at the role to which many churches relegate the female half of their congregations. “It’s to encourage women in the faith,” Linda Curran said. “A lot of churches say, ‘Teach Sunday school, do this, do that, but don’t (evangelize.)’" In her book, Curran recounts a time when she moved to a new community and joined a church there. She was surprised to learn that, as a new female member, she had been automatically assigned church cleaning duties. When she questioned it, she wrote, she was met with condescension and her objections were brushed aside. In other churches, she said, women who were capable of teaching were relegated to “women’s ministry.”