Seeing the sights
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 years, 6 months AGO
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. | April 6, 2023 1:20 AM
QUINCY — The Quincy Valley Historical Society is going on tour.
“We’ve wanted to do this for a number of years,” said Harriet Weber, director of operations for the organization. “It stemmed from way back in the Quincy Centennial in 2007. I was on that committee and we did bus tours that year, aside just from the Farmer-Consumer Day bus tours; we did them throughout the season, and we wanted to revive that. So we worked out a legal arrangement with the City of Quincy so that we could use their little mini bus.”
The tours will cover a wide range of both topics and geography. The first one, an excursion to the Hanford Nuclear Site’s B Reactor on April 14, is already sold out, Weber said, but there’s another on Oct. 21.
On April 29, the tour will be called “Bloomers on the Bench,” and will feature speaker Ron Bockelman, an expert on Pediocactus, also called hedgehog cactus, which grows in the Central Washington shrub-steppe.
The May 7 tour, “Walk into the Past,” will take participants to the Ginkgo Petrified Forest and the Wanapum Heritage Center to learn more about the ancient history of the area. The June 17 tour, called “Ridin’ the Rails,” will be led by local ferroequinologist Dan Bolyard and will include a view of the area not often visible from the road.
“We'll traverse the rail system down to Trinidad and talk about that history,” Weber said. “And then we're gonna go up Moses Coulee and go up on top there, and hopefully end up at Mansfield; they've got a little railroad museum up there. You know, if the railroad hadn't come through, there probably wouldn't be a Quincy.”
“Cruisin’ the Crops” will take place July 8, and will be a chance for tour goers to have a new look at the crops Basin residents often take for granted.
“Cruisin' the Crops is a veteran farmer taking you around and showing you what all the crops that are grown in the Quincy Valley are, telling you about them, and people can ask questions,” Weber said. “So you're really learning a lot about what goes into producing a lot of the food crops that we grow here. And there'll be recipes in that one.”
Local geology will be on display for tours in July and August, looking at the Quincy Valley and Dry Falls. There will also be a tour in September of Milbrandt Vineyards’ bottling plant near George.
Tours are limited to 16 people (12 for Bloomers on the Bench) and the cost varies by the length of the tour, Weber said. The all-day tours include lunch, she added.
The tours also tie in with displays the Quincy Valley Museum will be hosting this year, including a model railroad display portraying Quincy in the early years.
To learn more about Quincy Valley Historical Society bus tours, check out the society’s website at www.qvhsm.org.
Joel Martin can be reached at [email protected]
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.”