Ephrata to light Christmas tree Friday
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year, 6 months AGO
Ephrata residents will step out to get their Christmas celebration as a community started on Friday with a tree lighting get-together that afternoon as the sun sets.
FILE PHOTO
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. | November 22, 2023 1:30 AM
EPHRATA — The Ephrata Chamber of Commerce will kindle a new tradition Friday, with the first official Downtown Tree Lighting.
“We decided we wanted to get the town lit up ahead of time and Thanksgiving weekend is an awesome weekend to do it,” said Chamber Executive Director Rita Witte.
The tree in question is the tall evergreen — nobody seems certain exactly what kind it is or how long it’s been there — outside the Ephrata Recreation center at 112 Basin St. SW. Sunset is at 4:14 p.m. that day, and the tree lighting will take place shortly after that at 4:30.
Ordinarily the tree is lit up during Bells on Basin, the town’s Christmas parade and celebration, which this year is Dec. 9. Basin Tree Service gave the tree a haircut for the occasion, Witte said, and Grant PUD and the city of Ephrata will hang up the lights this week.
Since this is the first time Ephrata has held a separate tree lighting, there’s not a whole lot planned, Witte said. For future events, she’s hoping to get a choir and maybe some vendors, but this year it will be hot chocolate, some music and a large dollop of good community cheer.
“Next year, we'll see what happens,” she said. “For right now, I'm hoping that people will be downtown and will come down and help us light it up. That'll be fun.”
MORE STORIES
Bells on Basin to bring holiday cheer to Ephrata
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 1 year, 6 months ago
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Quick change
George hotel turns from Microtel to Holiday Inn Express overnight
GEORGE — The Holiday Inn Express in George appeared literally overnight. “On (April) 10 we closed the transaction and then at 7 p.m. IHG, which is the brand where Holiday Inn Express comes from, gave us the green light to open the hotel,” said General Manager Jed Jonathan. The hotel, which was built in 2020, had been a Wyndham Microtel up until then. It hadn’t been listed for sale, Jonathan said, but the owner had put out a few feelers. Jonathan owned several storage businesses under the name Dream Storage. When he became interested in branching out into the hospitality sector, Jonathan reached out to a number of hotel chains looking for a franchise, he said, and IHG was the first one that called him back. IHG put him in contact with A1 Hospitality in Tri-Cities, which owned about 20 hotels. Between then they created Dream A1 Hospitality, which is the official owner of the hotel.
Flash back to the ’60s and ’70s at the Moses Lake Senior Picnic
MOSES LAKE — It’s time to break out the leisure suits, bell bottoms and – for the very brave – platform shoes next Wednesday for the 11th annual Senior Picnic.
Royal Dairy models self-sufficient farming
ROYAL CITY — Words like “sustainable” and “regenerative agriculture” get tossed around a lot. But a Royal Slope farm recently showed the world how it works in reality.