Othello girl takes grand prize in reading challenge
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 2 years, 1 month AGO
Brooklyn Gilbert, 10, of Othello won a Nintendo Switch as the grand prize in this year’s Mid-Columbia Libraries Summer Reading Challenge. As far as anyone can tell, she’s the first grand prize winner ever from Othello.
COURTESY PHOTO/JENNY NOYOLA
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. | September 16, 2024 1:00 AM
OTHELLO — An Othello girl walked away with the grand prize in Mid-Columbia Libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge.
Brooklyn Gilbert, 10, won a Nintendo Switch.
“(The Summer Reading Challenge) starts in mid-June and ends in mid-August,” said Othello Library Customer Service Specialist Jenny Noyola. “The kids have to read for 15 hours, then they get entered in the drawing for the big prize.”
The grand prize wasn’t the only thing summer readers could win, Noyola said. Local businesses contributed smaller prizes as well.
“Time Out gives us coupons for pizzas for all the kids who finish,” Noyola said. “Pik-a-Pop gives us things, and Ace Hardware gives us money. McDonald’s gives us a free soft drink for them.”
The Summer Reading Challenge extends across all 12 branches of the Mid-Columbia Libraries system in Benton, Franklin and parts of Adams counties, said Associate Communications Director Carlos Orozco, and is open to both children and adults. About 4,000 readers signed up for the program system-wide, Orozco said, of whom about 3,000 reached the 15-hour mark.
As far as either Noyola or Orozco knew, Brooklyn is the first Othello reader to win the grand prize. Noyola said she checked with a co-worker who had been at the library for 15 years, and she couldn’t remember seeing a winner from Othello either.
“(Brooklyn’s) whole family comes in quite often,” Noyola said. “She’s a pretty avid reader.”
In a town the size of Othello, the public library is an important place for both children and adults, Noyola said, because it offers so much for little or no cost.
“It's a place that you can loiter; we don't kick you out for being here,” she said. “We offer a bunch of board games the kids can play … We offer the Lego club once a month, and I hold contests twice a year to try to get kids in here, because it's (a small community) and there's not a lot of things to do around here, so we try to make sure there is stuff to do. One of the local people here started a little knitting circle that they have every Monday, and we're trying to let the community know that we have a room that they can use if they want to.”
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.”