Oak and Lily Day Spa gets a little bigger
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 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. | March 6, 2026 3:20 AM
MOSES LAKE — The Oak and Lily Day Spa has been tucked into a little corner next to the downtown end of the Alder Street Fill for several years, but now it’s expanded into a larger space.
“We’re going into our fifth year, (and) we just expanded into the other side of the building,” said owner Stephanie Perez. “We added new services and redid some of our services that we started with.”
Perez celebrated expansion Tuesday with a ribbon cutting, attended by the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce. The space she expanded into used to be a law office, Perez said. The building is an older one, built in 1961, according to county records, and Perez has had to make very efficient use of the space. There’s a small room right behind the front counter where she started out doing manicures and pedicures. In the expanded space, there’s a room with a zero-gravity massage chair that reclines all the way back and wraps around to massage your entire body, right down to your feet, Perez said.
Beside the chair is an infrared sauna, a transparent box just large enough for the client to sit in to “detox and sweat” as Perez put it.
“It heats up, a dry heat, to a certain degree,” Perez said. “It also has different color light therapy. There are several different lights, and they each have their own specific things that are good for your skin. They’re good for like pain, weight loss, eczema; there’s a whole variety of things that it can help with.”
The room next door is where Perez does waterless pedicures, she said. Rather than having the client soak their feet in water, she uses hot towels and scrubs, and an electric file to exfoliate skin from cuticles and heels.
“What’s nice about waterless is that you’re less prone to bacteria; you’re less prone to getting infections,” Perez said. “It’s good for senior citizens or people who have issues with sensitive skin or anything like that, because when you are soaking in the water, especially if they have jetted tubs, you’re circulating some of that bacteria that’s been through the pipes over time.”
Oak and Lily is a one-woman operation; Perez does everything herself, she said. She’s carrying on a family tradition; her mother owns a salon in San Diego, and two of her sisters also work there.
Perez has about 200 regular clients, she said. All her services are by appointment, which makes for more privacy for clients.
Oak and Lily’s location right next to the Alder Street Fill looks awkward to get to, but it’s not, said Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Debbie Doran-Martinez. There’s plenty of parking in the back; drivers just go up Broadway to Ash Street, turn right behind Danny’s Tavern, and there’s space behind the row of buildings.
“She’s in a great location for visibility,” Doran-Martinez said. “Everybody passes by here every day.”
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.

