Rusty Mammoth Sale supports museum in a big way
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 month, 2 weeks AGO
Visitors to the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center’s Rusty Mammoth sale look over treasures Saturday. The sale is the museum’s biggest fundraiser of the year.
CALEB PEREZ/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
There was something for everyone at the Rusty Mammoth Sale at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center. The sale was the biggest Museum Superintendent Dollie Boyd has seen in her six years managing the museum, she said.
The Rusty Mammoth Sale Saturday featured a selection of art befitting an art museum.
Shoppers catch up as they check out bargains at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center’s Rusty Mammoth Sale Saturday.
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 6, 2026 3:20 AM
MOSES LAKE — This year’s Rusty Mammoth Sale at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center was, well, mammoth.
“We about doubled what we usually bring in for this type of thing,” said Museum Superintendent Dollie Boyd. “We got really close to $6,000, and we’re accustomed to making closer to $3,000. Our friends and supporters really came out to show us some love.”
Part of the reason, Boyd said, was that the sale came at the beginning of yard sale season.
“The bargain hunters are hungry after a winter of being trapped inside,” she said. “And I think people are seeing what’s going on with city budgeting and want to help any way they can. And if they get to take home some treasures, then all the better.”
The Rusty Mammoth, named for the huge metal sculpture of an ancient pachyderm that dominates the museum space, is the museum’s biggest fundraiser. The museum hosts a lot of events for the public at no charge, and except for staff salaries and a small operating budget from the city, most of the expenses are paid for through sales.
More than 240 people came to the sale Saturday, according to museum data, and another 42 came to the presale Friday that’s reserved for museum members.
The sale doesn’t have to be over. The museum maintains a small space called Rusty’s Shop underneath the jewelry case in the museum store, Boyd said, where staff put out some of the choicer treasures that didn’t sell at the big sale. The rest of the leftovers will be donated to the Moses Lake Senior Center, she said.
The museum staff isn’t immune to the call of the mammoth, Boyd said, playing with a punch bowl she bought.
“I did donate a portion of my paycheck back to the museum (by buying the bowl),” she said. “We always do because we always find stuff that we want.”
There was something for everyone at the Rusty Mammoth Sale at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center. The sale was the biggest Museum Superintendent Dollie Boyd has seen in her six years managing the museum, she said.
The Rusty Mammoth Sale Saturday featured a selection of art befitting an art museum.
Shoppers catch up as they check out bargains at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center’s Rusty Mammoth Sale Saturday.ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Garred Road Fire sees no growth, two other local fires contained
COULEE CITY — Fire crews are still working on containing the Garred Road Fire, near Coulee City, which has seen very little growth, remaining at nearly 3,400 acres and is around 61 percent contained as of Thursday afternoon. According to the Southeast Washington Interagency I
Quincy store holds raffle for hospitalized employee
QUINCY — The raffle to help an ailing employee at Quincy Hardware and Lumber is booming. “When I first was trying to brainstorm what we could do about this (Wednesday) morning, I thought, (maybe) we can raise $1,000 to help with travel expenses and them being out of town so long,” said owner Tina Stetner Thursday. “Well, the first couple of hours that the store was open (Thursday), I think we'd already made $1,250.” Charles Rounds, who has worked at Quincy Hardware for about five years, was struck last week with cauda equina syndrome, a rare but critical condition in which some of the nerves at the base of the spine stop transmitting messages to the lower part of the body, according to the American Association of Neurosurgeons. In Rounds’ case, the nerves had stopped telling his bladder to empty, causing waste to back up and his kidneys to fail. He went to the emergency room at Quincy Valley Medical Center, which sent him on to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in the Tri-Cities, Reiman said.
120-acre fire burns structures by I-90
MOSES LAKE — Nobody was harmed in a wildfire alongside Interstate 90 Wednesday afternoon, according to Grant County Fire District 5. At about 3:45 p.m., Adams County Fire District 2 firefighters were dispatched to a fire, dubbed the Schrag Fire, at a farm residence on Schrag Road at milepost 194 of the eastbound lanes of I-90, GCFD 5 Battalion Chief Travis Svilar said. As of 6:30 p.m., the fire had grown to 120 acres. ACFD 2 called for mutual aid from neighboring departments and for air support, Svilar said. Two scooper planes and two helicopters were on the scene. The fire’s forward progress to the east was stopped by 6 p.m., Svilar said. The freeway remained open the entire time.