Juneteenth celebration coming next month
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 months, 3 weeks AGO
From left: Miranda Bridges, Alanta Futrell and LaDonna Richie explain the meaning of Juneteenth and honor great African Americans of the past at last year’s Juneteenth celebration.
FILE PHOTO
The Dreamers in Action, the youth component of the Martin Luther King Jr. Committee, will perform a dance at this year’s Juneteenth celebration next week.
Seattle-based blues singer Lady A will perform for Juneteenth in Moses Lake next month.
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 14, 2026 3:00 AM
MOSES LAKE — The Martin Luther King Jr. Committee of Moses Lake will host a Juneteenth celebration next month at McCosh Park, with live entertainment, an informational question-and-answer and lots of food.
“This year we’re going to have foot-long and regular-size corn dogs, cheese curd and … popsicles,” said committee member Sherise Scott.
Strawberry pop will be served as well, Scott said, because it has a special significance to Juneteenth that will be explained at the celebration.
The Dreamers in Action, who are the youth segment of the committee, will perform a dance to a song that has great meaning to them, Scott said. For the little ones, there will be face painting as well.
The history and significance of the holiday will be the topic of a presentation by the event’s organizers, with an opportunity afterward for the audience to ask – and answer – questions.
“We will go over the history of Juneteenth, the reason we celebrate it, when we started celebrating it and why that date is symbolic to emancipation,” Scott said. “(Then) we want to do a question-and-answer segment with the audience where we give out gifts in response to correct answers.”
For music, there will be a DJ spinning tunes, Scott said, and also a performance by blues singer Lady A. Lady A, according to her website, is based in Seattle and combines original music with classics in a style influenced by Denise LaSalle, Mahalia Jackson and Alberta Hunter. She was named Best Blues Vocalist and Best Performer by the Washington Blues Society in 2020 and 2021, took home Best Female Vocalist in 2022 and won the Patti Allen Award for Best Blues Performer of the Year in 2025.
Juneteenth has been a national holiday since 2021, but its roots go back to the end of the Civil War and the eradication of slavery in the U.S., according to the Congressional Research Service. It commemorates June 19, 1865, when enslaved people in Texas learned that they had been legally freed two and a half years earlier by the Emancipation Proclamation, despite their enslavers’ efforts to keep that knowledge from them.
This will be the fifth Juneteenth celebration put on by the Martin Luther King Jr. Committee in Moses Lake, according to Columbia Basin Herald archives. The committee also organizes a celebration and march every January on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“We’re trying to … get the community involved and knowledgeable about us, and continue to push Martin Luther King’s dream forward,” Scott said.
Juneteenth
4-7:30 p.m. June 19
McCosh Park
401 W. Fourth Ave.
Moses Lake
The Dreamers in Action, the youth component of the Martin Luther King Jr. Committee, will perform a dance at this year’s Juneteenth celebration next week.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.