Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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Julia Klein was crowned as the queen of the 2020 Ritzville Rodeo at the association's annual banquet on Jan. 19, in front of a packed crowd at the American Legion Hall. Klein was bestowed her regal title by the 2019 queen, Rachel Nygren, who presented Klein with a sash, belt buckle and crown for her cowboy hat. "I just want to start off by saying thank you," said Klein after being crowned. "I'm so excited to represent this community. This community is amazing, whether it's...
RITZVILLE — Two local students have been named to the All-State Band. Amy Anderson and Alexis Melcher were selected to participate in one of the Washington Music Educators Association’s All-State performing groups this year, school officials said. Both Anderson and Melcher will be participating in the wind symphony group when the all-state bands, orchestras, choirs and Percussion Ensemble meet Feb. 12-16 in Yakima. Anderson plays the clarinet; Melcher is a percussionist. All-State musicians were selected through aud...
The Jan. 21 Ritzville City Council meeting started off on a familiar note, as the debate about designating the city as a quiet zone took center stage. The topic of the quiet zone resurfaced after a group of residents wrote a letter to Mayor Gary Cook earlier this month that they asked to be read into the council minutes. In the letter--which was signed by E. Hank Buchmann, Rebecca S. Buchmann and Tracy M. Tremaine--the group asks that the quiet zone issue "be moved to the...
The Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos have momentum heading into the final two games of the regular season, winning both of their league games in the past week. The Broncos got the job done on the road against Asotin on Jan. 25 and then at home against Reardan on Jan. 28, improving their record to 7-3 in league play and 12-5 overall on the season. Against Asotin, the Broncos used a huge third quarter to erase a four-point halftime deficit. LRS came out of the locker room...
Well, this is really the first time I’ve had to write one of these, so let’s see how it goes. This week will be my last with The Journal. I have recently accepted a position with a news organization in southwestern Washington, which will allow me to be closer to family in an area that has been a second home for me throughout my childhood. News about The Journal’s next editor will be forthcoming in the near future. But I want to spend time now on thanking our readers and eastern Adams County for welcoming me, a stran...
East Adams Rural Healthcare nurse practitioner Julie Trofibio provided her perspective on the Wuhan coronavirus that originated in China and has spread across the globe, including in Washington state, at the Adams County Public Hospital District No. 2 board meeting on Jan. 22. The coronavirus was identified in Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province in China and the country’s seventh-largest city with a population of more than 11 million people. In December, cases displaying the symptoms of a “pneumonia of unknown cau...
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) was signed into law this week and the U.S. and China announced a preliminary trade agreement earlier this month, in a development that has brought a sigh of relief to agriculture groups in the region. The USMCA replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as the trilateral trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. With the USMCA now having been approved by both the U.S. and Mexico, only Canada’s ratification of the agreement is now needed before it c...
A week with three events over a span of five days saw several Lind-Ritzville/Sprague wrestlers make progress on the mat, while the late grind of the season has been a challenge physically for a couple of Broncos. South League Match The team traveled to Colbert on Jan. 14 for a South League match being hosted by Northwest Christian. Sophomore Johnny Ryan won his first match via pin in the first period in the 113-pound weight class, and went on to win his second match 9-0. Hilzer said that as of now, Ryan would be the No. 1...
As the regular season winds down, the Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos have turned their focus to closing out league play strongly and earning as high a seed as possible in the Northeast 2B Conference Tournament. The slate of games this past week saw mixed results for the boys team, which fell in a spirited performance on the road against undefeated Liberty on Jan. 17 and then rebounded strongly with a win against unpredictable Tekoa-Rosalia at home on Jan. 21. Early foul troubl...
An Eastern Washington University project is allowing high school students in the eastern part of the state who are interested in pursuing a career in healthcare to participate in a program in a hospital, clinic or healthcare facility. Project H.O.P.E. (Health Occupations Preparations Experience) is part of the Eastern Washington Area Health Education Center at EWU, and allows disadvantaged juniors and seniors in high school to submit gain real-life experience in a healthcare setting. The program is four weeks long, with the...
A fundraiser for the Cody family will be held at the Big Bend Bowling Alley in Ritzville this Saturday, Jan. 18. The event will raise funds for the family of Jess Cody, a Ritzville woman who was killed in a wrong-way collision near Lind on Dec. 29. Cody’s husband, Jeremiah, and three of their children were transported to hospitals in Ritzville and Spokane. The Spokane woman who was driving the car that was going the wrong way was also killed in the incident. The fundraiser features a spaghetti feed, bowling, silent a...
RITZVILLE - A meeting about the Adams and Whitman County portion of the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail was well attended in Ritzville on Jan. 8, with over 30 community members, landowners and government officials showing up to provide input for a facilitation report that will be delivered to the Washington State Legislature this session. The Palouse to Cascades trail spans 212 miles and traces the route of the state's section of the Milwaukee Railroad, which once stretch...
The Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos had everything working in the first half of the team’s road game against the Colfax Bulldogs, and a 5-1 start to league play was well within reach. Then, the third quarter happened. After jumping out to a 28-14 halftime lead over the Bulldogs, one of the top teams in the league in recent seasons, the Broncos were close to cementing themselves as one of the top two teams in the South Division through the first half of league play. But Colfax awoke from their offensive slumber in the third qua...
The Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos wrestling team wasn't able to compete against the entire field that was expected at the team's home tournament over the weekend, but several LRS grapplers had high finishes at the Bronco Invitational on Jan. 11. Sixteen teams were scheduled to participate in the tournament, but only nine could show up due to inclement weather throughout the region. Of the nine that were able to compete, LRS head coach Jason Hilzer estimated that the team...
A passenger train hasn't stopped regularly in Ritzville for nearly 50 years, but a committed group of citizens is looking to change that fact after recent movement at both the state and local level. The newly found interest in bringing back passenger rail service to Ritzville began last year, when $250,000 was set aside in the state's $10 billion 2019-21 transportation budget to conduct a study of the feasibility of an east-west intercity passenger rail system. The proposed...
It was, by most measures, a very successful weekend for the Lind-Ritzville/Sprague wrestling squad at the Banks Lake Brawl in Coulee City, with two of the team’s grapplers winning their brackets and three others finishing in the top four. Juniors Jay Harder and Jeffrey Staley were LRS’ first-place finishers, both winning three consecutive matches to get the job done. In the 220-pound weight class, Harder cut through his opponents like a warm slab of butter, pinning his first two opponents just 17 seconds into the first period...
What a difference a year can make for the Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos basketball program. Just one year removed from a season where the team went 8-15 with an early exit in the conference tournament, the Broncos matched last season's win total with a 43-31 win in Reardan over the weekend, which followed a 67-49 home victory over Asotin the day before. Offensively, the Broncos were led by the same trio of players in both games; seniors Austin Thompson and Spencer Gering,...
Adams County’s federal representatives had a mixed reaction to the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 3, mostly falling along party lines. Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, was killed in the early morning hours of Jan. 3 in Iraq, the evening of Jan. 2 in the U.S. He and nine others died after a U.S. drone fired several missiles at two vehicles that were driving on an access road at the Baghdad International Airport. Following the attack, Presi...
John Kragt was unanimously chosen by his fellow commissioners to be the next chairman of the Adams County Public Hospital District No. 2 board at its regular meeting on Dec. 19. The nomination for Kragt to lead the five-member hospital board in 2020 was made by outgoing chairman Eric Walker, who was the chairman from 2017-19. Commissioner Stacey Plummer was unanimously selected again to be the board’s vice chair, while Walker was unanimously elected to be the board’s secretary, the position that Kragt previously held in 201...
As the new year began this week, the 2020 budget for the city of Ritzville has also taken effect as well. It calls for a busy year ahead for the city, tackling a wide variety of projects and issues. As The Journal has reported in previous issues, the highlight of this year’s recently approved budget--and the topic of much debate--is the setting aside of funds for the city to hire an additional officer at the Ritzville Police Department. If all goes as planned, according to RPD Chief Dave McCormick, the process of hiring a f...
Two people were killed and five more were injured in a wrong-way crash about eight miles south of Lind on State Route 395 on the evening of Dec. 29. According to the Washington State Patrol one of the vehicles, a 2015 Toyota Prius, was driving southbound in the northbound lane of State Route 395, and struck a 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan head-on in the northbound lane head-on near milepost 71 around 6 p.m. One of those killed in the incident was Jessica L. Cody, 36, a resident of Ritzville. Cody was a passenger in the Dodge...
Two people were killed and five more were injured in a wrong-way crash involving two vehicles about eight miles south of Lind on State Route 395 on the evening of Dec. 29. According to the Washington State Patrol one of the vehicles, a 2015 Toyota Prius, was driving southbound in the northbound lane of State Route 395, and struck a 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan head-on in the northbound lane head-on near milepost 71 around 6 p.m. One of those killed in the incident includes Jessica L. Cody, 36, a resident of Ritzville, who was a...
The Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Broncos had a busy four-day stretch as they entered the Christmas break last week, playing two league games and one non-league game in that span. The results were mixed for the Broncos, going 1-2 with a close league loss to Liberty at home on Dec. 17, a blowout road win against league foe Tekoa-Rosalia on Dec. 20, and a narrow non-league loss to Davenport at home on Dec. 21. All said, the Broncos sit with an overall record of 4-3 and a league record...
The Ritzville City Council agreed to update its financial policies beginning next year, after approving Resolution No. 2019-18 at its Dec. 17 meeting. The 16-page resolution was approved on a 6-1 vote, with councilmember Michelle Plumb voting nay. The beginning of the resolution states that the city is adopting these new policies to establish consistent guidelines for municipal fiscal budget and planning. “It is the City’s goal to assure prudent financial management and responsible stewardship of the City’s financial and p...
The Ritzville City Council unanimously approved two grant agreements for projects from the Washington State Transportation Improvement Board (TIB) at its Dec. 17 council meeting, totaling almost $1 million. The two agreements total $978,643 in grant funds that the city will receive from the state for two transportation projects it had requested to receive funding. The projects were listed on the city’s Six Year Transportation Improvement Plan, which qualify them for TIB funding. One of the projects that was chosen to r...