Washington Voices

Rogers High School senior Mashalya Combs won a Gates Millennium Scholarship. The scholarship, established with a $1 billion grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is awarded to 1,000 highly motivated minority students throughout the United States and Puerto Rico each year.

When Dishman Hills High School student Andru Maughan hand delivered a bag of storybooks and stuffed animals to a patient in Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital, he knew from the smile on the child’s face that he had made a difference. “Even though she didn’t speak English, I didn’t need a translator for me to understand her, because I knew what she was saying. I knew from all of her expressions that she was grateful,” Maughan said.

On Saturday, the soccer fields at Mead High School looked just like the fields at schools all across the city. Students in team jerseys dribbled soccer balls while shouts of “Goal!” and “Pass the ball!” rang out. Parents and friends bundled up against the chilly wind, and refs in yellow and black, blew whistles. But these teams are part of Unified Sports, a program sponsored by Special Olympics Washington. The program is designed to promote inclusion by combining people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same sports teams.

The budget haircut was a cutting-edge concept when Jerry Lillie opened a Supercuts franchise in Spokane Valley 30 years ago. Two years earlier, Lillie and his wife had both been furloughed from management positions with United Airlines. His brother-in-law recommended Supercuts, a fast-growing franchise.

The Mirror Pond at Manito Park still has a duck-feeding issue. It’s not as bad as it was before the big duck roundup in 2008 when Parks Department staff corralled and relocated 35 domestic ducks that were living off bread handouts in the pond.

Planting onions is one of my favorite April vegetable garden projects. This year I am planting Walla Walla onions, our regionally famous sweet onion. In late August we will harvest the bulbs and enjoy them raw on hamburgers, sandwiches and in salads. Onions are planted from seed, sets or small onion bulbs or – in the case of the Walla Wallas – as small plants. They are a biennial plant which means they will grow a bulb the first year and if left in the ground over winter, they will produce a seed stalk the second year. We generally harvest them at the end of the first year for the bulb. The pungent aroma that brings tears to your eyes is caused by the release of sulfur compounds when they are cut.

The Spokane Valley Heritage Museum, 12114 E. Sprague Ave., is open Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sundays 1-4 p.m. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, $4 for ages 7-17 and free for children younger than 7. Group tours are welcome. Contact the museum at (509) 922-4570 or visit the Website www.valleyheritagecenter.org.