Washington Voices

In Anna Staley’s kindergarten class at Ness Elementary School, students were working on a science project, learning about different kinds of paper and which kinds are better for drawing with markers. “When you draw on this, it rips,” said Clarion Bergland, 6, holding up a square of tissue paper. “Yeah, it rips really easily.”

Changing schools in the middle of your high school career is never easy. But if you have a good glove and can defend the middle of the field, the transition can be smoothed out. Shayla Vegas transferred from Northwest High School in Justin, Texas – a stone’s throw from Fort Worth – to Central Valley in December. Joining the basketball team helped ease her into the new environment and playing shortstop for a fastpitch softball team that lost nine players to graduation a year ago made the junior feel right at home.

Casanova is a fun, energetic dog that needs an active family. He would love a big backyard to play in. Even though he weighs 97 pounds, shelter workers say he still thinks he is a lap dog. Please refer to the pet’s ID number when contacting SCRAPS with questions about one of the adoptable pets. If you are interested in this dog or any animal at SCRAPS, call (509) 477-2532 or come by the shelter 2521 N. Flora Road, Spokane Valley. Dog adoptions are $87.04 and include spay or neuter, first set of vaccinations, health check, microchip and first year’s license.

Randy Goss believes that if everyone does a small part, people’s lives can improve locally and globally. One thing he’s done to help others is to participate in Crop Hunger Walks. He’s been walking in Spokane for 15 years now – for the past three years he’s chaired the planning committee – and walked a couple of times in California before moving here.

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.

Have you ever noticed that if you have an experience, learn of a diagnosis or go someplace, that particular thing suddenly is everywhere? The previously unknown or not-much-thought-about now becomes ubiquitous. My husband was in Chicago recently. When he came back he noticed that every car ad on TV or picture in a magazine or news event seemed to feature Chicago. A long time ago a friend explained her daughter’s rather anti-social behavior as attributable to Asperger’s, a condition I had not heard of at the time. Right after, it seemed that just about every magazine or study featured something on Asperger’s.

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.

Zarah Meyer, 14, hesitantly emerged from a changing room and spun in a slow circle. A floor-length salmon-pink evening gown hugged her figure. She smiled as stylist Cheryl Smith clapped her hands and exclaimed, “Now, that’s gorgeous!”