Washington Voices

It seems people are getting a bit impatient for spring to arrive. Reports from the WSU Spokane County Master Gardener Clinic say folks are wondering why lawns haven’t greened up yet, when to uncover hibernating plants and why many ponderosa pines in the area are turning brown. To the first one. The early grasses are starting to green up. Unfortunately, most of them are the very cold tolerant bulbous and annual bluegrass and cheat grass at this point. These grasses will sprout and set seed before the middle of May and then go dormant. Lawn grasses like Kentucky bluegrass and the fescues generally don’t start growing until the soil temperature reaches about 45 degrees. We are getting close to that; I measured 45 degrees in my raised beds last weekend. As we wait, now is a good time to apply an organic, slow release fertilizer to the lawn so it has some nutrients to get started. It is also a good time to aerate the lawn to allow that fertilize deep into the soil.

For almost 30 years, Mary Jo Stauner worked for the Federal Government, the last 20 in law enforcement, but she has always been an artist. “Ever since I was a young child I remember having a love and appreciation for art and the beauty it brings into the world. I am a structured person who became even more so after a career working for the federal government,” she said. “Now that I am retired I feel an urge to produce art.”

It’s a show that celebrates the nerd in everyone. The second season of “King of the Nerds,” hosted by Robert Carradine and Curtis Armstrong, wrapped up last month on TBS after eight weeks of competitions that relied on the nerd powers of its 11 contestants. They lived in a house called “Nerdvana,” that included video games, play swords and a room filled with computers and other technology. Each week there were new competitions, such as a LARP (live action role playing) contest, broomstick flying, life-size Angry Birds, and go-karts in a room made to look like the video game in “Tron.”

Katy Dolan, a senior at Central Valley High School and a co-founder of LETEM Play, a nonprofit organization that provides instruments to low-income students, has been selected for the 2014 Spring Advocacy Training in Washington, D.C., by the Global Campaign for Education – U.S. Chapter. Starting Friday, Dolan is learning about education as a right around the world and how she can rally her own community to help youth around the world access education despite barriers such as poverty, child marriage, lack of trained teachers or gender-based violence.

In fast-pitch softball, whom you lose to graduation is more important than how many. Central Valley lost nine seniors off a squad that shared the Greater Spokane League title and reached the state Class 4A tournament for the second straight season.