Washington Voices

It may still be summertime, but school boards in the Greater Spokane Valley area are still busy. Central Valley School District

The cool air and rain have been replaced by our usual run of heat and dry skies. It’s time to say goodbye to green fields and haul out the hoses. Lawns really take a beating when it gets hot, unless they are watered properly. Most bluegrass turf needs an inch to and inch and half of water or more a week depending on your soil type. The best way to get that amount is to water for longer periods of time with longer intervals between waterings. Watering for longer periods gets more water down into the root zone where the roots can better use it. If you are watering your lawn 15 to 20 minutes a day now, try upping that to 30 minutes every other day. It’s the same amount of time and water.

Born in Barbados, Priscilla Barnett immigrated with her family to Brooklyn, N.Y., where she attended high school and earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, focusing on sculpting and painting, from Parsons School of Design. In New York, she taught elementary school and worked with disabled students. She later moved to Alaska after visiting there with a friend. In Ketchikan Alaska, she worked with the disabled at Big Brothers Big Sisters and at the Boys and Girls Club. A pattern of helping others emerged. The pattern came to include helping others use their voices through art.

At the risk of being cliché, you’d have to say that Craig McIntyre had a novel experience playing professional football, capped by a storybook finish. By the time John Grisham published his 2007 novel, “Playing for Pizza,” about an outcast NFL quarterback resurrecting his career playing in the Italian Football League for the Parma Panthers, the West Valley High School graduate was already an American veteran in the northern Italy city best known for its ham and cheese.

In the early 1900s Clayton, Wash., was a bustling little town. Clayton, meaning “Clay Town,” had a clay and a brick factory. Although the factories have long since been shut down, many memories, buildings and sculptures remain.