Johnson Park looking for more volunteers

Can you believe it? Three days with sunshine all in a row. What a treat. Daffodils are blooming like crazy, and trees are showing buds. Mother Nature is pretty impressive with her timing.

News from Naselle:

Its spring and time for a whole new set of sports which include the following for the coming week: Tuesday- baseball and fast pitch at home with Wahkiakum at 3 p.m.

Don’t forget to attend one of the performances of the play “King Arthur’s Quest” presented to the community in association with Naselle School and the Missoula Children’s Theater. The play is put together in only a week, with auditions, casting, rehearsals and the final performance in just that short span of time. The first performance will be tomorrow (Friday), at 7 p.m. in the Naselle Commons. If you prefer a matinee, the final performance will be on Saturday, at 2 p.m.

Twelve high school students were selected as students of the quarter for the second quarter in Naselle High School. Students selected for academic excellence were Grace Zimmerman, Allison Todd, Chris Walkowiak, and Chase Chapman. Keith Reitz, Jake Condon, Briannan Olson, and Nicole Tarabochia were recognized for their outstanding citizenship. Students selected for personal achievement were Talyssa Norberg, Emily Gudmundsen, Robert Eaton, and Tommy Hammonds

The Naselle-Grays River Valley School Board will meet on Tuesday for their regular monthly meeting at 6:30 p.m.

Looking for some good chocolate and a way to benefit our kids? The Naselle Junior class is selling World’s Finest Chocolate for Easter as a fund raiser. If you would like to purchase some of this wonderful candy, contact a high school junior or I’m sure you could get more info by calling the school.

Other news from the Westend:

Readers are probably getting tired of me requesting volunteer help for Johnson Park, but I have to say that even though I have had a few folks volunteer and I certainly do appreciate them, we still need more. Most of the work being done at this time is not very glamorous or exciting, but it needs to be done so we can move forward to the fun stuff. We still have lots of cleanup, trash runs, yard cleaning (includes pruning, weeding, etc.). We also need an electrician and a plumber (hopefully to volunteer as we have little money to pay them} to look at what we need to do in the kitchen and library to make the changes in those two locations.

We have had several meetings to find out what the community wanted for the Johnson Park and school building venues. There were lots of exciting ideas and we are in process of making some of those ideas come to fruition, but it seems that we only have a select core of active volunteers. We need more. We need to have you step up to the plate and if you have an idea for a project, put it together and present it to the board with all the details, including how you will staff it.

Remember this park is yours, and we hope to have a community project we can all be a part of and be proud to say “ I helped make it happen.” So come on, give me a call at 465-2960 or Penny at 465-2775. Let’s do it.

I especially want to say thank you to Deanne Bulick, Dave Bulick, Barbara Maynard, Penny Gregory and Timo Virkkala for volunteering their time in the library and helping to keep it open as many hours as possible. I have a couple more volunteers who will also be coming in to the library to help out. Our original librarian, Jim Monteith left the area to be near his family, but he pops in now and then, so say hi if you happen to see him.

Now for some fun stuff from Johnson Park. Our Wahkiakum County Sheriff’s Department is setting up a satellite office in the school building and it will mean that there will be much more police presence in the area. Sheriff Dearmore will let me know when he plans to hold an open house, and at that time we plan to hold a pool tournament challenge in the exercise room at Johnson Park.

A very nice pool table was donated by Teresa Search and it is up and being used by quite a few folks. We plan to let anyone in the community challenge the members of the Sheriff’s Department. Sound like fun? It will be a Johnson Park fund raiser with something for the winner as well. More on the actual tournament in the next couple of weeks.

As a practice run, we are going to hold a free preliminary tournament on Saturday, the 19th. Everyone is welcome to come and participate. For more information, contact Norm Bolton.

My aunt Claudine Hammonds had a very nice happy birthday surprise a couple of days before her actual birthday. Her daughter Claudette, and son in law Soc Kreuzenstein walked in the door and told her that they decided to go for a drive (about 1500 miles and a ferry ride later), and ended up here in Grays River. They are from Juneau, Alaska and have recently retired. Welcome Soc and Claudette. We’ve missed you.

It’s time for the “wearin’ o’ the green” and time to feast on corned beef and cabbage, carrots, spuds, hot bread and dessert with the Wednesday Senior Lunch Bunch that meets at Rosburg Hall. Wear your green or get pinched! And watch out for the little leprechauns that are sure to be around.

The Rosburg Senior Community Lunch program also meets at Rosburg Hall and is sponsored by CAP. They serve senior lunches on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Birthdays being celebrated this coming week include Chase Chapman, Amber Parker, Dee Tetz, Annette Dziados, Marvin Giffin, Eric Saari, Marilynn Smalley, Kim Strong, Jason Nettles, Trevor Carlson, Spencer Headley, Helma Webster, Denise Lewis, Kim Nettles, Toni Giffin, Gene Anderson, Rachael Haataja, Anita Woods, Vivian Busse, Ryan Johnson, Cecile Smith, Robert Adair, Bob Bryant and Brynn Tarabochia. Happy Day to each of you.

Happy Anniversary to the following couples this week: Jotel and Stacey Strange, Raymond and Caroline Badger, Bob and Annette Bowker and Gene and Peggy Dotson. Wishing you many more.