Harrington news

Doings of school and community keep Harrington citizens

 

Last updated 2/16/2018 at 3:43pm

--Courtesy photo.

The second staircase in the Harrington Opera House, created in 2007, features re-purposed material from the Red Lion hotel.

HOHS

The Harrington Opera House Society met February 5 with Linda Wagner, Sheryl Stedman, Ed and Bunny Haugan, Mark Stedman, Cherie MacClellan, Marge Womach, Susan Larmer, Gordon Herron and Karen Robertson present. At the close of the meeting Billie Herron and Carol returned from Reardan and visited briefly. Ed Haugan gave the treasurer's report, noting that the average monthly bills for the building is $900, a figure arrived at by dividing last year's expenditures by twelve.

Discussed were building committee issues of installing the door sweep, options for the rummage room and molding for the bathroom. Gordon Herron presented a list of 57 items for projects left to be completed in the Opera House that he would like members to rank in order of importance. A noticeable obstacle was apparent with the need to remodel the rummage room and continue to have rummage sales. No decision was made. The next rummage sale will be in the Art Room on February 10.

An event with Kevin Hekmatpanah on the cello, with accompanist Paulina Zamora on the piano, will be held March 2 at 7 p.m., presenting works by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and a world premiere Chilean composer, Karina Glasinovic. The Seattle Shakespeare Company will be here March 27. The tentative schedule is for them to appear in the morning at the school for workshops with the children and to arrive at the opera house at 11 a.m. to set up for Romeo and Juliet to be presented in the afternoon. The public will be invited. Suggestions for other activities or events are encouraged.

PowerPoint at Reardan

by Billie Herron

Billie Herron, representing the Society, gave a PowerPoint presentation to the Reardan Lions Club on February 5 after being introduced by Dale Swant. Her presentation covered a brief history of the renovation of the Opera House building beginning with pictures and the history of the building when built in 1904. Then 25 years ago, the newly formed Society had as its first and foremost project the saving of the building by repairing the rafters and roof which were caving in. Following that, they addressed other issues until the more recent installation of the elevator and bringing the grand piano up the old staircase. Interspersed were photos and descriptions of the work with the new staircase, the lobby, art room and auditorium. The concluding pictures were of the first piano recital on the grand piano and pictures of Heather Safe, music instructor, and her students.

Stacey Rasmussen's classes

Following the class last week on Androids and iPhones, Stacey Rasmussen did a short teaching session on PowerPoint to Billie Herron and Joyce Herron. They spoke highly of her expertise and were able to immediately put the information to use. As might be recalled, Rasmussen was also the person who set up the ebook program at our city library. She is interested in teaching just about anything technology related, whatever topic a group would show interest in. If you have a need, send your request to her.

City Council

Mayor Dillon Haas opened the Harrington City Council after-work session February 6 with the full council present (Peter Davenport, Justin Slack, Levi Schenk, Mike Cronrath, Jeremy Sewall), and Bunny Haugan, Marge Womach and Cherie MacClellan attending. The primary purpose of the meeting was to review the Municipal Solid Waste 2018 contract and authorize the changes made before allowing it to be signed. Section by section, the tedious process went fairly quickly although there were eight new sections that had to be scrutinized, as they were written by the attorney for the protection of the city. When they finished their review, the contract for Collection of Refuse and Other Waste was accepted with a unanimous vote for the mayor to sign.

HHPC

The following members of the Harrington Historic Preservation Commission met at the school February 6: Karen Allen, Heather Slack and Aileen Sweet, with one visitor, Ron Hall. Discussed were: "Pillars, Historic District completion, clean-up the historic Catholic Church, and plans for 2018 for digitizing historic Harrington by Ron Hall." Hall presented work he and his daughter Shaelyn have done in Google, "a fusion table in the HHPC Google Drive that includes all of the buildings and homes on the historic survey and inventory from the DAHP [Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation] database. This is a great asset to Harrington as it can be used for marketing, planning, grant writing and more."

It was determined by vote that the Commission should take a one-year hiatus, following a discussion of the difficulty of getting members and leadership on the commission. Anita Harmon voted by proxy. Committees in existence will continue their projects and current members (Amy Foley, Karen Allen, Celeste Miller, Aileen Sweet and Anita Harman) will be available for any items to which the Commission needs to respond. The City of Harrington was informed of the vote for the hiatus. The next meeting will be in Jan 2019.

Highlights from

"Panther News"

In the Panther News, the Principal's page began with a very positive statement of appreciation for the generous support of the school board and noted some changes this last month. Alan Tanke and Brad Simpson have stepped down from the board, were given an appreciation gift, and were replaced by Shannon Sewall and Cade Clarke. Under "January is School Board Appreciation month,"was the following, "To honor our present and two recent former Board members, the elementary held a Reading Rally. The Board members introduced themselves and told what year they graduated and from what High School. Darren Mattozzi, board chair shared what the board does for the school. They then took turns reading a page from the book 'I Wish You More' by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld. The board members were then presented with a large stuffed Panther in their honor. The Panther will be in the Library for all to enjoy!" The other members of the school board are Mark Kramer, vice chair, and Linda Mielke.

Saturday Rummage

On February 10, the Opera House Society held a rummage sale in the Art Room. The sale was busy from 9:30 a.m. until 12:30, and few came out in the afternoon until right at closing at 2 p.m. Billie Herron provided tours. The Post & Office donated cards for $1 off a purchase at their establishment for all customers at the rummage sale. People coming from Odessa, Wilbur and Reardan seemed very pleased. Due to the generosity of the people of the surrounding communities, the sale netted over $300.

 

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