The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

SPRING HAS SPRUNG--Our first day of Spring, March 20, sprang into action with some nice sunshine and temperatures in the high 60s in West Valley, so it was a pretty doggone nice day. We had a couple beautiful days before then, albeit with freezing temperatures in the wee hours of the morning, which dove down to 26 degrees here one night--brr! However, it seems Spring opted to spring a leak as the light rain began to fall Saturday evening and by Sunday, it was down right pouring at times; ah, truly Spring weather! I hope you didn't put off those outdoor chores on Saturday to watch all the NCAA basketball games thinking that you could do them on Sunday, as it was a bit late to mow the lawn by then, but hey, it was perfect weather to watch more basketball! With it being "March Madness" week, the big teams were getting up-ended in some very tight matches; great games to watch for sure! All you UW Husky fans were going nuts, and I had to admit, even as a die-hard WSU Coug fan, I had to cheer them on too. Go Washington!

SPECIAL DAYS--Those celebrating birthdays from March 25-31 are Hans York, David Whitney, JoAnn Prestegard, LeRoy Leasure, Aaliyah Montgomery, Judy Bates, Ray Toste, Buzz Moore, Gordie Souvenir, Leif Carroll, Pam Emery, Bob Brons, Emily Tanksley and Sandi Cik. Enjoy your special days everybody! Belated birthday wishes to MaKenzie Anderson whose birthday was yesterday; my apologies for the over-sight and I hope you had a nice day. Happy Anniversary wishes to Mr. and Mrs. Brian McClain this week. Enjoy!

Remember, if you want to add your name to the list of special days, give me a call. If you have your name on the Lions Club calendar and there is a mistake, please give them a call to correct it. In our area, you can call either Chuck Parker or Carol McClain.

THIS SUNDAY--The Skamokawa Methodist Church will present the annual Hosanna Musicale at 3 p.m. A goodwill offering will be taken to benefit St. James Family Center.

PADDLE CENTER--This Sunday, the Skamokawa Paddle Center is also running a Leadership Scenarios training day. If you'd like to be involved, contact Mark Whitaker at mark@columbiariverkayaking.com. For a full schedule of events, check out http://www.columbiariverkayaking.com/calendar.html. New this year will be some introductory canoe classes.

NEXT WEEK--Spring Break takes effect from March 29 to April 2. Let's have a very safe and happy Spring Break everybody!

EASTER IS ON ITS WAY--Easter is fairly early this year, April 4, so head to your local stores and get those Easter goodies. Of course, there are the special Easter services at the many churches in the area, and the Easter egg hunts too so, it's a busy time for all. Enjoy!

You could also make some Easter cards and give out to the folks in the local nursing home, about 38 to 40 ought to cover everybody there and they'd sure appreciate it.

ANOTHER MEETING--On April 8, there will be another meeting at the Elochoman Grange to see if that grange can get reorganized and up and running once again. All of those who are interested about this should attend and you can call Charles Parker for more information.

FIRE SAFETY--There will be a public meeting April 12, 7 p.m., at the Skamokawa Grange Hall which will feature our Skamokawa Fire Department. They will present a fire safety program. We hope you will come to this public awareness program and do all that you can do to ensure that you and your family know what to do in case of a fire and some of the ways that you can help prevent a fire in your home. Light refreshments will be served afterward. We urge everyone to attend.

NEXT BIG NIGHT--The second Free Movie Night, April 17 at the Skamokawa Grange Hall, complete with free movie style popcorn, will be shown at 7 p.m. We hope you'll come and see the new short films made by the 4-H kids and watch the feature film, "King Corn" which they chose to feature. This show is being presented by the Skamokawa Grange and the WSU Extension office.

A FIRST...IN MAY--The Skamokawa Grange will host the grange contest entries on May 8 for the first time ever, as they have usually been done at either the Elochoman Grange or the Grays River Grange. We'll be under the leadership of GR grange member Donna Moody who has all the expertise in this area. These contests are open to everyone in the community, not just grange members, so if you have photographs to enter, homemade cookies, clothes, etc., please think about entering them and maybe you'll be a big winner. Top items from here go on to State, so you've got all next month to get something together. If you check out the Washington State Grange website, you can get all the contest rules and information or you can give me a call and I'll try to help you out.

LUCK CONTINUES--I was cleaning out my purse the other day and saw some tickets I had purchased for a drawing and prizes quite some time ago. I had forgotten all about it and was tempted to toss the tickets, but I hung onto them. Imagine my surprise when Kristen Souvenir called me the very next day and said my name had been drawn and I'd won a gift basket! This happened to have been a fund raiser for the class of 2014, and my grandson Austin Good, was one of the class members drawing tickets that day, and out of 1700 tickets, he picked mine! I'm thinking that I might have to head to Vegas and see if my lucky streak continues!

The big winner of the year's free garbage service was Nova McNally, so she was feeling mighty lucky herself. Maybe we should take that trip together?

GET WELL--I wanted to send get well wishes to former Eagle reporter Sunny Manary, who is now under the weather. Get better quick Sunny! Several of our local guys have been in and out of the hospital lately, here's to quick healing, Jerry L. and Jim R. and we hope Mac J. winds up getting some relief soon!

OUT OF THE PAST--This week in 1945, began with a partially nice day but there were periods of hail and rain too. The rest of the week was mostly very nice with several being just lovely, until the very last day of the month, then it snowed, hailed, rain and blew; the most miserable day of the year according to Grandma Everest! It was a big day for the Krist Pedersens as they headed to Astoria to pick up Krist's new boat. He and son, Frankie, all of six years old, got to bring the boat up the river, while wife Carol and not yet two year old David, and Grace Pedersen, brought the car back up. A couple of days later, Krist was headed to the Cowlitz River as the smelt were coming in. It was war time and a rumor that the war had ended sure brought happiness until it was found to be untrue. Mrs. Leon Schiendelman of Cathlamet, got the news that her husband, Second Lt. Schiendelman, had been awarded the Silver Star. He had been a First Sargeant but was moved up to Second Lieutenant. It was a battle field promotion and was based on merit displayed in battle. Stopping by to see the Everests that week were Archie Hill, in to say his good-byes; Kenny McNally, Dick and Eileen White; Mrs. Nordfors, Peg and Kaipi and others. A Navy torpedo bomber from Astoria crashed that week near Clatskanie; newspaper reports had it listed as Cathlamet, but it wasn't. Neither the pilot or crewman were injured in the crash. The movie playing that week was "Seventh Cross."

In 1960, only the first day of the week was nice and the rest were pretty wet, with several days being very stormy and miserable with lots of wind, rain and hail. Crown Zellerbach's logging manager died that week; L.N. Rees was 58. He had joined CZ as a high climber in Cathlamet in 1927, and then was promoted to a skidder foreman and served that position until 1937 when he became the manager of the company's Cathlamet and Clackamas logging divisions. He left his wife Olive and son Lews. That week, Ralph Pedersen brought son Tim in to see his great Grandma Everest. He was headed in to have his tonsils out. Unfortunately, he no sooner had those out and his parents wound up very ill with the flu, as did his uncle, Marshall Pedersen, who was not quite five at the time. Grandma Everest attended Elva's birthday and they had a nice time. Florence West and Ann Dyrland were among the guests. On one of those stormy nights, Grandma filled out her census report and then made granddaughter, Donna Healy's wedding garter. She would be married later that summer.

All this according to Grandma Elsie Everest's diaries.