Other Headlines

Questions continue over Monte district’s handling of cell phone incidents
Roger Garrick, the Montesano School District’s former transportation supervisor, wonders how anyone could forget the day he stormed up to the high school to report illegal cell phone use by athletes on school buses.

“And I do say stormed,” Garrick said last week after reading that Principal Bob Corley has no recollection of Garrick reporting that football players had been taking sexually explicit photos of themselves and then sending them back and forth between buses while traveling to practice at Tumwater prior to the state tournament in November of 2006. Students were chastised before the bus left for practice, but Corley said he did not have enough information to pursue the matter further.

It is a violation of state child pornography laws to possess sexual photos of minors and/or to transmit such photos over the Internet or via cell phone. In recent weeks, school officials in Montesano have come under criticism for not taking stronger action when illegal use of phones on school grounds has been brought to their attention. The football incident illustrates that such activity was known to officials long before a former assistant coach was caught and sharing sexual photos of himself and of his under-age girlfriend with members of the football team and other students, some as young as 14. He pleaded guilty last month to a gross misdemeanor of telephone harassment. That investigation began after a counselor at the high school reported it to police. Some have questioned whether that was necessary but Superintendent Marti Harruff has supported the counselor’s decision to call police as one that is required by law.

New Montesano clinic will open soon
A long-awaited medical clinic in Montesano should be open by the end of the month. Linda Brown, director of community development for Grays Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen, says the target time for the Twin Harbors Medical Management Clinic at 319 E. Pioneer Ave. to open its doors is mid-month. But more definitive information on the exact date won’t be available until next week. The building has already been remodeled, and “we currently have equipment and furniture arriving on a daily basis in hopes of a mid-March opening,” she said.

Pontoon work coming
Hoquiam will soon be in the pontoon business. Monday, Gov. Christine Gregoire announced that the city would be home to a facility that would produce the huge pontoons for Seattle’s new Highway 520 Evergreen Floating Bridge. The pontoon plant, which will be built on Grays Harbor Port property near the mouth of the Hoquiam River, will be completed and “running” by 2011, Gregoire said. Construction on the facility should begin in about two years, she said. The facility is expected to provide jobs for scores of employees and could later be reused for other floating bridges projects, according to state Rep. Lynn Kessler of Hoquiam.

Couple attends 12th hearing, but courtroom cleared
A hearing to address whether the two grandchildren of an Elma couple should become dependents of the state took place Tuesday in Grays Harbor Juvenile Court in Aberdeen. But at the request of the children’s guardian ad litem, Judge Gordon Godfrey cleared the courtroom of everyone except social workers from the state Department of Social and Health Services, the children’s parents and their attorneys.

The children’s grandparents, Richard and Julie Zeh, had been caring for 2-year-old “Micah” and 5-year-old “Alyssa” from early last September until Dec. 20, when the department obtained a court order authorizing the state to take the children into “protective custody” and place them in a foster home. The department was aware the children were being cared for by the Zehs and emphasized it was taking them into protective custody from the parents, not from the grandparents.

Plenty of ‘potty’ humor in latest GHC play
Debbie Scoones of Montesano, manager of the filthiest public urinal in town in her role as Penelope Pennywise for “Urinetown, The Musical,” belted out a song at rehearsal earlier this week. The Grays Harbor College production opens Friday at the Bishop Center on the main campus in Aberdeen. Performances are planned for March 7, 8, 14, and 15, all at 7:30 p.m., with 2 p.m. Sunday matinees set for March 9 and 16. Tickets are available online at www.ghc.edu/bishop. Priced at $15 for adults, $12 for seniors, $9 for students and $7 for children 12 and under, tickets may also be purchased by calling (360) 538-4066. The award-winning comedy-musical pokes fun at bureaucracy, and is described as a hilarious take on corporate mismanagement and petty small-town politics. A 20-year drought causes a terrible water shortage and a private corporation controls the restrooms.

More Sports next week...