The Columbian

Railroad Eviction Draws County's Rebuke ; Reopen Talks or Lose Lease, Commissioners Tell Columbia Basin

Clark County commissioners last week sent a stern letter to the Columbia Basin Railroad, the operator of a 33-mile county-owned rail line, for earlier this month evicting a volunteer group that has worked for the past six years repairing the tracks. Battle Ground, Yacolt and Chelatchie Prairie Railroad Association (BYCX) began work on the north end of the line in 1999 and fixed it up enough to offer 10 mph excursion rides.

Frontier Days: Festival Shows Off Washougal

WASHOUGAL The Frontier Days talent show was called off for a lack of participants Sunday afternoon, but a slow day during Frontier Days is still a crowd for Washougal's B Street. The city's festival does more than give teenagers a chance to sing in front of an audience, it helps keep a struggling part of the city alive, said Dan Reude, the festival's chairman. New stores in the area are drawing traffic away from B Street, and new residents aren't discovering the old downtown without help.

Giving From the Art - La Center High Teacher Donates Artwork to School

LA CENTER A cast of the hand of Michelangelo's David is a measure of the gratitude Don Landes-McCullough has for his students. Landes-McCullough has been teaching art and drama at La Center High School for 22 years.

In Our Schools: Students March Into Summer with Parade Through Rosemere

The Rosemere neighborhood was welcomed into summer Friday by more than 300 kids and teachers from Washington Elementary School. The whole school participated in a parade through their neighborhood that morning to ring in the last day of school. Paula Colby, assistant to the school's principal, Theresa David- Turner, said the parade was a tradition at the school in its old building. The parade fell by the wayside in 2004, when students had their first year in the new Washington Elementary Scho...

Landowners Try to Restore Native Oaks ; Environmentalists Warn That the Trees May Soon Be Gone

TURNER, Ore. (AP) Jayne and Jim Miller's 10 acres is a microcosm of human history in the Willamette Valley. There is evidence of a Kalapuya Indian cooking area, a settler's home from the 1830s. And there are the oaks.

State to Act Against Medicaid Pill Abuse ; Officials to Watch Use of Certain Prescriptions

SEATTLE (AP) State officials believe they've found a way to rein in taxpayer support of painkiller addictions and get some Medicaid patients into drug treatment. They're tracking prescriptions of narcotics, antidepressants and other medications, and following up when the amounts seem excessive.

Naval Reservist From Centralia Killed in Iraq Suicide Attack ; Attack Among Deadliest Against Women

CENTRALIA (AP) A Naval reservist was the first Lewis County resident to die in Iraq when a suicide car bomber attacked her convoy outside Fallujah on Thursday, a Navy spokeswoman told The Chronicle of Centralia. Regina Clark, 43, was deployed nearly five months ago with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 18 out of Tacoma. She was a petty officer first class, a culinary specialist or mess cook, according to Chief Petty Officer Jeri Robinson at the Navy's Trident submarine base at Bangor.

Lost Caiman Turns Up Under Pickup

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) Found: One caiman, rather large, lizardlike, lots of sharp teeth. Contact the Lane County Animal Regulation Authority. Please. No questions asked. When a resident looked out his window on Friday he could have sworn he saw an alligator. He was mostly right.

Rescue Pilot has Steady Hand in Crises ; Those He's Saved Recall 'Miracles' Reel has Delivered

OROFINO, Idaho When Ray Reel comes hovering onto the scene, it's usually because bad things have happened in hard-to-reach places. When forest fires rage in north-central Idaho, Reel is there with his bucket to douse the flames or ferry firefighters to the front.

Support for Gov. Kulongoski Weak but Not Lost, Poll Shows ; Potential Contenders Getting in Shape for 2006 Election

SALEM, Ore. With a new statewide poll showing tepid voter support for re-electing Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a number of Democrats as well as Republicans are lining up to run for governor in 2006, and some are openly criticizing Kulongoski's leadership style. The Democratic incumbent hasn't formally announced his re- election bid yet. But he makes it clear that he's ready to run on what he says is a record of creating new jobs and putting the state's finances back on solid ground after years of ec...