August 2019
Volume 7 • Issue 7
Funding for LIGO STEM center approved New facility to up visitor capacity by 4,000 a year
Possible casino in the works near King City
Page 5
Experience, dining passes offer discounts Page 7
Benton-Franklin Fair and Rodeo turns 65 Page 14
MONTHLY QUIZ
Which Zane Grey novel, set in Franklin County, is celebrating its 100th anniversary? Answer, Page 13
BY JEFF MORROW for Senior Times
The first detection of gravitational waves from deep space were recorded at the Laser Interferometer GravitationalWave Observatory, or LIGO, out on the edge of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in September 2015 and announced in February 2016. Ever since that announcement, people from all walks of life—many of them students—have wanted to visit the observatory. Many do for the public tour that happens the second Saturday of each month —and more still via K-12 site visits and dedicated tours. But the facility has a problem handling the large number of enthusiastic fans. That situation, though, soon will change. In May, Gov. Jay Inslee signed off on the state’s 2019-21 capital budget, which includes $7.7 million earmarked to build a STEM Exploration Center at LIGO Hanford Observatory. (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.) Michael Landry, the head of LIGO, is excited about the new center. “None of the interest (in LIGO) has waned,” Landry said. “We’re currently at 6,000 people a year visiting. We have to turn people away far more than we’d like.” The new facility will help bring in 10,000 visitors a year. uLIGO, Page 3
Courtesy Hanford History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Pictured is a float by General Electric to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the startup of B Reactor during the 1954 Atomic Frontier Days parade. Written on the back of the photograph is “Vivian Helgeson, Bob Loeffelbein on float.” There are no identifications for the others. The city of Richland will hold Atomic Frontier Day from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 at Howard Amon Park to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Hanford.
Events celebrate 75 years of Hanford history BY SENIOR TIMES STAFF
Community-wide events to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Hanford B Reactor kick off this month. The world’s first large-scale nuclear reactor went critical for the first time on Sept. 26, 1944. Built in just under a year, the reactor and the 1,200 or so other buildings that populated the Hanford site by that time were the product of the
efforts of some 50,000 men and women from across the country who came to live and work at Hanford Camp. The fruits of their labor were instrumental to the success of the Manhattan Project and to the larger war effort. Events are planned to pay tribute to their work. Here’s a roundup of events: • Wings & Wheels, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17, Richland Airport, uHANFORD, Page 2
Richland folk fest pays tribute to power of music
BY LAURA KOSTAD for Senior Times
The 23rd annual Tumbleweed Music Festival in Richland Labor Day weekend pays homage to a folk music legend who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. It seems fitting for the Tri-Cities to celebrate Pete Seeger, an American folk singer who won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The banjo-strumming Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is the inspiration for the birth of the Tri-Cities’ folk music advocacy group.
Micki Perry and her late husband John Perry founded Three Rivers Folklife Society, or 3RFS, in 1988 after befriending Seeger in the 1970s. “It was such a magical time to get to know someone that we had always admired and looked up to and whose music we loved,” said Micki, who is now in her ’70s, but still serves as Tumbleweed’s program chair. John, who worked in the nuclear field, moved his family from Beacon, New York, to the Tri-Cities in 1976 to pursue a job with the Washington Public Power Supply System. uTUMBLEWEED, Page 12
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