May 2016
Volume 15 • Issue 5
Tourism & Recreation
New public television series showcases NW wineries Pages 21-26
Real Estate & Construction
Excalibur expanding Pages 29-43
Retirement
New depot planned for model trains pages 49-53
he Said It “Our main goals are to increase jobs and the tax base in our communities.” - Gary Ballew, of the Port of Pasco, speaking about the new Eastern Washington Economic Development Alliance page 27
Grandparents gathering signatures for initiative to grant visitation rights By Mary Coffman For a couple of hours each day, Christine Nichols stands outside of Lowe’s, telling anyone who will listen her story and asking them to sign the petition she is holding. Nichols, of Richland, is with GROW, or Grandparents’ Rights of Washington State, a group that trying to gather 250,000 signatures to qualify Initiative 1431 for the November ballot. I-1431 would gives grandparents legal standing to petition a court for visitation rights if they are being unreasonably kept from their grandchildren. Nichols’ granddaughter had lived her from the time the young girl was an infant until last November, when she was not returned by the father’s family after going to have holiday pictures taken. Nichols said her daughter, who struggles with mental illness, left her granddaughter with her as a baby and would come in and out of her life sporadically. “I potty trained her. I taught her A,B,Cs, I taught her to skate and play soccer,” Nichols said. “She is my life.” But the father’s family has kept the child from Nichols, who has no visitation rights under the law. “I still have her Christmas presents boxed up and haven’t been able to give them to her,” she said. In 2000, Washington’s visitation laws were dismantled by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled they were too broad and unconstitutionally interfered with parenting rights in Troxel vs. Granville. In that case, the Troxel’s son committed suicide and the daughter-in-law started withholding the children from the grandparents. A judge granted them visitation, but the daughter-in-law appealed and the Appellate Court sent the case to the Supreme Court. “The old law said that any third party that had a relationship with the child could petition for visitation,” Paine said. “That included nonrelatives, teachers, coaches and neighbors.” Visitation rights for any third party, including grandparents, have been in flux every sense. uRIGHTS, Page 52
Adam Cabrey, John Joseph Jr., Stephen Erlenbush, Phillip Todd, Levi Staley, Keith Thornhill, Warren Fogg and Matt Hodge pull on the regional trophy, while the guys who attacked the Cyber Hawks’ database during the competition tug back in jest.
CBC places seventh in national cyber security competition
By Jessica Hoefer for TCAJOB Levi Staley has always had a knack for technology. In high school, he decided to turn a profit from his talent by repairing broken cell phones and reselling them once they were usable. “Then I got into helping people fix their computers and helping people recover data,” he said. Despite his ability to maneuver around the motherboard, Staley enrolled in Columbia Basin College’s paramedic program. It took a little brotherly advice before Staley hit restart on his education. His brother recognized Staley was a natural at working with computers and told him about the cyber security program at CBC. “I really liked the medical program and the idea of savings lives, but I switched. And when I got to my computer classes,
everything just clicked,” Staley said. With cyber crime increasing at a rapid pace, CBC offers students a chance to earn a Bachelor’s degree in information security. The department even has its own team called the Cyber Hawks—students with skills ranging from data recovery to networking to coding. “A lot of these kids want outlets like everybody. A hobby to do the fun things you do—not just lectures all the time,” said Matt Boehnke, CBC’s director for cyber security. Boehnke, who started working at CBC less than a year ago, entered his Cyber Hawks in the Pacific Rim Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition in 2015. They came in last place, but the competition got students excited and interested in the club, including Staley, who joined the eight-person team that competed in April 2016.
uCBC, Page 9
Diamonds in the Desert: Tri-Cities’ sports fields catch a lot of cash for local economy By Jeff Morrow for TCAJOB Steve Jensen lives in western Washington town of Arlington. But he just absolutely loves the Tri-Cities. Jensen is a National Softball Association state tournament director for Washington who has run two major girls fast-pitch tournaments in the Tri-Cities every year since 2007: the Icebreaker in April and the state tournament in June. “The facilities there are so good,” said Jensen. “The other good thing is that so many complexes and fields are within a few minutes of each other. We use 32 fields just for the Icebreaker.” And the Tri-Cities’ mild spring weather is another big bonus for Jensen. “I have 130 teams here and the last thing they want is to get rained out,” he said.
The two tournaments have been so successful that Jensen has added a new one, the NSA Western World Series, which starts July 20 in the Tri-Cities. “The hotels are awesome to work with, and the parks departments are great,” said Jensen. Drew Reiners, the manager for the Western Baseball Division of Triple Crown Sports out of Fort Collins, Colo., agrees with Jensen’s assessment. His organization has a Father’s Day weekend baseball tournament for players ages 9 to 18 in the Tri-Cities. The tournament has been taking place every year since 2007. “The last few years, we’ve had anywhere from 95 to 120 teams playing that weekend in the Tri-Cities,” said Reiners. uSPORTS, Page 22
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