TRI-CITY BOOK CLUBS

• 1 p.m. April 19, Mid-Columbia Libraries, Pasco branch, 1320 W. Hopkins St., Pasco, Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and The Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman. Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey by Alice Robb is the May 17 book.

The group typically meets the third Wednesday of the month. Contact Susan Koenig at 509302-9878 or SMKoenig@ymail. com.

• 1:30 p.m. April 20, Richland Public Library, 955 Northgate Drive, The Redetzky March by Joseph Roth. The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War by A. J. Baime is the May 18 book.

The group meets the third Thursday of the month but takes summers off.

Contact: Evelyn Painter, ec_painter@yahoo.com or 509-420-4811.

• 6:30 p.m. April 17, Richland

Public Library, 955 Northgate Drive, The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia. The Night Watchman by Louise Erdich is the May 15 book.

The group typically meets the third Monday of the month. Contact: Sue Spencer, sue_ spencer_england@hotmail.com or 509-572-4295.

• 6 p.m. April 18, Mid-Columbia Libraries, West Pasco branch, 7525 Wrigley Drive, Pasco, The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave. Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro is the May 23 book.

• 6 p.m. April 25 at MidColumbia Libraries Benton City branch, 810 Horne Drive, The Rose Code by Kate Quinn.

• 7 p.m. the first Friday of the month, Caterpillar Café at Adventures Underground, 227 Symons St., Richland. Contact Sarah at 509-946-9893 for upcoming titles

To add your book club to this list, email details to info@tcjournal.biz.

WINNERS, From page 3 pant in forming a Benton and Franklin County coalition to address the problem.

She also works on events that promote career support for high school girls.

She continues to volunteer with multiple nonprofits and is dedicated to helping others, her letter said.

Kennewick Man of the Year

Wayne Bell’s leadership activities span several decades.

He served as president of the Kennewick Kiwanis Club in 2021-22 and 2010-11.

He chaired the committee to fund and build a playground for children aged 5-12 at the Kennewick Boys & Girls Club; coordinated a pen pal program for fourth-graders at Amistad Elementary School with his wife; and served on the Camp Kiwanis Foundation Board maintaining the Camp Kiwanis building in Columbia Park for use by community youth groups for no charge.

He has helped collect and distribute school supplies to all Benton and Franklin county schools twice a year through the SHAKE (Seniors Helping All Kids’ Education) for more than five years. the first ever rural mail carrier for Kennewick. which Simmons described as “a small frame structure at the east end of what is now Kennewick Avenue.”

He coordinated parking at the Benton Franklin Fair for Kiwanis for 10 years, raising an average of $18,000 per year for community benefit.

From 1990-92, Bell led efforts to rebuild ballfields on the empty lot next to Canyon View Elementary for the Kennewick American Youth Baseball at 2125 S. Olympia St. The project was financed by a $70,000 grant from the Seattle Mariners, as well donations and in-kind services from within the community.

Bell was a youth baseball coach for more than 12 years and a Boy Scout leader for three years.

“As a teacher, coach, Scout leader, church member and active Kiwanian, he has impacted and influenced countless children in our community. His passion for the projects he embraces is contagious and he is not shy about recruiting those he thinks can make a difference. He is not afraid to ‘just ask’ and that is a large part of his success – getting good people engaged in projects that improve the community,” according to his nomination letter. For a list of past winners and information about the awards, go to: kmwoy.com.

During Conway’s tenure, the postal destination was changed back to Kennewick from Tehe.

By 1899, two other postmasters succeeded Conway, but he was appointed to a second term that year and he moved the post office to another business enterprise Conway was running on North Benton Street.

Ida Morain followed Conway in the postal leadership position and moved the post office first to an old railroad section house on North Washington Street just north of the railroad tracks, and then to a building on Kennewick Avenue between Washington and Auburn streets.

To the whim or convenience of subsequent postmasters, the post office found itself in a small building on North Auburn Street, reportedly in a clothing store known as the Toggery, in a structure known as the Beach Building at Washington Street and Kennewick Avenue, later used as a library and Kennewick City Hall. Then it was in a room at 219 W. Kennewick Ave. in 1912. In 1949, it found a longtime home at 113 W. First Ave.

There were other short-term locations during Kennewick’s post office history.

Rufus Oliver, of the Oliver family with longtime Kennewick roots, was

Political intrigue reportedly played a role in the appointment of at least one Kennewick postmaster.

When James M. Scott, who was appointed in 1905, retired in 1910, Arthur Wheaton was appointed on June 13 that year.

A congressman named Miles Poindexter wanted J.C. Perry appointed Kennewick postmaster. President William Howard Taft refused. A senator, Wesley Jones, wanted Wheaton. He was appointed.

“It all related to a power struggle between President Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt,” Simmons noted. “(Congressman) Poindexter was a Roosevelt man; (Senator) Jones supported Taft.”

The two members of Congress both represented Washington state. Kennewick’s current post office location at East Sixth Avenue and South Auburn Street was dedicated in 1967 for a run of more than 55 years to date. A plaque in the post office notes Lyndon B. Johnson was then president of the United States and Lawrence F. O’Brien was postmaster general.

Gale Metcalf of Kennewick is a lifelong Tri-Citian, retired Tri-City Herald employee and volunteer for the East Benton County History Museum. He writes the monthly history column.