For one Tri-City family, a misplaced photo brings loved one back to life

By Sara Schilling sara@tcjournal.biz

I didn’t know the photo was missing until I heard from Patti Wagner.

I’m not sure I even remembered it existed. I’d certainly seen it before –an image of my paternal grandmother, Merlyn Putnam Schilling, taken when she was a teenager.

She’s wearing a light-colored dress and a jeweled necklace, and she’s holding a bouquet of flowers.

The photo sat on a bookshelf in my childhood home in Kennewick for years, one of many on display.

But I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at those old photos or learning the stories behind them as a kid, and I never met Merlyn, who went by Mynn. She died before I was born.

So, the photo wasn’t at the top of my mind when Wagner contacted me about it.

She found it at the Goodwill on West Court Street in Pasco, with Mynn’s name written on the back. It was there by mistake, inadvertently left in a frame my parents donated when they downsized and moved across the river. Wagner figured it may have ended up at the store in error, and some online sleuthing led her to me. In no time, the photo was back with my family. was the Academy Award-winning cinematographer from Pasco?

It’s not the first time Wagner has reunited loved ones with a lost item.

The 68-year-old retired nurse is an expert thrift store shopper, even regularly meeting up with friends to thrift together. She’s an avid reader and is often on the hunt for books.

But sometimes she comes across items that seem too personal and too special to be left on thrift store shelves. She’s found military discharge papers and a college girl’s diary from the 1940s.

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– CORRECTION –

• The answers to the July edition’s puzzles weren’t correct. You can find last month’s puzzle answers on page 13. We apologize for the error.

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Exhibit features horses of the Horse Heaven Hills

Learn about the horses of the Horse Heaven Hills at the East Benton County Historical Museum in Kennewick.

The museum has turned the Benton Theater into an art gallery featuring the prismacolor work of Ginny Harding and sculpture by Michael B. Salazar.

There also will be historical interpretation about the history of wild horses in the Horse Heavens. It will document their start, struggle and future.

VA CLINIC, From page 1 missioners agreed to allow the developers to list Vista Field in their submissions. The decision doesn’t bind the port to sell or lease Vista Field property or change its use, but merely leaves open the possibility of a clinic at the site instead of closing the door for good at this point.

“We’re not committing. There are plenty of other exit ramps if it doesn’t work for us. But I say, let’s give the VA the opportunity and go from there,” Commissioner Thomas Moak said during the meeting.

Port staff will continue marketing

The exhibit runs through August.

Cost of admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors/veterans and $1 for kids.

Museum hours are noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

The museum has operated in downtown Kennewick’s Keewaydin Park since 1982.

Pasco chamber launches school supplies drive

With the start of school approaching, the Pasco Chamber of Commerce is hosting a school supplies drive through Aug. 30.

Proceeds from this drive will be distributed throughout the Pasco

Vista Field for uses consistent with the master plan.

At a meeting in July, commissioners in a 2-1 vote approved a resolution clarifying that if the VA chooses Vista Field as the clinic site, the development would need to adhere to the master plan design and concepts. Moak voted against, saying the “hard language” was premature and sends a message that the port doesn’t want the clinic at Vista Field.

Commissioners Skip Novakovich and Ken Hohenberg said they don’t see it as closing the door, but as providing clarity.

The port shuttered the former airport in 2013 and began working on its transformation; the 103-acre site is next to the Toyota Center and the Three Rivers Convention Center.

The port has invested $4.9 million in infrastructure for the first 20 acres of development – a phase that’s set to include four parcels for single-family development, seven for live-work development and 10 for mixed-use. At full build-out, Vista Field is planned to include 750,000 square feet for retail, office, service and entertainment uses, 1,100 residential units, and more.

Clinic details

The existing Richland veterans clinic opened in May 2008.

It offers services including primary

School District.

Interested in participating?

Donation boxes can be found at these locations:

• Red Lion Hotel, 2525 N. 20th Ave., Pasco

• Speck Hyundai of Tri-Cities, 2910 W. Clearwater Ave., Kennewick

• Pasco Grocery Outlet, 5710 N. Road 68, Pasco

• Pasco Chamber Office, 1110 Osprey Pointe Blvd., Suite 101, Pasco

• Blue Compass RV, 1002 N. 28th Ave., Pasco

If you are unable to visit any of the donation box locations, but are still interested in donating, send an email to: kelly@pascochamber.org outpatient care, women’s health care, mental health/social work support and homeless veteran housing support.

“We have outgrown (the clinic) and cannot provide the services our veterans need within the existing space. The veterans in the Tri-Cities area can be better served by expanding services in this area to reduce travel time and increase efficiency in providing the world class health care the veterans deserve,” Wondra said in a statement, noting that about 7,400 enrolled veterans in the Tri-Cities area, as well as 2,700 in the Boardman, Oregon, area, will benefit from the new clinic.

An interim expansion of the existing clinic is anticipated by mid-2024 and will add physical therapy and expand behavioral health support.

The new clinic will add several more specialties, including radiology, optometry, dental, audiology, prosthetics, home-based primary care, laboratory and pharmacy services.

The project is estimated to cost $21plus million.

It’s one of 31 projects nationwide selected for PACT Act funding. The PACT Act – formally the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022 – is the largest expansion of veteran health care and benefits in generations, Wondra said.