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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
May 3, 2012     Shelton Mason County Journal
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May 3, 2012
 
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.... ....~.~x~~-~i~!:.~'~l 0'~i~ i,~~:' HdMo,l.& 'l'&'h'l"|J"IA'g .... |I .... Thursday, May 3, 2012 Voice of Mason County since 1886 -- Published for Mason County and Lois Dresback of Hoodsport -- $1 quor store gets new owner By NATALIE JOHNSON The Shelton Police Department (SPD) has arrested a 17-year-old boy in connection with a series of fires in CHOICE High Scho'ol. Officers arrested the juvenile last Thursday after responding to a fire set in a garbage can in one of the school's bathrooms. The juvenile has also been charged in con- nection to two separate garbage can fires that occurred at the school on April 19. "Ultimately one young man was taken into custody and charged with two counts of ar- son," SPD Lt. Les Watson said. "Last week it involved specific fires in two separate bath- rooms." By NATALIE JOHNSON In the past week, numer- ous news outlets in Wash- ington have reported that Richard Gates, also known as "Dumb Dick," put in a serious bid to buy all of Washington state's liquor licenses. According to Gates, even Dumb Dick isn't that dumb. However he did buy the right to run the Shelton Li- quor Store, and plans to re- open it with his business partner, Ralph Oquist, on June 1 According to initiative 1183. which passed in 2011, the state must stop selling li- quor by June 1. "My only interest is I own the building," Gates said. Richard "I'm trying Gates not to have an empty building in downtown Shelton -- that was the plan." Gates earned his nick- name. Dumb Dick, after quit- ting a job a~ a local lumber mill to start his own pawn shop in the 1980s. "We called it Dumb Dick's Discount Store and Pawn Shop." he said. "Some people liked it. some people didn't but everyone remembered it." Journal onoio D~ Natalie Johnson The Shelton High School FFA annual plant sale is this weekend. More than 200 varieties of plants will be available for purchase to support the student organization. Shelton FFA to hold annual sale By NATALIE JOHNSON rtah~e@n~(zsonoo~tngy.co~ Each May, FFA members a~ Shelton High School reap the benefits of their hard work through the year at the annual FFA plant sale. This weekend, more than 200 varieties of plants will be available for sale at the fundraiser, which supports Shelton FFA programs. "Each year about 4,000 people come through the plant sale." FFA advisor See Plants on page A-6 Since then he's had a string of successful busi- nesses in Mason County and beyond, and also owns sev- eral Money Depot locations. including the one next to the Shelton Liquor Store. Gates said the state or- ganized two auctions for the rights to run its liquor stores after the state must quit sell- ing liquor in June. One auction was for in- dividuM stores and the sec- ond v~'as for all of the stores together. In order to win the second. Gates said. the mp bid had.to be greater than the sum of the top bids for all of the individual stores. Gates bid on all of the stores to see if there were any serious bidders. "That was just fun." he said. "To find out if they had a serious bidder tbr all the stores I bid $4 million." he said. "My name came back as the high bidder." While Gates was the of- ficial high bidder, he knew the $4 million bid was well beneath the sum of the high bids for the individual stores, and never meant to buy the rights to all of the stores, which ended up being more than $30 million. "I explained that to all the newspapers." he said. Gates said he paid $110.000 m win the right m have a liquor store within one mile of the original store in downtown Shelton. but he plans to keep it right where it is. Gates and Oquist also plan on expanding the inventou¢ of the shop to include mixers and some other food items. "It's one stop shopping for your alcohol drinks," Gates See Liquor on page A-6 IIII!!!I!!II!UIj!I!U112 Bluegrass fest brings big acts to Shelton Festival brings Frank Solivan, The Kathy Kallick Band By NATALIE JOHNSON na ta Jde@n'tasoncc~u nty.con~ The eighth annual Bluegrass from the Forest festival once again plans to bring quality bluegrass music to Shelton. The festival is scheduled for May 18-20 at the Shelton High School campus. This year. the festival has booked two national acts -- Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen and The Kathy Kallick Band," said festival organizer Greg Linder. "We've always had one na- tional headliner. This year we have two," he said. Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen hail from Virginia and the Kathy Kallick Band is from California. Linder said. In addition to providing qual- ity music. Bluegrass from the Forest also gives festival-goers many opportunities to attend jam sessions, tutorials and a "mandolin tasting." "It's kind of like a wine tast- ing," Linder said. In the tasting, people bring in their mandolins and let a pro- fessior~al play them and give ad- vice about the instrument. "Frank (Solivan~ is also a world class mandolin player," Linder said. "They're an excel- lent band. they play kind of traditional to progressive (blue- grassy. He used to be the man- dolin player in the official Navy bluegrass band --Country Cur- rent," Linder said he keeps his ears open all year long to find qual- ity national headliners for the Shelton festival. In fact, he's already booked national acts for the 2013 Bluegrass from the Forest. "Just yesterday I found two headliners wanting to play next year," he said. "They're seeking us out - it's definitely on the map after eight years." Kathy Kallick has been a fix- ture in thebluegrass scene since the 1980s. "She was in a band called the Good O1' Persons which was a very popular bluegrass group," Linder said. "We always choose the very top regional bands." High qual- ity local and regional well," Linder said. "It's pretty freeform. It's all skill levels. Anyone's welcome." On Saturday and Sunday morning, festival-goers can at- tend workshops by professional musicians. Musicians can also partici- pate in the band-scramble event. In the band-scramble, musi- cians put their name on a slip of paper in a hat or container designated for their instrument. Band-scramble officials then pull names out t;f HJust yesterday hat f:h2 impromptu ! found two bands. Those bands have neaa~ners a se~ amount of time to wanting to play come up with bands also a name and perform atnext year, They're learn two the main songs before stage of theseeking us out " performing f e s t i v a t, on the main which takes place at the Shelton Performing Arts Center at the Shelton High School campus. Linder's bluegrass band, Run- away Train, hosts the festival. Other regional and local acts include The Bluegrass Regula- tors, The Howdy Boys, Wayward Vessel and Luke and Kaiti. The Chick Rose School of Bluegrass will also return to the festival. Each year the school comes to Bluegrass in the Forest and leads workshops for youth bluegrass musicians. "It's a tradition now. It's very popular," Linder said. "We have kids that come from all over the Northwest for that. It's a three- hour intensive hands-on work- shop with the kids on Saturday morning from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m." Then on Sunday morning the youth musicians in the group perform together on the main stage. "It always comes Out really stage. "I used to do band-scrambles all the time. It was a blast," Linder said. "Some of the peo- ple in the main bands who are performing will be in the band scramble too. You'd be amazed at some of the quality that comes out." This year the bluegrass band and banjo contests are sched- uled to continue. The winner of the band con- test is booked to play on the main stage at the following year's Bluegrass from the For- est. Wayward Vessel won the contest last year. Whether or not you think Bluegrass is up your alley, fes- tival organizers like Linder encourage Shelton and Mason County residents to give it a try. "Getting the word out to peo- ple in Mason County seems to be the hardest thing," Linder said. "More people come from outside the county." A leak of their own Cascade breaks line while fixing gas leak By NATALIE JOHNSON natalie(q,'nt~soncounly.com, A natural gas leak on the corner of Fairmont Avenue and Division Street, in Shelton's Hillcrest neigh- borhood, lead to evacua- tions of 60 homes oD'Mon- day, authorities said. That number'was even- tually pared down to around 20 .homes until the leak was repaired, said Tim McKern, Central Ma- son Fire and EMS chief. A Cascade Natural Gas crew was on the scene Monday morning investi- gating reports of a possible gas leak. said spokesman Mark Hanson. "We were investigating a gas odor on a call in the area. We kind of narrowed it down to an area where there would be a valve on a line," he said. Crews began digging to reach the valve that they believed could be the source of the leak, and hit an unmarked "T" in the 4-inch line, Hanson said. While the line coming off the "T" joint was not in use. the break in the line caused another gas leak. Central Mason Fire and EMS responded to the leak at 9:30 a.m. Units barricaded the neighborhood from Union Avenue to Cascade Avenue. Some areas were reopened to the public at 1 p.m. See Gas leak on page A-6