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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