Winter Sports Get Underway
Holiday Winter Concert
in Tonasket and Oroville
Oroville High School presents a Winter Concert on Thursday, Dec. 17 in the Commons
See Page A8 and A9
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Hughes Dept. Store looking to ‘right the ship’ Summer fires, low Canadian dollar, even the bird flu, combine to hurt sales BY GARY A. DEVON EDITOR@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM
Katie Teachout/staff photos
In the above scene from the Tonasket Community Theater’s performance of ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,’ the Herdman family children wreak havoc during a church’s casting call. Imogene Herdman, played by Emma Shearin, taunts Alice Wendleken (played by Noni Alley) by holding her Child’s Book of Prayers out of reach. Left, Shearin’s Imogene Herdman, who got the role of Mary by threatening Alice Wendleken not to try out for it this year, appears transformed by taking part in the Christmas story for the first time. For story and more photos, see page A3
OROVILLE – It’s been a long summer of rumors and conjecture, is Hughes’ Department Store selling or closing – as of last Monday it seemed like it was closing, but Tuesday that had changed. According to Jack Hughes, who owns the business with his wife Mary, this past year has been a rough one, with sales down due to a perfect storm of issues. “It actually started last spring, with the bird flu and spring sales were down,” said Hughes, “then we had the Canadian dollar drop so low and the fires.... even though they were not here, we got so much smoke people weren’t coming down across the border.” Hughes said his business – selling clothing, shoes, hardware and a variety of other items at his store, relies heavily on the three months of summer and Canadian shoppers to get them through the rest of the year. Add that to the fact that his other business, Discount Fireworks, was also down due to all the fireworks bans this year. “The fireworks, we didn’t have that pot to draw from again,” said Hughes. He says the internet is cutting into everyone’s business as well making it hard to compete with customers who’d rather stay home and order items online from the comfort of their armchair. All this combined sent Hughes looking for someone to buy the department store. “This summer we had someone interested in buying, but that fell through due
to health reasons on their part... just a week and a half before we had the deal finalized. A couple more looked at it but they said it was too far from their bases of operations. They really liked the store, they thought it was great, but just too far from home,” he said. Hughes, who leases space for his business in the north half of the Prince’s Center, said he had been working very closely with the Prince family to try and make things work. The store, which was Prince’s Department Store, has been in business for the better part of eight decades and a destination for generations of cross border shoppers. “Jim (Prince) and I have had our heads together everyday for the past three weeks. We’ve been trying to work something out for four months now,” said Hughes. That brought him to the point where he and his wife were going to close the store after the beginning of next year. He told his employees that and even advertised it on the big Prince’s Center reader board. But on Tuesday morning Jack Hughes said no, the store wasn’t closing, but the big 30 percent inventory reduction sale was going to continue. He isn’t optimistic about the situation turning around soon, especially the Canadian dollar which has been down by 30 percent or more. “Traditionally once it’s down it takes about two years to come back,” he said. “And a store this size in a town of about 1700 just can’t be supported by our local people alone.” Hughes, who employs between 40 and 45 people year around, said he has some of the best employees. Editor’s Note: Hughes was emphatic about the store not closing at the end of January. He said he was going to try to do what it takes “to right the ship” and keep the doors open.
Tonasket Elementary named ‘School of Distinction’ One of just 90 schools honored across Washington State
Elementary School, and the entire school district,” said Superintendent Steve McCullough. “I commend the efforts of our elementary school staff, the entire adminstrative team and our school board to help earn this award. This is a long-term look at our improvements, BY KATIE TEACHOUT which is a lot harder to accomplish than KATHERINE@GAZETTE-TRIBUNE.COM just a snapshot of a year or two.” The Center for Educational TONASKET - Tonasket Elementary Effectiveness (CEE), partnered with Schools is one of 90 schools across the Association of Educational Service Washington State to be honored with the Districts (AESD), the Association 2015 School of Distinction (SOD) award. of Washington School Principals, The award is Washington Association given to schools of School Administrators who demonand the Washington strate sustained “Our students are Association of Supervision improvement over Curriculum making great growth and a five year period Development recognize in reading/English each year and are a schools in the top five perlanguage arts and true joy to work with,” cent of improvement for math. their levels. Elementary “The 2015 Jeremy Clark, Principal and middle schools are Tonasket Elementary School School of recognized for improveDistinction award ment in reading/ELA and is a reflection of math achievement, and the incredible amount of time and effort high schools are recognized for sustained our staff puts into making a difference for improvement in graduation rate over the every child,” said Tonasket Elementary last five years. School Principal Jeremy Clark. “Our stuThis year, 51 elementary, 20 middle/ dents are making great growth each year junior high and 21 high schools includand are a true joy to work with. Thank ing five alternative schools were given you also to our parents and community the SOD award. for your support of our students and our The 90 schools come from all regions work. Sustained improvement requires of the state and include schools from the efforts of us all. What an amazing large urban as well as small rural comcommunity Tonasket is to work, grow munities. and learn in! Congratulations Tonasket “These schools demonstrate that sigSchool District!” nificant improvement is occurring across “This is a great honor for our Tonasket all our diverse public schools,” said Greg
OKANOGAN VALLEY GAZETTE-TRIBUNE Volume 111 No. 51
Katie Teachout/staff photo
Tonasket Elementary School Staff celebrate being one of 90 schools in Washington State to be given the 2015 School of Distinction Award. Lobdell, CEE CEO. Bridgeport High School won the award in 2013 and 2014 as well as this year, the ninth consecutive year the award has been given. TES is one of fifty-five schools this year to receive the award for the first time. “In a year of unprecedented change across our state with the new Common Core Standards and the new Smarter Balanced Assessments, it is cause for celebration to see so many schools ris-
ing to these challenges and causing great improvement for our students,” said Dr. Rich McBride, Superintendent of the North Central ESD in Wenatchee and president of the AESD. “This award process highlights our need to continue to support improvement efforts of our schools and the dedicated and talented leaders and staffs that make this kind of increased student achievement happen. Our congratulations to the staff, students, leaders and communities across our state for their exceptional efforts in
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service to our students.” CEE is a service, consulting and research organization dedicated to the mission of partnering with K-12 schools to improve student learning. According to a Methodology Brief by the CEE, the switch to Smarter Balanced Assessments (SBA) in the spring of 2015 presented challenges in celebrating sustained improvement, with the entire state declining at all grade levels due to the use
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