May 2019
Volume 7 • Issue 4
Volunteers needed for network that helps seniors age at home
Page 5
Highway gridlock gets $5M injection
State transportation eyes potential Highway 240 fixes after funds OK’d BY ROBIN WOJTANIK for Senior Times
Geriatric care management a growing field in nursing
Page 7
Tri-City strawberry crops lucrative a century ago Page 12
save the date
Classy Chassy Show & Shine Friday, May 10 4 to 6 p.m. and Saturday, May 11 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Downtown Kennewick
The state is ready to spend $5 million to reduce the snarl of traffic along Highway 240 in Richland, with up to half going toward improvements at the Duportail Street intersection once the new bridge is completed. Plenty of Hanford commuters, drivers, cyclists and pedestrians have weighed in on what they think the best solutions would be. They placed stickers on a map during a recent state Department of Transportation open house to indicate the solutions they preferred, or thought would have the greatest effect on the congestion along the busy stretch of highway. The Richland corridor covers the intersection of highways 240 and 225 to the north, near the Hanford nuclear reservation, and Interstate 182, near Queensgate Drive, to the south. WSDOT and local partners — known as the M3 team for its multiagency, multi-disciplinary and multi-modal approach — developed a list of potential solutions. The M3 team scored each potential solution on its effectiveness uHIGHWAY, Page 6
Photo by Kevin Anthony Debbie Crowley delivers a blow to the heavy bag as Gigi Valdez, left, holds it steady. Crowley is participating in Rock Steady Boxing, a national fitness program offered at Contenders Boxing Club in Kennewick for those fighting Parkinson’s disease.
A punch to Parkinson’s Rock Steady Boxing helps balance, coordination, motion
BY KEVIN ANTHONY for Senior Times
T
he answer to the obvious question is “no.” A boxing program for people with Parkinson’s disease does not include a lot of fist-to-face-type action. Most of the participants already are in a pretty big fight. Instead, programs like Rock Steady Boxing — a national program offered in the Tri-Cities by Tony and Gigi Valdez at Contenders Boxing Club in Kennewick — use elements of boxing
training to work on balance, range of motion, hand-eye coordination and the like. That’s not to say the punches don’t fly. They just tend to land on a heavy bag or a punching dummy aptly named Parkinson’s Pat. “I got to hit the (punching mitts), and I felt, ‘Oh my god, this feels so good!’ ” Bill Stevens recalled of his introduction to the program. “It felt like I was fighting my Parkinson’s. I was really, truly fighting my Parkinson’s.”
uPARKINSON’S, Page 9
Chiropractor moving to metal manipulation
Practitioner to retire, return to first career as a welder BY GARY CRAWFORD for Senior Times
When Bob Tollison, a Tri-City chiropractor, wants a workout, he doesn’t head to the gym. Instead, his preferred fitness routine is a visit to the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598 in Pasco, where he dons his gear and perfects his welding skills. The skills needed to make an accept-
able weld require flexibility, strength, concentration and hand-eye coordination and beat pumping iron, Tollison said. Welding is not just an after-work activity for the 65-year-old Tollison. When he retires from his practice after his next birthday later this year, welding will become his encore career. Or rather, a return to his first career. Tollison attended Columbia Basin College’s welding program in 1972 and his skills as a N stamp (that’s “n” for uCHIROPRACTOR, Page 2
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