Harrington News

By MARJORIE WOMACH

Saturday morning three professors from EWU and some of their students congregated at the Harrington Memorial Hall with members of the Harrington Historic Preservation Commission and community leaders for a preliminary explanation of the goals for the day. Mayor Paul Gilliland welcomed the guests to Harrington and spoke briefly, and participated with one of the groups for the entire day. Teresa Brum, Urban Revitalization instructor, Margo Hill, Community Development teacher, and Dick Winchell, chairman of the Urban Planning Program, attended with students. Representing the Harrington PDA was Josh Steward, president, and Bunny Haugan. Members of the Harrington Historic Preservation Commission present included Celeste Miller, Anita Harmon, Paul Charlton, Lindsey Harder, and Jerry and Karen Allen. Margie Hall, Director of Lincoln County EDC, was present for the entire event. Mark Stedman, Lincoln County Commissioner, made an appearance for much of the event. Terry Howe, city council representative to the Historic Preservation Commission, with her husband came for the evening portion.

At 9:30 a.m. Jerry Allen was leading the group on the historic downtown tour and began with the building which houses the Harrington Historic Preservation Commission, the recently closed Harrington Haus, and the former Hale's store. They viewed the old city hall building and crossed the street for a first floor tour of the historic Lincoln Hotel, a restoration project undertaken by Jerry Allen and wife Karen. The group next viewed the old Harrington Machinery building owned by Bill Floyd, now vacant. The empty lot between this building and the Brick Block of the Harrington Opera House formerly was the location of the Adams and Mitchum grand brick block, demolished in 1986. Crossing the street to the west, a tour of the lobby and opera house proper were made, where Jerry Allen gave a brief history of the opera house and made mention of some of the performances that had occurred there since its reopening. Karen Robertson was busy taking pictures throughout the morning session. Following the opera house, and the art room, the group went north past the old café, the empty pharmacy, the one-time Hutchinson Hardware or more recently the Carrot Patch, across the street to the former First National Bank which is presently occupied by the ONB, to Harrington Food Market (recently added to the historic registry), noting the former Fallert Hotel with its boarded windows, and to the Studebaker shop. Crossing the street to the east they viewed the former gas station and shop, and the former Grange Supply building. Crossing the street toward the Memorial Hall, they viewed the one-time post office (more recently used as the Horse Collar Antique Store). At 11 a.m. the group of 28 returned to the Memorial Hall for a "Design and Planning" phase, listing the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats for Harrington in terms of economic development. Six groups were formed. Ideas that were generated in the group in terms of strengths that Harrington has included its history, that the people of the community care about their town, that the central business district is still intact, that Harrington is the geographic center of the county, that it has a thriving wheat industry, that it has a railroad for shipping, that it has empty buildings waiting to be occupied, and that the community is especially attractive with its prominent golf course. For the noon hour, Allen Barth, of the Studebaker shop, hosted a barbecue for everyone. Tables were placed out in the vacant yard and the weather was beautiful for the event.

From 1 to 5 p.m. the six groups took their separate topics and investigated the town's downtown business district, the golf course, the "main drag", empty buildings and vacant lots, studied the connection to the highways, and kept in mind the already functioning opera house and its performances. At 5 p.m. everyone congregated back at the Memorial Hall for a potluck dinner and concluding summaries from the six groups. Each group held their discussion banner with locations and ideas and spoke about 5 minutes as to proposals that they viewed as helpful toward encouraging economic development in the town of Harrington. A good emphasis was placed on the work previously done by the community in its restoration of the Harrington Opera House and the efforts of the HOHS to encourage arts and culture, particularly having Les LePere, a local artist, give a showing. Mention was made that Les LePere is presently continuing his art showing at Gonzaga, in Spokane until mid-December. The students from EWU seemed to believe that continuing car shows would also aid in attracting attention to the town. One group suggested sponsoring tournaments in Harrington, but the downside to that was immediately obvious, there is no place to eat in town. Other suggestions included creating a bike lane, adding trees in the downtown district, creating a mini-park in the downtown district where a vacant lot presently exists, and hanging banners around a cultural theme. Following the presentations by each group, Mayor Paul Gilliland made a brief concluding speech, reminding the group that planning went into the original building of the town when it was nothing more than bunch grass and sagebrush; and now the planning has been started to re-invigorate the town to move toward its future. In both cases, plans need to be followed with hard work.

Santa is Coming, Dec 7, 10 a.m.

One of Santa's elves has scheduled his visit to the Harrington Opera House for December 7 from 10 a.m. to noon in the lobby.

Harrington Public Library

Harrington librarians, Vivienne Schultz and Marge Womach, accompanied by Stacey Rasmussen and Rita Schultz, met with the Wheatland librarians and affiliates from Wilbur, Davenport, Reardan, Odessa, Sprague and Ritzville in Davenport on Oct 21. The meeting was led by Carolyn Peterson, Assistant Program Manager, Library Development, Office of the Secretary of the State, Washington State Library. Carolyn's focus was stimulating community interest in our local libraries during this transition time of physical books to digital materials and finding ways to keep our local libraries relevant to the community.Peterson restated the goals of Maggie Hall, EDC, to retain, expand and recruit business and to build our workforce. Peterson suggested that some of the ways that the libraries could help meet these goals was to provide community members with additional STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) resources, teach how technology can improve their lives, teach individuals/seniors to Skype, to upload photos, to use tablets or eReaders, and provide access to online vocational resources. Peterson outlined ways that libraries could aid entrepreneurs or business individuals, suggesting resources on how to use the internet and providing access to broadband or Wi-Fi, to tablets or IPad labs. She challenged the group to investigate in their communities what the schools believe would be helpful from the public library, what business individuals would identify as support that they could use, and what seniors in each community believe would be areas of interest to have provided by the library.

KSPS

The Thursday evening "Northwest Profiles" on KSPS channel 7 was viewed by local residents as well as previous citizens of Harrington, and the only complaint heard voiced was that it could have been much longer. Some expressed appreciation of hearing and seeing some of the history of the Harrington Opera House, several remarked at the expertise in photography. Each seemed to enjoy seeing some of our local citizens on TV. Young and old, parents and children, said, "wasn't it great to see our town on TV". A hearty "thank-you Scott McKinnon for shining a bright spotlight on Harrington".