It’s been an unprecedented year for Tri-City public school districts in the wake of the pandemic.Though students left classrooms in March 2020 and then started the year with remote learning, the districts’ construction projects have been chugging along.Richland School DistrictThe most recent state data shows 2019-20 enrollment for the Richland...

The Tri-Cities’ higher education campuses don’t have many students on campus this fall.The coronavirus pandemic sent the majority to remote learning platforms at Washington State University Tri-Cities and Columbia Basin College for the fall.But that doesn’t mean they aren’t planning for their students’ eventual return to campus.Both institutions are moving...

Ashley Meehan is a cookie connoisseur.She has special recipes for at least 12 types of cookies, all of them large and tasty.And for more than two years, she has been selling them to a famished public – from her car, her house, at pop-up stands.“Just to see the joy it...

Sooner or later, more Mid-Columbia businesses are going to try to bring their workforce back into their buildings.As a first step toward that goal, MacDonald-Miller Facility Solutions is offering building confidence reports through its Comeback with Confidence program.Pat Roberts, general manager for MacDonald-Miller’s Eastern Washington office, said many businesses and...

Charles Conte Jr. decided late last year it was time to move to the Tri-Cities, where his wife Susan’s family lived.In January, the family moved from Virginia, where Charles worked in his  father’s bike shop chain, Conte’s Bike Shop. He intended to work for a local nonprofit.“Susan was born and...

The Washington apple industry has had a challenging year.Retaliatory tariffs. Labor shortages. And now a pandemic that has contributed to a slowdown in the supply chain.On the other hand, growers of Washington’s top agricultural product produced another large crop featuring a new star — the Cosmic Crisp, a new variety...

Richland’s Lisa Chapman-Rosa is always looking for innovative ways to help her companies thrive.Not that she’s really needed to.Her Tri-Cities Mobile Drug & Alcohol Testing business has had plenty of work around the Mid-Columbia.The construction company she started in 2007, Total Site Services LLC, a woman-owned business, has earned millions...

The franchise owner of the Sylvan Learning Centers in Kennewick and Richland has figured out several ways to meet student needs in the Tri-City area since 2005.There are the learning centers in Kennewick and Richland where students come for tutoring.There are in-home visits, where Sylvan sends a tutor to the...

For years, Mindi Irvine had the idea of offering a video-type health care service as part of the Oasis Physical Therapy daily routine.But it just never happened, thanks to the busy, day-to-day operations of her five clinics in the Tri-Cities and, most recently, in Walla Walla.“We’d been talking about this...

When your company has been in business for 76 years, you’ve been doing something right.You can expand and thrive during the best of economic times, and you adapt and become more flexible during the rough times.With the coronavirus pandemic hindering almost all business, U.S. Linen and Uniform in Richland is...