For years, school officials have been lamenting the state's underfunding of transportation.

Without adequate funding from the state, they say, districts must devote more and more of their local levy dollars to get kids to school.

One of their loudest charges: the state doesn't reimburse districts for transporting students whose homes or daycares lie outside a one-mile radius from school. And instead of calculating the actual route mileage, the distance is measured as a direct line from school to home or daycare. Or, in the colloquial, "as the crow flies."

Actually, says Allan Jones with the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, the state does provide some money to bus kids within the one-mile radius. But not much.

Jones, director of pupil transportation, says the state gives districts some funding based on the total number of kids in kindergarten through through fifth grade within the one-mile radius.

The original intent was to help districts defray the cost of transporting youngsters who faced hazardous walking conditions, even though they lived close to school.

But it's a lower rate than what the state funds for students living outside the one-mile minimum. And the districts don't have to have hazardous walking conditions to get the money. They don't even have to use the money to transport kids within that radius.

Here's how Jones explains it, and the "crow flies" business in an e-mail to The News Tribune.

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Kevin Cavanagh with Pierce County Information Technology points out that the link we published in the printed paper for the weather tracker system left off one symbol.

The correct link is http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/PC/

If you can't bring it up, click here.

On the left side, it's titled "How hot is it?"

It's pretty cool. According to the site, "Eleven weather stations around the county record temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and more. Data is updated every 15 minutes."

Fans of egg tosses, penny candy, barbecued chicken and roving politicians will flock to the Waller Road Grange Community Fair from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

The grange, at East 64th Street and Waller Road, is a bastion of traditional rural skills. The fair will feature 4-H animals, pie, produce and preserves judging, displays of farm machinery and fire equipment as well as games for children.

It's also a favorite stop for candidates and politicians.

Admission and parking are free, and the famous chicken barbecue is a bargain at $8 for a whole chicken dinner and $5 for a half chicken dinner.

The folks who want to keep Faith Dairy in Summit-Waller have taken their battle online.

SaveFaithDairy.org provides background information and gives visitors a chance to help the cause.

The dairy at 3509 72nd St. E. closed last year. Its future hinges on what vision of the dairy and its property – 100 acres in Summit-Waller and 300 acres in Roy – survives. Sid Mensonides, who owns just over 50 percent of the company, wants to develop the 30 acres into a subdivision that would hold 16 housing units. His brother John, who owns the minority stake, wants to preserve the land and reopen the dairy with a new business plan.

The brothers aren’t talking directly anymore.

"Our current plan is to gather a consortium of conservation groups and private equity to invest in re-opening the dairy, preserving the land permanently, and putting together a non-profit to manage other activities on the land, such as educational opportunities, cultural activities, etc.," wrote organizer Andrew Bacon in an e-mail. "The possibilities are endless, but first, we need community support!

"We're collecting individual signatures and pledges from businesses which sell dairy products to support the idea that it is desired by the community as a whole and that the idea is an economically viable business."

Change often begins humbly. For Andrew Bacon and others hoping to save the Faith Dairy, it began in an almost-empty community hall.

Bacon attended Tuesday night’s meeting of the Summit-Waller Community Association to raise public awareness of efforts to revive the dairy and to ask the group’s board to write a letter supporting the possibility of keeping it open. Seven board members listened to the presentation. There were five people in the audience, Bacon included.

"It's a good start," he said after the board agreed to support his cause.

The board and Bacon also floated the ideas of getting local residents and businesses – especially coffee shops and espresso stands – agreeing to purchase products from Faith. It also has more of an opportunity to grow market share after Wilcox Family Farms announced Tuesday that it would end its dairy operations in Roy.

The dairy at 3509 72nd St. E. closed last year. Its future hinges on what vision the dairy and its property – 100 acres in Summit-Waller and 300 acres in Roy – survives.

Sid Mensonides, who owns just over 50 percent of the company, wants to develop the 30 acres into a subdivision that would hold 16 housing units.

“He’s moving very quickly,” Bacon said. “We need more time than we think we have.”

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The lede to my election story in today's paper described voting at the Waller Street Grange.

Well, apparently I wasn't the only one there who wrote about it.

A few voters at the Waller Road Grange weren’t happy with the idea of no more polling places. And their concerns were all about knowing their ballot would be counted.

Richard Goheen is still hoping popular support will revive the polling stations:

I really want some evidence that my vote is registered. Whether that’s a paper trail or however, I don’t know. To me, there’s a good reason people had to show up in person and show ID that shows they should be voting. And there was a good reason that people saw that their vote was registered.

And Wayne Readel says the end of polling places means the end of his voting activity:

Who can I trust mailing it in? Who’s going to say what happens to it? I don’t even do the touch-screen. I do the paper. That’s how I feel about it, and that’s how I’ve been doing it for 50 years. I’m from the old school.

Things were a little more active at the Waller Road Grange. It’s one of those locations that makes you forget there’s mail-in voting: It’s an old building with hardwood floors and big open spaces.

Winfield Giddings is the voting inspector there today. He’s been working the polls since 1993. He says the switch to ranked-choice voting would make life pretty difficult at polling places. And when the county does switch to all-mail-in voting, it won’t affect him much:

Personally, I’ve been doing absentee for a long time. Because this isn’t my voting place, I have to do absentee to vote.

I asked him what he will do next election day if the polling places are closed. He didn’t hesitate to laugh and answer:

Sleep in. What else would I do that day?

Carriebelle Anderson is a voting judge. She’s been working the polls for 40 years, and she doesn’t like the switch to mail-in voting.

The purpose of the poll is so that I know who people are when they come in. Yes, they have picture ID now, but is has traditionally has been neighbors knowing who it is that’s voting and recognizing the legitimate voters who are living where they should be and they are voting what they should be voting on.

She admits she’s traditional:

Can’t you tell I’m an old lady? I began voting when it was in a booth when you pulled the lever and there was the curtain behind you. You pulled it down and when you opened the curtain, it recorded what you voted.