Young (and old) people make good things happen | Tri-City Herald

We admire anytime someone is doing something constructive in the community. Even if that something is a "fight."

Lots of kids plan stuff. Not all of those plans are things would meet with parent approval. Some of it is downright mischievous.

So congrats to 15-year-old Justin Meyer. He set out to break the world's record for a pillow fight. He needed 3,707 people and missed the mark by several thousand. (Although 15,000 people said they were coming on the Facebook page.)

People that attended had a good time. Let's hear it for wholesome fun.

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(As a side note: If you're planning an event on Facebook, be wary of the number of respondents before you call the caterer.)

Head in the clouds

Another teen has us scratching our heads this week.

A lot of us gather our weather information by following the Redneck Weather Forecast. Put a rock outside. If the rock is wet, then it's raining; if the rock is hot, then it's sunny ... you get the idea.

Apparently Mark Ingalls has a different approach. His involves barometric pressures, anemometers and the like.

We suspect Mark's forecasts are more accurate than ours are and we're impressed with his focus.

Teacher dies in Mexico crash

And while we're thinking about impressive young men, we pause for a moment to pay our respects to David Ruiz, a young teacher who has been making a difference to kids at Pasco's Mark Twain Elementary for the past six years.

Mark worked in the fields as a kid and is the first person to graduate from college in his family.

His life was cut short, but imagine the good he has brought to the children in his class for the past six years.

Saying goodbye to a buddy

Sometimes saying goodbye is hard and it takes a lifetime to do it. That seems to be the case for a man from Georgia who was in Kennewick this week to honor a soldier that died in his arms in 1971.

Rick Page is buried in Kennewick and has family living in the Mid-Columbia. Certainly he received a proper burial at the time of his death.

This week's memorial was no doubt more for the living than for the deceased.

Smells like a million bucks

We're thinking that Lance Merkley and Lyle Dye don't usually dress in women's clothing, but for the chance at a million dollars, well, hey it's worth it.

Along with Doug Browning, these guys entered a commercial contest for Gain laundry detergent.

The 49-second commercial took 10 hours to shoot and 26 hours to edit.

We're a little biased, of course, but it's pretty clever. If you want to see the commercial (and vote for it) go to www.tanrock.com.

Make a wish

Hey, so what are you doing on Saturday? In general we are in favor of people following their own dreams and not necessarily following the crowd.

This week we're making an exception.

How about joining crowd to give Sofia Martinez, a 9-year-old Prosser girl with an incurable disease, one day of celebrity status.

All starlets need an adoring fan base. You can join the throng at 2 p.m. outside Demma's Salon in Prosser or at 3 p.m. at P.F. Chang's in Kennewick. Be sure to snap a few photos and ask for an autograph.

They're hoping for a big crowd; maybe the pillow fight organizer will put it up on his Facebook account.

Planning ahead

It's a little early, but you might want to map out a route now of where you can participate in Free Fries Day next week.July 29 will be here before you know it.

Thanks LambWeston and the 30 participating restaurants for the free food and for the donation to 2nd Harvest.