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By Brandon schatsiek

TisNwspaprs

Dax Locke had an in-credible impact on manypeople during his shortlie. Now hes having aneven more amazing eecton people in his death.

Singer and songwriterMatthew West was work-ing on a new record inMarch when he had an

idea a crazy idea, ac-

cording to him to have

every song on the recordcome rom a persons reallie story. He asked hisans on Twitter and Fa-cebook to send him theirstories.

Its a new way to givepeople a voice in a di-erent way in hopes oencouraging people toknow the story o theirlie matters, West said.

Dax Locke was diag-nosed with acute myeloidleukemia when he was 13months old. Because ohis love or bright Christ-mas lights, and a doctors

prognosis that he prob-

ably would not make it tosee Christmas last year,Washington residentsrallied to put up theirlights around Thanksgiv-ing to show their supportor Dax and the Lockeamily.

The towns support orDax did not stop there.Three Washingtonianssent letters to West say-ing he should write asong about the little boythat had such a huge im-pact on their lives.

O the 10,000 lettersWest received, he said

the act three strangers

to the amily sent lettersto him about Dax, madea lasting impression onhim.

Through three ran-dom people in the com-munity, they sharedhow much their liveshad been impacted bythis amily and this littleboy, West said. The big-gest thing that really hitme rst o was that asa parent I have twolittle girls Its so sad

By Brandon schatsiek

TisNwspaprs

Christmas came aweek early or some lo-cal amilies that tookadvantage oWashingtonsnew non-protThreads oLove clothing

giveaway Sat-urday.

We experienced ayoung lady the other daywho said her mom is notputting up a Christmastree this year because

there will not be Christ-mas, said Cindy Shu-ord, newly appointedpresident o Threads oLove. That breaks my

heart ... I toldher to get hermother here,you will haveChristmas, putthe tree up.

The localnon-prot or-

ganization takes gentlyused, donated clothingand gives it to local am-ilies in need. Shuordsaid they are currently

helping about 1,000people a month.

There wasnt a give-away in November sothe group could getready or the Decemberone.

Shuord said whilethey usually only haveclothing to give away,they wanted to do some-

thing special or Christ-mas.

We had an idea o do-ing something just o-the-wall or Christmas,Shuord said. We (had)

new toys, householdthings, decorations everything we could getour hands on that wasnew.

Those amilies thatcame Saturday thoughtit was going to be justlike previous cloth-ing giveaways. Thatwas until Shuord and

other volunteers somedressed as Santa and hishelpers announcedthey had new toys and

DAYSPAGIFTCARD

Give the Gift of Beauty

Give the Gift of Beauty

Glen Avenue | Grand Prairie | Maple Shade Center, Dunlap | SkinDimensionsOnline.com

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Your Hometown News Since 1840 www.WashingtonTimesReporter.com Vol. 170 No. 51

wednesday,DecembeR 22, 2010

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By Brandon schatsiek

TisNwspaprs

The Washington Police Departmentis still investigating a potential crimi-nal mismanagement o the Washing-

ton Chamber o Commerce unds thatoccurred in late October.In October, Deputy Chie Don Volk

said then Washington Chamber oCommerce Executive Director CarolHamilton was a person o interestin the investigation.

Hamilton, who is no longer with thechamber, was in charge o managingthe money raised rom certain eventsduring the year, such as the CherryFestival and Chamber o CommerceBanquet.

Volk said the investigation has yetto turn anything up.

Theres not a whole lot new go-ing on, Volk said. Were still going

through documents provided by banksand lending institutions. Were tryingto make headway. The investigation isstill pending and ongoing.

Candy Liggin, ofce manager andmembership specialist or the cham-ber, said the chamber has been takingsteps to make sure nothing similarhappens again.

Shortly ater the investigation be-gan, the chamber instituted three di-erent committees to look at how thechamber was run and ways to makeit better.

The results rom those committees

Memory of Dax lives on through songSingr hos Daxs

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in

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Around Town ...........2a

Opinion ................... 4a

Sports .................. 1-2B

Poli Nws ............ 4B

Oituaris ............... 6a

classifds ....... 13-14B

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