Local songwriter releases “Notes to the Author,” new music CD
Goldendale songwriter and musician Meagen Moody has just released her first full-length, professionally recorded CD, called “Notes To The Author,” with 10 original songs that are written, arranged, and performed by her.
Moody says, “It has always been a dream of mine to make a CD.” She considers her inspiration to arise from her spiritual life. “I feel like these songs were all born out of the experiences that God has given me through traveling, reaching out to other people, and by just life itself,” she states.
Moody grew up in Goldendale and in a musical family. Some of her earlier memories are of listening to her dad sing and play his guitar. That influence, along with her mother putting her in piano lessons at an early age, started her on musical path in life. Her years at Goldendale High School were spent in concert and pep band. She also took up learning guitar during her high school years and graduated in 2004.
After high school, Moody joined a Christian missionary group called Youth With a Mission (YWAM). “That’s when I began to see how music can be an effective tool for reaching others with the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” she recalls. From there she began to develop as a songwriter, putting words and melodies to her experiences at home and around the world.
Moody describes her music as having strong guitar and piano work throughout, and she calls it highly melodic. “There are places with energy but a rather calming overtone takes the lead,” Moody says of her songs. “I wanted to embrace the beauty of walking different roads of life, by faith, while sharing stories close to my heart in my own style.”
Meagen is married to Chad Moody, and they continue to work with YWAM as part of Musicians for Missions, a music ministry within YWAM based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
You can learn more about Musicians For Missions and order Moody’s CD at www.musiciansformissions.com. You can also find it at Adonai’s Christian Bookstore in Goldendale and on iTunes.
Class turns gray space into green at Primary School
Part of the Goldendale Middle School play ground has been converted into a classroom, thanks to Erin Klejeski and her fourth grade class and donations from the community. It might be more accurately described as an outdoor learning lab, and it is being incorporated into education in several grades.
The primary purpose of the lab is to learn about biodiversity and sustainability, according to Kjejeski. The first stage of development was to bring in soil and plant flower and vegetable gardens.
One of the first class lessons was in math. The class measured the garden and calculated area. They also inventoried animals, which wasn’t much, considering it was previously a gravel covered playground. They found one earthworm. Since then the class has introduced butterflies to the area and hope to attract more as the plants continue to flower.
The class also uses the outdoors time to make weekly bird counts and calculate mode, median and mean. A second area is being developed to demonstrate some geological principles, as it will be home to the school’s own mini-mountain.
Class members are volunteering to help maintain the site during the summer and there is a practical, community service aspect, as their harvest of vegetables will be donated to the Goldendale food bank. Some of the items the school is looking to acquire for the expanding site are a large rock with the garden named etched into it, more plants for a sensory garden to study shape, texture and scent; wood chips for paths, benches, garden tools, a wheel barrow, plants to attract butterflies, and a large sample of basalt or granite for the mountain.
The students and staff have been bringing plants for the initial garden. Other donations have come from SDS Lumber, and Oak Mountain Environmental Services who provided soil; Columbia Gorge Nursery, Milestone Nursery; Schillings Lavender Farm; Goldendale Rental; the Telford and Overlie familes; and the PTO.
New Hope Farms Open House is this weekend
New Hope Farm’s annual open house happens this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at 40 New Hope Farms Road in Goldendale.
New Hope Farms describes itself as a place where developmentally disabled adults live, learn, work, and play with loving, caring resident managers and daily activity staff who share their lives. The residents learn life skills by participating in personal, household, and daytime activities.
Four to six residents live in an individual family-sized home with a resident manager. Resident managers are responsible for the operations of their homes. A day program staff is responsible for conducting the daily program at the Farms’ activity center.
New Hope Farms is designed to provide long-term homes for its residents; it is not an interim training program. Each resident is working toward the goal of achieving the highest level of functioning possible. The facility currently has openings for two women and four men.
The New Hope Farms staff is continually trying to better meet the needs of the residents and the community with new and innovative opportunities for growth. It is seeking to expand its base of support to include other programs that will augment those currently offered.
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