SEKIU — One of the main forces behind the successful movement to establish state Highway 112 as the state’s third National Scenic Byway has been hired to guide the tourism enhancement project to fruition.
Sande Balch was named scenic byway coordinator on Tuesday when the Clallam County commissioners approved her personal services agreement.
This phase of the project is funded with $25,000 in Federal Byways dollars matched by the Clallam Bay-Sekiu community. Of that amount, Balch’s part-time position pays $17,000. Also budgeted from the funding is $2,000 for training, $500 for a newsletter, and $5,000 for travelers maps and brochures.
“This is a people project, not a government project,” Balch was quick to say Wednesday from Herb’s Motel in Sekiu, which the former Clallam Bay-Sekiu Chamber of Commerce president owns and operates with her husband, Herb.
Although the scenic byways project has developed from an idea hatched at a 1998 Chamber of Commerce meeting, Balch said it will be more than a year before motorist wending the winding 61-mile Strait of Juan de Fuca coastal route see interpretive signs from near the Elwha River to Neah Bay.
—————–
The rest of the story appears in the Thursday Peninsula Daily News.