Student with Basin roots heads to West Point

MOSES LAKE — The U.S. Military Academy West Point has a reputation as a tough school to get into and an even tougher one to get through. But one young woman with ties to the Columbia Basin is headed there next year. “It was a long process,” said Élodie Bennett of Anchorage, Alaska. “I definitely had to push myself, but it was very much worth it.” Élodie, a senior at South Anchorage High School, is the daughter of David Bennett, a 1982 graduate of Moses Lake High School, and the granddaughter of Tom Bennett, a longtime instructor at Big Bend Community College who still lives in Moses Lake. She’ll follow in her dad’s footsteps next year as she enters West Point.