WALLA WALLA - As most area children returned to school this past week, their parents were not the only ones to breathe a sigh of relief.

Throughout the Walla Walla Valley, kids worked on swimming skills this summer, learning for the first time or growing stronger in the water through lessons and practice.

That's good news to recreation professionals like Randy Grant, executive director of the Walla Walla YMCA, and J.R. Loe, who runs the swimming program at the facility.

The tragic news of six teens drowning in Louisiana at the beginning of this month set off a national wave of concern regarding the number of people who die in the water as a result of not knowing how to swim.