Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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Colfax High School is adding two classes to its dual credit program, which awards college credit for classes taken in high school. On May 24, an enrollment specialist from the Lewis-Clark State College will present the program at 10 a.m. in the high school library. Still in its first year at Colfax, the dual credit program gives students college credit for taking a high school class. Run by math and science teacher Kathryn Vogler, a four-credit class costs $260. Next school year, students can enroll for dual credit in physics, chemistry,...
More than 20 teachers appeared at the Colfax board meeting Monday night in a show of support for their position 10 months into contract negotiations. Cary Cammack, president of the Colfax Education Association, the teachers’ union, told the board that teachers were frustrated with the negotiations taking so long and reiterated the union’s stance on the certified staff contract. At stake in the dispute, now in mediation, is the way teachers at the Colfax school district are laid off, the Reduction in Force procedure. The union wants staff lay...
Athletes will get a first-hand tour of Palouse this weekend as they jog and bike a sometimes-hilly, sometimes-flat 14-mile route for the first-ever Palouse River Duathlon Saturday, May 14. Starting time will be 10 a.m. Organizer Mark Sawyer put together the duathlon to help raise funds for Moscow, Pullman and Palouse youths to attend a Young Life summer camp. “It’s not just a running race- it’s a multi sporting event,” Sawyer told the Gazette. Racers in all divisions will take off from the Palouse park at 10 a.m. Saturday. Timing will be done...
Water pools on the floor of the Colfax elementary school library. A hot water hose broke inside the ceiling of Colfax’s Jennings Elementary Library Saturday morning, filling the room with enough water and steam to destroy all the electronics, many books, six tables and other items in the room. Library classes have been closed all week, with the school librarian Pam Becker instead visiting students in their classrooms to teach. Colfax Superintendent Michael Morgan reported on the hose break to school board members at their Monday night s...
Most school districts around Whitman County passed out layoff notices this week, meeting the May 15 state deadline for Reductions in Force (RIF) notification. An uncertain state budget for education led many school districts in eastern Washington to make estimates on the amounts of layoffs needed to balance their budgets. However, when the final education budget from the state emerges in another few weeks, many of the staff members who received a RIF notice could be hired back. “I don’t know if I can say a majority, but many of our school dis...
Garfield’s May Day grand marshals this year will be honored for their decades of work. They are long-time Garfield residents Ramah Archer and Theresa Hasenoehrl. The two women, who have been friends for more than 40 years, will ride through the May Day parade in Hollis Jamison’s convertible May 21. In an interview with the Gazette, Archer said she was happy to be chosen for the annual position. “I’m very honored,” she said. Hasenoehrl said she too was delighted to ride through downtown in the town she loves. “They are just lovely women. They...
The region’s medical access agency Monday received word it had won a $85,000 federal grant to study the technology issues facing rural clinics on the Palouse. Project ACCESS is a five-year-old medical program that works to increase medical access for the region’s elderly. Funded by Whitman Hospital, Gritman Medical Center and Pullman Regional Hospital it was started in 2006 to serve both Whitman and Latah counties. The $85,000 will be used to draw up a plan for the technology issues for rural clinics in the area. There are eight rural cli...
The state’s Division of Developmental Disabilities has added $31,000 to the county developmental services department’s $490,000 budget to pay for the addition of eight new clients which moved to Whitman County recently. Department Director Tim Myers said part of the funding amendment goes to pay for three new clients that came on during the last months of the funding year for 2009 to 2010. The other portion of the funds pays for five clients who moved to the county during the department’s 2010-11 budget year. The county’s developmental service...
Nick Dett is reunited with his cat, Blackie, just minutes after pulling him out of the concrete river in a specially-designed trap. After being stuck for six days in the Colfax flood control channel, Blackie the cat was successfully rescued Monday morning by his owners, Nick and Cynthia Dett. After numerous efforts over six days to trap the cat, the Detts finally caught Blackie in a live trap that was lowered by a rope down into the channel of the South Fork of the Palouse River. The cat had been residing in a drainage pipe in a dry portion of...
Two aging stretches of sidewalk will be replaced in Oakesdale this summer. At a city council meeting Monday, engineers showed the Oakesdale council the designs for the two projects. The longer project will replace two and a half blocks of sidewalk on Oakesdale’s First Street (Highway 27) as it heads north out of town. The new sidewalk will stretch from city hall to Williams Street. The first portion of the new sidewalk will run along the east side of the highway. At the intersection with Bartlett Street it will be on the opposite side of the h...
Floyd Overstreet in uniform in 1944 Floyd Overstreet of Colfax said he relished being part of a World War II Veteran’s Honor Flight from Spokane to Washington D. C. last week. Overstreet, who served in the Navy from 1944 to 1946, said he was deeply touched to see the many monuments at the nation’s capital. “I just sat there and gazed at the memorials and took pictures and remembered; some very good memories and some memories I’d like to forget,” he told the Gazette Tuesday. “It’s difficult to explain how beautiful it is in there.” He flew out o...
Judy Weiker returned home to Garfield Tuesday after four weeks at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane. She was life-flighted by helicopter to the hospital in early April with breathing difficulties and high blood pressure. Her absence was felt by many residents of Garfield and the surrounding area. A benefit spaghetti dinner to help cover her medical costs was Wednesday at the Garfield School. Garfield city clerk Annie Pillars Monday said organizers expected a good turnout for the event. Judy and Roy Weiker have operated Smokin’ Papa’s Bar...
The Palouse school board announced it can legally rent out the Little Sprouts Day Care at a board meeting last Thursday, April 28. While the board did not vote on that topic, it gave the group of parents present a heads up on the possible future options for the only day care in town. The day care is located in a former residence across from the high school. In the meantime, a task force of parents and school board members created by the school board last month is at work researching other options to keep the day care open. That task force will...
A last-minute wave of donations pushed the funding to the needed amount for the 2011 edition of Kids’ Fish-In. So, it is a go this year at Gilchrist Pond on Union Flat Creek. “We got the gap filled,” said Janet Schmidt, WSU county extension director. The extension office has been struggling to raise $2,500 for the annual kids fishing program since the state department of Fish & Wildlife announced last November it was cutting that amount from the Whitman County program. Three weeks ago, the fate of the program for this year was still uncer...
The official start date of the fishing season for the state was April 30. But game department spokesman Madonna Luers pointed out this date has little relevance for fishing in Whitman County. “Whitman County has no waters that open on April 30. They are all either year round or started earlier,” Luers told the Gazette. The two biggest bodies of water in the county, Rock Lake and the Snake River, are both open year-round. Fish and Wildlife employees have been stocking the local lakes with thousands of rainbow trout and brown trout starting Feb...
After more than five years of raising funds, the board for the Palouse Community Center project plans to call for bids next month. The board has submitted the final construction design to its building inspector. Once the board receives the inspector’s approval, it hopes to put the project out to bid by mid-May. Palouse contracts county inspector Dan Gladwill to do its inspections. “We expect to break ground this summer,” said Scott Beeson, board member. For years, the group coordinated fund raisers which earned almost $250,000 for a new commu...
The position of athletic director for the Colfax School District opened April 26. After the resignation of former athletic director Mike Morgan, that vacancy will be combined with the job of assistant athletic director. The school board looked over the job description at its Monday board meeting. The list of qualifications says the following traits are desirable but not mandatory: a Washington Interscholastic Activities Association certificate, a state teaching certificate, and previous coaching experience. The position also asks for knowledge...
Colton/Uniontown Fair will rev up once more this Friday. Fair manager Debbie Niehenke said she and her volunteers were fighting the cold and wind during set up for the fair last weekend and hope the wind and rain will hold off the day of the event. “The only thing new this year is everyone trying to show (animals) in wool gloves and hats,” she said with a laugh. Temperatures Friday are expected to be in the 40s. Students of all ages have been preening and training animals to show at the fair, which opens at 8 a.m. and closes around 5 p.m. Mos...
An interim Chief Operating Officer, Tom Corley, has been chosen for Whitman Hospital after the resignation of CEO David Womack. The hospital board voted unanimously April 20 to hire Corley who has acted as a liaison under the hospital’s management contract with Providence Health Care (PHC) for the past year. Womack’s last day at the hospital is May 6. He and his wife Julie are moving to Bakersfield, Calif., where Womack has accepted a job as an executive director with a branch of a major medical chain, Permanente. PHC has a management con...
Three Palouse entrants won thousands of dollars at the WSU Business Plan Competition Friday, April 22. The annual business competition is hosted by the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in the WSU College of Business. Prizes are awarded in four categories; undergraduate, graduate, high school and open leagues. First place winner in the open competition was Joe Fondahn of Palouse for his business idea of starting a liquor distillery in Palouse. Fondahn was awarded $6,000 to help jump-start Palouse Spirits, a distillery which will brew hard...
In the midst of working to save the Palouse day care from closing, the Palouse school board will have its first discussion tonight with the task force it created to help the day care. Funding losses of Little Sprouts Childcare and Early Learning Center this year led the school board at a meeting April 12 to consider shutting down the center. After hearing protests from parents with children at the day care, the board that night moved to form the task force to seek options to save the day care. The task force is currently tracking down details...
Gazette Reporter After 18 months on the job, Whitman Hospital CEO David Womack is resigning to take an administrative position with a medical chain in California. “I have a lot of mixed emotions. Julie and I were very happy here,” Womack said. Womack was offered a job in Bakersfield, Calif., the same city where their daughter and her family resides. Womack’s last day at Whitman will be May 6. The hospital board was set to accept his letter of resignation at a board meeting Wednesday. The board hopes to have an interim director in place by th...
Kinziger holds up the waterproof map he used to guide himself down the twists and turns of the North Palouse River. After a day and a half of paddling in 20 mph winds on the North Fork of the Palouse River, canoeist Mike Kinziger of Deary called it quits outside Colfax when Monday’s snow squall hit. Kinziger was attempting a solo, 130-mile canoe trip from Laird Park, upstream from Harvard, Idaho, to Palouse Falls. “I was shivering. I couldn’t see. My glasses were dripping with tears from my eyes,” said Kinziger. He had planned to paddle...
While the teachers’ contract for the Colfax school district will remain the same until the end of this school year, the teachers Colfax Education Association (CEA) is still in a mediation mode with the school district. The CEA is considering another mediation date with the school district’s representative in mid- May. Union president Cary Cammack told the Gazette the union is waiting to see the district’s ideas for the 2011-12 teachers’ contract on paper. “We’re just asking for language that will go with those ideas,” Cammack said. At stake in...
The town of Tekoa is researching what it would take to expand the town airport, hoping to attract air traffic bound for the Coeur d’Alene casino. By the end of April, Tekoa officials will turn in an application for a $25,000 planning grant from the state Department of Transportation Aviation office. If they are awarded the grant, it will kick-start a conversation between the involved parties on the feasibility of expanding the airport, according to Mayor John Jaeger. “We would sit down with the players and see how it would fit into the ove...
