Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 26 - 46 of 46
The Palouse Skate Park Committee will hold a fundraiser concert Saturday, March 9, to benefit the effort to build a skate park in Palouse. The all-ages event will feature five bands at the Palouse Grange Hall. Non-alcoholic refreshments will be available. The acts include Lithium.id, The B.B. Gun Incident, Dank Submission, Strychnine, Fraudulence and Random Noise. Aaron Flansburg, the leader of the Palouse skate park effort, is a member of Random Noise, which will be celebrating the release of their third album, “Forgotten But Not Gone.” Doo...
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack recently announced a general Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) signup will be conducted May 20 through June 14, 2013. There are currently about 27 million acres enrolled in the program throughout the country. Contracts on 3.3 million acres of CRP nationwide and 254,000 acres in Washington are set to expire on Sept. 30, 2013. During the offer process, cropping years 2002 through 2007 will be used to determine cropping eligibility and the Environmental Benefits Index (EBI) method of calculating a score will remain...
Oakesdale Now that I have fallen off the cliff I find that I have more time to reflect on just what our leaders have been and are doing for me and the rest of the citizenry. As opposed to getting our situation back on the right track regarding the economy, the lessening of wasteful spending, and putting people to work, the Democrats seem to be more concerned with gay marriage, and every person sporting a college degree and the Republicans with their taxes being raised to help pay the bill. Makes one wonder just how far they got in school, when...
Will the highly touted and successful slogan, “Pro-choice” (which was so effective in the losing battle over the Right to Life, itself) prevail in the controversy over legal gun ownership? Currently, owning a gun is the surface issue being debated at state and national levels in the United States of America. However, beneath that surface, the issue has been lurking on the international agenda beginning in the mid 1990s. Since then the United Nations has undertaken every opportunity to ram into law the “Small Arms Treaty.” It is designe...
In March 2010, governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states, plus two territories and the District of Columbia endorsed developing and implementing a common core state standards for selected content areas for grades K-12. The CCSSI just happens to be supported by Achieve, Business Roundtable, U. S. Chamber of Commerce, The U. S. Army and a host of other business and educational organizations. According to the writers of the CCSSI, seven considerations (arbitrary) guided their development. Keep in mind that the standards...
In November 1982, our state’s unemployment rate peaked at 12.2 percent, the highest since the Great Depression. Interest on a fixed rate home loan was 13.4 percent, and an 11.5 inflation rate burned through our checkbooks. The economy was a mess. The impacts of President Ronald Reagan’s Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 hadn’t fully kicked in yet, and Gov. John Spellman (R) and the Legislature had repeatedly increased taxes and cut programs to balance the state’s budget. It was a bleak time: people were hungry and work was scarce. There w...
Some guys have it, and some don’t. I’m referring to that special quality that makes powerful institutions want to throw fistfuls of dollars at them in senseless acts of high-priced beneficence. Jack Lew has it like nobody’s business. You might think the bespectacled treasury secretary nominee is just another brainy budget wonk and miss the animal magnetism that makes his employers lose all sense of financial proportion around him, paying him astronomical sums, forgiving his loans and granting him generous golden parachutes. Yes, Jack Lew is a r... Full story
Community Colleges of Spokane is giving rural Whitman County another opportunity. Some years ago, the group offered classes at the Education and Training Center in Colfax. Most of the classes were academic in nature. Enrollment was low. The offerings at Gladish Center in Pullman were better received and supplanted the Colfax effort. Now, Community Colleges of Spokane is returning to Colfax. This new program, called ACT2, is intended for adults who are not necessarily interested in degrees and credits. ACT2 is for seniors, providing educational... Full story
After a record eight three-pointers and 29 points in Neah Bay’s 1B state semifinal win over LaCrosse-Washtucna, Tyler McCaulley walked back out onto the floor of Spokane Arena. Lights reflected off his mohawk from five stories above and the lingering Neah Bay crowd cheered from the stands. He smiled, waved, hugged fans along the bottom row, got a kiss from his girlfriend and sat down for an interview on the radio. Afterward, he basked in some more cheers and thumbs-up and walked back to the l...
A Colfax team which found its own indentity and picked up steam during the long playoff run made it all the way back to the state 2B championship game Saturday night at the Spokane Arena. (Left to right) Colfax’s Brady Ellis, Brandon Gfeller, John Mellor, Brent Becker and Skylar Simonson in the last moments of the 50-28 loss, their fifth to the Dragons this year. The Bulldogs found themselves under the same spotlights where a year ago they stopped a big Northwest Christian team for the first Colfax title win since 1979. The Bulldogs advanced t...
In a postseason journey which took them from one side of Washington to the other, the St.John-Endicott girls finished with a state fourth-place trophy. St. John-Endicott’s Gretchan Van Lith penetrates against Shoreline Christian. In the loser-out Regionals, they traveled to Lynnwood and beat Tulalip Heritage. At Spokane Arena last weekend, they lost in the opening round then beat Yakama Nation and Shoreline Christian in two days of 8 a.m. games. “It’s pretty exhilirating, I’m very proud of my t...
They couldn’t quite solve it in the gyms of Whitman and Garfield Counties so they went to the Spokane Arena. The team gathers with the trophy after beating Pomeroy 57-36. LaCrosse-Washtucna and league foe Pomeroy met for the fourth–time this season in the state 1B third-place game Saturday afternoon in Spokane. This time, L/W decided it definitively, 67-36. “This is my favorite place to ever play,” said Tigercat senior Justin Wargo. “The nerves kick in right away but everything tonight w...
Gazette Editor The Colton girls ventured where no Washington state team has gone before when they disposed of an early 10-point run by Sunnyside Christian and rolled past the Knights in the second half of the 1B girls championship game at the Spokane Arena. Colton players show their number of consecutive 1B state championships Saturday in Spokane. The final game, against Sunnyside Christian, was close for three quarters. Colton took out the undefeated Knights with a 55-40 win. Saturday’s win marked five state trophies in a row for the W...
The Whitman County Board of Commissioners on Monday approved organizing a team in the board’s efforts to make county government more efficient. “We’re trying to make government more effective and work better,” said Board Chairman Michael Largent. After attending training in Chelan last fall, Largent said he read a book that inspired him to try to implement change. The book, by author Ken Miller, is titled “Extreme Government Makeover.” Largent said the book discusses how government is not fundamentally different from manufacturing. “We do serv...
Once a stove hood arrives, a newly refurbished Uniontown building will be ready to become a production facility. Its output will be Grandma Lela’s oatmeal. The Uniontown Community Development Association (UCDA) bought the 1899 building at auction in July of last year. Since then, work has gone forward to bring new use to the space, which was once an old mercantile building at the corner of Main and Woodworth Streets. Grandma Lela’s will use approximately two-thirds of the square-footage while th...
A Colton school improvements and security bond will go before the voters April 23. The $5.6 million 30-year bond would fund a new entryway to the building, gravel parking lot and energy-efficiency changes including heating, air conditioning, electrical and plumbing. It will be the third effort to pass a Colton school bond in the past three years. “More than anything we’ve tried to go through and prioritize,” said Superintendent Nate Smith. Previous measures which failed in the fall of 2010...
Local auctioneer Butch Booker made the sale of a lifetime last week. He auctioned off a young Hereford bull that set a world record Feb. 25 when it sold for $600,000 at a sale in Idaho, according to a national Hereford organization. Booker said he had no idea that the bull, only a little more than a year old, would sell for that amount. “I was excited and in the back of your mind, you want to just celebrate, but I had 274 more lots to sell,” he said. Booker has been auctioneer at the Colyer Herefords and Angus Show for close to 25 years. “It...
Colfax, Steptoe and Diamond fire units responded to a report of a structure fire on Friday evening. A garage behind the Cougar Food Mart was fully involved when the first units arrived, according to Clark Capwell, Chief of Colfax Volunteer Firemen. The fire was so close to a house the back porch started burning, Capwell said, but firefighters were able to knock it down in about four minutes, preventing the fire from penetrating the main part of the house. The garage was destroyed and the back porch of the house was damaged. Two people in the...
A train derailed Friday, March 1, north of Palouse on the Washington and Idaho Railroad line. The derailment, which occurred on tracks near mile 22 on Highway 27, was described as fairly common by Carl Nelson, general manager of the railroad. “There was just some soft ground and the track just went away underneath it,” he said. Three cars came to a stop leaning against an embankment. Nelson had no estimate of how much time or money it may take for crews to restore the train and tracks to operation. The rail line is owned by the state of Was... Full story
Frank Lazcano Sentence could total 30 years After one day of deliberation, the jury for the Frank Lazcano trial Friday returned a verdict of guilty to the charge of first degree murder of Marcus Schur of Rosalia. Superior Court Judge David Frazier read the jury’s verdict at about 4:30 p.m. in superior court. The trial came to an end in a hushed courtroom with some family members and friends quietly sobbing. Lazcano, for several minutes, gazed at his infant son while he sat expressionless in the defendant’s chair. Testimony for trial ended the p...
PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN in accordance with the Revised Code of Washington, Chapter 36.77.070 that the following projects have been completed by County Forces Construction: Paul Mader Bridge, C.R.B.P. No. 5320-01.63(2) This project provided for the replacement of the Paul Mader Bridge with two 80 foot long, 84 inch round culverts for a total cost of $92,812.96. Zarbach Bridge, C.R.B.P. No. 5190-02.09(2) This project provided for the replacement of the Zarbach Bridge with a 24 foot wide, 24 foot long prestressed concrete...