Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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Colfax and state Department of Transportation officials May 5 conducted another inspection of the proposed ramp access site on the south end of the Main Street Bridge near the Cooper Street intersection. Plans for building ramps at the south end of the bridge for better access to sidewalks have been developed by Erik Coats, Pullman consulting engineer. City Administrator Carl Thompson said the state officials have vowed to seek money to pay for the project which has now been estimated to cost $140,000. Roy O'Neill, who uses an electric chair... Full story
Denise Link This is a shout out to all those Colfax Chihuahuas- there is now a grooming facility near you. Denise Link opened a boutique in Colfax two months ago called Bark Tique. According to her, business has been booming. Judging from the steady stream of customers ranging from full-sized farm hounds to poodles to Shi Tzus, Link said being the only groomer in town has paid off. “I’ve had from 150 pounds to seven pounds. I’ve had every different little kind in here,” she said. She charges $44 for a small dog and $48 for a medium dog. A...
Palouse resident Pete Hertz was appointed to a seat on Whitman County’s planning commission Monday morning by county commissioners. Hertz will fill out the remainder of an empty seat representing commissioner district 2, which covers the north and east regions of the county. Hertz’ appointment leaves just one vacant seat on the planning commission. That position is for district 3. Interested applicants in serving on the volunteer panel should contact county commissioners....
Six applicants have filed for the District 3 seat on the Port of Whitman County commission. The seat has been left vacant by the death of Bob Gronholz of Colfax. The six applicants are Don Cox, Jack Fulfs, Tom Kammerzell, Eric Larsen and Jeff Phelps. Port commissioners Dan Boone and John Love decided May 6 to interview the candidates following their next regular meeting, scheduled for next Monday. The candidates will be interviewed by Boone and Love for 15 minutes each. They plan to vote on the new commissioner at their June 8 meeting. The new...
The fifth lowest runoff since construction of Snake and Columbia river dams could result in higher power rates for those dependent on hydroelectricity, officials with the Bonnevile Power Administration warned last Friday. If those rates rise, the increase will not hit local power bills until Oct. 1, 2011 at the earliest, according to Fred Rettenmund, power resources manager for Inland Power and Light. “This low snowpack will definitely put a lot of upward pressure on our rates in the future,” said Rettenmund. “But there’s still a long way to...
Sunset paints the sky orange as it reflects off clouds in the horizon behind the PNW Farmers Co-op elevators at the Palouse River confluence in Colfax last week....
I believe that dancing was invented to give men something to dread. Men counterattacked with beer, but then women counter-counterattacked with video cameras, and now every man on the planet knows that out there somewhere is footage of him dancing at a cousin’s wedding, just waiting to be shown at a retirement party or some other embarrassing occasion. My first dance was in seventh grade, a phase of childhood so torturous I can’t believe it is still legal. At that time, I had a very specific and obsessive crush on every girl my age. I went int...
Officers in dress uniforms gathered Monday in front of the Spokane courthouse for this photo after honoring 11 lawmen who have been killed in the line of duty. Sheriff Brett Myers and Chaplain Ron McMurray, at the right end of the photo, represented Whitman County. Chaplain McMurray gave the eulogy for Whitman County Deputy William Spencer, one of two officers whose loss was discovered through research. Deputy Spencer died at Fort Spokane April 3, 1892. The 1892 shooting death of Whitman Deputy William B. Spencer,. who was among 11 fallen...
LaCrosse Community Pride An Open Letter to our LaCrosse area friends and neighbors: We’ve been working as a committee to help preserve and refurbish one of the finest old buildings in town—the big brick building that for more than ninety years was the community grocery store. We hope to see the building once more become a community center for groceries and perhaps other enterprises, too. Our hope, through developing a nonprofit entity, is to assist in improving the long range prosperity of our community. We’ve decided that the best route is to... Full story
As legislators and others comb through the massive health-care reform law, they are finding little-known provisions that will have a big impact on the American people and our economy. For example, tucked into the health-care law is a provision that imposes a 3.8 percent federal tax on the proceeds from the sale of your home. How is that related to health care? It’s not. Sallie Mae, the company that processes student loan applications, just announced 2,500 layoffs because of a little-known provision in the health-care reform law that i... Full story
ANOTHER PUBLIC official was snapped up by the cops for driving under the influence after getting sauced at a party. Port Orchard Mayor Lary Coppola was the culprit and the event was the May 2 Port Orchard Rotary Crab Feed and Auction. It’s only been a month or so since Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn failed a sobriety test when he was stopped for speeding and a defective tail light on his way home from a community dinner. I wrote right after the Dorn affair about the time Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, a Shelton state senator at the t...
#!*! Tea partyers that are living on tax dollars. +++++ Hospital auxiliary volunteers who put on a wonderful Spring Fest. It is something we all look forward to. Send your Pet Peeves and Okeydokes to the Gazette P.O. Box 770 211 N. Main St Colfax, Wa 99111...
This week Colfax was the location for the filming of a Japanese mini-series. The series will trace a Japanese-American family from 1912 to the present. The Colfax segment involves how the Japanese were treated after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and America’s entry into World War II. The Japanese immediately suffered abuse, hostility, discrimination, physical assaults and boycotts. Many of them quickly ended up in government internment camps. As a result, they lost their homes, businesses and livelihood. The treatment of the Japan... Full story
MARRIAGE LICENSES Timothy Laughter, 34, Spokane. and Molly Doolittle, 33, St. Louis, April 9 Quiton Jamison, 49, Greenville, S.C., and Jill Brockmier, 45, Spokane, April 12 Paul Yoon, 26, Seoul, South Korea and Yunyoung Choi, 26, April 13 BUILDING PERMITS Curtis Feldner, machine shed, $20,000, 3000 N. Palouse River Road, April 8 Lea Smith, gas water heater, $1,500, 509 N. Mill, April 12 David Womack, sheet rock basement, $5,000, 503 N. Hauser, April 12 Kathy Gable/Bill Dix, demo-house, manufactured home, April 13 Elmer Schlunger, enclosed... Full story
Three local schools were honored recently for their work in ensuring all students graduate with a full set of skills, regardless of their societal standing. Colton, LaCrosse and Garfield/Palouse were among 174 schools given Washington Achievement Awards for improving student performance on WASL scores and graduation rates. “It’s a real neat honor for our kids and our teachers and our whole community,” said Nate Smith, Colton superintendent and principal. The awards signify schools which have closed the “achievement gap” which state school of... Full story
You see ads on TV for big screen TV that can show up to 8 basketball games at one time. Is there anyone who can give a detailed run down of any one of those games when the final buzzer sounds? To me, this is a fair analogy with one major exception, if you are driving and miss a “play,” you may be dead! I have seen first-hand some results from distracted driving. To be brief I’ll describe only one - an infant in a car seat—with a piece of glass through his head, temple to temple. Please don’t think that because a person is driving a particula... Full story
Palouse artists Lauren McCleary and David Wold put on an art display April 6 at the Palouse Library. McCleary fashioned the pinwheels from paper then tied them on for the display. The paper for the pinwheels was white paper with hand-written notes on it. Wold painted several colorful murals of downtown buildings in Palouse. Approximately 50 people came by the library to see the show, librarian Holly White said....
The long-awaited Oakesdale business incubator has met with one hitch; the office is directly under the city fire siren. The siren lets out an ear-splitting alarm once a day, blasted out over this rural town of 350 people. Oakesdale city council at their last meeting discussed what to do about the situation. The old-school siren scream can be heard daily all over town at noon. City clerk Mary DeGon said the city called Avista to see what could be done about the siren. Avista representatives pointed out moving the structure to another location...
Local school officials were alarmed after looking at the legislature’s finalized supplemental budget and finding $250,000 slated to create a commission that would draw up a plan for combining small schools. “It’s very frustrating,” said Colfax Superintendent Michael Morgan. “They keep looking at this in terms of saving money, but they don’t seem to worry about the quality of education kids can get from small schools.” Introduced by Sen. Karen Fraser, D-Olympia, the measure dedicated funding for the panel. “Unfortunately some of our colleagues...
These reports are from the previous four issues of the Daily Bulletin in Colfax. They are reprinted here for the benefit of Gazette readers who reside outside of Colfax. Some accounts have been updated. DVD promised on epic Chief Bill Hickman said he received a promise Monday for delivery of a DVD of the television docu-drama which will be produced by the Japanese filming crew that hit Colfax Monday morning. Hickman said Mark Wygant of Seattle, location manager for the production company, promised he would send a DVD of the show. Monday’s M...
Henry Ensley, one of 58 seniors in this year’s class at Colfax High School, rolled his motorcycle into a classroom to explain his senior project last Thursday, May 6. Ensley explained the process he used to paint the frame of the motorcycle. Joe Johnson, also a member of the class, used computer projection in the vo-ag shop to explain how he constructed custom bumpers and a rack for his truck. The senior presentations were graded by 15 panels made up of 75 residents and high school staffers....
* It was British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who made the following observation: “My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.” * Hunters, take note: The largest deer that ever lived was the Irish elk, which became extinct more than 7,000 years ago. Though it stood a remarkable 7 feet tall at the shoulders, the creature’s most amazing characteristic was its antlers, which could stretch 12 feet from tip to tip and weigh up to 90 pounds. Imagine that rack hanging on your living-room wall! * If you are a parent, you proba...
Deputies with the Whitman County Sheriff’s office of the Marine Patrol have slated 12 stops around the county to conduct pre-season boat safety inspections. One of the aims of the inspection tour is to check boats so owners make corrections before they get out on the water. Next Sunday, May 16, marine deputies will be at LaCrosse, St. John and Tekoa city parks from noon to 2 p.m. They will be at Endicott School parking lot, Rosalia and Oakesdale city parks from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, May 22, they will be at the Uniontown and Garfield c... Full story
State FFA officers Sean Neal (left) and Shane Riebold (right) toured around the state this year talking and educating different FFA chapters. From the salmon of the Pacific Ocean to the vineyards of Yakima, two Palouse teenagers just wrapped up a year’s tour with the state FFA team. Shane Riebold of Colfax, 19, and Sean Neal, 20, of Garfield, spent the past year touring with the six-member state team, educating high school FFA students and encouraging their projects around the state. “You go from the rolling hills of Palouse to the remote pla... Full story
The Army Corps of Engineers will begin a schedule of lockage times on the river beginning Saturday, May 15. Upstream lockages for recreational boats at Lower Granite and the other three Snake River Dams will be at 9 a.m., 12:01 3, 6, and 9 p.m. Downstream lockages at each site will be 30 minutes after the upstream lockages....
