Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 53
Overheard at the Coffee Shop I know it sounds strange, but I’m one of those people who goes to a coffee shop to drink coffee. I don’t bring my laptop so that people will see that I’m so busy that I can’t even take a coffee break without working, nor do I bring my mp3 player so people can see that I go to the coffee shop to listen to music, nor do I bring my iPad so I can show people I know how to work an iPad. I was sipping coffee yesterday when I overheard two young women working on a crossword puzzle behind me. One wore a yellow top, the oth...
Desperate times too often result in bad choices. Translated, that means when taxes don’t match state spending, governors and lawmakers rob dedicated accounts. Dedicated accounts were established to tax people or employers for a specific purpose and only use that money to fund that program. In essence, they promise not to siphon it off to balance the general fund budget. However, robbing Peter to pay Paul has become common practice in Olympia. For example, in 2009, Washington state faced a $9 billion budget deficit. To help close that gap, s...
SINCE THIS is written some days before it appears in print, I don’t know where we are in the battle over raising the debt limit, deadline for decision Aug. 2, but I pray that House Speaker John Boehner makes no deals with the president or Democrats unless the results are immediate, not promises. Remember what happened to George “Read my lips, no new taxes” H.W. Bush? Democratic leaders came to Bush and promised that if he signed a tax increase they insisted was necessary, they would use any savings from military down sizing to bring down the f... Full story
A twin-engine Mitchell B-25 bomber which saw duty in the Mediterranean during World War II, was on display at the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Airport for three days over the weekend. The airplane, the result of a 28-year restoration effort after being recovered from dry storage in the Arizona desert, was flown to Lewiston by the Commemorative Air Force for the fourth annual Lewiston Air Fair. Although the Mitchell B-25 saw service in most World War II battle zones, its most memorial mission credit was the Doolittle Raid over Tokyo over 69 years a... Full story
Giant Palouse Earthworms are so slippery that nobody can verify where they are. That is why once again they have been denied Endangered Species classification. The scientists just are not sure how many there are and exactly where they are. In fact, it seems that they are not even sure what they are. First, it was said they only existed in unspoiled native Palouse soil. Now, reports have surfaced that they live in forests and as far away as Levenworth. At first, too, they were considered to be up to three feet long, purplish in color and... Full story
Whitman County commissioners Monday granted the rural library district $5,800 to further its project to post historical documents and pictures from the area on the internet. Library Director Kristie Kirkpatrick said the library did not this year receive the federal grant that had been funding its Rural Heritage Project for the past several years. “We’ve got notebook after notebook of people that want to participate,” said Kirkpatrick. “Our program has been so poular, we just hated to see it stop.” The grant has paid to send a library staffer fr...
Washington Waterfowl Association will sponsor the state waterfowl calling championships Aug. 6-7 at Wholesale Sports in Kennewick. Winner of the open division will win an all-expense-paid trip to the World Duck Calling Championships in Stuttgart, Ark. Anyone interested in going call-to-call with the best in the state can enter the competition. The waterfowl association will also award prizes to goose callers, junior duck and goose callers (13 to17), and a pee-wee duck caller, 12 and under. abelcortina@gmail.com.... Full story
Colfax football schedule for the upcoming season will be a close match with last year. The Bulldogs have seven league games with DeSales and Lakeside again booked as the two non-leaguers. Colfax Mike Morgan noted this year’s campaign amounts to a second lap in a two-year booking with the home and road dates reversed. The two-year run coincides with the WIAA classification rulings which could change league designations for the following two years. Colfax will again travel to Ritzville for a league jamboree Sept. 2 to open the season and then h... Full story
Scott Randall, former assistant director of event and facility operations for the WSU athletic department, was officially hired as the new athletic director for Colfax by the school board Monday night. Randall will take over a newly-created post which evolved from combining the athletic director and assistant athletic director positions. Mike Morgan, head football coach and band instructor, had been athletic director for nine years. Tony Carter was assistant AD in charge of facilities and equipment. The changes evolved from an study...
A weekend trip to Orofino’s Trevor Haag Memorial tournament ended with a 4-2 record for the Colfax 12-under team, enough to land them in fifth place. They posted the run with just nine players on the squad. Colfax will take a break this weekend and then depart for Colville on their last tourney trip Aug. 5-7 to play in the Bob Haney Memorial tournament. The run at Orofino ended with the Colfax club topping Pullman Heat 13-3 in Sunday’s placing game. Colfax also took a one-run win over the Heat in the last round Saturday. Colfax started the Orof...
Pomeroy swimmers, the defending novice league champs, again showed their power when they posted 207 points to top a four-team meet at Colfax Tuesday. Garfield/Palouse booked second with 171; Colfax was third at 165 and Oakesdale/Rosalia pegged 44. Pullman swimmers also competed in the meet and posted strong performances, but their finishes were not included in the tabulations because the team does not qualify in the novice division. FREESTYLE 100 Boys 12 & under: 1. Nolan Monahan-P 1:14.78, 2.Benjamin Ross-C 1:21.58, 3.Austin Sharp-P 1:24.16, 4...
Two great games and one clunker in the senior Legion regional round at McDonald Park wrapped up the season for the Pullman Patriots last week. The Pats came out of the Colfax show with a 1-2, not enough to make the top eight finals underway in Selah. Jackson Webb of the Patriots gets a greeting at the plate after tagging a homer against Bellevue at McDonald. Webb's blast came before the Patriots pulled out a final inning comeback win to top their 1-2 campaign in the state Legion regionals. Bellevue catcher Harison Deimert is in the foreground....
THURSDAY Space Shuttle Atlantis landed at Edwards Air Force Base just before dawn, ending the 135th and final flight of the United States’ 30-year-old shuttle program. European Union officials approved a second bailout package for the busted Greek government. EU governments gave the nation 109 billion euros, and private bondholders contributed as much as 50 billion more. Oklahoma eased commercial vehicle restrictions to speed delivery of hay and other feed to cattle whose grazing areas have been destroyed by a severe drought in the region. D... Full story
A live Palouse Earthworm stretches across the hands of a University of Idaho researcher in this file photo from the UI. The Giant Palouse Earthworm will continue to live without protection. The United States Fish and Wildlife service Monday denied a second petition to list the worm as an endangered species. Robyn Thorson, fish and wildlife’s Pacific Region director, said in a statement Monday that the agency needed more information before it could act on the request. Citing confirmed sightings of the worm near Leavenworth, the federal agency s...
Artisans Roger Oestmann and Rory Donelson raise the flags of the four branches of the military at the new Tekoa veteran’s memorial. The two put the finishing touches on the new installation at Goldenrod Cemetery July 22. Formal dedication will be next June during the 2012 Slippery Gulch Days celebration. Oestmann, from Spokane, designed the project, which was funded by public donations....
Mill Street residents wrote to the Whitman County commissioners this week, asking them to quiet the neighborhood around the jail. Ann Marra and Tim Ely said the rattle and hum from the jail’s air conditioning unit is putting out a “constant roar” that has made living in the neighborhood “intolerable” and e-mailed commissioners to fix the problem. Marra and Ely said Bob Reynolds, county facilities manager, quieted the system last winter when a roar from the heater filled the north Mill Street air. Commissioner Pat O’Neill said Reynolds ha...
Work on the Port of Whitman County’s $12 million 157-mile project to string high speed fiber optic cable through Whitman County was set to begin Wednesday morning. Crews with contractor Henkels and McCoy of Coeur d’Alene were to begin laying a conduit for the cable to run through a portion of rural Spokane County. Joe Poire, port executive director, said the approximately 3,000-feet of work will be done in advance of the rest of the project so it can be done in conjunction with a chip-seal of Smythe Road in south Spokane County. The pro...
The status of Palouse Grange hall will change hands Aug. 1. After eight years, the Palouse Arts Council will mail the keys back to the state Grange this week. The changeover will come after several months of discussions on a possible purchase of the hall by the Arts Council. “We are walking out because they want too much money for our group to be able to pay,” Arts Council Treasurer Sandra Schorzman explained. “The numbers are just too high,” said President Shandra Bohn. “We’re a nonprofit,...
Cheney Parks and Recreation Aug. 13 will sponsor an Ice Age Flood tour, led by geologist Michael Hamilton. Hamilton earned a master’s degree in geology at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is a former adjunct professor at EWU. The itinerary for the bus tour includes visits to 10 geological features. The tour runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Participants will board a shuttle bus at Wren Pierson Building in Cheney, 615 Fourth Street. Attendees are encouraged to pack a lunch and bring water. Admission is $36, or $32 for Cheney resi...
Due to staffing shortages July 26 through July 29, the recording and elections departments in the Whitman County Auditor’s Office will be closed during lunch hours. Recording will be closed for lunch each day from 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Elections will be closed for lunch each day from 12:30 to 1 p.m.... Full story
This year’s mild and wet seasons finally gave way to summer for a brief flash Sunday afternoon, as readerboards registered triple digit temperatures for the first time. The brief hot spell broke Monday, as high winds brought in clouds, a few drops of rain and lowered the mercury back down to around 80. Summer may show its head for real this week, as clear skies and temperatures in the mid-to-upper 80s are predicted through next Tuesday....
Garth Meyer has joined the staff of the Whitman County Gazette as a reporter. Originally from Richland, Meyer’s background includes sportswriting and advertising copywriting. After spending four years as a sports reporter for small newspapers in John Day, Molalla and St. Helens, Ore., he went to advertising school in Minneapolis then made his way to New York and Los Angeles. “New York, L.A., Colfax, a natural progression,” Meyer commented. A graduate of the University of Oregon, he once sold T-shirts which read, “University of Nike at Eugene....
Combines began cutting Whitman County wheat fields out west this week, bringing in a long-delayed crop that could make a lot of farmers very happy. “It looks promising. This could be a good crop,” Tom Cauley at Ritzville Warehouse’s LaCrosse plant said Tuesday. Cauley began unloading trucks from wheat fields south of LaCrosse in earnest Monday, about two weeks later than usual. Harvest has been delayed by this year’s record soggy spring. In the eastern part of Whitman County, Ben Barstow, president of the Washington Association of Wheat G...
Just months after taking over postal duties for Washtucna, the Hooper post office could also be closed. The United States Postal Service released Monday a list of post offices it is studying for closure. Both the Hooper and Malden post offices made the list. Hooper’s rural carrier has been delivering Washtucna mail to a cluster of postal boxes installed earlier this year. Washtucna’s post office was closed in April after officials determined mold levels in the building created an unhealthy work environment. Ernie Swanson, press agent for the... Full story
Colfax School board Monday approved a 2011-12 budget, took in a review of the high school’s vision statement and hired a new C.H.S. athletic director. The approved budget is $5,945,305, which is $80,690 less than last year. In projected revenues vs. expenditures, the board approved spending up to $6,032,959 if needed. Further spending would require an amendment. The meeting began with a work session in which district business manager Reece Jenkin went over the numbers. With $235,461 in cuts f...
