Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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Garfield/Palouse Vikings and Colton Wildcats booked wins Friday when the SE Eights opened league competition. The Vikings out-dueled the LW Tigercats in a high scoring game at Palouse, and the Wildcats booked a big charge in the fourth quarter to tie Pomeroy and then defeated them in overtime. St. John/Endicott sustained a loss against a big Liberty/Christian team. They will head south this week to play Touchet Friday afternoon. SE EIGHTS STANDINGS League Overall PS PA Touchet 1-0 1-0 121 54 Gar./Pal 1-0 2-1 106 54 Colton 1-0 2-2 112 120...
Two farm-style paintings by Seattle artist and Colfax High graduate Susan Russell will adorn the walls of the century-old Wilcox Grange Hall. “I just have so many memories of this old Grange hall,” said Russell. A 40-year member of the Grange, she donated the paintings to members of the Wilcox Grange last Thursday night, Sept. 23. “After 40-some years, I’m finally a contributing member of the Grange,” said Russell. “Not just a dues-payer.” The hall was once the center of the thriving Wilcox community, which was a key stop on the territorial t... Full story
THURSDAY A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study found drivers distracted by talking or texting on cell phones killed an estimated 16,000 people from 2001 to 2007. Former President Bill Clinton secured a record 291 contributions worth $6 billion to tackle global woes at his sixth annual philanthropic summit, which wound up on Thursday. Mariner legend Ichiro Suzuki became the first player in Major League Baseball history to notch 10 consecutive 200-hit seasons when he slapped a single up the middle during the fifth inning of a... Full story
Today’s outgoing mail will be the last bundle of packages and letters crammed into the back of Jan Anderson’s white 1997 Ford F-700 freight truck. For the past 41 years, letters, cards and birthday gifts from families like the Halls, Mills, Maleys and Pittmanns have begun their journey from northwest Whitman County to the world in Anderson’s vehicles. “But who’s counting?” he asked. That long record of service comes to an end today, as he hauls his last loads from Steptoe, St. John, Malden, Rosalia and Spangle to the U.S. Postal Service’s s...
Whitman County is worth just shy of $2.8 billion, according to the 2011 valuation by Assessor Joe Reynolds. Reynolds gave county commissioners the valuation total last week. The 2011 total value of real and personal property is $2,769,339,855, which is up five percent from the county’s total 2010 valuation of $2,628,585,260. The figure was finalized after the county’s board of equalization session. The board hears appeals of the assessed valuations, but no appeals were submitted to the board this year. Reynolds said the biggest gain in the val...
Kathy Wride was sworn in as a member of the Colfax School Board Sept. 27. Wride will represent district two of the Colfax School district. She will fill the seat vacated by the resignation of board member Steve Lyon, who has moved to Mount Vernon. Wride served on the Colfax city council for 18 months. Last November, she married city policeman Rob Wride. In February, she resigned from the city council under conflict of interest restrictions caused by her marriage. Wride said she brings no specific agenda to the school board, other than working...
A state Department of Health-ordered boil advisory for LaCrosse water users is still in effect as of Tuesday afternoon. Officials detected the presence of E. coli bacteria during routine monitoring. The department issued the advisory last Thursday which urged residents to boil tap water at least one full minute if they use it for drinking, cooking, brushing teeth, mixing baby formula, dishwashing or for ice. Michael Baker, Whitman County’s environmental health director, said Tuesday he had not received any reports of E. Coli-related i...
There is no evidence yet of any swine flu in Whitman County this season. Dr. Tim Moody told county commissioners last week the county health department has plenty of vaccine stored up in the event of an outbreak. Those interested in the vaccine this year can receive one at the county office for $20. Other clinics, including Safeway in Pullman, are charging between $25 and $30....
Pullman rancher Marcus Jacobson has been fined $4,000 by the Washington State Department of Ecology for allegedly discharging polluted water into a tributary of the South Fork Palouse River. According to a news release issued last week, ecology officials fined Jacobson for having cattle penned in an area which had a stream that empties into the river. Ecology officials said multiple visits to Jacobson’s ranch showed trampled and eroded stream banks and mounds of manure sloughing into the water. The department ordered Jacobson to change his o... Full story
Paychecks of Whitman County employees will drop next year, as employees must cover skyrocketing rates for health insurance coverage. “It’s just one more thing on our employees,” said Commissioner Michael Largent. “I’m sure there will be some people working just for insurance.” The county insures employees through the Washington Counties Insurance Pool. Largent sits on the pool’s board. Monthly insurance payments out of employees’ pockets will increase as much as $1,128 per month. The county pays $653 toward employees’ insurance. That w...
Colfax will burst to life with festivities during the fifth edition of Autumn Harvest Hullabaloo Friday and Saturday. A dash of antiques, pets, poker, Dutch ovens and beer are on the agenda for this year’s festival. Colfax streets are fully prepped with autumn decorations for this weekend’s Hullabaloo. Up and down Main Street, street corners bristle with pumpkins, corn stalks and hay bales, compliments of a corner competition among all the bank staffs in town. New to the festival this year will be the poker tournament and the Dutch oven con... Full story
Colfax will burst to life with festivities during the fifth edition of Autumn Harvest Hullabaloo Friday and Saturday. A dash of antiques, pets, poker, Dutch ovens and beer are on the agenda for this year’s festival. Up and down Main Street, street corners bristle with pumpkins, corn stalks and hay bales, compliments of a corner competition among all the bank staffs in town. New to the festival this year will be the poker tournament and the Dutch oven contest. The Dutch oven cook-off competition among local entrants will run from 9 a.m. to 12 p....
Forty-three tracts of farm ground in Whitman County were accepted into the USDA’s conservation reserve program, or CRP, during last month’s general sign-up. Those contracts totaled more than 5,792 acres of land, according to Kathy Wolfe, executive director of the county’s Farm Service Agency office. USDA officials approved every contract offered in the county. Wolfe said one landowner has decided not to accept the USDA’s contract, withdrawing 230.5 acres to bring the total of general CRP enrollment down to 5,561.7. The general CRP program...
Whitman Hospital is experiencing a year-long low in patient visits, in the midst of the changing national health care regulations and a poor economy. In-patient stays at the hospital have been down by 25 percent overall since January, said CEO David Womack. Womack said the decrease is largely in the number of in-patients covered by commercial insurance. He believes this is a direct result of the nation’s struggling economy. “We have an overall drop in patient load all year, but it’s particularly bad for commercial insurance,” he said. Visits fr... Full story
Approximately one dozen of the state’s top ag pilots buzzed the Colfax airport last Thursday to tune up their spray planes in the wake of a busy year. The fly-in was put together by the Association of Washington Aerial Applicators. Local planes and pilots welcomed their colleagues from the Tri-Cities, Moses Lake, even some from as far away as Quincy to the Colfax airport, where they all fine-tuned their spray systems. One at a time, the pilots flew inches above the airport to measure the effectiveness of their spray nozzles. They sprayed p...
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. City will look for pipe grants Andy Rogers, Colfax Public Works director, said he plans to undertake a search for grant sources to repair or replace the water main which links the city’s artesian pumps at Glenwood with the pump station at the end of Clay Street. Rogers told the city council members at their last meeting city crews have been c...
In 2004, the voters in the state of California approved a bill mandating the spending of $3 billion on stem-cell research, though because it was California they did not approve a bill to pay for it. A new breakthrough, however, suggests that maybe the whole thing could turn into a moneymaker for the nearly bankrupt state. Stem cells are amazing building blocks of the body that can be coaxed into growing into nearly anything you want, like an elbow or a kidney. Put some stem cells into a petri dish, stir them up, and voila, you can grow...
President Obama and congressional candidates are tripping over themselves trying to convince voters that they will have a tax plan to soak the rich, help the middle class and jump-start small business. They want to entice people to spend what money they have and sway wary investors to shake loose with the $13 trillion currently tucked away waiting for more certain economic and political times. Visible tax relief is but a small part of the equation for struggling people and employers. It is the hidden taxes imbedded in the family grocery, phone...
“NEW NAME in GOP Mix” headlined the Wall Street Journal. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana led a straw poll of conservatives in the mix to become the GOP presidential nominee in 2012 taken at the Family Research Council summit the other day. Rep. who? He’s the third ranking Republican in the House, said WSJ reporters, although they neglected to mention what position that was, or where the summit took place. I had to look in the Washington Times to learn that the summit was in Washington, D.C. In fact, the Times ran a list of 17 hopefuls whose names... Full story
A $1.7 million gift to the Girls Scouts from Ed and Beatriz Schweitzer was announced last week. Pam Lund, cheif executive officer for the Girl Scouts of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho, said the donation will be used for building of a new lodge facility at Camp Four Echoes on Coeur d’Alene Lake. “This will be a true partnershp with the Schweitzers and Girls Scouts,” Lund noted in her release. Schweitzer is founder of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories in Pullman. The current lodge at Camp Four Echoes has served the Girls Scouts for 7... Full story
1. LANGUAGE: What does the Latin prefix “juxta” mean? 2. PSYCHOLOGY: What kind of fear is represented in anthophobia? 3. CHEMISTRY: What is the atomic number of hydrogen? 4. MOVIES: For what 1983 film did Shirley MacLaine win an Academy Award for best female actress? 5. MATH: What is the Arabic equivalent of the Roman numerals XCV? 6. TELEVISION: Which newsman had the famous signoff line, “And that’s the way it is”? 7. MEDICINE: What is the normal human body temperature in Celsius? 8. HISTORY: What was the name of Amelia Earhart’s navigator o...
• It was American author and futurist Alvin Toffler who made the following sage observation: “Profits, like sausages, are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them.” • In honor of October being National Pizza month, here are a few statistics: Approximately 3 billion pizzas are sold every year in the United States. Seventeen percent of all the restaurants in the country are pizzerias. If you’re like 93 percent of Americans, you eat at least one pizza every month. Pepperoni is the most popular topping, followed by sausage,...
Colfax, which hosted 64 cyclocross bicycle racers Sunday afternoon at Schmuck Park, received an invitation to become a stop on next year’s Inland Northwest Series which runs during the fall months. Sunday’s event at Colfax, booked as “The Schmuck,” was scheduled just before the IE fall series starts this week at Cheney. Racers gave the Colfax 3K course strong reviews, and the organization extended an invitation to be on the official circuit next year, according to Joel Jones, prime mover in launching the Colfax event. Jones estimated it took ab... Full story
The History Channel * On Oct. 10, 1845, The United States Naval Academy opens in Annapolis, Md., with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors. The curriculum included mathematics and navigation, gunnery and steam, chemistry, English, natural philosophy and French. * On Oct. 8, 1871, a spark in the Chicago barn of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary ignites a two-day blaze that kills between 200 and 300 people, destroys 17,450 buildings and leaves 100,000 homeless. Legend has it that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern and started the fire.... Full story
Bi City League Bruning Funeral Home 544 614 569–1727 Dusty Country Store 602 603 591–1796 Sisters Brew 598 664 655–1917 KUP 519 568 547–1634 Pioneer Telephone 558 550 571–1679 Triple Threat 611 626 641–1878 BlackCat Ranch 707 642 684–2033 High Series HC – Men Steve Humphrey 731 Women Marie Ping 702 Fun Bunch Salon Rae 407 415 475–1297 Smelly Ballz 440 399 445–1284 Moscow Guys 387 365 462–1214 Spartans 391 374 396–1161 Ham Balls 417 429 431–1277 Top Notch 400 400 400–1200 Chicasgalore 428 438 417–1283 High Series HC Women– Kristin Scholz 690...
