Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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The unprecedented Colfax title run in state volleyball action at Yakima came to an end Saturday in the semi-final round of the 2B tournament, but the Bulldogs kept on battling and finished with the third place trophy. Their semi foe was La Conner, a team which figures in most Colfax state sagas. The Braves, who collided with Colfax in the quarter-final round last year, defeated Colfax in a five-game middle court classic which lasted more than two hours Saturday morning at the dome. The La Conner win in the semi sent them up against Reardan in...
THURSDAY Shi’ite Nuri al-Maliki was re-nominated as Iraqi prime minister as fractious politicians ended an eight-month deadlock that raised fears of renewed secretarian warfare. Animal rights activists protested South Korea officials for using goldfish to ensure the purity of restroom water supplies as part of elaborate security measures for the G20 summit. The world’s first floating Starbucks pulled into a Florida port aboard the world’s largest cruise liner, Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas. Scientists from the Massachusetts Institu...
A claim of $501,494 for damages and attorney costs has been submitted to the City of Colfax by Ross White, Spokane attorney who represented Chief Ralph Walter in the appeal of his dismissal as Colfax Fire Chief. The claim, which has been forwarded to the city’s insurance carrier, included $425,000 in general damages and the balance of $76,494 in attorney fees, according to City Attorney Bruce Ensley. Mayor Norma Becker reinstated Walter to the fire chief’s position before the second scheduled day of the civil service hearing Oct. 6. She sai...
The Tekoa city council is moving forward with a $3 million-plus plan to overhaul the city’s water system. The council Monday night voted to sign a contract that would bring in enough funding to replace all of the old pipes in town and provide new fire hydrants. Approximately 40 Tekoa citizens attended a public hearing before the council signed the contract. Now passed, the cost of the overhaul will raise citizen water rates $17 a month by 2013. The measure will use a $2.9 million loan and $1.2 million grant from USDA Rural Development. Mayor J... Full story
Fast winds swept across the Palouse Monday night, leaving limbs and shingles littered along city streets and cutting electrical service to thousands. Power poles were knocked over and lines snapped all across the Inland Empire, leaving 45,000 people without electricity. By Tuesday night, Avista had restored power to all but 4,400 customers. Inland Power and Light had about 1,000 houses disconnected from power Tuesday night. John Livingston, meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service’s Spokane station, said a line of t... Full story
Alexandra Neiman, the 21-year-old friend of Dylan Mayhan-Treese, the 16-year-old Palouse boy who committed suicide last month, says her only crime was befriending the troubled teen. “I wanted to save him. He was my best friend,” said Neiman in a sit-down interview with the Gazette Nov. 16. Mayhan-Treese was found beneath a railroad bridge on West Church Street Oct. 23 after committing suicide two weeks earlier from a lethal combination of prescription morphine and anti-depressants. The parents of Mayhan-Treese have cast blame on Neiman for the...
Protestors question task force about alleged drug den Nearly two dozen Palouse residents rallied in front of what they believe to be a drug den sanctioned by the Quad Cities Drug Task Force on West Mohr Street last weekend. Task force officials and residents of the home have both denied that accusation, saying the protestors were taking out their sadness over the suicide of 16-year-old Dylan Mayhan-Treese on residents of the house. Banging signs and wooden sticks on the ground and yelling “time to move out” to the residents inside, the pro...
Colfax school board voted unanimously Monday night to retain Superintendent Michael Morgan for another two years and the superintendent accepted the offer. The board’s vote followed heated debate Monday and at their previous session Oct. 18. Criticism of the superintendent clashed with praise of him at Monday’s meeting, which was attended by 58 people, including school staffers, parents and other residents. Supt. Morgan said in a later interview with the Gazette he plans on standing by his acceptance of the contract, unless another opp... Full story
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING FOR A VARIANCE The public is notified of a hearing for Keith Kopf before the Board of Adjustment on Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. in the Public Service Building, 1st floor auditorium, N. 310 Main Street, Colfax, Washington. The applicant is requesting a variance from the North Pullman-Moscow Corridor District Setback code Section 19.15.070 Front Setbacks: the SR 270 setback shall be 35 feet from the north right-of-way line. The site is located at 6952 SR 270 in Section 1, Township 14N., Range 45E., W.M....
Colfax Bulldogs and the Lind-Ritzville-Sprague Broncos, the two top finishers in the NE, will collide again Saturday at 5 p.m. on the artificial turf at Gonzaga Prep in north Spokane. The all NE matchup evolved after the two contenders booked big wins in the first state playoff round last week. Colfax advanced on a 54-7 win over Warden in the WSU’s Martin Stadium. The Broncos advanced on a 12-0 win over Kittitas. The Koyotes were one of two teams to defeat LRS this season. The other team to top LRS was the Bulldogs with a 32-9 win in the f...
State football bids for three county eight-man teams ended Friday and Saturday when NE contenders booked a sweep to advance to the next round. Friday, Columbia/Inchelium posted a 22-16 win at St. John to stop the Eagles, and Wilbur/Creston nipped the GP Vikings at Palouse 14-12. Saturday at Gonzaga Prep, Cusick booked a second consecutive state stop on the Colton Wildcats with a 52-6 crunch. The three NE winners were seeded into the playoff as the second, third and fourth place teams out of the NE behind Almira/Coulee/ Hartline, the NE champs....
Colton’s Wildcats booked another fifth place trophy after following the same track in the 1B state net tourney at Yakima, and the Tekoa/Oakesdale Nighthawks finished in sixth place after advancing to the semi-final round. Both of the Whitman contenders crossed paths with the 1B teams which wound up in Friday’s title game. TEKOA/ OAKESDALE bowed 1-3 to the eventual champions, Almira/Coulee/Hartline, in the semi-final game. The `hawks took the first game 25-19, but ACH came back to win the next three and advance to the title game, 25-17 25-...
Marriage Licenses Aditya Bagade, 28, W. Richard and Sindhu Nair, 30, Pullman, Nov. 12 Building Permits Spokane Seed, gas piping and unit heater, $2,360, 1204 Clay Street, Nov. 12 Warwick Building, gas furnace, $3,877, 409 N. Main, Nov. 15 Spokane Seed, sewer hookup, $10,000, 1204 N. Clay, Nov. 15 Assembly of God Church, install beam, $500, 714 S. Hillcrest, Nov. 15 Ron Davidson, reroof residence, 806 S. Mill, Nov. 16 Thrifty Grandmothers, gas furnace, $2,000, 119 N. Main, Nov. 16 Artis Brannon, repair porch, $500, 310 N. Mill, Nov. 16 Real...
A three-mile run and walk is going down this Saturday, Nov. 20 at Schmuck park to raise funds for a Colfax family adopting two Ethiopian children. The Knox family is looking to raise $26,000 to adopt a brother and sister pair from an orphanage in Ethiopia. Another Colfax family, Matt and Jill Ross, began a non-profit organization this summer geared toward helping families adopt. No Longer Orphans is putting on the run/walk and has already raised $8,000 for the Knox family. Entry to the run is $20 and starts at 9 a.m. Jill Ross said they have...
A study of the environmental impacts of First Wind’s proposed wind farm is available today, Thursday. Boston-based First Wind, through its Palouse Wind offshoot, has applied to build a 55-turbine wind farm on Naff Ridge and Granite Butte northwest of Oakesdale. Planner Alan Thomson Tuesday told the Gazette that CH2M Hill, the engineering firm hired by First Wind to prepare the statement, will deliver copies of the statement to the planning office Thursday morning. Among other potential areas of impact, the draft version will address how the p...
First glance at Whitman County’s 2011 budget shows a deficit of less than $100,000, Auditor Eunice Coker said Monday. As the 2011 spending plan begins to take shape, initial figures look better than anticipated. Coker cautiously told a room full of county officials at a lunch time meeting. “The budget looks, tentatively right now, like current expense is not too far out of balance,” she said. After four amendments to the 2010 budget, the county is currently projected to spend $827,866 more than it takes in by the end of the year. But Coker...
Beneath some of the richest topsoil on the planet lies a treasure of geologic data that helps tell the story of the world’s formation. Often times, however, that story goes overlooked by locals as they pass by the exposed sections of earth that carry that tale. “It’s amazing that this is sitting right out here in the open,” said Alena Ebinghaus, a doctoral geology student from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Ebinghaus and her research assistant Kieran Wall spent Saturday morning in the rain chipping rocks off the top of Buck Canyon...
A free Thanksgiving dinner cooked and served by the United Methodist church members will be held Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 25. Volunteers are putting together a turkey extravaganza complete with mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, pie and stuffing. “We’ll probably have three or four kinds of pie,” said Donna Thompson, the church member who is organizing the dinner. Thompson and other church members began cooking and serving free community dinners once a month at the start of this summer. Attendance at those dinners has grown from eight...
Lamont Lamont Community Church celebrated its annual Harvest Festival Sunday. The potluck was at the community center with about 35 people attending. Dave Rajala sang several of his songs and accompanied himself on the guitar. Also, young pianists Emily Boutain, Rosie and Tracy Melville, Carmen Swannack and Thomas Wu played. Bonnie Swannack and Janet Bowman drove to Wheatland Grange Hall Sunday to attended the potluck dinner and watch the awards given out to the Junior Rodeo winners. Tommie Sue Swannack, Bonnie’s granddaughter, won firsts in go...
Whitman County returned to the World Wide Web Tuesday after a week and a half absence. The web site clicked out of order Nov. 6 after two hard drives failed. They were part of a series of hard drives that contains a database of information for the web site. Chris Nelson, county information technology director, said the drives likely died from the wild weather patterns that brought in cold temperatures and hard rain over that weekend. “In my experience, even in a climate-controlled area, when hard drives die it’s because of wild weather cha... Full story
An increase in the illegal practice of hunting from the road has been observed over the the past two years by Bob Weaver, Fish & Wildlife officer for Whitman County. “In the last two years it’s really increased quite a bit,” Weaver said. Weaver wants to get the word out to the public to report illegal hunting practices. Since the hunting season began in October, Weaver has received 20 to 25 calls from landowners around the county reporting people trespassing on their land to hunt. Weaver said he has received twice as many complaints this year...
I have seven remote controls for my television set that I keep in a basket — I’ve nicknamed the basket “the remote jungle.” At night, when I’m asleep, the remotes like to escape the jungle and burrow deep into the couch cushions. This is the only explanation for why I can often change the channel by shifting my position on the couch. I am certainly not one of those people who is too lazy to put a remote back in the basket when I am finished with it — why would the word “lazy” ever be used to describe someone with so many remote controls? My fa...
In 1992, a single male sockeye salmon managed to swim 900 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River to Redfish Lake in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, the end of his migratory journey. Biologists dubbed him “Lonesome Larry.” This year, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council happily reported record-setting runs for sockeye in the Columbia and Snake rivers and their tributaries. Nearly 387,000 had climbed the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam, and by mid-August 2,100 passed through the fish counters at Lower Granite Dam, the last counting stati...
IT ISN’T SO MUCH the cost of President Obama’s 10 day trip to Asia, it’s what’s he doing going over there in the first place? Hasn’t he got enough to do here at home? He didn’t negotiate those airplane contracts with India, etc. That was all a done deal before Air Force One left the ground over here. Boeing simply allowed him the pomp and circumstance of being in on the signing. At the rate he loves to travel, I suspect he’ll need a new Air Force One before he’s out of office whether it’s two more years or six. I don’t think he was home t... Full story
++++ “Educational Backbone Bowl” final score: District-1 Lynch Mob-0 +++++ Pullman Girls winning state volleyball title on Saturday. Send your Pet Peeves and Okeydokes to the Gazette P.O. Box 770 211 N. Main St Colfax, Wa 99111...