From wheat disease to Japanese cinema: Top 10 stories of 2010 in Whitman County

FEBRUARY TO MARCH

Colfax SCHOOL LEVY FAILS

The Colfax public failed the school levy in February, setting off a series of tense meetings on the state of the Colfax school district. The district put a second levy up to vote on April 27 which was narrowly passed by the public.

Levy funds for small-town schools pay for programs such as athletics, teacher salaries and special programs. Without a levy, the finances of a school district are gutted.

In the aftermath of the levy passing April 27, disgruntled school staff took a survey assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their district. Months later, a faction of the school staff unsuccessfully asked the school board not to renew the contract of Supt. Michael Morgan.

The board extended his contract for two years.

MARCH

PORT LANDS $10 MILLION STIMULUS GRANT

The Port of Whitman County in March was awarded a $9.8 million federal stimulus grant to link Pullman and Spokane with high-speed fiber optic internet cable. The fiber will run along state highways and will also provide high-speed internet access to Palouse, Garfield, Oakesdale, Tekoa, Rosalia and Spangle for the first time.

The port, which has to put up about $2 million of its own money as a match, spent much of the year figuring out the unique rules attached to funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Construction in Spokane began in the fall, with the bulk of the fiber construction to be done next year. The port’s grant is part of a larger $84 million grant awarded to Tacoma-based Northwest Open Access Network which is stringing fiber optic cable across hundreds of miles of rural Washington.

MARCH

GIANT Palouse EARTHWORM REARS ITS HEAD

University of Idaho researchers Shan Xu and Karl Umiker found a pair of live Giant Palouse Earthworms on Paradise Ridge, the first live sighting of the Palouse’s most mythic creature since 1988. The duo used a hi-tech worm shocking probe to shoot electrons into the ground and force the worms to the surface.

While the slow-moving, near-foot-long worm was a translucent pinkish-white in color, it did not spit or smell like lilies, as has been stated in 19th Century reports of the worm. The adult worm was killed and sent for research to the University of Kansas, while the juvenile was kept in a permeable sandwich bag in a cooler at the U of I. Xu and Umiker also discovered three worm cocoons at the same site they found the worms. The young worms are kept at the U of I.

APRIL

COUNTY FEATURED IN JAPANESE FLICK

Colfax and rural Palouse were given WWII-era makeovers in the spring, as film crews from Japan used the area as the setting for a period series about Japanese internment camps during the 1940s.

Main Street Colfax was given a retro facade for the filming of the 10-hour, five episode miniseries that will be broadcast in Japan on the Tokyo Broadcasting System. The film crews, which came from Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles, also shot scenes at Brad and Tania Buck’s early-20th Century barn at Onecho and at Gary Kendall’s century-old farmhouse just outside of Palouse.

One of the members of the film crew sustained a compound fracture in his right foot when he was ejected from a four-wheeler during the filming near Farmington.

APRIL

LEWIS LAWRENCE GETS 75 YEARS

Twenty-two-year-old Lewis Lawrence of Moscow was sentenced to 75 years in prison April 16 on three counts of attempted murder. Lawrence was charged with shooting a man in the face with a shotgun March 17, 2009, at a Pullman apartment. The man, Michael Fuaau, survived.

Asotin County Judge William Acey sentenced Lawrence to the maximum after he challenged one of the Fuaau’s brothers at the sentencing.

During his trial, Lawrence took the stand in his own defense and provided jurors a question-answer narrative of his account of the events of the night of the shooting.

JUNE TO JULY

COUNTY FINANCE OFFICE DISMANTLED

After months of less-than-par work, county commissioners fired the county finance director in a split vote in June and took control of the county finances.

In the ensuing debacle, county commissioners Greg Partch and Pat O’Neill were accused of having private conversations in making the decision to fire the director.

Oakesdale resident Roger Whitten asked for a recall of the commissioners, saying the two had violated the Open Meetings Act in their decision. A judge ruled the commissioners acted appropriately, but the county prosecutor later chastised the commissioners for violating the Open Meetings Act.

In the meantime, error after error was discovered surrounding the county’s new software program which was bought in 2005 and never used.

County auditor Eunice Coker took over control of the finance department later, saying those duties belonged under the auditor. The commissioners later hired their own administrative director, Gary Petrovich.

JUNE

STRIPE RUST SWEEPS FIELDS

Stripes of orange fungus infected fields of wheat and barley before harvest, as one of the area’s worst ever outbreaks of stripe rust attacked wheat and barley fields. Though spraying prevented the rust from damaging yields too severely, it did lead to an unexpected fungicide bill for area farmers. Ag pilots also had to work about six weeks later than usual to apply anti-rust chemicals to maturing fields. Pilots from as far away as Kansas were called in to help fight off the infestation.

Xianming Chen, a stripe rust researcher with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Ag Research Service at Pullman, said the 2010 rust outbreak left spores throughout fields of the Palouse. In November, he said the area would need an exceedingly cold winter to keep those spores from developing into another outbreak in 2011 crops.

JULY

Colfax FIRES, REHIRES FIRE CHIEF

Colfax Mayor Norma Becker fired Chief Ralph Walter in July, but gave him his job back in October to stop an appeal hearing before the city’s civil service commission.

Mayor Becker reinstated Walter’s job, with back pay and benefits, following the first day of testimony in the civil service hearing.

Walter was fired because of low morale in the department and among volunteers. Becker said the commission testimony convinced her he had patched his relationship with the volunteers.

Walter in November submitted a claim to the city for $501,494 for damages and attorney costs. The claim was turned over to the city’s insurance carrier. City council members have returned split votes on paying fees to attorneys who were hired to represent the city at the hearing.

JULY

FIRST WIND COMPANY APPLIES TO COUNTY

The county saw its first ever application for a wind company. The company First Wind applied for a permit in July to start a farm on Naff Ridge. The county passed legislation making wind farms legal in November 2009.

The company, First Wind, presented a plan that called for enough towers to generate 100 megawatts of electricity. Between 25 and 45 of the 400-foot tall turbines could be sited to generate that much power, depending on the precise location and design.

Naff Ridge, which runs north to south between Rosalia and Cashup, is situated to catch winds and is in close proximity to high-voltage Avista transmission lines.

There are several long-time protestors of wind farms in the county and those voices sounded out loudly both in public meeting and in letters to the editor.

First Wind had been measuring wind on the ridge since putting up a pair of meteorological towers in 2008. The company has six other wind farms across the United States.

OCTOBER

BODY FOUND IN PALOUSE

A 16-year-old Palouse student committed suicide under a bridge in town in October, prompting citizen protests against several different parties.

Dylan Mayhan-Treese took his life Oct. 11 and his body was not discovered until Oct. 23.

The county prosecutor and Palouse Police Chief later said the boy’s friend Alexandria Nieman was with him while he lay dying and knew where his body was as police searched for him. She later denied this in a Gazette interview.

Palouse residents were particularly angered that Nieman’s residence was allowed to continue functioning as it is commonly believed to be a long-time drug house.

At a series of heated city council meetings, citizens questioned Sheriff Brett Myers about the Quad Cities Drug Task Force and the county prosecutor about the drug house.

Several drug-related arrests happened outside that home. To date, the residents of the home have not been arrested and Prosecutor Tracy told a city council session they have no evidence of criminal activity at the residence.