The Gazette's top 11 headlines from 2011

Palouse Wind breaks ground on wind farm

After four years of permitting and months of court challenges, Palouse Wind broke ground on its north county wind farm in October. Excavators began building roads and clearing pads for 58 turbines at the site on Naff Ridge, Granite Butte and Steamshovel Hill between Oakesdale and Highway 195. Turbines are expected to go up next summer. Roger Whitten dropped his long-standing opposition to the project just before construction began, selling his Finch Road home to the company for $350,000. In July, the company signed a contract to sell electricity from the project to Avista. The company this month secured $210 million from Key Bank to finance the project.

Medical marijuana laws face challenge in court

Washington's medical marijuana laws were put to the test in Whitman County courts after a pair of patients/providers were arrested.

Agents with the Quad Cities Drug Task Force raided the Pullman home of Tyler Markwart, 30, arresting him and seizing 32 marijuana plants on April 19 after a confidential informant made three controlled marijuana buys posing as a patient.

Michael Adam Assenberg, 51, was arrested May 4, officers seizing 82 plants in the raid.

Both contended they were following state law that allows them to sell to one patient.

They said they were following the law by only selling to one patient - at a time.

Both dismissed public defender Steve Martonick from their cases.

Markwart represented himself in a case earlier this month in which he was convicted of five counts of growing and selling marijuana.

Assenberg has hired another attorney for his criminal trial which will be held in February.

Assenberg has also filed a civil suit against the county for what he claims are several violations of his rights under both the state and federal constitutions.

State halts mammoth burn, but mammoth burns

State officials quelched plans by Palouse artist Thad Froio to burn another of his prehistoric wooden statues.

The Department of Ecology in May put the kibosh on Froio's planned burning of a wooden mammoth after receiving a tip from a Palouse resident that the 15-foot-tall behemoth was not made of virgin wood.

State law prohibits burning of treated, processed wood.

The mammoth, and Palouse-o-saurus, which was burned in November 2010, was made of leftover wood from a renovation of the Palouse Tavern.

Plans were in the works for a gathering to watch the mammoth burn as a fundraiser for the Palouse Community Center.

In June, vandals set flame to the mammoth without ceremony.

No fines were levied and no suspects arrested.

After four years of planning and fundraising, construction of the community center began in August and is ongoing as of press time.

Farmers reap record yields

çA long, cool, wet spring resulted in the highest wheat yields ever produced in Washington state. Local grain brokers said bumper crops were reported by farmers across Whitman County, with winter wheat reports exceeding triple digits and spring wheat yields hitting 70 bushels per acre.

Statewide, winter wheat averaged a yield of 75 bushels per acre throughout the state, topping the previous record of 73 bushels per acre from the 2000 crop. Spring wheat yields averaged 61 bushels an acre, a marked increase over the 1984 record yield of 55 bushels per acre. Those high yields produced a statewide total of more than 167 million bushels, up almost 20 million from the 2010 harvest.

Worries set in early that another outbreak of stripe rust could attack the winter wheat crop. The 2010 crop was plagued with the fungus, and state ag officials warned the cool, damp spring and fall created perfect conditions for leftover spores to develop. Much damage was avoided, however, as farmers applied multiple doses of fungicide on crops well into July.

County enters New World

More than six years after it was purchased, Whitman County fired up its New World accounting software April 1.

Whitman County paid almost $400,000 for software updates, technical advice and hardware upgrades since purchasing the $331,600 New World system in 2005.

New World does not allow accounts to be booked out of balance.

It also gives department heads instant updates of how spending items affect their budget bottom lines.

The county wrote off a $274,629.62 discrepancy between its ledger and bank statements in March to bring the budget into balance before turning on the new system.

County schools which use the county to track their books were delayed in preparing budgets in June because the system could not produce reports that matched the school's needs.

State, federal agents shut down Bank of Whitman

Stung by a portfolio of commercial real estate loans gone bad, the Bank of Whitman was closed Friday, Aug. 5, by state and federal regulators. A team of 111 FDIC agents worked over a weekend to turn eight of the 34-year-old bank's 20 branches over to Columbia State Bank the next Monday. The remaining 12 branches, including branches in Endicott, LaCrosse and Rosalia, were not taken over by Columbia Bank.

Bank of Whitman's two top officers, CEO Jim Tribbett and Chief Lending Officer Craig Conklin, resigned Jan. 14, just after the board of directors was ordered to hire out a study of its management. Columbia took over Bank of Whitman’s $515.7 million in deposits and approximately $314.4 million of the failed bank's assets. The FDIC was left with $134.8 million of Bank of Whitman's bad loans.

County opens half-million dollar elections office

Secretary of State Sam Reed helped a number of local dignitaries christen Whitman County's new $443,000 elections office March 3.

Reed and Auditor Eunice Coker capped the six-year project by cutting a ribbon across the entrance of the building at the corner of Main and Island streets.

The building was remodeled by James Elmer Construction of Spokane.

It previously housed Harrison Electric and was used as a workshop by courthouse maintenance staff.

Elections workers had for the prior two years processed and counted ballots in the kitchen of the Public Service Building.

A new space for election processing was prompted in 2005, when the county decided to switch its elections entirely to vote-by-mail.

Pumpkin kids vandalized, heartened by county

Citizens of Whitman County rallied in November to make sure Mason, 6, and Brenna, 4, Gilchrist of Diamond profited from their Halloween pumpkin patch.

Still-unknown vandals raided the patch of the children of Craig and Deanna Gilchrist just before Halloween, stealing the posted piggy bank that contained some $60 worth of pumpkin payments and leaving their pumpkins smashed in pieces on the Endicott Road.

After the story of the theft and vandalism got out, donations began to show up at the Gilchrist home, hoping - apparently - to make up for the stolen proceeds.

The family returned home one night to find a cash-filled plastic pumpkin on their front porch and also received a number of anonymous donations in the mail.

They spent the donations on Christmas gifts for needy children from the Community Action Center's giving tree.

Johnson parade dries up

The Johnson Fourth of July parade dried up, as the Druffel sisters - originators of what has become a wacky cavalcade - declared a moratorium on water fights at the 44-year-old celebration.

"It had just become a battle zone," Kathy Wolf Druffel told the Gazette. Offenders were given three chances to obey the new rule before being "kicked out of Johnson." Despite the few angry noises and bad noises made behind Wolf Druffel by the water balloon set, most of the crowd seemed appreciative of the dry policy.

Schools shot down in remodel requests

Voters in Colton and Oakesdale rejected bond measures to remodel their schools. Colton for the second time had asked its voters to fund a remodel. This measure, scaled-down from the defeated request in November 2010, was for $4,996,000 to remodel the gym and bus garage and fund technology upgrades. Oakesdale asked for $4.2 million in bonds to build a new cafeteria and commons building, to remodel the school gymnasium and to modernize wiring, plumbing and heating and cooling systems in all school buildings on its 78-year-old campus.

LaCrosse store gains momentum, funding

The push to bring a grocery store back to LaCrosse kicked up in earnest, as LaCrosse Community Pride made a fevered fundraising pitch to remodel the store building.

The group secured funding from Whitman County's .09 funds in April to build a library space inside the store.

It also received a $42,000 grant from the Port of Whitman County in June to remodel the space for a small grocery store and offices.

The group also raised tens of thousands of dollars from sales of sponsor tiles and community donations.

LaCrosse has been without a store since the LaCrosse Market closed in February 2009.

Baseline work like wiring and refrigeration began in late summer.

Exterior and frame work is expected to be finished in 2012.