Top 10 stories from 2015

Fair foundation launches project; receives donation

The community building at the fairgrounds is receiving a remodel. The 20-foot addition to the side of the building is adding a kitchen, office space and an outdoor serving area. Ron and Barb Wachter of Pullman, long-time fair supporters, three weeks ago donated $250,000 to the project.

A remodeling project which is expected to mark big gains for off-season revenue for the Palouse Empire Fair was launched last summer. The project led to the addition of a 20-foot lean-to addition to the side of the community building which will contain a new kitchen, office space and an outdoor serving window with patio. Overall aim of the project is to upgrade the community building and make rental spaces more flexible for use.

The building, which has generated fair rental revenue, often in combination with the Jones school building and the grounds gazebo, will be known as the events center.

Contractors and members of the foundation board worked to get the exterior of the addition completed in time to be shown at the fair in September. The project sustained a setback this fall when work shifted to the interior of the building and asbestos removal increased the bottom line of the project.

The addition received a big boost three weeks ago when Ron and Barb Wachter of Pullman donated $250,000 to the project. Both the Wachters have been long-time supporters and active participants at the fair.

Ron Wachter, a former president of the fair board, noted their donation was a way of giving back to Whitman County which has been good to them over the 52 years they have resided in Whitman County and operated their businesses here.

"It's put in the right place," Barb Wachter commented after the foundation's annual banquet and dinner auction which was in the unfinished events center.

Pac-12 XC race at golf course

Possibly the most unique event at Colfax during the year was the Oct. 30 cross country race which brought runners from Pac-12 conference schools to compete at the Colfax Golf Course. The big race event came about after WSU officials signed with the golf course board to host the event here. The Cougars this year were assigned to host the all-conference race.

The course was staked out around the golf course with a special fenced segment for the finish. The big event brought 186 runners to compete with the men's race at 8,000 meters and the women's race at 6,000 meters. Edward Cheserek of Oregon topped the runners here and went on to win the national NCAA race. Aisline Cuffer of Stanford won the women's race.

Colorado teams won team honors in both events.

Local entrant in the race was Morgan Willson of Pullman, two-time state cross-country champion who now competes on the Cougar women's team. She becomes the only Colfax sports grad to compete for the Cougars in a conference event at Colfax.

WSU officials sought a flat cross-country course to host the event because they no longer have that type of real estate available on College Hill in Pullman.

Fagan out, Dye in; mayoral races

Ninth District Rep. Susan Fagan, Pullman, resigned from her position May 1 after allegations of falsifying mileage reimbursements surfaced. In a special election by county commissioners who came to Colfax from across the district, Mary Dye of Pomeroy was appointed to fill Fagan's vacated seat.

Seventeen commissioners from six counties in the district attended the emergency appointment meeting May 8, and Dye came away with 13 of the 17 votes.

Three days later, Dye filed for election to that seat. The election to fill the remainder of Fagan's term, one year, was in November, with Dye taking the majority of the vote with 16,019 votes to opponent Richard Lathim's 9,282. Lathim is the former Franklin County Sheriff of 28 years who also was at the special election with the county commissioners. There, he took three votes to Dye's 13.

Mayoral races were also on the ballot in Colfax and Palouse, with both incumbents ultimately retaining their seats.

Colfax Mayor G. Todd Vanek went against JW Roberts for the seat. The race was close until Vanek came away with nearly 58 percent of the vote, defeating Roberts. Vanek started his second term when he took the oath of office at the Colfax City Council meeting Dec. 21.

Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove was re-elected to his fourth term after being challenged by former councilwoman Connie Newman. Echanove took 286 votes, or 66 percent, to defeat Newman and earn his fourth bid. He took his oath of office at a November Palouse council meeting.

JW Trail bill debate

It started on a sunny afternoon at the Whitman County Fair in September. Tekoa resident and city councilman Ted Blaszak stopped by the Whitman County Republicans booth to chat with Reps. Joe Schmick and Mary Dye.

He picked up a tidbit of information: the two representatives had supported a budget proviso about to be passed which would close a 135-mile section of the John Wayne Trail from Beverly at the Columbia River to Malden.

The next time Blaszak and Schmick saw each other, it was across a U-shaped table at a packed Tekoa city hall where Schmick and Dye sought input from the public after the proviso was nullified due to a misstatement in the document.

The meeting was the first in what became a series – three more called by Schmick, and now a four-stage process underway by Washington State Parks, all in an attempt to keep the trail section open while addressing longtime concerns of adjacent landowners – spanning issues from weed control, liability, trespassing, maintenance and more.

Colton remodels school buildings

The newly-remodeled Colton School opened Sept. 14, beginning the school year a week later than usual as work was completed on the $11 million project.

Funding for the overhaul of the 1936 building was secured by a 2013 bond measure for $5.6 million, which was added to $5.375 million in state matching funds.

It passed after two previous bond proposals failed.

The phased work began in July 2014, after which temporary classrooms were used in the school's small gym for most of the 2014-15 school year. Ultimately, the school was transformed with a new, more secure single-entrance, administrative offices, weight room, computer room, library and expanded gym.

In addition, a new agriculture shop and bus barn arose adjacent to the new, open parking lot.

St. Ignatius opens for haunted hunts

A girl explores the second floor hallway of St. Ignatius during the first ghost hunt at the vacant hospital building.

The former St. Ignatius Hospital became a popular attraction in October with the introduction of ghost hunts and tours at the vacant hospital building for Halloween.

Colfax's Unified Executive Director Valoree Gregory, who was appointed to the new position in July, organized the tours and hunts in response to community interest in the building. The Haunted Hospital, which Gregory said she thought would be a local event, ended up garnering attention from across the state and the nation, with more than 650 of the attendees being from out of town.

The event was able to raise about $7,000 which was divided among the Downtown Association, Chamber of Commerce and the owners of St. Ignatius.

The Haunted Hospital attraction, which was supposed to be a one-time event, went for a second round with “Nightmare before the Holidays.” That round earned about $3,500 with 250 people attending. Again, the majority of those people came from out of town.

On Dec. 19, a film crew from Los Angeles arrived at the hospital site to film for their YouTube show. Gregory said that crew found so much activity at the hospital that they changed their travel plans and stayed an extra day. Their excursion material is currently being put together to air on their YouTube channel, LiveSciFi.tv.

Plans for the former hospital site are currently in discussion, and a housing development has been proposed by owner Anthony Girges. A timeline has not been established for that development. The Colfax City Council Oct. 5 voted to annex a 1.59 acre site at the St. Ignatius property to be in city limits to allow the developer a single entity for compliance if and when a project gets underway.

Oakesdale Versatile shop opens

A new 7,500-square foot C.P.P. Versatile shop and dealership opened in Oakesdale in October with $50,000 in inventory.

Owned by Ray Oneal of Lapwai, Idaho, the original aim was to open in early July, making the grand opening 110 days past due.

The shop and dealership has two full-time employees and two part-time, along with sales and service people on the road. The shop carries tillage and haying equipment and a line of two and four-wheel drive tractors.

Oneal chose Oakesdale for the dealership because of its central location between the top of the Lewiston hill and Spokane.

Colfax airport gets upgrade

The Port of Whitman County invested nearly $1.8 million dollars to enhance the airport runway at the Port of Whitman County Business Air Center. The project capped off a series of projects which improved the space by adding 11 new hangars – four private and seven public – as well as taxiway reconstruction in 2007, apron expansion and tie down construction in 2012-13 and runway redesign in 2014 followed by the completion this year.

“Since 2004, the Port, FAA and WSDOT have invested almost $4 million in improvements,” Port Properties and Development Manager Debbie Snell reported.

The runway redesign evened out and expanded the runway. It had previously been about 3,500 feet in length and 55 to 57 feet wide. The new runway is still 3,500 feet long, and it was widened to 60 feet all across. The runway reconstruction also included improved drainage, improved asphalt, new electrical infrastructure, new lighting and new signs.

Erik Luden murder trial, sentencing cap court year

Sentencing Dec. 18 of Erik Luden, 25, for the second-degree murder of his father, capped the year of criminal cases in Whitman County Superior Court. Luden was sentenced to 244 months in the state prison system after the jury two days earlier convicted him of striking his father with a cooking pot last May 30 at an off-campus apartment. His father, Virgil "Cliff" Luden, had traveled to Pullman last May 30 to help his son, a former WSU student, move back to Sammamish.

Testimony at the trial indicated an argument erupted as Luden and his father prepared for the move.

The conviction and sentence ended a span of almost seven months when Erik Luden compiled a record of infractions while he was locked up in the county jail. The judge ordered Luden to undergo a competency evaluation at Eastern State Hospital after the defendant appeared in court under a blanket and was unresponsive at a pre-trial hearing, and the trial commenced Dec. 14 after Luden was ruled competent to undergo trial.

Judge David Frazier sentenced Luden to the maximum term after a sentencing hearing in which Luden's mother told the court she has lost the two most important men in her life.

The Luden case concluded a court year that started with the appearance of John Lee after his arrest Jan. 10 in a roadside field south of Steptoe on Highway 195. Lee was attempting to flee officers after allegedly fatally shooting three people in Moscow earlier in the day. His alleged victims were his adoptive mother Terri Grzebielski, 61, his landlord, David Trail, 76, and the manager of the Moscow Arby's, Belinda Niebuhr, 47.

Lee was held in Whitman County until March and then extradited to Idaho, where he faces three murder charges in the district court in Moscow. His trial had been set for May 2 in Latah Second District Court, but a hearing for re-scheduling has been slated for March 7.

Pullman airport nets wetlands

The Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport Runway Realignment Project hit Colfax when an off-site wetland/stream mitigation was needed to offset the loss of wetlands at the airport.

Construction began Aug. 16 at the Tom and Cheryl Kammerzell property along the South Fork of the Palouse River east of Colfax. The Kammerzell's gained $284,000 for the wetland mitigation, and their property was chosen as the site for the mitigation after J-U-B Engineers in Spokane had looked into a number of sites before settling on the 113.6 acre stretch at the Kammerzell property. Vince Barthels at J-U-B Engineers said other sites did not meet what they were hoping to find, which was a continuous stretch of land where the project could be completed all together.

The mitigation was met with questions as to how the Kammerzell property was chosen and why it seemed that local landowners were unaware of the opportunity to develop wetlands on their property. Barthels, however, said that a number of open houses were hosted around Whitman County and the call for property was printed in a publication of the Palouse Conservation District in the fall of 2013.

The $1.19 million wetland mitigation concluded earlier this month. Kammerzell told the Gazette that he expects the project to provide a “pretty pristine area” for local wildlife as it will draw them into the land and out of town.

Kammerzell also noted that 19,000 native plantings included in the project benefited the land, which was negatively impacted by the South Palouse fire in August 2006 that burned the trestle.