Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 414 - 438 of 2119
The McCoy Land Company/PNW grain pile project at Dusty continues in its first phase of construction at the intersection of Highway 26 and 127. The project was granted a conditional use permit earlier this year for four grain piles, truck scales, utilities and small office space, with a driveway off Highway 127, south of Dusty. A site drawing by Keltic Engineering of Lewiston includes nine circles marking grain piles, though no plans are in place for any more than the permitted four. “We planned...
Superintendent Jerry Pugh opened the Colfax School board meeting Monday night saying the Washington State Leadership Academy's first site visit to Colfax will focus on math. “The first day of really mining data,” Pugh said. He later talked about how the intention is to improve Colfax math test scores in statewide assessment data. Jennings Elementary Principal Travis Howell took the board through results for “Smarter Balance” testing grades 3-6 last year. “We continue to be well above the state i...
It started with a flooded museum. The Roy M. Chatters Newspaper and Printing Museum in Palouse had been closed since the flood of 1996, when the building was under two feet of water. It remained shut down five years later, when two people moved to Palouse from Las Vegas, Gary and Deanna Brunton. They got involved with Needful Things, the town-benefit thrift store, which began that year (2001), and came to a Palouse Chamber of Commerce meeting. The subject that night, at the former Family Cafe,...
The McCoy Land Co./PNW grain pads project is underway at Dusty, after a process that brought public comment, attorneys and controversy, ultimately going to a hearing examiner who granted a conditional use permit for the work last spring. A county building permit was issued Aug. 8, after a 21-day period to appeal the examiner's decision expired. The first permit is only for making an access road, as well as concrete work for a culvert to cross a drainage for access to the pads. PNW/McCoy is...
After further review, documents all checked out from M.A. DeAtley of Clarkston’s bid for the Almota Four road project. County commissioners accepted the bid Monday, of $5,561,284. The difference between the bid and the engineer's estimate of $4.9 million will be covered by $600,000 from the county's annual $1.4 million federal general allocation for 2021. “Spending ahead,” said Dean Cornelison, assistant county engineer. The extra money was expected to be added to the $2 million from the state...
A member of the Tekoa High School class of 1992 has self-published a book. Jason Burke, a Washington State Parks ranger for nearly 10 years and Eastern Washington University graduate in journalism, released his first book in August. It chronicles a journey. The title is "Secretly Seeking Sasquatch: A Road Guide to Washington's Bigfoot Country." Burke began the project in Shoreline where he lived with his wife and two boys, in a lull between employment after being laid off by State Parks in...
Two county Southeast 1B volleyball teams met Tuesday night in Colton and went to a 15-15 tie in the fifth game. Needing to win by two points, at 16-15, St. John/Endicott/LaCrosse’s Ashlynn Archer stuffed a Colton kill, the ball dropped onto Colton’s court and it was over. “Then the gym erupted,” said Eagles Coach Jenn Johnson. Archer, a sophomore middle blocker, led the winners with 20 kills, 12 blocks and 24 digs. Roxy Dickerson added 23 assists and three aces. Last week, the Eagles swept P...
The St. John/Endicott/LaCrosse Eagles went to Toppenish Oct. 4 to face a winless Yakama Nation team and came back still with one win of their own. The home team, on their homecoming, beat the Eagles 38-6. "Yakama was pretty jacked up. They took it to us and we didn't respond," said SJEL Coach Rich Hallenius. "They were faster than they looked on video." St. John/Endicott/LaCrosse (1-4, 0-3 league) scored their touchdown late in the first half, when Doug Stach, a defensive back, picked up a...
Two Whitman County Commissioners listened to a request for an advisory vote on the proposed “Liberty State” Monday. Kevin Akesson of Colfax spoke to Art Swannack and Michael Largent on the effort to make eastern and much of central Washington its own state. “We're finding broad support on the east side of the state,” said Akesson. In his comments, he also noted the commissioners' recent matter of how to regulate marijuana may be moot in a 51st state. “If a state in Eastern Washington existed i...
On the side of the U.N. Assembly, a deal was made. “Hey, it’s fantastic. It’s gonna put us back on par with Canada and Australia. That’s what we’ve been shooting for,” said Gary Bailey, a third-generation St. John farmer and chairman of the board for Washington Grain Commission. The deal – announced Sept. 24 from New York by the Trump administration and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — drops tariffs amounting to 55 cents more per bushel of U.S. wheat, including Whitman County western white w...
The Tekoa city council voted to increase its mayor’s monthly salary from $100 to $450 Sept. 16. The matter came on request from Mayor Troy Wilson, who told the council this spring that the job required more time than he originally thought. Wilson and Kynda Browning, Tekoa’s clerk/treasurer, then researched other towns of similar size and how much they paid their mayors and council members. She presented what she found at the July meeting, followed by further information based on towns’ prope...
Tekoa has set new rates for use of its community center after debate at the Sept. 16 city council meeting. The matter began with Mayor Troy Wilson asking the council if they wanted to discuss the matter then or wait until after the November elections – in which five council seats are up for re-election with two contended. The matter went ahead and Alyssa Heagy requested a sliding scale rental rate for non-profit groups and committees, from the previous rates of $25 in summer and $40 in w...
Colton and St. John/Endicott/LaCrosse met again on the football field for the second time this season last Friday and Colton evened the series 1-1. This game counted in the Southeast 1B league standings. Playing Sept. 6, in the first week of the year, at Colton, as a fill-in game when both teams had a bye, SJEL won 48-26. This time, at St. John, Colton put together a victory to lift their record to 2-2 overall, 2-1 in league. The Wildcats led 20-14 at halftime, before neither team scored in the...
The new Garfield/Palouse cross country program is in its third season, with 31 kids out for the high school and middle school teams. The number is up from 15 in its first year, for a program started by coaches Chris Cook and Corey Laughary. Garfield/Palouse has never had a cross-country team before. “We’re tickled to death at what it’s become,” said Cook, a former triple and long-jumper for WSU and current Palouse city councilman. Last year the Vikings sent three high school runners to the sta...
September's wet weather has prompted questions about the fate of this year's garbanzo beans and lentil crops grown mainly on the east side of Whitman County. With an unknown quantity yet to be harvested, if conditions persist, including dew in the mornings, legumes become harder to harvest. "The vines and pods when damp and wet, they don't thrash out. You can't get that little pod to separate," Fred Hendrickson, director of the USDA Farm Service Agency Whitman County office, explained. Storage...
The annual Fly-In at the Colfax Airport will be Saturday. The event this year was moved to September from late June in order to avoid conflicts with an air show in Lewiston. The Colfax Fly-In will again be sponsored by the Organization of Experimental Aircraft Association, Chapter 328, based in Lewiston. The six year-old event has attracted 40-50 planes each year. Among airplanes expected this Saturday is a Grumman Goose amphibian from Spokane. It is a land/water-landing plane with a 60-foot...
The grocery store in Palouse has a new owner. Taking over from Jeff and Vicki McLeod June 5, Amanda Viebrock divides her time between a store in Waterville and now Palouse. The store's new name is Palouse Family Foods to match Waterville Family Foods. Changes made at Palouse since June were small, until last week when the store closed an hour early Sept. 17 for installation of a new front-end system, new checkstands registers and a customer service booth. Also, a new counter was put in by the...
The Colfax School District board met Monday night and covered a variety of items, including approval of a new bus repair cooperative with Pullman, and a presentation on career and technical education by David Gibb, new Colfax Junior-Senior High School principal. The meeting began with comments from Jerry Pugh, district superintendent, who reported on that day's trip to the Educational Service District 101 in Spokane. It was for the district's first Washington State Leadership Academy meeting....
The St. John/Endicott/LaCrosse football team went to Sunnyside Christian last Friday and came back with a 42-32 loss. The Eagles cut the Sunnyside Christian lead to 36-32 with two minutes left in the game before the Knights scored on a 33-yard run to seal the victory. “It was one of the better games I’ve ever coached. The seniors played their guts out,” said SJEL coach Rich Hallenius. After a spate of injuries last week in practice and during the game, backups filled in such as freshmen Tanne...
In the free bin at Main Street Books in Colfax, a few months ago, was a book with a picture of a building inside. “A Day In the Life of America” was part of a series that sent photographers across one land mass on one day to capture its essence. This was the United States on May 2, 1986. No people were in the full-page picture, just a building. How could that make the cut? The picture showed terraced glass floors and on each, a young tree. Trees growing on the sides of a building. The thr...
Whitman County commissioners approved a notice of intent Monday and set a hearing for Oct. 21 on the proposed vacation of parts of two roads northeast of St. John. The local access dirt roads are Jim Davis Road and Gene Nelson Road, for which adjacent landowners petitioned county commissioners to vacate. After the county vacates a road, it has no further claim to it and ceases maintenance. The proposed vacation includes two-thirds of the 2.65-mile Davis Road and most of the 3.67-mile Nelson...
A Whitman County Public Works crew filled hundreds of holes on a half-mile of the old concrete highway through Steptoe the week of Sept. 9, as well as a short stretch in Rosalia. Crews rented a special machine and filled the one- inch to six-inch holes with asphalt mastic, a crack-seal material with rocks in it. “It's still an old concrete highway, but we like the way it came out,” said Brandon Kruger, operations manager for county roads. “This might be a maintenance technique we use in the f...
The city of Palouse planning commission has started to compile results of a town survey, collected in May and June bringing in 156 responses. The questionnaires were filled out online through Survey Monkey. Helpers were made available for computers at the Palouse library, and paper copies were handed out at city hall. Members of the planning commission spoke about the survey at a community senior lunch and sent out reminders to the 525 households which receive water bills in Palouse. The...
Boys from the two towns across the river from the Dalles, Ore., came to LaCrosse Sept. 13 for a 54-16 football win over the Eagles. Playing at LaCrosse for a home game, St. John/ Endicott/LaCrosse lost to the team that ended Garfield/Palouse’s season last year in the first round of the playoffs. A year later, in the regular season against SJEL – as a new member of the Southeast 1B for football – Lyle/Wishram’s No. 20 again proved decisive. “A really good running back, with some decent blocking,...
The annual second-weekend-in-September Palouse Days celebration returns Friday with events to run until Sunday at noon. Along with the Saturday morning parade and 37th annual Palouse Show and Shine car show, new this year in downtown Palouse is more live music – with five bands playing across Friday night and Saturday. Also new are two brunch/lunch events Sunday. "It'll be fun and exciting, we'll have live music all day long," said Paula Echanove, Palouse Days volunteer. Palouse Days begins F...
