Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 464 - 488 of 2119
Whitman County commissioners Monday approved a proposal for a road levy tax lift to go on the ballot in November. To be voted on by residents of the county’s unincorporated areas, the added revenue would go primarily for maintenance on rural roads. The measure would raise the rate of tax collection on property from $1.45 to $2.25 per thousand dollars of assessed valuation. The rate would then likely go down as home valuations go up from year to year. The county has spent from reserves in the roa...
The Whitman County board of adjustment will conduct a hearing Aug. 8 on a conditional use request for 10 acres of the former Hawkins land next to the state line for a relocated St. John Hardware and Implement now at Moscow. If the request is approved, they would move from their existing spot on the north end of Moscow just off Highway 95 to allow for a proposed 70,000-square foot headquarters for EMSI, a Moscow-based software company. The former Hawkins land is in a zone called the North...
The delayed Almota Phase Four reconstruction project, once slated for this year, has now been moved to next year. Dean Cornelison, assistant county engineer, told county commissioners Monday that a package of funding documents for the road reconstruction phase was sent July 25 to Washington State Department of Transportation in Olympia – which will release federal funds if approved. Construction plans and specifications were next to be sent to WSDOT’s Eastern Region office in Spokane this wee...
The annual Palouse Music Festival returns Saturday, July 27, to Hayton-Greene Park along the river in Palouse. With seven musical acts, food, a beer garden and craft sellers, the day will run from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and culminate with Blue Highway, a veteran rock and country band based in Palouse. To open the festival, on a flatbed trailer under shade trees, Paul Smith begins with an hour on fiddle. Next is the Cherry Sisters Revival of Moscow, which began with three ukuleles and songs from the...
The Jennings Elementary roof is exposed boards while more pounding and whirring comes from Colfax Junior-Senior High School with lifts and other Wellens Farwell Construction equipment parked around the buildings. Late into the second month of summer, full-on construction at Colfax schools is on a timeline, as described by District Superintendent Jerry Pugh. “Construction is progressing,” Pugh told the school board Monday night. “The library, art room and choir room are ready for prime...
Colfax Business Manager Reece Jenkin took the school board through a proposed 2019-2020 budget Monday night in a work session before the three members on hand approved it in their regular meeting. The budget is for 546 students projected, with total expenditures of $8,258,755 and total revenue of $7,985,000. The $273,000 deficit will be covered by reserves. Jenkin explained later to the Gazette that reserves have built up in recent years, and it was expected that they would be tapped this year a...
The Colfax School District board met Monday night for a mid-summer meeting and approved a budget for the 2019-20 school year, hirings from new teachers to a new volleyball coach and the resignation of Nathan Holbrook as P.E. teacher and athletic director. The board was introduced to a series of the newly-hired, including Michael Dorman, social studies teacher, a Colfax resident who has spent the last 12 years teaching at Washtucna; Joey Reed, a 16-year middle/high school teacher at Oakesdale,...
A matter of on-call pay for the Palouse Police department – which also covers Garfield – is in the hands of the city’s policy and procedures committee to study, after an extensive debate at the July 9 city council meeting. At issue is pay for Chief Jerry Neumann and Officer Joel Anderson, the two officers remaining after Leighton Cox was terminated June 20. After Cox’s dismissal, it fell to Neumann and Anderson to cover the shifts until the return of Reserve Officer Terry Snead in late August....
By Garth Meyer Gazette Reporter It starts in August with a first meeting two weeks after the previous year’s celebration. Then, in the fall, calls start coming in to Oakesdale school Superintendent Jake Dingman’s office asking when Old Mill Days will be the following summer – people wanting to plan around it, the event now in its seventh year of a revival of an old tradition. It all returns this weekend for 2019 with events to span from Friday at five o’ clock through midnight Saturday. A new ad...
The past month's yellow fields on the Palouse reflect in statewide canola numbers released June 30 by USDA's National Agriculture Statistics Service. For both winter and spring canola in 2019, Washington has 75,000 acres planted, with county totals not calculated until the fall. Montana has 120,000 acres growing and Idaho and Oregon were not listed this year. In 2018, Idaho stood at 43,000 acres and Oregon 4,700. The Washington canola number is up 8,000 acres from last year, continuing a trend...
The Colfax Downtown Association and Chamber of Commerce aim to open a business incubator in part of the former Higginson Furniture building the first week of August. The project, named "Colfax Mercantile" and funded by a $30,000 grant from the county's .09 economic development program, will operate as a space for individual businesses to sell items. Owners will work one day per week, selling each other's products at a counter. Each business will share the rent of the Main Street spot and may be...
The Whitman County Cougars pushed further into the American Legion season (ages 13-16) with a series of wins and losses in the past week to put their record at 20-10-1, (12-2 league). On Monday, July 8, they beat the Moscow Junior Blue Devils 6-5. Gavin Shrope led Whitman County with two RBIs. Further hits came from Brendan Doumit, Marcus Hilliard, Nick Robison, Elliott Lee and Colin Dreewes. Joe Bendel pitched three and one-third innings to get the win with no earned runs. Cougars drop...
Fourth of July events around Whitman County include the following annual rites: the impromptu Johnson parade, Albion parade, fireworks and bands at Pullman's Sunnyside Park and the day-long events and fireworks at Endicott. In Johnson, on the single-strip of Johnson Road a mile off of Highway 95 north of Colton, 2019 will mark the 52nd parade, which has no official organizers or sponsors. It started as a mother telling her kids to make their own fun on Fourth of July morning, 1967. The Druffel...
Whitman County commissioners took in comments Monday from a rural county resident regarding the Beeson Cut-Off Road and Estes Road, halfway between Pullman and Palouse, toward the Idaho border. John Chaplain, a longtime WSU track coach, noted that he has lived on the road since the 1960s and that he first came in to talk to commissioners about this 50 years ago – and on subsequent occasions since – about what he described as a dangerous stretch of gravel road. “I don't think I can make it anoth...
The Palouse Police Department, which also covers Garfield, is down to two officers again after Leighton Cox, hired on April 3, was terminated June 20 for violating department policy. “There was cause,” said Chief Jerry Neumann. “There were things that didn't add up with him. That's why you have a year's probation period.” Cox joined the department from Wasilla, Alaska. Cox's equipment has been returned. With his absence, Neumann and Officer Joel Anderson will cover, if needed, until the return...
Fourth of July events around Whitman County include the following annual rites: the impromptu Johnson parade, Albion parade, fireworks and bands at Pullman's Sunnyside Park and the day-long events and fireworks at Endicott. In Johnson, on the single-strip of Johnson Road a mile off of Highway 95 north of Colton, 2019 will mark the 52nd parade, which has no official organizers or sponsors. It started as a mother telling her kids to make their own fun on Fourth of July morning, 1967. The Druffel...
The Washington State Parks Department has begun a process to evaluate the 1915 concrete Rosalia trestle after concerns about pieces falling onto the road below. The trestle, owned by State Parks as part of the Palouse-to-Cascades Trail (formerly John Wayne Trail), was the subject of a letter sent in May 2017 by Mark Storey, Whitman County Public Works director, after which he received a few calls from State Parks representatives, but no further action. Earlier this month at “Battle Days” in Ros...
Canola is in bloom once again in Whitman County with its bright yellow petals taking over hills for a crop that keeps increasing in this area. In 2012, seven Whitman County farms grew canola. Five years later, it was 25. "A lot more acres (in the state), definitely, again from last year to this year," said Karen Sowers, WSU Extension and Outreach Specialist who is also the executive director for the Pacific Northwest Canola Association. Last year, more than 67,000 acres of canola were grown in...
Andrew and Ronda Penwell, Colfax Junior-Senior High School teachers, have been chosen in a group of 77 teachers across the country to go to a summer workshop at Harvard University. The all-expenses paid trip to Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass., will be Aug. 18-20. The Pullman League of Women Voters nominated the Penwells for the workshop which is sponsored by the League's national organization. The event will focus on the Harvard case-study method of civics education, regarding...
What segment of voters will decide the next presidential election? The same people who always do – the mainstream. Two decisions in the last two weeks may underline this. Joe Biden's announcement to change his longtime support for the Hyde amendment was a step out of the mainstream, if you will, while Donald Trump's calling off a planned military strike against Iran was a foot kept firmly in it. These two moves, plus recent history of Republicans may portend the future. Why would Biden drop his...
Whitman County commissioners approved interlocal agreements on a new five-year county Solid Waste Management Plan with seven towns Monday. The list includes Colton, Lamont, Oakesdale, Palouse, Rosalia, Endicott and Colfax. The plan, required by the state, will cover 2019-24 to replace a previous plan from 2012 to present. The county began work two years ago on the plan, which is meant to be every five years. “They give us a little leeway on getting it done,” said David Nails, Whitman County soli...
The City of Palouse awaits a Shoreline Substantial Development permit from the Washington State Department of Ecology before going out to bid on a revamped plan for trail work along the river to be paid for by a county .09 fund grant. Palouse received the $26,530 grant last year. Last September, Palouse city administrator Kyle Dixon sought out five area contractors in an informal bid process to gauge what it would cost to build an estimated 500-foot long trail along the river – across from downt...
A Palouse flag may soon fly over Old Glory and possibly others. Moses Boone, a Palouse resident and farmer, briefed the city council June 11 on flag designs and symbolism, culminating in his proposal for a flag for Palouse. The design is now in the hands of the city council's policy and administration committee, which will decide whether to recommend it to the full council and mayor for approval. It all started in 2014, when Boone mowed his lawn one day listening to an episode of the Podcast...
Sander Carren and Shane Monroy took the Tekoa Slippery Gulch egg toss Saturday, June 15, winning $50 each. Monroy, 35, won one other time just after high school, an event which he's participated in since third grade. Carren, 36, Monroy's brother-in-law, had been in 10 Slippery Gulch egg tosses. "We switch off each year; with our wives one year, then we go for the win," said Carren. "Next year, we have to defend. Sorry, honey." Monroy is a Tekoa graduate, his wife Jessica a grade below him in...
By Garth Meyer Gazette Reporter For the 92nd year, Tekoa Slippery Gulch Days arrived Monday and will culminate this weekend with a series of events, both new and perennial. It all started June 10 with the kids’ Fishing Derby in Hangman Creek. Weigh-ins are at Tekoa Hardware. Kids up to age 12 fish in the creek, on a designated stretch from the Idaho border to Fairbanks Road, then turn in their biggest fish for weighing/measuring. On Saturday, announcer Chris Smith will present a bike to the w...
