Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 525 - 549 of 2119
The Garfield/Palouse baseball team played their home opener Tuesday, April 23, for a doubleheader win over St. John/Endicott/ LaCrosse. After weeks of home games cancelled or moved to playable fields elsewhere, Gar/Pal (6-3) took the field in Garfield for 11-3 and 8-3 wins. In game one, Vikings freshman Kane Weiker got his first varsity start and first win, going six innings. “Six strong innings, consistent strikes,” said coach Mike Jones. In game two, Gar/Pal took the game in the fifth inn...
Mitch Kriebel, U.S. Army master sergeant, originally of Garfield/Belmont, will run a 31-mile trail run in New Auburn, Wis. Saturday with a ruck sack on his back to honor the late Ryan Thompson, the Kittitas police officer killed in the line of duty in March 21, and Cowlitz County deputy Justin DeRosier – a former deputy with the Whitman County Sheriff's office – who was killed on duty April 13. Kriebel is stationed with the non-commissioned officer academy at Fort McCoy, Wis. "I would love to...
Colfax School board met Monday night and covered topics from construction, surplus, an audit, Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) updates and a book chapter discussion. The meeting opened with comments from Superintendent Jerry Pugh, including praise for Christopher Clausen’s fifth period class for the day’s Earth Day cleanup around the school grounds. “Great day for it. Beautiful,” said board member David Nails, of the warm Monday. “It didn’t take much convincing to have them...
She was a cheerleader. She did not like P.E. class. She never liked fitness. Cheryl Booth just opened the Fit Stop, a fitness center in the former medical clinic in Garfield. Booth is the operator for the leased building, which was remodeled this winter to make way for a club with memberships and classes. Booth, who returned to Farmington in 2012 with husband Josey and their two children, had her view changed of fitness at a YMCA in Spokane Valley. After the family joined – mainly for the p...
Whitman County Commissioners approved Monday two emergency declarations, the first for the jail building which houses the coroner’s office and information technology after a problem with sewage backup. The second was for incorporated and unincorporated areas of the county in proximity to streams and rivers in a response to last week’s flooding. “Kind of an L-shape―across the top and right side of the county,” said Brandon Kruger, operations manager for the county’s roads and bridges maintenance...
The North Fork of the Palouse River is back to normal levels this week after a surge at Palouse April 9-10. The water crested at noon Wednesday, April 10, with the Lions Club Park near the car wash submerged along with much of Hayton Greene Park – the corner grass and trees area along the riverbank at the west edge of town. Afterwards, the water went down four feet in one day. “I need to go to church twice this Sunday, to say thank you,” said Michael Echanove, Palouse mayor. The United State...
The officer will become the actor again. Terry Snead of the Palouse Police Department will leave his position for the 10th year next week to go to Roanoke Island, North Carolina, to act in summer stock theater. A full-time officer in Palouse (which also serves Garfield) since last November, after the departure of Joe Handley, Snead filled in from his reserve role and now leaves as new officer Leighton Cox steps in. Snead's last day is Sunday. Originally from Atlanta, a broadcast journalism...
Playing Tuesday night against Touchet at Asotin (because of field conditions), the Garfield/Palouse baseball team won 15-5 to put their record at 4-1 for the season. At bat, junior Blake Jones went 3-for-4 with a home run for Gar/Pal and five RBIs. Riley Pedersen, a senior, was 2-for-4 with a double and four RBIs. On the mound, the Vikings’ Ely Hawkins pitched the first two innings followed by freshman Kane Weiker, making his high school pitching debut. Weiker posted four strikeouts, allowed f...
The Colton softball team swept a doubleheader Monday at home against Potlatch to total four games played in the 2019 season. The date was April 11. Spring break has already happened. Prom has already happened. The team has gotten in three practices outside this year. “In my 20 years, this is the worst I’ve ever had,” said veteran Colton coach Brad Nilson. The Wildcats, 3-1 now with a loss to league rival Pomeroy (which has played seven games) met Potlatch and won a blowout and a tight game...
A new virtual-reality program funded by a state grant at the Colfax library made its way to Colfax High School Monday, taking a group of juniors through a demonstration of the path of blood. The library's Nichole Kopp and James Morasch presented it to students in Mr. Clausen's Human Body Systems class. "So what do you think when you hear the term 'virtual reality'?" said Kopp, teen and tech librarian. "A digital playground," said one student. "A gaming experiment you're in," answered another....
The question up to 2018 was, 'Will it get fixed?' This year it is, 'Will it get fixed, again?' The statewide issue known as McCleary, which has loomed over school district funding since the 2012 Washington Supreme Court decision that gave it its name, may get changed again in the next two weeks as the legislature finishes its spring 2019 session. The main feature of last June's McCleary fix was a limit put on local levies of $1.50 per thousand dollars in property value. Last week, a bill passed...
Matthew Johnson has been named a new partner at Carpenter, McGuire & DeWulf law office in Colfax. He joined the firm in 2014 after graduating from St. Louis University Law School that May. Johnson worked in the Davenport office of Carpenter, McGuire & DeWulf until last September, after which he and wife Tayler, originally from Rosalia, moved to Colfax. Johnson, who is the Colfax office manager, works on various estate planning, probate and buying and selling of land matters for what is known...
The Colfax School board met Monday night for its regular bi- weekly meeting and took in updated policies to consider, listened to a speech by an FFA state competitor and heard the student ASB report from representative Kylie Kackman. Superintendent Jerry Pugh opened the meeting with comments on school construction, which completed its first week over spring break. “The library is almost completely gutted, Mrs. Bogle’s kitchen is gutted,” Pugh said. “The hallways are a little bit narrow up ther...
Back for 2019, amidst snow-outs followed by rainouts, of eight games on its original schedule, the Garfield/Palouse baseball team has gotten in a doubleheader against Touchet and a game against St. John/Endicott/LaCrosse at LaCrosse. They are 3-for-8 in games played. Last week, their revised schedule put them at Pomeroy Thursday followed by a home doubleheader against Colton Saturday. Both dates were canceled. “We had the field just about ready, then the rains came,” said second-year coach Mik...
Seats in the Colfax High School auditorium were cleared out in two days last week to begin the school remodeling project. Remaining on the floor were sides of chairs which were still connected to wires for aisle lighting. An electrician was slated to take those out Tuesday. Next, the six-man, full-time crew from Wellens Farwell Construction of Enterprise, Ore., moved to the old wood shop to prepare the area to be turned into a STEAM lab, a classroom and the junior high commons area, according...
The City of Palouse has been awarded $200,000 to install a sidewalk on Palouse Cove Road to the edge of downtown. The grant, from the Washington State Transportation Improvement Board’s new “Complete Streets” program, comes as part of an original plan for the sidewalk to connect to Lions Club Park along the Highway 27 entry into Palouse. From there it would lead to a footbridge the city intends to build across the North Fork of the Palouse River to Hayton-Greene Park. Funding for the footb...
The Washington State Department of Transportation is now in its final stages of review for this summer’s Almota Road project between Union Flat Creek and the intersection with State Route 194 near Onecho Bible Church. “Plans are 95 percent complete,” Dean Cornelison, assistant county engineer, said to county commissioners Monday. Still, nothing is sure for this year. Part of the county’s plans now at WSDOT include proposed offer letters to 12 property owners along the road to buy right-o...
What was it? The steal ratio? Rebound differential? Points "in transition?" Shooting percentage? Or was it this? Eight. The (unofficial) count for the number of times T.V. announcers Reggie Miller and Dan Bonner called for Gonzaga to get the ball inside. Two of the eight mentions sounded like they were in the same sentence. At one point, it was as blunt as could be: “They're taking bad shots,” Bonner said. Yet the statistic will not show up in any official analysis of Gonzaga's 2019 Elite Eig...
The City of Tekoa will soon choose whether to provide fuel at its airport after losing its longtime supplier last summer. Previously, a Pullman company brought the fuel and did the billing. “So we’re trying to figure out what to do,” said city councilman Roy Schulz, the liaison to the town-owned airstrip, which brings in money from renting hangar space and ground space. Inter-State Aviation of Pullman decided to pull out soon before the credit card reader at the Tekoa pump was deemed in need...
Sometime Wednesday morning the first auditorium seat bolt was to be pulled by contractors to begin the Colfax school remodeling project after two years of planning, including funding approval by voters for an $18.9 million bond passed in February 2018. In the past two weeks, district staff and students – including P.E. classes – cleared out designated rooms in the high school to prepare for contractors to start over spring break. “They will begin in earnest at the high school,” said Superin...
Whitman County engineer Mark Storey went to Washington, D.C., earlier this month representing 11 western states, as one of nine executives for the National Association of County Engineers (NACE). Storey was elected to the position last April. In Washington, D.C., Feb. 27 to March 4, he and the eight other representatives from across the country met with a series of congressional staffs and federal departments including the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure committee led by Peter Defazio...
Everyone is back. Many are seniors and they finished out of the placing last year at state in Yakima. The Colton girls softball team returns for another spring guided by 13th year coach Brad Nilson, looking to push the result from 2018. “Got to finish what we started last year,” said Nilson, who has won seven state 1B championships with Colton since 2008. All nine starters return for 2019, including four-year starters Abby Kelly, catcher; Jordyn Moehrle, shortstop, and Emily Schultheis, the...
Colfax school board Tuesday night approved a base bid of $12,551,923 for school construction work from Wellens Farwell Construction of Enterprise, Ore. The number represents a base bid, which was submitted along with a list of 17 alternate bids, ranging from football field lighting to high school chiller replacement. The board approved the bid package unanimously, after listening to Amy Browne-Minden, project manager, and Ned Warnick, principal, of Design West in Pullman give an overview of the...
Selway Holdings, LLC, Pullman, notified the county planning department at 11:30 a.m. last Wednesday, Feb. 27, that they were withdrawing their application for a zone change from agricultural to light industrial on Country Club Road. Subsequently, the scheduled meeting for commissioners to consider the application set for Monday at 11:30 a.m. was cancelled. “No public comment at this time,” said Paul Mihalyov, co-founder of Dewey Scientific, a company founded Jan. 1 by two WSU alumni from the...
As snow has fallen and fallen again throughout February, Colfax school district's summer construction calendar has remained despite a series of late session starts. The schedule, which puts the start of school next year after the Palouse Empire Fair, and other adjustments, was set last year to allow time for the $18.9 million bond construction to begin with the first phase during spring break in April. "We'd have to go to an extreme number of late starts or cancellations to affect the...
