Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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Whitman Hospital is experiencing a year-long low in patient visits, in the midst of the changing national health care regulations and a poor economy. In-patient stays at the hospital have been down by 25 percent overall since January, said CEO David Womack. Womack said the decrease is largely in the number of in-patients covered by commercial insurance. He believes this is a direct result of the nation’s struggling economy. “We have an overall drop in patient load all year, but it’s particularly bad for commercial insurance,” he said. Visits fr...
A new piece of outdoor exercise equipment, called a ski walker, is expected to be installed soon at the Garfield City Park. Garfield Community Association (GCA) bought the walker for $819. It is the first in a series of outdoor equipment the group hopes to buy over the next few years. The pieces will be placed along the park’s walking path for public use. Joggers and walkers now use the walking path that skirts the outer edges of the city park. Forrest Miller, GCA member, said the path has a fairly high rate of use, even in the winter time. ...
A new prompting addition to the computers at Whitman Hospital and Medical Center will instantly alert a physician at their desk about potential problems of patients in the hospital. For example, a doctor could be alerted when the potassium level declines on a patient being treated for pneumonia. The new prompting system, which also allows doctors to document their orders for a patient, will be used hospital-wide starting Nov. 2. The program will be used by the 15 physicians working for the hospital. Three doctors are currently using the...
Colton town officials are waiting to hear back on their proposal for a $500,000 road in Colton. The state’s Transportation Improvement Board (TIB) will inform recipients of TIB grants by Nov. 19. The town council wants to create a paved road from Highway 195 straight to Rimrock Road to divert heavy farming traffic away from the Colton school and open up land for commercial use. County Commissioner Greg Partch, acting chair of the state’s Transportation Improvement Board, said the state has $80 million from which to fund rural road projects thi...
A simpler time calls to Jay Hulse from the three massive tobacco plants that tower over his porch in Colfax. Hot summer mornings in Tennessee, working on his father’s tobacco farm in the early 1940s; these are the memories Hulse recalls when he tends his three fully-grown plants. The five to six foot high plants with their wide green leaves and straight stalks stand out on his porch. Flowers shaped like delicate pink trumpets blossom at the top of the tallest plant. “It just brings back memories from the old days,” he said. Hulse, 75, whose...
Racks of oils, canvas, sketch books and pastels line the room. Painting upon painting cover the walls. Marilyn Jones has a full-sized painting studio in her home in Garfield. It is a live-in dream for the woman who moved here two years ago with her husband, Steve. Jones, who had two paintings in a downtown gallery in New York City last January, is two years into retirement. With alert eyes and a curious nature, Jones gets messy in the studio each day, mixing paints and colors. Jones has yet to find a market for her paintings on the Palouse....
A patchwork of staff has been called in to help teach the oversized first grade class at Jennings Elementary in Colfax. An enrollment of 28 first graders this September left the administration with a class too big for one teacher but too small for two. The total of 28 first graders is a low amount for the district which has had declining enrollment for a number of years. The administration has hired an additional part-time aide and Jan Varnes, school librarian, will come over from the high school to assist three periods a day. The library will...
Whitman county schools are bracing for another difficult financial year after the state Sept. 16 signed into motion cuts of 6.23 percent across the board for most state departments. Area superintendents met in Spokane that same day to learn about the impact those cuts will make to the state’s education budget. Superintendents were also told federal funds could be coming down the pipeline which may possibly be available to backfill the cuts in state funding, according to Mike Dunn, superintendent of ESD 101 in Spokane. For schools, the state i...
A multi-million dollar overhaul of the Colton school building is on the Nov. 2 ballot for the 695 active voters in the Colton school district. Total estimated cost of the project is $10.2 million, with half coming from district taxpayers and half coming from the state in a matched grant. A strained electrical system and old heating system are among reasons the school board and administration are asking to remodel the 1939 building. It was last modified in 1963. For the past month, the school administration has conducted meetings with the...
The deadline for tighter regulations on pit bull dogs in Tekoa passed Sept. 1, and the two weeks since have been more or less calm. The town council passed sweeping regulations on the dogs June 21 after pit bull attacks last spring bloodied one woman and nearly crippled a 31-year-old mare. Five pit bulls within the city limits were registered with life-time licenses by the Sept. 1 deadline. Mike Bogenrief, Tekoa code enforcement officer whose position was intentionally created for enforcing the new pit bull code and other town codes, said he...
A record low enrollment for first graders has Colfax school staff and parents struggling with a class size that could be too large for one teacher but too small for two. Staff are seeking options to downsize the existing class of 28 or change teaching duties. The total first grade class in Colfax was predicted by the administration to be 24 students this year; 28 ended up enrolling. The extra four students stretch the teacher-to-student ratio and parents at a school board meeting Monday protested the size, saying it strains learning and...
Ping pong balls will drop from the sky, rubber ducks will be poured into the river and show cars will glitter in the city park for this year’s Palouse Days celebration Friday and Saturday, Sept. 17 and 18. The kick-off party will be Friday 8 p.m. at the Palouse Tavern. The main parade Saturday will start at 10 a.m. Grand marshals for the festival this year are Loren and Mary Estes. They have designed and planted three rose gardens around the town and Mary selected the trees planted at the new Palouse RV park last year. The 28th annual car s...
Tekoa High School is one of four Washington state schools to win the national 2010 Blue Ribbon school award. Last Wednesday, Sept. 8, 304 schools nationwide were named by the U.S. Secretary of Education for the award, which goes to schools with high student performance or schools with students with disadvantaged backgrounds that show marked test score improvement. Schools will be honored at a ceremony Nov. 15 and 16 in Washington D.C. No money is given for the award. “We’re constantly changing. We don’t stay with one thing. We try to impro...
Standing in the dusty, shadowed driveway of the crib elevator for Palouse Grain Growers, it is easy to feel the years in the place. With a worn wooden floor and the thick film of grain dust that blankets everything in sight, this elevator bares the visible stamp of time as Palouse Grain Growers co-op celebrates its 80th anniversary. Assistant manager Rick Wekenman rides up in the manlift. The manlift can shoot 70 feet up to the rafters of the Palouse Grain Grower’s crib elevator. A celebration will be Saturday, Sept. 18, of Palouse Days to h...
A close-up shot of this hand-woven tapestry shows the words of a novel by tapestry artist Sarah Swett. Four tapestries with dozens of tiny words woven into the fuzzy, complex threads this is the medium of Moscow artist Sarah Swett. Swett, a tapestry artist living in Moscow, is debuting her new tapestry series, Slow Literature, in the Bank Left Gallery in Palouse, Sept. 11 through Oct. 2. The beginning of Swett’s novel is woven into the first four tapestries presented in the exhibit. “I became ill with fiction,” Swett joked in a phone interview...
Retired Colfax rural fire chief Jim Krouse ended a 37-year career as chief on June 19. He’ll start up as a volunteer in October. More than four decades of work has wrinkled the hands and face of Jim Krouse, but has not dampened his spirit and desire to help people. Krouse, who retired as chief of the Rural Fire District 11 after 37 years of service June 19, will apply to be a “new” volunteer firefighter in September. Krouse, now head of the meat department at Rosauers, also will step down Oct. 8 after a 48 years in the grocery business- most...
Two weeks into discovering their day care was in violation of 25 state regulations on child care, the Colfax United Methodist Church has crossed off 20 of those violations as corrected. The church congregation has also managed to raise $8,600, just short of the amount needed to right the day care’s ailing finances. The day care, Little Angels Child Care Center, is owned and operated by the church. The day care director was fired Aug. 19 for misdirecting the center’s ailing finances, just days before the church was informed of the cen...
After receiving a $100,000 donation from the widow of Raymond Hanson, the plans for Palouse’s community center have altered. For three years, the group behind the center has participated in a series of fundraisers which netted almost $250,000 for a new community building to be built in downtown Palouse. When Lois Hanson donated $100,000, the board of directors decided to change their funding approach. “It hasn’t sped things up, but this is $100,000 we don’t have to take out a loan on. It’s huge,” said director Scott Beeson. The board of di...
For those who have trouble paying the rent or staying long in one place, a transitional housing complex in Pullman is almost finished. The nine-unit complex will be a transition home complete with life skills classes and an on-site staffer who helps watch over residents. “They can become self-sufficient- that is the goal,” said Dale Miller, co-director of Pullman Community Action Center. CAC is actively working on getting families into low-income CAC-built housing in Colfax, Pullman and Palouse. The project in Palouse has plans for four sti...
The North Palouse River saw a less polluted future Aug. 28 after a team of volunteers spent the day cleaning it. Tires, an old wagon wheel, railroad debris and run-of-the-mill roadside trash were all items the volunteers picked up along the river. The Palouse Conservation District has for months been planning the day in step with a nation-wide river cleanup day. A separate group of citizens, independent of the district, came up with the idea of a cleanup day after Palouse resident Carie Saunders complained in a letter to the town mayor the rive...
A day care in Colfax was cited for 25 violations of state law just days after its director was fired for mismanagement. Little Angels Childcare, managed by the Colfax United Methodist Church, is now struggling to raise more than $7,500 within the next two weeks to pay off bills owed for the last few months. The day care will need another $2,000 after this for other debts. Violations cited by the State Department of Early Learning included bottles going unwashed between uses, infants left unattended while staff were in other rooms, food served...
A new electrical reader board for the Colfax School District has been erected in front of Colfax High School. The new reader board is a student-funded, student-voted project. It will replace an aging, manual reader board which is located in the 500 block of N. Main Street. The Associated Student Body has been working for three years to get such a project completed, according to Cathy Landers, ASB advisor. This past school year, students voted to purchase the reader board. A committee of students spent part of last year researching different rea...
Garfield’s Dave Ulrick is stepping into retirement after more than 30 years of volunteering and working for the town. “He’s Mr. Garfield. He’s just been fabulous over the years,” said Garfield City Clerk Annie Pillars. Ulrick, who has been the city public works supervisor since 1995, will work his last day Aug. 31. His public retirement party will be Aug. 29 at 5 p.m. in the town park. Since moving to Garfield in 1973, Ulrick has been a farmer, volunteer fire fighter, a town councilman, the town marshal and public works director. “He’s a g...
Mormons from all over the Palouse will travel to Wawawaii Park Saturday for a day of volunteer work. Members of the church from Troy, Potlatch, Pullman, Moscow, Rosalia and Colfax, up to 60 people, are expected to participate. They will tackle four basic maintenance projects at the county park along the Snake River. Spreading gravel around camp site fire pits, replacing sections of split rail fences, staining picnic tables and cleaning in general. Volunteer leader Harold Wilkinson said the group will be in step with a national service day...
The job title of Colfax school activities director Mike Morgan was changed to athletics director with a vote by the school board Aug. 23. Over the past school year, a series of issues cropped up prompting the school administration to wonder if Morgan’s job duties as activities director were so big they were stretching his hours thin. In answer to the question of if his duties were too much for one job title, the board opted not to change that description. Mike Morgan has said he can handle the work load. A committee of school administrators r...
