Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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The “green” movement may soon reach the Colfax school district. School board members gave the go-ahead for an energy company to assess the potential for energy-conserving projects in the two district buildings at Monday’s board meeting. For a limited time, the state’s Department of Commerce and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction are funding up to $100 million for energy-conserving renovations in local school districts. Colfax Supt. Michael Morgan said Jennings Elementary will soon be up for some remodeling, as the school...
The wooden sign for Kamiak Butte rests stoic at sunset next to a field of wheat. Could Whitman County Parks use a fund-raising foundation? This was the question a Pullman couple posed to the parks council at a board meeting in Elberton on Aug. 12. The short answer is “yes.” The couple, Dick Domey and Diane Gillespie, approached parks board members about forming a foundation to help fund improvements to the park. Domey said the sprawling beauty of Whitman County’s parks has captured he and his wife’s hearts for years - and they are anxious...
Coyzet Cueck (left) and Dana Repp (right) hold up school supplies they donated. The Colfax Community Action Center is knee-deep in its annual school supply drive. Inside the supply room at CAC, rows of Elmer’s glue, crayons, notebook paper, markers, rulers, and stacks of backpacks are piledup. Starting next Monday, families in need can pick up free school supplies for their children at the center on Main Street. Dana Repp, Colfax, said her husband learned of the need for donations, prompting her family to go out shopping for supplies. “As a fam...
A new metal box built to hold discarded prescription drugs is now available to the public in the lobby of the Whitman County Sheriff’s office. A kaleidoscope of prescription drugs may soon be filling two new drug boxes installed in the county. The public can now dispose of unused or expired prescription drugs in two locations: the lobby of the county sheriff’s office and at the Pullman police department. Palouse River Counseling received a $15,000 grant from the Washington Attorney General’s office in July for the two drug boxes. The drug...
Roxy and Lory Dickerson of St. John delight over handsful of lentils. The mighty lentil will once again be celebrated during the 22nd annual Palouse National Lentil Festival in Pullman this year. In step with tradition, festival-goers can line up to receive a cup of lentil chili from the 350-gallon cauldron, starting at 5 p.m., Friday. The usual slew of events follows on Saturday. At 10 a.m. runners take off for the Tase T. Lentil run starting at the Simpson United Methodist Church. This is followed by the lentil pancake breakfast and the...
A 100-strong crowd poured into the newly remodeled Whitman County library last Wednesday, Aug. 11 for the official ribbon-cutting ceremony. A handful of citizens lined up for the ceremony to cut the ribbon for the renovated library, now open after nine-months of remodeling. Alex McGregor, president of the McGregor Company, Matt and Jill Klaveano of Steptoe, 9th District State Representative Joe Schmick, and a handful of other citizens and local dignitaries helped cut the new ribbon. Faces light up with smiles after the ribbon is cut for the...
A former advertising and corporate relations executive for Raymond A. Hanson has written and published “My Memories of Raymond A. Hanson.” Author Peter Kerwien, a former weekly newspaper editor and former foreign correspondent, worked for Hanson for 13 years. Hanson, who died Feb. 19, 2009, at 85, was recognized for developing the self-leveling device for combines in his early days as an inventor at Palouse. His company went on to accomplish several more engineering feats, including massive machines used on large scale construction pro...
The gray areas of end-of-life issues were brought into the light Tuesday by the recently formed ethics committee at Whitman Hospital and Medical Center. A group of 16 people, mostly hospital staff and some citizens at large, dug into in-depth conversation on quality of life issues. “Your quality of life may not be the same as someone else’s,” said Denise Fowler, chief clinical officer at the hospital. This ethics panel was formed in the spring when the hospital decided it needed a sounding board for ethical issues. At Tuesday’s meeting...
New owner Chris Mathis introduces her new fall display, full of bright orange pumpkins. Mathis moved to Colfax last month from Moses Lake to take over the store. Ownership of Colfax’s Cottage Gate has switched hands. New owner Chris Mathis is days away from signing the final paperwork on the business. Mathis said the store will still have an active floral and coffee business but she plans on adding a café in later months. Former owner Rayanna DeFord sold the business to Mathis because the stress of running the place was exacerbating her on...
Five minutes before opening, staff of the newly remodeled Whitman County Colfax library were wiping down windows, rigging up a sign with their new hours and putting the final touches on book shelves. The 10 a.m. opening time hit, and two people entered. Ten minutes later, the place was flooded with parents, children and others exploring the “new” library. The renovations added an elevator, a skylight, an expanded children’s corner, remodeled offices for the staff and handi-cap accessible entrances. The town has been without their library buildi...
Palouse city council and would-be developer Nicole Wood clashed once more at a city council meeting Tuesday night, opening up a now two-year struggle over extending water lines to Wood’s property. In a heated debate that lasted for the better part of an hour, Palouse real estate agent Patti Green-Kent, representing Wood, accused the city of Palouse of neglecting to write up a concise water and sewer plan. This is preventing Wood from having a clear direction for the proper guidelines needed for installing water and sewer service to Wood’s lan...
Garfield barber Gene Bridge charged four bits for a haircut when he began cutting hair in 1952. Fifty-eight years later and three weeks away from retirement, Bridge, now 84, now just takes donations for a haircut, which range from $7 to $10. “Still going to retire next month?” asked customer Bob Felgenhauer of Oakesdale as he settled into the barber chair last Thursday. “Yeah, I think so,” Bridge said. “About time isn’t it? You’re only 85 aren’t you?” “84! You’re trying to jack me up a year,” Bridge said with a laugh. For the past 58 years,...
The Colton town council is considering a new road that would be built to lessen the number of cars that drive past the school. A new road may soon be built in Colton. The town council is considering creating a paved road from Highway 195 south to Rimrock Road to divert farming traffic away from the Colton school and open up land for commercial use. The Colton council is a month away from the deadline to apply for a state grant to fund the street which would be west of the Colton School. Estimated cost is approximately $500,000. The site for...
Public vanpooling may soon be a reality in the county. A recently formed public transportation district for the county has received a $41,600 grant to partially fund two vans for pooling transportation. County commissioners learned of the grant award this week in a letter from the state. Whitman County’s Unincorporated Transportation Benefit Area (UTBA) was formed last October for the purpose of starting a vanpooling program. Commissioner Pat O’Neill said COAST formed the program with an eye on creating a vanpooling route from the Gar...
Pictured is the front of the newly remodeled Whitman County Library building at Colfax. The plaza in front of the library now features three new flower boxes with automatic sprinklers on a new surface. Doors of the Whitman County Library building in Colfax will open Monday after a nine-month million dollar remodeling project. Doors will be open at 10 a.m. The dedication ceremony will be next Wednesday, Aug. 11, at 7 p.m. A new elevator, skylight, handicap accessible doors and windows, children’s reading area and other changes are the f...
“Who in the room has an advance directive?” asked Denise Fowler, chief clinical officer at Whitman Hospital and Medical Center to board members at their July 21 meeting. Nobody raised their hand. Fowler said that response illustrated just one reason the hospital formed an ethics panel earlier this year. Several months after the panel was formed, the group is educating itself on the best way to weigh ethical debates that arise from various medical cases within the hospital. Staffers have faced a growing number of end-of-life issues which lef...
A Colfax school board seat is now open after the resignation of board member Steve Lyon. The board is encouraging residents living within Lyon’s central Colfax district to apply for the volunteer position. Lyon officially resigned from the school board July 1. Lyon worked as a WSU senior assistant on winter wheat breeding research for the department of crop and soil sciences. He was laid off this year as part of the budget cutbacks at the university, according to Colfax Superintendent Michael Morgan. Lyon has accepted a position in Mount V...
County Parks Ranger Justus Barton has resigned to take a full-time position with a private, contract firefighter. The parks department is now in the process of hiring a full-time ranger to manage Kamiak Butte, Bill Chipman Trail, Colfax trail and some grounds in the Elberton area. The ranger maintains those areas, works with the public and helps repair any park equipment. “It’s a beautiful place,” Barton said of Kamiak. He has been employed with Whitman County Parks since August of 2008. His official date of resignation is August 13. Becau...
In the month since the Tekoa city council passed regulations against pit bulls, the new enforcement officer has already responded to several complaints. After pit bull attacks that bloodied a horse and a woman earlier this year, the Tekoa city council June 21 banned residents from bringing additional pit bulls into town. The council had originally set a deadline of July 31 for owners to comply with new city regulations, but at the last council meeting extended the deadline to Aug. 31. The council at that same June 21 meeting also voted to...
Garfield has installed a 2,100 foot PVC water pipe along Second Street. Crews have been working since January to replace leaking, lead pipe under the street. The town council moved to accept the job June 23. “We’d been having problems with it coming apart. It leaks constantly,” said Garfield Mayor Jarrod Pfaff. Construction crews shut down Second Street a block at a time to install the eight-inch pipe. It replaced a four-inch pipe. “Hopefully, this one doesn’t leak. It should last longer,” he said. Pfaff added the line can handle a larger volu...
Tiny pollen-dusted beetles dig deeply into the yellow flowers of the yellow-star thistle on the south side of Kamiak Butte. One, two, three, maybe four hairy weevils at a time can collect on a single yellow flower, their main source of food. Park officials released 11,000 weevils on the southern slopes of Kamiak Butte July 6 in a federally-funded bid to rid the area of yellow-star thistle. The weevils are a bio-control solution to preserve the native fauna of the 1,000-acre butte, one of the few remaining native areas in Whitman County. A...
Palouse city staffers are reviewing their budgets to come up with an estimated $20,000 cut from the city’s current expense fund. A drop in state-shared revenue is forcing the city to cut its own budget, said Mayor Michael Eshcanove. Joyce Beeson, city treasurer, said the city law enforcement, parks, administration, and cemetery management are checking where they can save money. The city’s current expense fund holds $156,000. “We’re not talking about cutting services or anything, so I don’t feel it will affect the public much, yet,” Beeson said....
Colfax school board July 13 voted to accept a bid from a company offering a wireless system that can better connect computers throughout the two school buildings. The winning bid came from Aruba at $19,778. The district does have wireless, but service is spotty in some locations in the two buildings. “Our wireless environment wasn’t meeting the needs of the district,” said Margie Hamilton, district technology coordinator. Hamilton said the new system will put an end to losing wireless connections when laptops are moved from class to class...
Ben Farmer of Colfax served in the Marines in Iraq from 2008 to 2009. Here, he poses next to his new quilt with Tami Drader, organizer of the local Quilts of Valor effort. Farmer broke his ankle during a training maneuver in the U.S. after his deployment. A veteran of the Iraq war, Ben Farmer of Colfax, was gifted with a quilt hand-stitched by a member of the Colfax Assembly of God Sunday. Farmer, 23, of Colfax, was presented with the hand-made patriotic piece by Tami Drader during the church service. Farmer served eight months in Fallujah,...
Carie Saunders of Palouse had to duck under a series of barbed wire and electric fences on a kayak trip down the north fork of the Palouse River in late June, a trip she later complained about to Palouse city staff and state agencies. Cattle owners on that section of the river do not believe their cattle are a problem, according to Gazette interviews with owners Matt Collier and Ruth Bruns. Saunders sent messages to Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove and the Department of Ecology that pointed out she had to duck fences and paddle through water...
