Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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With another split vote, county commissioners Monday approved the creation of a new technology position in the aftermath of firing the county finance director. The controversial system administrator position will take on New World, the county’s software program which was never installed, a factor which led to the firing of county finance director Beverly Divine June 1. Commissioners Greg Partch and Pat O’Neill voted for creating the new position, and Michael Largent voted no during a brief county board meeting Monday. The creation of the job... Full story
Bids for construction of the Palouse Community Center, a goal of many fund raising efforts over the past four years, will be opened June 21. If all goes as planned, the exterior of the building could be finished before winter, said Scott Beeson, president of the community center. However, the plan is still tentative and much depends on the bid amounts, he cautioned. Once the bids are opened, the group will decide if they want to take out a loan to cover the difference between the cost and the amount of funds now available. After four years of...
Gazette Reporter The county’s principals’ association was tapped for a state award this year, one of eight given out by a private, state-wide organization, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. The Whitman County Principals’ Association won the award for coming up with and executing a professional teaching day last year. On Oct. 8 last year, roughly 275 educators and school support staff took to the hallways of Colfax high school to swap education tips and learn more about teacher collaboration. Because the day went so well,... Full story
The smell of horses and leather tack blew along the streets of Malden Thursday. More than 100 horses, riders and drivers were camped out in the city park, taking a rest day on their cross-state journey of the John Wayne Trail. Temporary pens filled with resting horses dotted the blocks of the city park. Horses lolled in patches of sun beneath pine trees. Pickups, trailers and RVs were parked in the grass. Beginning at Easton, the collection of riders, teamsters, horses, mules and bicyclists has been riding across the state on the John Wayne... Full story
Circus coming to Colfax June 15 Tired from the road, circus animals will arrive in Colfax Tuesday, June 15. Elephants, tigers, lions and one bear will be featured in the Jordan World Circus which will perform twice at the Palouse Empire Fairgrounds. A special act for the circus this year is the seven-man pyramid on the high wire. “You don’t see that everywhere. There’s not a lot of people that do that trick,” said Delisa Jordan, promotions director for Jordan World Circus. Seven family members tip toe out on an inch thick wire and then slowly... Full story
Retiring Colton school secretary Cindy Schlee is stepping off into retirement after 20 years at the helm. Schlee said she has done a little of everything with her time at the district. She wrote the school newsletter, a collection that turned into more of a community newsletter as the years went by. She watched the front desk, helped out in the cafeteria for lunches, and supported the superintendent. “Just one of those people that does anything she needs to do at any time,” said Superintendent Nate Smith. Schlee grew up in Seattle and gra...
Colton English teacher Jan Mantle is retiring after 23 years with the school. After watching the train conductor kick a dead sheep off the tracks as they coursed through the bush, Jan Mantle began having second thoughts about her move to teach in Australia. “All I could do was think I’d ruined my life,” she said It was 1972. Colton’s retiring English teacher Mantle was coursing through the outback of Australia on a train. Then she arrived in Bombala, the town where she had agreed to teach. She fell in love with it. For the next 11 years,...
With an eye on creating housing for young, working families, Community Action Center in Pullman just purchased an acre of land at Palouse. Four new homes will be built on the site, according Dale Miller, CAC housing program manager. The land is in Palouse on Palouse Cove Road near the CAC senior housing facility. A contractor for the project has not yet been selected. CAC has a similar housing development in Colfax in the Hauser Addition. Two houses are complete and occupied, and two have foundations and are expected to be finished this...
Hundreds of worn children’s books line the walls of Brenda Kneeshaw’s classroom. Her famous box turtle, Stamford, rests stoically in her bin. And at the front of the room is Kneeshaw herself, answering questions, doling out instructions and living up to the impeccable reputation she has built teaching school in Colfax for the past 35 years. “She is just a woman of great strength and compassion,” said Sharon Hall, the other Colfax fourth-grade teacher. Kneeshaw walks out of the classroom this week after 37 years in education. A teacher to the... Full story
First grader Rebecca Payne McHargue walked in on her first day of school in Tekoa in 1955. That little girl went on to graduate from high school, then college, and later return to Tekoa and teach first grade in the exact same classroom. Fifty-five years since her first day of school, McHargue is walking out on her last day of school. “I’ve been here most of my life,” McHargue said. The retiring Tekoa native figures she has put in 36 years as an elementary teacher or principal. “I’ve had close to 20 second-generation students,” McHargue said. He...
If your mother is on her deathbed and has no living will, who decides what for her? Dilemmas like this are the reason Whitman Hospital has recently created an ethics panel. Staffers have faced a growing number of end-of-life issues which left lingering questions over the past years, said Chief Clinical Officer Danise Fowler. “We really needed a place to take ethical questions,” Fowler said. More than 20 hospital staff have met three times now to hash out the guidelines for their new Ethics Committee. A physician, a chaplain, and staff from dep... Full story
Construction on Highway 195 is mostly wrapped up through Uniontown and crews are now focusing on resurfacing the rest of the state highway to the state border. Drivers can expect more delays of up to a half-hour on the highway as the project continues. Monday, flaggers were scheduled to operate at three different locations along the stretch of highway. The total project runs south from the north Colton city limits eight miles to the Washington/Idaho state line, a distance of more than eight miles. Crews along the highway are grinding off the...
A new tide of Whitman County seniors steps off into the real world over the next two weeks. A total of 343 seniors will graduate from Whitman County, 13 more than last year. Pullman High School accounted for half of this year’s class, producing a graduating class of 164 students. The graduate count in 2009 was 330, and 2008 saw 337 graduates. Aside from Pullman’s plentiful tide of graduates, Colfax has the next highest graduation count. Fifty-six students will graduate from Colfax this year during the June 5 ceremony, which will be held in the... Full story
Four Colfax school employees chose to resign this year, a shift that could help the district come up with the more than $220,000 needed in cuts to the school budget. The state’s troubled economy meant slashes to education funding for hundreds of districts around the state. Levy equalization, a major supplement to many rural schools, saw changes along with I-728 funds, money that helped keep class sizes small. No layoffs are planned for either certified or classified staff, according to Superintendent Michael Morgan. “We’re not antic... Full story
Two surveys are now in the works to evaluate the Colfax school board and administration. The first survey was e-mailed May 21 to all 98 school staff members. The second, a longer, 61-question survey, will be distributed to the school staff May 28. At a workshop session before the school board meeting May 24, the board was presented with a selection of surveys which Superintendent Michael Morgan detailed to them. The board later made a motion to approve a nationally researched survey with 61 questions. Staff has nine days to complete it,...
Now that the fecal coliform bacteria polluting the Palouse River has been attributed to pigeons and infiltration from storm water drains, the state is coming up with a plan of attack. The state Department of Ecology is putting together a plan which calls on different agencies around the Palouse to do their part in cleaning up the river. Within 10 years, the DOE wants the levels of bacteria in the river to meet state water quality standards; about 100 count of fecal coliform bacteria per three ounces of water. “We definitely want to address i...
Long-time Colfax veterinarian Becky Elfers comes to life as she talks about the biology class she teaches at the Colfax school. “I got this idea science could be so much more exciting doing it hands on,” she said, smiling. She detailed how her class dissected pig hearts, worms, frogs, fish and rats. Elfers spent the last nine months volunteering to teach an elective biology class for Colfax juniors and seniors. A small animals veterinarian in Colfax since 1983, Elfers decided to go back to WSU for a teaching certificate in 2006. The one... Full story
Facts on rape and sexual trauma flashed across the screen of WSU’s CUB May 20 during a regional training seminar on sexual assault. Law enforcement and prosecutors from Whitman and Latah counties, along with WSU students, listened to a day of education on sex offenders, investigations and victims. National speaker Anne Munch, focused primarily on rape cases. Munch, who served as a prosecutor in Denver for seven years, spoke extensively about what she said were inequalities faced by the victim in the Kobe Bryant rape case several years ago. Whit...
Water pools behind a beaver dam just off Highway 27 south of Palouse. An increase in the population of buck-toothed creek dwellers is proving to be a nuisance to farmers, road officials and many other Whitman County residents. Beaver activity is on the rise throughout the Palouse, annoying their neighbors and wreaking havoc along creek beds. “There seems to be more every year,” said county Public Works Director Mark Storey. Storey said no roads have so far washed out, but one dam near Rosalia has caused flooding over the roadway. He noted the...
Colton’s Kelsey Moser is among 141 seniors in the nation to be awarded a presidential scholarship this year. The award provides an all-expenses paid trip this summer to Washington D.C. Presidential scholars do not receive monetary awards, but the honor puts them in good stead for landing other scholarships and awards. Students are selected by their SAT and ACT test scores, classroom achievements, and their success in the arts. In an interview with the Gazette May 14, Moser said her success might just be because she is an excellent test-taker. ... Full story
Transportation officials from around the area gathered to pinpoint road project priorities for a five-year-plan at a meeting of the Palouse Regional Transportation Plan Organization (PRTPO), May 12. A major focus should be the ongoing maintenance and preservation of existing Whitman County roads, said county public works director Mark Storey in a later interview. COAST, Pullman public works director, Moscow city engineer, SWEDA officials, the mayor of Malden and two Whitman County commissioners were in attendance to give suggestions. PRTPO, a...
Volunteers with tales of Palouse lore will return to the Kamiak Butte natural amphitheater this summer. Volunteers will present the summer series of lectures on topics relating to the Palouse or just plain campfire fun. Participants can sit around the fire and listen to a lecture, most of which go for 45 minutes on Saturday nights. The fire and lectures are free. Participants can bring their own snacks to enjoy around the fire. The series was put together by Dan Leonard of Johnson, former president of the Whitman County Historical Society. The...
The town of Palouse is experiencing a lull in public records requests, but state and city officials met at the Green Frog May 15 to discuss possible public record legislation for future situations. For 10 months last year, the two-person city office staff received dozens of requests for information from Steve McGehee and Jim Farr of Palouse. The research requests had both clerks staying late and even on weekends. McGehee and Farr subsequently used the record requests to research what they contend is financial and political misdeeds. In light... Full story
Flaggers unload signs to block off Uniontown’s main drag. The state Department of Transportation project to repave eight miles of Highway 195 from Colton south to the Idaho state line is now in full swing. Crews Monday began the first phase, 10 days work through Uniontown. Crews should be wrapping up in the town by May 26. The second phase of the construction will focus on resurfacing the highway between Colton to Uniontown and from Uniontown to the Idaho/Washington border. The DOT expects the total project will take two months to complete. T...
Tekoa was recently awarded close to $1 million from the state to repair a collapsed city well and the roof of the city water tower. Farmington will also receive $113,000 from the state for repairs to a city well. Inspection crews discovered two years ago the Tekoa city water tank roof was badly deteriorating along with the tank’s exterior concrete walls. The city tank is more than 40 years old and holds 450,000 gallons. “It’s near the point it could collapse on itself,” said Matt Morkert, group leader and engineer with Century West for the pro...
