Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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The Oakesdale library branch is soon to have some overdue touchups at the hands of six 4H girls. The need to find their annual community service project led the Saddle Pals to the library’s aging paint job, carpet and windows. The group regularly uses the library room for their club meetings, and one member’s mother, Michele Wright, is the librarian. With $150 from the city of Oakesdale, the girls will repaint the interior and clean the carpet and windows in early March. “The girls noticed the library could really use some paint and carpet clea...
State plans to build an aquatic corridor in Rock Creek to connect Rock Lake, Bonnie Lake, and Chapman Lake were given a nod of approval by the Whitman county parks board Feb. 12. The park board backed the state Fish and Wildlife proposal with a letter to the county commissioners. Fish and Wildlife is interested in turning that corridor into a park to create more public access in and to protect the diverse range of species living there. Mule deer, elk, bobcat, diverse waterfowl, golden eagles and cougars are a few of the species the department...
After the failure of their proposed $1.3 million levy last week, Colfax teachers, staff and school board members met for a public special meeting Feb. 15 to pinpoint a new direction for their levy. “They just saw this huge dollar amount we asked for and didn’t understand we were trying to be pro-active,” said board member Laura Johnson. Colfax superintendent, Michael Morgan, left, discusses levy options with district board members. Board members Laura Johnson (center) and Debbie Pearson (right) listen. The district has two remaining count...
The dappled lighting shed from trees in a park could soon be the joy of the Palouse RV park. A $500 anonymous donation was recently received at Palouse city hall, with specific instructions to use the sum for planting trees at the new 10-site RV park across from the city park. The donor also asked that former Palouse council member Mary Estes, a horticulturist, work with the city on the project. City councilman Mike Milano and Estes plan on bringing in several trees this spring. Milano said they have yet to decide which kind to plant. Estes...
David Wold, 42, talks art in his unfinished apartment above the Green Frog Cafe. Wold plans on making a music studio and art studio in the apartment. Lauren McCleary, 26, poses with one of her paper cutting works, a day after she moved to Palouse. McCleary majored in art at WSU in 2009. Mary Rothlisberger, 26, says she is in love with people and collaborative art. Tiny antique dolls line the window sills. Paper snowflakes, dozens of them the color of swans, flutter above the bedroom in Mary Rothlisberger’s apartment. Rothlisberger and her visit...
A class of 22 WSU students will sketch up the designs for the river walk of the Brownsfield project and other river crossings in a three week project starting in early May. Palouse city staff will examine the resulting designs for creative ideas for the river crossing portion of the Brownsfield project. “I think it’s awesome for the community and the students,” said Palouse mayor Michael Echanove after a city council meeting Feb. 9. The Brownsfield project is a restoration project for a patch of land in downtown Palouse that was polluted by a...
Three Colfax teachers gave a small presentation to the Colfax school board about their passing of a national teaching test at a school board meeting Feb. 8. The teachers are three of 14 in the county, not including Pullman, who have passed the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, (NBPTS). NBPTS is a national, in-depth test of a teacher’s ability to teach a classroom. A total of 3,975 Washington teachers, about five percent of all teachers. in the state, have been certified. Washington state began a program in 2007 that pays an a...
A historic run of Gazette newspapers was recently launched online by a national program, joining hundreds of other historic newspapers. Editions of the Colfax Gazette from 1900 to 1912 are now accessible online at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. The Web site is free and can be word-searched. Sections of eight other Washington state papers have also been uploaded, said Laura Robinson, manager of the Washington State Library program. “The reason they picked the Colfax Gazette is, at that time, it was the most important paper in Whitman County,” Rob...
Schools around the state, including those in Whitman County, will soon change school policy on online courses after a shift in state legislation asked school boards for more regulation of the courses. Colfax school board will soon finish policies that give the board more control over which courses can be taken by students. The board is also considering putting a cap on the cost of online courses. “Most schools have to be concerned: ‘Is that online program valuable for the kid in their education program or should it be supplemental and doe...
Gary Kendall’s 1917 farmhouse will be used by film crews to shoot scenes for a mini-series about WWII internment camps that will air on Japanese television. A major Japanese production company is making a television mini-series that will include extensive scenes in the rolling hills of the Palouse. Three farmhouses on the Palouse, the University of Idaho and Spokane have all been selected by High Field Entertainment, Inc. for shooting locations. The Japanese company plans to produce a 10 hour, five episode docu-drama depicting the Japanese inte...
An unused former county rock quarry at Palouse will go on the auction block at the courthouse Feb. 19, after a Palouse resident asked Whitman County commissioners to put the county-owned land up for sale. Palouse resident John Eastburn asked the county to offer the land. Kathy Lemon, revenue officer in the treasurer’s office, said this particular site was acquired by the county in the 1930s thorough tax foreclosure. The county has used it as a rock quarry and never put the property up for bid, the normal process required when the county m...
Commissioners on the Whitman Hospital board are lobbying state legislators for a bill on Medicaid that would allow rural hospitals more access to more federal compensation for Medicaid. Hospital administrator Dave Womack sent a letter to state legislators Susan Fagan, Mark Schoesler and Joe Schmick asking for their support of the bill. The bill essentially provides a financing tool that certain hospitals could use to tax themselves and be matched for those funds by the federal government. They do this by taking advantage of a temporarily...
The national spotlight has landed on Colfax girl’s basketball coach Corey Baerlocher, who made the list for the top 50 high school girls basketball coaches for the 2009 school year. Baerlocher was nominated by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) for the 2009 school year. Each state association selects one coach per sport for a state award. The 50 nominees from 50 states are placed on the top 50 list for the National Federation of State High School Associations Baerlocher has led the Colfax High School girl’s bas...
The ball is now rolling to build an assisted living center in Oakesdale after the town officially voted to sell the land to Friends for Living Choices (FLC) last month. For $7,484, the group bought about half a block of land in downtown Oakesdale from the town. The purchase is one step toward building a center the group expects to cost $2 million, said Darlene Rickett, president and founder of FLC. “We’re just very happy about that because it’s another step forward,” Rickett said. “So we’re continuing to look for money which is an old, old st...
Over 20 years, a now-defunct fertilizer company in Palouse has racked up a $22,811 legacy owed on back-taxes for a plot of land polluted by that company. That plot of land is the brownsfield site, which the city of Palouse and the department of ecology are now working to clean up and restore into a usable city entity. A consulting firm hired by the city on a grant from the DOE has held a series of community meetings over the past few months to hear citizen input on the eventual use of the site. The city of Palouse is currently working to buy...
Cherie Zehm jokes with her rescued cockatoo, Tut. Zehm has worked to teach Tut to trust again, as he has had a rough past. Fifteen birds are loose in Cherie Zehm’s living room and not a single one is quiet. Bird droppings streak the carpet, the chairs, and the windows. Feathers blow this way and that. Two parakeets flirt on the curtain rod, bursting into the air to fight and then settling back on their perch again. A young cockatiel, one of four born this year, starts up a racket when she clamors for food from her father. This is the house o...
Whitman Hospital is firing up to use a barcode verification system in which medications will be scanned and then matched to a barcode on a patient’s wristband. All eighteen new scanners, compatible with the hospital’s computers, will be up and running Feb. 9 for the 25 in-patient rooms in the hospital. The scanner is very similar to the kind used in grocery stores. The new system is a hospital-wide effort to accurately match patients to their medication, said Denise Fowler, chief clinical officer for the hospital. “It’s that final defense...
Pigeon poop dropped in Spring Flat Creek is washing in to the south fork of the Palouse river directly before it flows through Colfax. Department of Ecology officials said putting up nets or pigeon spikes below two bridges which cross the creek could keep the birds away. Fecal coliform bacteria was confirmed in the Palouse River roughly a year ago, after a series of tests by the DOE and the city of Colfax. Pigeon poop has been nailed as the most likely source of fecal coliform bacteria in the South Fork of the Palouse River in Colfax in an...
What business entity would fit neatly into Palouse’s economic puzzle? A forum to hear just those kinds of ideas on the economic feasibility of the Palouse Brownsfield project drew 15 people to city hall Jan. 19. The Department of Ecology (DOE) and the city are working to repair and restore the half-acre patch of polluted land along Main Street into a useful community feature. Greg Pearce, the spouse of one downtown business owner, spoke openly about what he sees as the paltry earnings made by downtown Palouse businesses. Most stores are o...
The tender shoots of winter wheat start their journey toward the sky, compliments of unusually warm and dry December and January months. Photo taken outside Colfax. This unusually warm, dry winter could be both a blessing and a curse for area wheat farmers, said WSU extension educator Steve Van Vleet. Warmer temperatures throughout the winter have already prompted the first growth of winter wheat. However, the lack of snowfall will make for a dry spring. “If we get a cold snap and some wind now, it could be really bad. It could be d...
State Rep. Susan Fagan, R-Pullman, introduced a bill Jan. 26 on public records requests after a handful of Palouse citizens lobbied her in light of what they believe are excessive requests to their city. The proposed bill gives cities in Washington the option of charging for any time over five hours city staff must spend researching public records requests. Citizens who submit those requests would be responsible for paying for that fee. “In a number of instances, there are times when individuals clog the system with multiple requests, sometimes...
Colfax Grange Supply service technician Sean Lewis checks the air on a tire. The grange is locally owned. What has the national economy done to the little guy of Whitman County? Some local businesses have had trouble, others not so much, said several area enterprises. Wheat sales, which fuel a large part of the area economy, are under some pressure, according to one WSU economist. Bagott Motors, long-time car dealer in Palouse, said sales have been dragging all year, but have been only slightly slower than any other year. “It’s slow. It...
The ballots are now out in Whitman County for the Feb. 9 special election that will decide the fate of nine school levy proposals, some with large increases. A total of 6,686 ballots were mailed out by county auditor Eunice Coker’s election staff Friday. Three districts asking for the biggest increase in levy dollars are Colfax, Rosalia and LaCrosse, each for different reasons. Two districts, Steptoe and Tekoa, have kept their levy proposals the same. Colton, Endicott, St. John and Oakesdale are all asking for moderate levy increases in their p...
The Garfield and Palouse schools just acquired two shiny new school buses, costing $274,880 combined. The two buses, which can each seat around 52 students, will join a fleet of 19 other buses, said transportation supervisor Connie Newman. “Yeah, we’re happy to have them,” Newman said. The seatbacks on the new buses are at an angle because the buses are specifically designed for long trips, Newman said. Each bus is also an extra two and a half feet long, providing extra leg space between seats. “Route or a trip, every single student in the ent...
Three dogs romp and frolic through the gravel of their new pen at the Whitman County Humane Society’s new shelter. Each of the shelter’s four pens has a heated indoor pen for the dogs to relax and sleep during the cold Palouse winter. You could almost say it was raining cats and dogs in Pullman, Jan. 16. Twenty-five animals (20 cats and five dogs) were relocated to the new Whitman County Humane Society on the Old Moscow road. Almost 10 years in the making, the new shelter boasts heated indoor facilities for both cats and dogs. Cats had pre...
