Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 570
The county elections office as of Tuesday morning had received 320 ballots back from Oakesdale school district and 352 from the Colton/Uniontown school district for the April 26 election. Total, 1312 ballots were mailed out to the two school districts. Late registration closed April 18 to district residents who have never before registered to vote in this state. Both bond measures are asking voters to vote on construction projects to update their school buildings. Both schools will receive additional funding through the state...
Two dozen Palouse parents are working to find solutions to keep the only day care in town running. The Palouse school district came close to voting to shut down the Little Sprouts Childcare and Early Learning Center at a special board meeting April 12. More than 30 parents attended the meeting, many of whom had only learned the week before the day care was in danger of closing. As a result of the special meeting, the school board approved a motion to create a task force that has until May 19 to find a day care model that would help the day... Full story
The horrors of disaster, war and abject poverty flashed across the screen at a recent Red Cross training workshop at Colfax High School Thursday. John Caskey, a Red Cross attorney from Spokane, spoke for four hours on the current work the organization performs in America throughout the world. Caskey gave applicable tips to the high school teachers in attendance on how to make relief work and international crisis relevant to their students. “There are designer clothes and jeans that are made by child slaves in Jordan,” he said. He added the... Full story
The population of Colton rose by 32 people between 2000 to 2010, according to the results of the U.S. Census. Colton was only small town in Whitman County that marked a significant gain in population over the last 10 years. Pullman marked a 5,124 person gain over the decade for 20.8 percent growth. Colton’s increase of 32 amounted to an 8.3 percent population increase. The only other town in the county to gain population was Oakesale at two. How did Colton buck the trend of small town decline? Colton Mayor Jerry Weber believes a subdivision con...
Whitman County Red Cross chapter is encouraging residents and businesses to launch their own fund-raiser for the relief efforts in Japan. So far, roughly $1,500 has been donated at the Red Cross office in Pullman. Two grass-root fund-raisers in Whitman County have successfully been completed since a massive earthquake and tsunami struck off the northeast coast of Japan March 11. The most recent was a benefit concert at the Belltower in Pullman last week, which featured four college-age bands or soloists. The April 7 concert which drew crowds... Full story
The last “listening post” for public comment on Highway 195 will be today in Colfax. The Department of Transportation has held three other forums in towns along the highway this week. The department is asking for citizen suggestions on the highway’s safety, in order to put together a comprehensive collision study. A main complaint from the 15 or so visitors to the Pullman post Tuesday was the need for passing lanes, according to Dave Dean, route development engineer with the DOT. “I’d advocate for passing lanes, especially Pullman to Lewiston,...
Colfax school district’s athletic director Mike Morgan turned in a letter of resignation Monday, stating the work load had become too much in tandem with his two other jobs at the school. “I’ve been juggling three jobs the last nine years. It’s just been hard on me. What I would like to do is get back to focusing a little more on my music and a little more on my football and get back to the regular classroom,” Mike Morgan said. Morgan, who directs the school’s bands and coaches the football team, told the Gazette Tuesday his change of status ... Full story
Whitman Hospital will host a session on preparing advance directives and other papers that designate a person’s preferences in the event of a medical emergency. The session will be at the hospital’s administrative annex Saturday, April 16, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. A Medstar helicopter and staff of the regional tissue and organ donation organization, Lifecenter, will be present. Tours of the helicopter will be available. The event is in observance of National Healthcare Decisions Day. “You need to start thinking about those decisions as you go throu...
Residents of St. John and the surrounding area Saturday heaped their plates high with dungeness crab meat at the first-ever St. John crab feed served by the St. John Historical Society. Approximately 160 tickets were sold at $25 a plate. “There is a whole lot of history in this town, and it should not be forgotten,” said St. John native Connie Robertson. The fragrant crab meat came from five-pound cans which were purchased at the St. John grocery store, Webb’s Empire Foods. The crowd packed the town’s community center and ate its way through... Full story
The county extension office is still $1,500 short of the needed amount to pull off the annual kids’ fishing day at Gilchrist Pond along Union Flat Creek south of Colfax. County officials have been searching for sponsors of the popular children’s fishing day for spring 2011. The program lost a much-needed $2,500 last fall, when county officials were notified in early October the state was cutting funds. If the total funds can be raised, the fishing day will be June 11. County Commissioner Greg Partch said the last-minute help of a couple of spo... Full story
The conflicting needs of clean water and cattle access is an ongoing issue in Whitman County and around the state. Palouse Rock-Lake Conservation District based in St. John and the Palouse Conservation District in Pullman are working with more than a dozen cattle ranchers to get cattle out of surface water, at the behest of the state Department of Ecology office in Spokane. Water quality standards set by the federal Clean Water Act and implemented by the state DOE specify livestock cannot be in freshwater in Washington. A strip of young trees...
The Pullman Rural fire department now has a new storage building for fire trucks at its station off Highway 27. Shawnee Rock company president Mark Cochran built the four-truck building for the department. “It easily houses four big trucks. They can just pull in and pull out real easy,” said Cochran. Rural fire chief Lester Irwin stands inside the new four-truck garage. The department signed a 25-year-lease with Shawnee Rock. Cochran said the rent over time will compensate him for the cost of constructing the building. The new structure was bui...
The owner of the Palouse house that was the object of a drug protest last fall has been sentenced to 36 months in prison in Idaho. Sheri Dressel is now in the Latah County Jail at Moscow awaiting transfer to an Idaho Department of Corrections facility, either in Boise or Cottonwood, to begin serving her sentence. “She was certainly involved in the methamphetamine culture in our area,” said Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson. Dressel’s residence at Palouse became the subject of a community protest last fall after the Oct. 11 suicide of a 16-... Full story
The state Department of Transportation is seeking citizen comments and questions about Highway 195 for a collision study. A series of meetings hosted by the DOT has been slated in the county with stops at Rosalia, Colfax and Pullman next week. Called “listening posts”, the sessions are intended to give the public a voice on the safety of the highway. The project involves the highway segment from Spangle south to the state line outside Uniontown. The two-lane highway provides a link from Spokane to both the WSU and UI campuses, and the Lew...
A crop-duster crashed into the east end of Kamiak Butte Friday, sending pilot Morgan Stanton to Pullman Regional Hospital with two broken clavicles and a dislocated elbow. Stanton, 31, is a bush pilot from Fairbanks, Alaska, and was working for Dale’s Flying Service of Palouse for the spring season. State Patrol troopers look at the scene of this crop duster crash on Kamiak Butte. The plane, a Cessna Ag Truck, crashed through a line of trees at the top of the ridge and hit the ground upside down, spilling dry fertilizer. Stanton was able to p... Full story
A mural of colorful paintings, from golden sunflowers to colorful masks, line the hallways of Palouse Elementary. For the past school year, Green Frog owner Tianna Gregg has volunteered an hour every two weeks with the 24 fourth and fifth grade students in Jay Iverson’s class at Palouse Elementary. Each session, Gregg works with the children to mimick the work of a selected artist. Art in the styles of Jackson Pollock, Georgia O’Keefe and Paul Kline decorate the hallway. Gregg adores the time she spends working with the children. “I’m so insp...
Palouse senior Ben Weagrass helped count coins for the drive. Wanting to help with the relief efforts in Japan, school students in Palouse and Garfield spent five days digging through their piggy banks, dresser drawers, couches and their parent’s pockets. Penny by penny, the money came clinking in; $501.02 to be precise. Their coin drive raised half the total contributions that have so far been made to the Whitman County Red Cross Disaster Relief for the crisis in Japan. Jars and jars of coins lined the classroom of teacher Chris Bofenkamp w... Full story
Colfax mother Makayla Butler holds her new baby, Serenity, born March 20. Approximately 200 mothers or soon-to-be mothers in Whitman County are now receiving ongoing breastfeeding tips through a new county program. A $13,000 grant to the county’s Women Infants and Children program, or WIC, is paying for four peer counselors to work part-time with mothers on breastfeeding. Administered by a county nurse, Joy Grey, the program began in early March. Most WIC offices throughout the state received grant funds for the program. Peer counselors each h...
Schools around Whitman County are finalizing staffing plans in preparation for the May 15 deadline to issue Reductions in Force layoff notices, also known as RIFs. Whitman County schools took a $1,417,405 hit this school year, as a result of the legislature’s special session in December. Those cuts, along with uncertainties in the present session of the state legislature, may mean layoffs for some districts. The $1,417,405 reduction resulted after legislators in December cut two school programs; K-4 enhancement and EduJobs grants. Educational S... Full story
Linda Schmidt A new business, Lotsa Stuff, opened this month in Tekoa and will share space with Scrappers Getaway which has been open since 2009. Linda and Lloyd Schmidt hosted a grand opening for the new business which sells hand-made knick knacks and other home decorations. Schmidt said her range of items, from her hand-made soap to sterling silver jewelry, justifies the Lotsa Stuff name of the new business. “I try to have the gifts priced so Tekoa can afford it,” Schmidt told the Gazette in an interview Monday. Schmidt has taken over run...
It was 1965. Nineteen-year-old Linda Ledgerwood was working a few trial weeks as the possible “new secretary” for St. Ignatius Hospital in Colfax. “I actually got paid in petty cash,” she remembers. Forty-five years later, 65-year-old Ledgerwood is wrapping up a life-long career as human resources director for Whitman Hospital. Today, March 31, the hospital will host a retirement party at 1:30 p.m. in the hospital cafeteria to honor Ledgerwood. The human resources director will be honored for her years of work at the hospital; her last day is... Full story
The layoff procedure at the Colfax school district will continue to be based on seniority, at least until the end of this school year. Also, contract negotiations between the school district and its teachers remain in a deadlock as they work to replace the contract that expired last Aug. 31. The teacher’s union, Colfax Education Association (CEA), last Wednesday departed the mediation session with the seniority policy intact because their former contract remains in effect. Staff layoffs at Colfax are now based on how long teachers have w...
A large marble memorial for veterans will be constructed in the Goldenrod Cemetery at Tekoa. The groundskeeper for the cemetery, who is helping with the memorial, estimates there are more than 300 area veterans buried in the cemetery. More than 100 years of Tekoa area soldiers are buried in the town’s Goldenrod Cemetery. Today, three Tekoa women are months away from the completion of a veteran’s memorial at the 10-acre city cemetery. Constructed of marble and concrete by an architect from Post Falls, the memorial may be open to the public as so...
In light of impending cuts to the WSU budget, the state’s WSU Extension office this year created a task force to brainstorm and prepare its program for budget cuts. “The cuts that are given to WSU could impact the WSU Extension. It’s within the overall WSU budget. I don’t think we are any more vulnerable or at risk than any other part of WSU,” said Linda Kirk Fox, associate director of the state WSU Extension office, based in Pullman. Programs like 4H and Master Gardener are run by extension offices throughout the state. Janet Schmidt o...
The annual high school envirothon will be at Klemgard Park. Hosted by the Palouse Conservation district, Whitman County students will compete in five categories of natural resources. The envirothon is a nation-wide event hosted by conservation districts to help teach students about the environment. For example, in the wildlife category, students could be asked to identify the hides of local animals. For the aquatic ecology, the Union Flat Creek could be used for test questions. Information coordinator for the district, Jennifer Boie, said stude...
