Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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John Aeschliman of Colfax, recently won first place in the A division of the No Till/Strip Till Non-Irrigated of the 2010 National Corn Growers’ Association’s Corn Yield Contest in Washington. Aeschliman won with Pioneer brand hybrid 39D95, which yielded 96 bushels per acre. Aeschliman earned one of the 359 state titles won by growers planting Pioneer hybrids. The NCGA awarded 522 state titles in this year’s contest. Growers planting Pioneer hybrids dominated the contest and won 69 percent of all state awards presented. The NCGA Corn Yield... Full story
“It’s always been successful but it makes me pull my hair out.” That was the way Dayton farmer Bob Hutchers summed up his years of growing canola on his farm, as he gestured to his bald head. Hutchers grows 115 acres of canola, the most common oilseed crop in these parts, on his farm, in rotation with other crops. And while his remark drew laughter from many of the more than 100 persons who packed the meeting room at Hill Ray in Colfax, the remark reflected the mood and mindset of the gathering; some optimism, but a lot of caution. Spons...
Uniontown hired a new clerk Jan. 27, one of the last positions to be replaced after several city staff members departed at the end of last year. Melani Roach of Genesee will now work at least 20 hours a week, if not more, as part-time clerk for the town. “She’s very well experienced,” said Uniontown mayor Joyce Mayer. Roach has worked in accounting for other companies, but she has not yet worked as a municipal clerk, the mayor said. Acting clerk Patty Kelly, the mayor’s daughter, has been performing clerk duties for the town since the resigna...
The North Fork Palouse River shifted piles of playground bark when it flooded Jan. 17. Jan. 27, police chief Jerry Neumann, shown here aboard a utility tractor, was amid roughly 20 volunteers who scooped the bark back to its appropriate location. Neumann said most of the bark never left the playground because the flooded river formed an eddy which kept the debris swirling inside the park.... Full story
THURSDAY Spurred on by an internet campaign against President Hosni Mubaraks’s three-decade rule, thousands of Egyptians take to the streets in mass protests. The Mexican military seized a medeival-style catapult smugglers were using to hurl marijuana over the U.S. border in a bust near the small town of Naco. FRIDAY Egyptian armed forces were dispatched to Cairo’s central Tahrir Square as protestors returned in the early hours. Miami teenager Nicholas Harrington told the Miami Herald it was he who mysteriously placed a piano on a tiny san...
Whitman County Commissioner Greg Partch and Auditor Eunice Coker erred in their Jan. 20 statement about the source of local funding for the county’s new elections office. A letter written to voters and reported on in the Gazette said portions of this year’s $443,000 remodeling and the $105,571 roof on the building in 2009 were taken from real estate excise tax proceeds, which can only be spent on county infrastructure. “No property tax or current expense dollars were used,” Coker and Partch stated in their letter. The two county officia...
The Colton/Uniontown fire district will soon acquire a new water tender with a $490,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security. The county’s southern-most fire district, District 14, hopes to have the 3,500-gallon water tender on line by this summer. District 14 fire fighters learned they had been awarded the grant Jan. 28. Part of the grant guidelines require the district to put up $10,000 of its own funds, as it is a matched grant. The district covers 150 square miles, which includes Colton, Uniontown and county property down to t... Full story
Whitman County has closed Babinski Bridge east of Uniontown to heavy traffic after inspection crews noticed upwards of 400 cracks in the foundation of the concrete span. Because of those cracks, the county has limited traffic on the heavily used bridge to under 30 tons, essentially anything lighter than a double-trailer semi truck. The restrictions will remain in place until the bridge can be replaced. “We don’t need a Minneapolis bridge,” said Public Works Director Mark Storey, referring to the infamous collapsed bridge The bridge, built...
About 60 people Saturday dined at Hill-Ray Plaza for the first Colfax Chamber of Commerce installation banquet in four years. Julie Womack gave a brief talk on her outlook after taking the top job. Womack, who moved to Colfax after her husband, David, was named CEO at Whitman Hospital in late 2009, is the 70th president of the Colfax Chamber. She suggested Chamber members follow the “one more step” credo, which is inscribed on the memorial at Henry Niehenke park, in pursuing Chamber goals in the future. Colfax artist Tim Ely, was guest spe...
Matthew McPherson, 35, Malden, was unhurt Jan. 25 in an accident on the Malden/Pine City Road west of Rosalia. According to the Washington State Patrol report, McPherson was driving a 2002 Isuzu Trooper westbound at 8:20 p.m. when the SUV drifted off the roadway into the ditch about three miles west of Rosalia....
Different versions of a Colfax school community perspective survey appeared on the district's web site last Thursday. The district plans to conduct the survey over the next three weeks with a report scheduled for the Feb. 21 school board meeting. Supt. Michael Morgan said different survey editions have been prepared for students' families, for other residents and for staff members. The first two have been posted on the web site. The survey for residents poses 14 questions, and the survey for parents with students has 29 questions. The forms... Full story
An education meeting on black stem rust will be Feb. 11 from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Spokane County Extension Education Center, 222 N. Havana Street in Spokane. Scientists from WSU and the USDA will present on the biology of the stem rust pathogen and the history of the eradication of the barberry, its alternate host. Farmers can learn management and control practices for the disease. The session is free and open to the public. Organizers are asking interested participants to RSVP by Feb. 8 by calling the WSU Spokane County Extension,... Full story
Michael A. Holmes, 25, former Colfax resident, was formally charged in superior court Jan. 26 with three drug counts. The Quad Cities Drug Task Force report noted Holmes came under suspicion after informants told officers he was supplying methamphetamine in the Colfax area. The officers said they arranged for the informant to make a controlled purchase of the drug. Holmes is formally charged with two counts of delivery of methamphetamine last July and one count of attempted delivery Aug. 8....
Angelina and Reed Widman of Rosalia claimed the 2011 Gazette buttercup sweepstakes prize with this beauty they discovered Saturday. This is the fourth straight year the Widmans have claimed the prize with buttercups that appear on a south slope near their place on Babb Road north of Rosalia. Angelina, 6, and Reed, 3, are children of Allen and Emmy Widman. Angelina’s kindergarten teacher, Amber Marsh, is a former buttercup winner. In the spirit of better times ahead, the Gazette’s prize committee Monday opted to award each youngster with a dol... Full story
One local gorilla was also on the Colfax basketball court Friday night when the Davenport Gorillas visited town. Senior Tuffy Hickman portrayed a gorilla in search of a snack when he chased top banana Damon Buck during a lull in the court action. The chase was a Blu Cru pep club production. Bananas were the menu feature for the night....
More than a third of the ballots sent out for Feb. 8 special elections have already been mailed back to the Whitman County elections office. Of the 3,276 ballots mailed, 1,159 had been filled out and mailed back as of Tuesday. Voters in the town of Rosalia, St. John cemetery district and four school districts received ballots. The town of Rosalia is asking for a special tax levy of $50,000 for the year 2012 for the city street fund. Lamont school district is asking for a two-year levy of $135,000 each year for 2012 and 2013 to support the... Full story
If the math classes at Idaho’s Greencreek High School in the late 1940s had extended beyond plain geometry, a big chapter in Colfax legal history would never have happened. Also, the firm of Libey, Ensley & Nelson, Inc. would not be inviting one and all to a retirement party for Wesley A. Nuxoll Friday from 3 to 6 at Hill-Ray Plaza. Nuxoll, one of 13 graduates in the 1948 class at Greencreek, located on Camas Prairie north of Grangeville, was pondering a career as a chemical engineer. His family, part of a strong German catholic community at G... Full story
Rural fire departments in Whitman County are facing a downward trend in volunteers available during the day, in addition to dropping numbers of volunteers with EMT training. To manage, the Rosalia fire department has plans to hire a part-time firefighter with EMT training to cover the town of 640 during the day. Chief Bill Tensfeld said his district made the choice because they have less than five volunteer fire fighters ready during the day. Rosalia 10 years ago had roughly 35 volunteers, about 20 of which had EMT training, Tensfeld...
MEETING CANCELLATION NOTICE The February 25, 2011 regular meeting of the Whitman County LEOFF I Board has been canceled. The next regular meeting of the Board will take place Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. in the Whitman County Commissioners’ Chambers. Maribeth Becker, CMC, Clerk of the Board 20715 5/2c NOTICE OF HEARING NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Board of County Commissioners of Whitman County, Washington, will consider the Report of the County Road Engineer for the vacation and abandonment of a portion of the old F.M. Thompson R...
Include TAC I urge Whitman County residents to request the inclusion of a Technical Advisory Committee in the requirements of the Conditional Use Permit for wind power energy generation companies doing business in Whitman County. Certainly in the permitting process for wind power generation, any process that insures the public’s ability to comment and suggest, but not to rule, is positive. Only the inclusion of a TAC does that. This committee creates a working partnership and diverts frustration and anger that can result in lawsuits. For t... Full story
I was only 15 years old when my father finally told me the truth about Santa Claus. “Son,” he said, “Santa’s sleigh causes a warp in the space-time continuum, which is why he can visit every child’s house in a single night.” Later, of course, I found out that he was wrong, that it wasn’t the sleigh at all, it was the tiny black hole created by Rudolph’s glowing nose. But was this a deliberate deceit, or was my father merely stating what was then the generally accepted theory? I suspect the former. Parenting is difficult under any circumstances,...
You see a lot in the news these days about public employee pension costs pushing cities and states to the brink of bankruptcy. Private sector employers confronted the same crisis years ago and are still struggling with it today. Eager to avoid costly strikes, companies agreed to long-term pension benefits they couldn’t afford, hoping to find a way to fund them later. The focus on employee benefits intensified in the 1970s when President Nixon implemented wage and price controls. Employers couldn’t increase wages, so union leaders’ focus turned...
IT’S HARD to concentrate on everyday things after you’ve learned that someone in your family has cancer. In my case, it’s my baby brother, not really a baby considering our ages, but he is No. 9 among the ten children in the family. I am No. 2. No jokes please. There are only seven of us left. No. 1 brother died of a sudden heart attack in his 40s. He led a fast life as a salesman of some kind of airplane apparatus and spent many a night entertaining clients at late dinners. We’re sure that’s what killed him. No.5, a sister, also was young at... Full story
#!*! Colfax City Council’s continued “No response,” “No action” on the deer population problem. +++ The world famous crab feed. #!*! The blu-cru and cheerleaders being banished to the end of the gym. #!*! The bad pot holes on 195 from here to Pullman. #!*! The people yelling about the gate behind the Grandma’s shop. Send your one-sentence Pet Peeves and Okeydokes to the Gazette P.O. Box 770 Colfax, Wa 99111...
Jerry Jones, editor of the Gazette, was recently awarded the Silver Helmet Award. It was given by the Washington State Football Coaches Association for his continued, dedicated service to rural county high school football coverage. It is a fitting recognition. Jerry has covered Whitman County high school sports since 1965. He can be seen on the sidelines, looking for the photos that describe the game, show the action and, as important, give as many kids as possible a chance for a published picture. This award is for his coverage of football....
