Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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Whitman County commissioners approved Monday the replacement of three bridges on county roads. Bridges on the Uniontown East, Viola and Robertson roads will be replaced this summer by county crews. Altogether, the bridges are expected to cost the county more than $300,000, according to Public Works Director Mark Storey. First on the docket is the Babinski Bridge over Union Flat Creek on Uniontown East Road. Storey said that work should begin by the first of June. Babinski Bridge was made off limits to traffic weighing more than 30 tons in...
Reconstruction of the Colfax Airport Road, planned for this summer, will likely be delayed until next year because of a dispute with a landowner along the proposed route. Whitman County Public Works Director Mark Storey said one of the landowners along the road “does not agree with the design” of the new road and has refused to sell the county a right-of-way on their property. Storey told county commissioners Monday he had been unable to speak to that landowner about acquiring right-of-way for the project until last week. “I suspect as a direc...
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...
Tekoa’s Lone Pine cemetery gained registry on the Washington Heritage Register in March. Friends of the Lone Pine Cemetery have been working for more than a year to get the cemetery of their ancestors put on the registry. “I think it’s exciting. It’s definitely a historic site from the old days. I want to do anything we can do to keep the continuity going so it doesn’t get forgotten again,” said Jim Irwin, a member of Friends of the Lone Pine. Irwin’s great grandmother Sarah Blue is buried in the cemetery. With the registry status, the g...
Ballots will be put in the mail tomorrow, Friday, for 1,262 voters in the Colton and Oakesdale school districts to decide on bond measures that will fund construction projects to update their school buildings. Ballots are due back at the county’s new elections office by April 26. This election will be the first to be held in the half-million dollars elections office which opened March 3. Late registration remains open until April 18 to district residents who have never before registered to vote in this state. Both schools will receive a...
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...
Rescue crews from LaCrosse tend to the scene of a one-car wreck that injured two people early last Thursday afternoon, March 31. Angela McDade, 23, Spokane, lost control of her 1991 Mazda 323 while driving southbound on Highway 127 north of Central Ferry. The car crossed the highway and drove into the northbound ditch north of mile marker 16. McDade sustained a face cut and her five-year-old son sustained a cut finger. They were transported to Whitman Hospital by the LaCrosse ambulance....
Five charges have been filed against Nathanial Birch Simon II, 54, Albion resident who was arrested last Tuesday, March 29, after his girlfriend reported she had been assaulted and held against her will in the couple’s home. Chief Deputy Prosecutor Bill Druffel Friday charged Simon with one count of first-degree assault, two counts of second degree assault, one count of unlawful imprisonment and one count of harassment. Simon remains in jail under $500,00 bond which was set for pre-trial release by the court last Wednesday, March 30. The f...
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-...
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...
Six years after purchasing a $331,600 accounting software from Michigan-based New World Systems, Whitman County put it into action Monday morning. “This has gone incredibly smooth compared to some of my past conversions,” said Chris Nelson, director of the county’s information technology department. County IT staffers Esther Wilson, left, and Chris Nelson work Monday at “New World Central,” a post inside the county commissioners’ conference room. Efforts to bring the software into use were stepped up last spring, when county commissione...
Typically alive with moving tractors this time of year, the fields of Whitman County have remained empty to date this spring due to an historically soggy March. David Jones with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Colfax reported Monday 3.75 inches of rain were recorded during March at the district’s offices atop the south hill in Colfax. Only the tops of these picnic tables are above the waterline at Palouse’s flooded Lion’s Club park, in this photo taken March 31. The total was close to double the average rainfall for March at Co...
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...
Colfax senior pitchers Alex Teade and Tyler McNannay both bagged wins Tuesday when the Bulldogs traveled to Ritzville for a double bill. The outing marked the end of a 12-day rain lag in the Colfax baseball schedule since Colfax booked their first game at Asotin. Colfax booked a 15-2 in the first game Tuesday at Ritzville and an 8-2 win in the second game, a one-hitter hurled by McNannay. In the opener, the Bulldogs booked 15 hits with a nine-run explosion in the last innings. Teade allowed eight walks and fanned nine Broncos in taking the win....
Bi City Pioneer Telephone 618 699 649 ~ 1966 Whit Grow 653 638 631 ~ 1922 KUP 641 649 647~ 1937 Dusty Country Store 676 619 655 ~ 1950 Triple Threat 629 639 664 ~ 1932 Bruning Funeral Black Cat Ranch 650 607 689 ~ 1946 Sister’s Brew 676 696 680 ~ 2052 High Scratch Game ~Men~ Dan Hardy ~ 225 ~ Women~ Carolyn Martin ~ 175 High HC Game ~Men~ Tim Rich ~ 259 ~Women~ Ashley Rich ~ 220 FUN BUNCH Smelly Balls 369 438 427 ~ 1234 Top Notch 416 440 383 ~ 1239 Urban Achievers 463 410 509 ~ 1382 Chicasgalore 440 429 401 ~ 1270 Ham Ballz 443 471 456 ~ 1...
Spokane Senior Legion baseball will add a new team this year. The Northeast 49ers based in Chewelah will join the lineup of teams which are normally made up of high school juniors, seniors and first year college players. The Chewelah-based team will be coached by Norm Schuerman, according to Mike Padden, baseball commissioner for Legion District 3. All high school players in Stevens, Pend Oreille and Ferry counties will be able to compete on the Northeast 49ers. Pullman Patriots compete in the senior legion league. Players from Pullman, Colfax...
Waitsburg/Prescott track teams dominated at Colfax last Wednesday when five SE schools gathered in rough weather for a 2B league meet. Chad Redman of Garfield/Palouse/Colton breaks to a quick lead in the 110 hurdles at the SE meet last Wednesday in Pullman. Cory Schultz of Tekoa/Oakesdale/Rosalia, right, placed second, and Alex Keeney of GPC, left, placed third. The Cardinals took the boys meet with 122.8 points and the WP girls took their side of the meet with 85.5 points. Garfield/Palouse/ Colton boys tracked the Cardinals for second in the...
THURSDAY An Egyptian cobra who escaped from the Bronx Zoo and became a star on Twitter last week was found by zoo officials. The cobra, though, claimed the official story is a cover up. The New York Yankees opened their season nearby, and the snake tweeted, “If you see a bag of peanuts inexplicably moving along the ground at Yankee Stadium today- just ignore it. It’s probably nothing.” While walking on the beach near Kaliningrad in Russia, Daniil Korotkikh, 13, found a beer bottle containing a message written 24 years ago by German Frank Uesbe...
#!*! Globe trotting wheat commissioners unless it is on their own buck. YYYY The Grandmothers—gate or no gate. Send your Pet Peeves and Okeydokes to the Gazette P.O. Box 770 Colfax, Wa 99111 Pet Peeves and Okeydokes should be short. One sentence is often enough. Please sign longer submissions so they can be run as letters to the editor....
EVERY POLITICAL junkie knows that Walter Mondale sealed his doom as a presidential candidate when he told the 1984 Democratic national convention Ronald Reagan wouldn’t tell the American people he was going to have to raise their taxes the next year but, by golly, he, Walter Mondale would guarantee to do it. I was there in San Francisco. There he goes, I said to myself. But I was one of the few, I think, who wrote that despite news reports millions of women were thrilled, the other thing he did to cinch his defeat was pick Geraldine Ferraro as...
These reports are from the previous four issues of the Daily Bulletin in Colfax. They are reprinted here for the benefit of Gazette readers who reside outside of Colfax. Some accounts have been updated. CITY OKAYS POLICE CONTRACT Colfax city council members Monday night approved a work agreement with the Colfax Police Officers Association. The agreement, which was presented to council members for review at the previous meeting, calls for a four percent wage hike over each of the next three years. The first increase will be retroactive to the...
Joseph E. Tomaszychi, 44, Kennewick, was charged March 28 in superior court with trafficking in stolen property last August. According to an investigation report filed with the charge, he is suspected of taking a water pump and two transmitters from a ranch along the Snake River near Wilma and selling them at Pacific Recycling in the Lewiston area. The report alleges he received $66.20 from the recycling firm. The report said the suspect borrowed a Toyota pickup truck in Lewiston to transport the stolen items....
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...
The History Channel *On April 19, 1897, John J. McDermott of New York won the first Boston Marathon with a time of 2:55:10. Fifteen runners started the race but only 10 made it to the finish line. The marathon’s distance was changed in 1908 in accordance with Olympic standards to its current length of 26 miles, 385 yards. * On April 21, 1918, in the skies over France, Manfred von Richthofen, the notorious German flying ace known as “The Red Baron,” is killed by Allied fire when an Australian gunner shoots him through his chest. He was 25 years...
Officials from the Whitman County Rural Library District are working with members of the LaCrosse Community Pride on a long-term lease agreement to move the LaCrosse Branch library to the former LaCrosse Market building. Peggy Bryan, business manager for the library district, said Tuesday the two sides were working out terms of a lease agreement. “We’re both committed to finding a way to provide this service to the community of LaCrosse,” said Bryan. “We just have to find a way to make it happen.” The library, as a public agency, was awarded $...
