Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 51 - 65 of 65
A state Department of Transportation search for funds to upgrade handicap access on the south main bridge in Colfax could be close to success. City Administrator Carl Thompson spoke to the city council Monday night. Thompson read a report from Keith Martin, local programs engineer for the Spokane District. Martin’s report initially went to Erik Coats, Moscow consulting engineer who has done design work for revamping the bridge. Coats relayed the report to the city officials. Martin reported they are getting close to finding DOT funds to pay f...
Construction continued this week on the new Pine Creek bridge on Highway 27 between Tekoa and Oakesdale. Pouring of concrete on the second support abutment for the bridge was slated to take place Wednesday, as crews from Thompson Bros. Excavating, Vancouver, move toward replacement of the wooden bridge, the site of almost annual road closures during high water flows in the creek. A pre-stressed concrete span will be installed on the abutments. Main impact to traffic will be later in the project, when the new road, located north of the present r...
David C. Sackmann, was among the 1,120 students named to the Gonzaga University President’s List for spring semester 2010. Students must earn a 3.7 to 4.0 grade-point average. He is the son of Mark and Cathy Sackmann, Endicott.... Full story
Colfax school board July 13 voted to accept a bid from a company offering a wireless system that can better connect computers throughout the two school buildings. The winning bid came from Aruba at $19,778. The district does have wireless, but service is spotty in some locations in the two buildings. “Our wireless environment wasn’t meeting the needs of the district,” said Margie Hamilton, district technology coordinator. Hamilton said the new system will put an end to losing wireless connections when laptops are moved from class to class...
THURSDAY U.S. military officials handed Iraqi officials control of the Camp Cropper detention center near the Baghdad airport, the last U.S. prison to be turned over to local authorities. Workers at the World Trade Center construction site in New York City unearthed the decayed hull of a 32-foot long antique wooden ship. Archeologists at the site said the ship, which is more than 200-years old, was likely used to help fill the Hudson River when lower Manhattan was expanded. Archeologists in Guatemala discovered a Mayan king’s 2,000-year old t... Full story
Ben Farmer of Colfax served in the Marines in Iraq from 2008 to 2009. Here, he poses next to his new quilt with Tami Drader, organizer of the local Quilts of Valor effort. Farmer broke his ankle during a training maneuver in the U.S. after his deployment. A veteran of the Iraq war, Ben Farmer of Colfax, was gifted with a quilt hand-stitched by a member of the Colfax Assembly of God Sunday. Farmer, 23, of Colfax, was presented with the hand-made patriotic piece by Tami Drader during the church service. Farmer served eight months in Fallujah,...
Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker was given $70,331 by county commissioners Monday to begin piecing back together the county’s finance department. The money, which was budgeted this year for the now defunct finance department, will be used to hire a new finance director that would work under the auditor. “I want you to succeed with this,” Commissioner Greg Partch told Coker Monday afternoon. “I can’t tell you how much of a pain in the butt the finance department has been over the last couple of years. I want you to succeed.” The new hire wi...
Dozens of residents turned out at meetings in Oakesdale and Colfax last week to hear First Wind’s plans for a wind farm on Naff Ridge. “It’s really great to see the community come out and show interest in what we’re doing,” said Ben Fairbanks, First Wind’s west region business development director, at the company’s barbecue meeting at Oakesdale July 15. “We want to be a part of this community for a long time, and they are giving us a great reception,” he said. The Boston-based company July 1 announced its plans to site as many as 40 of the...
Charges have not been filed from a truck-motorcycle accident that claimed the lives of two Albion residents Friday afternoon. Sheriff Brett Myers said Wednesday the investigation is still ongoing. Kathleen M. Russell, 59, died at the scene of the accident, and her husband, William H. Russell, 55, died after being transported to Pullman Regional Hospital. The accident took place about a half mile west of the Highway 27 intersection at the east end of the Albion-Pullman road. According to the sheriff’s report, William Russell was operating a 2...
Six people have been sickened with a bacteria commonly found in raw meat in the past month in Whitman County. Environmental director Michael Baker reported the cases to Whitman County commissioners at a health board meeting July 20. “It makes you feel like you want to die,” Baker said of the bacteria. According to a fact sheet published by the USDA, the bacteria is called campylobacter and is found in raw or undercooked meat or contact with the feces of animals carrying the bacteria. The USDA said the bacteria causes diarrhea and in some cas... Full story
Whitman County taxpayers will pay for lawyers to defend commissioners Pat O’Neill and Greg Partch against a possible recall. County commissioners in a pair of 2-0 votes Monday approved use of county funds to pay for lawyers to represent the two in an upcoming court hearing and in any subsequent appeals. Authorization of public funds for the lawyers meant two separate votes, as neither O’Neill nor Partch could vote to grant themselves the funding. Largent and Partch voted to fund fee payments for O’Neill; Largent and O’Neill approved payments fo...
Crews from Catlow movers of Spokane pull the old Jones School along Highway 26. The 24 X 48-foot schoolhouse, one of but a few remaining in the county, was moved from its former location at Dusty to the Palouse Empire Fairgrounds last Wednesday, July 14. The schoolhouse will be added to the fair scene across the pathway to the north of the fair’s central flag pole. During the fair, the Whitman County Historical Society plans to use the building as a museum commemorating the old one-room schoolhouses that once dominated the Palouse. Traffic w... Full story
Carie Saunders of Palouse had to duck under a series of barbed wire and electric fences on a kayak trip down the north fork of the Palouse River in late June, a trip she later complained about to Palouse city staff and state agencies. Cattle owners on that section of the river do not believe their cattle are a problem, according to Gazette interviews with owners Matt Collier and Ruth Bruns. Saunders sent messages to Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove and the Department of Ecology that pointed out she had to duck fences and paddle through water...
This photo shows an up-close view of stripe rust fungus reproducing inside a wheat leaf. Jim Huber of Mockonema captured the image by opening a leaf of wheat under a scanning electron microscope early this month. Evidence that a pervasive infestation of stripe rust fungus would decimate Whitman County’s 2010 wheat crop has not shown up in the summer’s first cuttings. Initial yields from the few combines that have cut fields in the Hay and Hooper region are testing just above 60 bushels per acre, a good number for the arid area. “I think the rai...
PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Whitman County Board of Commissioners will conduct a public hearing on Monday, August 16, 2010, at 11:15 A.M. in their Chambers, Courthouse, Colfax, Washington, for the purpose of receiving public comment associated with a proposed zone change submitted by the Colfax Grange for rezone of 11.16 acres from Agricultural District to Heavy Commercial District. Any interested individuals may attend said hearing and speak for or against the proposed zoning code modification. Arrangements will be made to a...
