Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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The annual Palouse Music Festival returns Saturday, July 27, to Hayton-Greene Park along the river in Palouse. With seven musical acts, food, a beer garden and craft sellers, the day will run from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and culminate with Blue Highway, a veteran rock and country band based in Palouse. To open the festival, on a flatbed trailer under shade trees, Paul Smith begins with an hour on fiddle. Next is the Cherry Sisters Revival of Moscow, which began with three ukuleles and songs from the...
This year’s Whitman County primary election Aug. 6 will include a three-candidate race for Endicott mayor. Other offices on the ballot will be Endicott council position three, a Farmington street maintenance proposition and two cemetery propositions for operation expenses in Colfax and St. John. Steve Salzman was appointed mayor of Endicott last March after Dave Bilow had to step down due to health issues. Salzman said he has decided to pursue a full term in November’s election. He said during his time as mayor he has been working to upd...
Whitman County Commissioners received a July 16 letter from David Gang, assistant director of the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University, addressing concerns about the impact of emissions from cannabis plants in Whitman County. The letter requests the county’s six-month moratorium on any new marijuana-related production to be extended until research about the impact is complete. “Research is now underway that will take several months to conduct and analyze, but that should provide imp...
Port of Whitman commissioners and staff discussed selling a portion of their Pullman Industrial Park-West property to a housing developer and approved sponsorship for the annual fly-in at the Colfax Airport at their meeting July 18. Aspen Heights, an off-campus student housing development company based in Austin, Texas, has proposed to purchase about 23.26 acres from the port’s PIP-West property. The property is currently used to grow wheat. The area was annexed into the city of Pullman several years ago. The Port property, which totals 1...
The Jennings Elementary roof is exposed boards while more pounding and whirring comes from Colfax Junior-Senior High School with lifts and other Wellens Farwell Construction equipment parked around the buildings. Late into the second month of summer, full-on construction at Colfax schools is on a timeline, as described by District Superintendent Jerry Pugh. “Construction is progressing,” Pugh told the school board Monday night. “The library, art room and choir room are ready for prime...
Palouse Empire Rodeo Association has launched box seat sales for the new grandstand, which is now under construction at the fairground. The rodeo will market more than twice the number of box seats which will be available in the larger grandstand. Overall, the new grandstand will be close to double the capacity with a rating of 2,489 seats compared to 1,250 for the former grandstand. The count of box seats now totals 432 with 48 in each of the nine sections. The fair has reserved 96 of the...
Whitman County commissioners discussed funding for 2020 Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) and prioritized which projects were important to fund for the upcoming year during a workshop session Monday. The CIP committee ranked a list of county projects based on legal requirements, public health and safety concerns, public support and economic impact. The committee used a ranking system that goes from zero to four, with four being the most urgent. After the committee ranks the projects, county...
A United States Department of Agriculture tool for farmers, released July 17, will provide farmers and ranchers with information to find a loan option to fit their needs. Named Farm Loan Discovery, the website was launched in 2018 to provide a platform where famers could apply for programs and manage their accounts. “Access to credit is critical in the agriculture industry, especially for new farmers,” said Bill Northey, Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation. The Farm Service Agency offers loans to help farmers get started, pur...
Whitman County was recently named the most educated county in Washington state by TheStacker.com. The county also ranked 34 out of 3,142 counties in the United States. To calculate the rankings, Stacker used data from the 2013 to 2017 American Community Survey to construct an index to measure the approximate education level of the counties in each state. The data includes those over 25 years old. Stacker evaluated the data to create a “point-based system” based on seven educational tiers which range from individuals not educated past eighth gra...
Kristin Kemak, Lewis-Clark Valley Chamber president, last Thursday reported to Port of Whitman commissioners and staff about the Eastern Washington Legislative Tour scheduled Sept. 15-17. It will include tours of schools, businesses and projects around Eastern Washington and part of Idaho. Kemak said this tour is modeled after the Idaho legislative tour which normally brings 70 legislators. Kemak said in 2016, Lewis-Clark Valley Chamber started to manage the tour with stops in Moscow, Lewiston,...
Colfax Business Manager Reece Jenkin took the school board through a proposed 2019-2020 budget Monday night in a work session before the three members on hand approved it in their regular meeting. The budget is for 546 students projected, with total expenditures of $8,258,755 and total revenue of $7,985,000. The $273,000 deficit will be covered by reserves. Jenkin explained later to the Gazette that reserves have built up in recent years, and it was expected that they would be tapped this year a...
The Town of Farmington will hold two special elections for the county's Aug. 6 Primary Election. Proposition No. 1 will ask voters to finance street maintenance, repair and improvement with a property tax levy of $8,000, to be paid for by $1.64 or less per $1,000 of assessed value in 2019. If approved, the tax would be collected in 2020. Special Election, Proposition No. 2 in Farmington is to finance the town's current expense fund, collected at $15,000 or $3.06 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2019, also to be collected in 2020. “These are p...
Cup O’ Joe on the Palouse will be at Columbia Bank, 795 SE Bishop Blvd. Pullman, on Wednesday, Aug. 7, from 10 to 11 a.m. Chloe Legreid, Founder of Chloe’s Lavender, will present on the startup business stages of the company and recent accomplishments at the WSU business plan competition and as a national DECA finalist in Orlando, Fla. Legreid is a Pullman High School student who has competed in the WSU business plan competition the last two years, placing in the top three. Elijah Shoemake, co-founder of Protium Innovations LLC, recently ret...
Area students on the Spokane Community College spring quarter honor with grade average of 3.0 or above included Hailey Bafus and Tate Schauble of St. John, Garrett Correll of Hooper, Dillon Meserve and Brooklyn Henley of Oakesdale, Donald Schaffer of Farmington, Brynn Villegas Vilchiz and Kristina Ward of Colfax, Chela Woods and Desiree' Underwood of Tekoa and Nathan Lindhag of Rosalia....
The Colfax School District board met Monday night for a mid-summer meeting and approved a budget for the 2019-20 school year, hirings from new teachers to a new volleyball coach and the resignation of Nathan Holbrook as P.E. teacher and athletic director. The board was introduced to a series of the newly-hired, including Michael Dorman, social studies teacher, a Colfax resident who has spent the last 12 years teaching at Washtucna; Joey Reed, a 16-year middle/high school teacher at Oakesdale,...
Colfax swim team picked up their first win of the season last Thursday with a 687-498 tally over SELW at the Colfax pool. The win reversed a July 16 night result when the SELW team topped Colfax 664-513 at the Endicott pool. Avery Anderson of SELW rolled up wins in five races in the12 under boys class, but he was bumped by Ben Bailey in the breaststroke. Bailey was second in the other 2-under boys races he competed in. Ross Cofer of Colfax won three of the four races in the boys' eight-under cla...
The SELW team booked a close win in a dual meet at Endicott over GPOP. Final score was 624-592 for the hosts. At Colfax, the Pullman Baracudas stroked to a big win in a three-team meet. The `cudas dominated with 656 points. Colfax finished with 240, and Pomeroy booked 149 in the meet. In the last round of league meets today, the Baracudas will travel to Pomeroy. Colfax and SELW are booked to compete with the GPOP team at Garfield. The league will take a break next week before the big league finish at Colfax Aug. 3....
Pullman Posse rolled up a 2-1 record in Legion 2A playoffs at Jackson Field in Spokane and qualified to play in state finals which will be at Yakima this week. The state playoff grid includes 16 teams which will play at Parker Field and Davis High in Yakima in a double elimination tourney which will end with title game next Thursday, Aug. 1. Posse is booked to play Mt. Vernon, the top finisher in the District one playoffs, in the first state round today at 4 p.m. at Davis High in Yakima. A win would advance them to a Sunday game against the win...
The summer’s baseball run for the Pullman Patriots came to an end Saturday at Jackson field in Spokane when they were eliminated at the district playoffs with the last of three straight losses. The loss ended a bid for a return to the state Legion finals which will be in Bellingham this year. Last year, when the Patriots went to district after team members revived local Legion action here at the AAA level, the Patriots bagged a state entry and rolled on to the state finals at Chehalis where they booked a 1-2 record to cap the revival year. T...
Lance Mills of St. John finished 19th in tie-down roping at the 71st annual National High School Finals Rodeo in Rock Springs, Wyo., July 14-20. He was one of four names from Whitman County among competitors from the United States, Mexico, Australia and Canada. Mills is a 2019 graduate of St. John/Endicott High School. Wesley Castanon, a 2019 Oakesdale graduate, finished 41st at Nationals in saddlebronc, with one qualified ride. Sydney Berquist, a junior-to-be at Colfax High School, finished 45th in breakaway roping. Jordan Paddack, a graduate...
Results from tournament three, July 18: 8-10 year olds: Kaitlynn Ward 58, Vivian Riley, second. 11-12 year olds: Jacob Ward 63, Cooper Phillips, second....
The Whitman County Cougars American Legion baseball season (ages 13-16) ended in two losses in Spokane in the district tournament July 19 and 20. In the first game, against Newport, the Cougars posted seven errors. In the second, eight. Against University in an elimination game, Tyler Elbracht pitched all seven innings for Whitman County, allowing no earned runs in a 13-5 loss. At the plate, Elliott Lee went 3-for-4 with an RBI while Brendan Doumit went 2-for-4. FIRST ROUND The Cougars’ opened the playoffs July 19 at Spokane and went down 1...
