Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
New Whitman County Sheriff's Posse officers are sworn in Jan. 9 in Colfax. From left, tackmaster Jessica Pelissier, co-captain Jim Pelissier, co-captain Gina Wilson and secretary/treasurer Wraylee Flodin.
The posse rides in the Albion parade on the Fourth of July. At front are Barb Kinzer, left, and Art Sager.
A comeback is underway for the Whitman County Sheriff's Posse, with three new officers elected and a sharp rise in membership, after it dropped to five people in 2017.
Seven-year co-captains Barb Kinzer and Kristin Scholz stepped down last fall, along with 10-year secretary/treasurer Anna Boyd. New co-captains sworn-in Jan. 9 are Jim Pelissier of Endicott, and Gina Wilson of Pullman. New secretary/treasurer is Wraylee Flodin.
The tackmaster remains Jessica Pelissier.
Jim and Jessica have been in the posse for two years, and Wilson and Slodin one year.
"Something just exploded and all of a sudden we have all kinds of new interest," said Kinzer.
Accustomed to meetings of five or six people, they had 22 in December.
Total posse members now are 21 – with four others set to join next month – and four junior members.
The change may have begun with bad news last summer before the Palouse Empire Fair.
Spark
Each year the sheriff's posse guides fair parking on horseback. In recent years they have been joined by the WSU equestrian team, as a community service project. Last August, Kinzer was informed two weeks before the fair that the team would not be participating.
So Kinzer sent out an SOS.
"We had more people coming out of the woodwork," she said. "And the word spread more from that for new members. All of the sudden it spread like wildfire."
Two of the short-notice fair volunteers were former WSU equestrian members, now graduates.
New members
The new, larger posse will soon go through new training for search and rescue, and get re-certified in CPR and life-saving measures.
On Jan. 19, members will join the Latah County Sheriff's Mounted Posse at their annual potluck at the Deary, Idaho, community center.
The local sheriff's posse is a private organization, not directly affiliated with the Whitman County Sheriff.
"A private service organization there in time of need," said Sheriff Brett Myers.
Searches the posse has been called on in the past 10 years include a lost duck hunter by St. John, a missing kayaker outside Palouse, a missing boy and a missing hunter on the breaks of the Snake River.
"We're not gonna put them in anything they don't have the training for," Myers said. "They wouldn't be the lead of a search, but in times you need as many people as possible, that's when the posse come in. If called upon, they're there."
Re-building
Jim Pelissier, a county sheriff's deputy, and wife Jessica joined the posse in late 2017.
To what does he attribute the influx of new interest?
"I think just getting the word out that we're looking for people," Pelissier said.
He indicated the group has trainings coming up – in search and rescue and man-tracking. On Jan. 25 will be an "Introduction to Search and Rescue" session in Colfax, taught by Marv Pillers of the Palouse Fire Department.
"To make ourselves more useful to the sheriff," Pelissier said.
Some members of the posse have already had training, but may or may not have kept up with continuing education.
"It pretty much got to a point where the posse was just riding in parades and parking cars at the fair," Pelissier said.
The group has been invited this year to the Ellensburg Rodeo parade, at which other county posses are known to gather.
The posse used to have meetings in the basement of the sheriff's office, for which Pelissier would see members coming in and out.
"My wife and I thought it would be fun to use our horses in a different way," he said.
The Whitman County Sheriff's Posse is not a strictly mounted posse, like some are. Some in the local group drive ATVs, others are just available on foot.
The group holds monthly meetings at the county public safety building in Colfax on the second Thursday of each month.
"Our hope is we can go to the sheriff and say we've got these trainings, we've got X amount of people ready to go on horseback, X amount in side-by-sides, X amount on foot," said Pelissier, who has worked for the sheriff's department since 2003. "I think the sheriff would hesitate to use us because he didn't know exactly what our training levels were, or if we were trained at all."
Sundays
Each Sunday, weather permitting, various posse members ride horses from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the beef arena at Palouse Empire Fairgrounds. They work on de-sensitizing the animals – riding over tarps, opening and closing umbrellas in front of them, and practicing riding in sync, for parade appearances.
"We're not a pony club," said Kinzer. "We want to be a functional, useful part of the Whitman County Sheriff's Department. We want to make them proud."
Also, there is talk of reviving the posse's annual trail ride, which was shelved five years ago.
The five posse members at the low point were Kinzer, Scholz, Art Sager, Tom Carmody and Anna Boyd.
"Other people had to bow out for a bazillion and ten different reasons," Kinzer said. "The posse had nearly died. It has come to life again and is going gung-ho."
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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