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Not only is Sanne Holland the 2012 2A 3200-meter run champion, but now she holds the meet record. Holland’s 10-minute 48.40-second time is the new state meet record, unbroken since 2007 by Hockinson’s Shannon Porter, who ran it in 10:50. Her performance, along with a fifth-place finish in the 1600, led the Blackhawks to a sixth place finish with 44 points at the 2A state track and field championships May 24-26 at Mt. Tahoma High School. Janessa Day and Kendall Dunn each con... Full story
Mim Shamblin feels she has been blessed in her career. She runs the fabric department at Cheney’s Ben Franklin store, and has been since 1979. Owner Bill Nation says “she came with the store” when he bought it in 1981. Shamblin says she loves the “sewing ladies” who come in to purchase fabric, and return to show her the finished product. Shamblin is proud of the work she has done over the years, and she’s not sure yet what she’ll do after the store closes. “No regrets,” she s...
A few lines on the February ballot represent nearly a quarter of the Cheney School District’s budget. If voters approve a three-year levy Feb. 14, the levy rate would rise around 23 cents, but officials are assuring voters that the total tax rate for Cheney schools would remain below $5 per $1,000 in assessed property value. The district is asking voters to approve a three-year levy to replace the expiring one. The taxpayer dollars help fund extracurricular programs, specialized education programs, teacher training, a...
Mike McKeehan was a Cheneyite through and through. He moved here with his family at the age of 13. Last week he died here at the age of 67 after 14 years as a City Council member, 30 years as a teacher in Cheney schools, impacting countless lives in the process. Family and friends described McKeehan as a kind man who was quietly generous. He didn’t make a big deal about his service to the community. “He was always giving of everything, and never seemed to think twice about it,” said Patrick McKeehan, one of four children Mike...
The Cheney School Board decided at last week’s meeting that current associate superintendent Deb Clemens would be the school district’s next superintendent. Pending successful contract negotiations, Clemens will take over for retiring Superintendent Larry Keller in July. After 14 years of work in the school district and being selected as a finalist for the top job when Keller was hired in 2008, Clemens was overcome with emotion after the four attending board members (James Whiteley was absent) voted unanimously to offer her...
Teaching team moves walls for education By BECKY THOMAS Staff Reporter After two months of classes in the Cheney School District’s two new middle schools, teachers are finding more technology and spaces than they know what to do with, yet. As with the new interactive whiteboard Starboard systems, time is one limiting factor for utilizing the new tools, but logistics is another. Each classroom at both schools has a moveable back wall that can be opened to create on big room. T...
Backstage at the Fisher Building theater, there’s a cabinet full of old scripts and high school drama yearbooks full of photos, quotes and Cheney High School theater legends. The meanings behind the eyeball and the spoone, the quotes, the inside jokes and the traditions have been passed down from year to year, generation to generation since the first performance on the stage in 1930. Back then it was a brand new high school. Today, leaders say the building is becoming u...
By BECKY THOMAS Staff Reporter On a night when most of the nation was focused on government on a larger scale, the Cheney City Council gathered with city department leaders to discuss governance on the local level, specifically the city’s 2013 budget. The budget workshop, held at the city’s Utility Building Tuesday night, covered broad goals and specific changes coming in 2013. The city faces challenges, including possible rate increases from electricity and solid waste disposal providers, but leaders said at the meeting tha...
The mill in downtown Cheney grinds local wheat into flour, but residents can’t stop in to buy a bag for baking. “You can smell it in the air when they’re milling,” Mary Robinson said. Robinson and her family recently opened a restaurant that’s returning the focus to local food and nourishing the local economy through partnerships with local producers. The Mason Jar bake shop and bistro opened last week at the corner of F and First streets. The Mason Jar is focused on bringi... Full story
The Cheney School Board hosted leaders from district schools and the cities of Cheney and Airway Heights at a roundtable discussion Oct. 24. The meeting’s top issue was facility constraints at Cheney High School. Principal Troy Heuett named three main needs for the building: more classroom space—as evidenced by new portable classrooms outside the building, a larger cafeteria—as evidenced by long lunch lines and students eating in the halls, and a performing arts cente...
Dané Standish didn’t intend to pursue community health. She was just advised to take a few courses in it while waiting to get into nursing classes at Central Washington University. “My first class I absolutely fell in love with it,” she said. Standish said she loves how health has many facets that interact with each other. “That’s what I believe in, that it’s not just the physical health. There’s so much that goes into being healthy,” she said. Standish is the new communit...
Polio. People in their 50s and 60s can instantly recall their childhoods and the fear of the polio epidemic. Everyone stood in the long lines to receive the liquid vaccine, often dropped on a sugar cube. Virginia Fitzner was 11 years old in 1950, before Jonas Salk invented the first vaccine in 1952. In her small farming community in rural Montana, Fitzner knew about polio but it hadn’t affected her community. “It was feared that you could get it, but it wasn’t real commo...
It was a project to sew together, literally, the past and the present to benefit the future. Members of the Cheney High School Family Career and Community Leaders of America club recently completed a quilt made from old CHS activity T-shirts and uniforms. The quilt, a group effort cobbled together from items donated by students and teachers, will be raffled off and the proceeds will benefit the local club and their chosen national charity, the March of Dimes. FCCLA adviser...
A continued sluggish economy combined with the local effects of state budget cuts equals trying times for the city of Cheney as budget season kicks off. City Administrator Arlene Fisher estimated revenues would be down around $700,000 by the end of 2012, but stressed that the city would have a balanced budget and would not cut services to citizens for 2013. “Our first priority is maintaining the level of service we provide. We will accomplish that,” she said. “That is the mayor’s position and I have 98 employees committ...
The Cheney City Council dug into the details of the city’s 2013 budget at its Tuesday night meeting. The council heard presentations from department leaders in finance, the municipal court, community development, police, fire and parks and recreation. Tasked with shrinking or maintaining their budgets from 2012, department heads didn’t propose a lot of new programs or purchases. Many departments had been boosted by grant funds in 2012, led by parks and recreation, which used grants to pay for sports fields and to con...
Cheney High School students took some time to try balancing as many dice as they could on a tongue depressor as part of lunch time Homecoming activities this week. The Blackhawks take on West Valley Friday night in the Homecoming game at 7 p.m....
Cheney School Board member Larry Haskell announced his resignation at the board’s regular meeting Wednesday, Oct. 10. Haskell said he and his wife had been looking for a new home over the last couple of years, and they weren’t able to find a house within the district. By moving outside the district, Haskell would make himself ineligible to serve on the Cheney School Board. Haskell has served on the board since his election in 2007 as the representative for District 3—covering part of Four Lakes and the areas north of Four Lak...
We’re nearing the midpoint of October in an election year. With the myriad issues that face our nation and our state, voters are engaged and turnout is expected to be high. Hopefully, most citizens recognize the importance of voting, of participating in this funny little democracy we call America. Nearly everybody knows who they’re voting for in the presidential election, and hopefully folks here in Eastern Washington know who they’ll send to the other Washington and to Olympia to represent them. Voting is important, and I’ll...
By BECKY THOMAS Staff Reporter It seems like a simple proposition: you take an advanced class, work hard all year and take a test in the spring to measure your knowledge. If you do well, you receive college credit, getting a head start in pursuing your degree. Advanced Placement classes and tests are the norm for many college-track high school students, but these students are not all the same. Corey Anderson, Cheney High School counselor and AP coordinator, said AP students have different motivations for taking on college-lev...
Gone are the days when a dedicated amateur photographer was easy to spot. Camera bags bulging with gear have been replaced, in some cases, by a sleek smartphone. Taking good photos is no longer a really expensive and exclusive hobby, and this Saturday photographers of all skill levels and equipment sizes will take to the streets of Cheney to practice their art, socialize and swap tips. Crissy Rasmussen, a former Cheney resident, will lead a Worldwide Photo Walk in town this Sa...
By BECKY THOMAS Staff Reporter Members of the West Plains Chamber of Commerce celebrated a year of growth at its annual meeting Oct. 4 held at Northern Quest Casino and Resort in Airway Heights. Representatives from area cities also spoke at the meeting to share their “State of the City” addresses with the region’s business leaders. Chamber membership has nearly doubled in the past two years, and revenues have grown by over 30 percent. While none of the municipal leade...
By BECKY THOMAS Staff Reporter Cheney’s new zoning code could bring a lot more diversity in terms of building types and uses for commercial centers. Proposed changes to the commercial zoning code were discussed Monday by the Cheney Planning Commission; the commercial changes are part of a complete overhaul of the city’s development code. Community Development director Brian Jennings and city planner Brett Lucas presented their draft of the commercial zoning code, which was divided into three districts, C-A, C-B and C-C. Dis...
By BECKY THOMAS Staff Reporter Tuesday night, the Cheney City Council responded to what Mayor Tom Trulove called the largest community outpouring of his mayoral career. “I have never received more public comment,” he said. “This is an issue a large number of people have urged us to take action on.” The council voted unanimously to name a new city street “Mike McKeehan Way” after longtime Cheney teacher and City Councilman Mike McKeehan, who died suddenly this summer. Public Works director Todd Ableman told the council that th...
It was a vision for many years: to create another housing option for active seniors in Cheney. The vision was to offer the independence of living in a single-family home while alleviating the hassle of lawn care and home maintenance and providing a smooth transition to move to a skilled-care facility if the need arose. When Keith Fauerso took over as CEO at the Cheney Care Center in 1987, leaders were talking about it—“It was a dream back then,” he says. Now, the Cheney Care C... Full story
A light left on, an aging refrigerator or a leaky window frame might not seem like a big deal. But add up the inefficiencies and the result could be a giant electric bill at the end of the month. The problem is often a lack of awareness of what makes up a household’s utility bill, says Cheney Light director Joe Noland. This week, the city launched a free application on its website to allow residents to better understand their electric bills and provide tips to encourage conservation. “You think about your power bill once a m...
