Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 3077
CHENEY – Eastern Washington University engineering students rallied in Engineering and Technology building for the bi-yearly Capstone Expo last week. The event showcases inventions and projects the students have been working on. This year, there were four projects on display: ·A conveyor belt 3D printer. ·A lak- floating trash collector ·A recreational vehicle solar tracker ·A homemade go-kart. Matthew Michaelis and Heechang “Alex” Bae oversaw these projects and rejoiced...
AIRWAY HEIGHTS – Cheney School District Superintendent Rob Roettger and the School Board began preliminary discussions about changing Blackhawks imagery during a meeting last week in the Sunset Elementary School gymnasium. The possible change is due to a House Bill 1356 that passed last year restricting the use of American Indian mascots and logos without consent of a neighboring tribe. The Blackhawks mascot honors Sauk tribal member Black Hawk, who fought alongside the British in the War of 1812 against the U.S. He later i...
CHENEY – Fall colors are gone and the winter weather is officially here as Cheney High School officially kicks off its' winter sports season. Basketball, swimming, gymnastics and wrestling are underway. The girls basketball program is eager to start its new regime under head coach Ken Ryan, 48. He received the coaching job late and implemented a brand-new system in the last 11 days. While it's been frantic, he's never been around a harder working group of girls, Ryan said, n...
CHENEY – Spokane County election officials have certified the results of the Nov. 2 general election. There were no major changes between the initial ballot counting and certification day, Nov. 23, officials said. Voters here called for all taxes to be repealed in the advisory votes. That includes the tax on phone lines to pay for mental health and suicide prevention services (No. 36), a capital gains tax increased education and child services (No. 37), and a tax on captive insurers. The city of Cheney’s election results wer...
CHENEY – Police Chief John D. Hensley presented the department’s budget proposal to the City Council during a Nov. 23 meeting. During the presentation, the chief also went over the department’s emergency calls over the last year and spoke about how the “new normal” of the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting law enforcement’s work in the area. The city saw almost the exact same amount of service calls this year (23, 282) compared to last year (23,830). These numbers are down over 3,000 calls compared to previous years before the...
CHENEY – Cheney High School is set to host another pediatric COVID-19 and flu vaccination clinic Dec. 9. This clinic is open to the community to children between the ages of 5-18 by appointment only. The clinic will be providing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which requires two doses. This clinic will only be open for one session between 4-6:30 p.m., officials said, noting no other clinics are scheduled for the school campus. Officials said that means that if someone is getting their first dose at this clinic, i...
CHENEY – Fire Chief Tom Jenkins discussed the 2022 budget proposal with the City Council during a Nov. 23 meeting. The presentation was designed to recap the years emergency services while preparing the council’s vote to approve the new 2022 operating budget. Jenkins presented a litany of data recapping fire and emergency services over the last year and how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the landscape. Jenkins said this past year he’s seen things that he’s never seen before in his 28-year career and he surmised that ma...
CHENEY – The Cheney High School’s Running Start program just received a massive expansion. Now, students who are seeking careers in trades can take advantage of the program, officials said last week. Cheney Career and Technical Education Director Adam Smith, 47, presented the Running Start for Careers program at the School board meeting last week. He explained how it will widely increase the types of students that seek access to Running Start. Previously, Cheney’s Running Start program had nothing for students seeking caree...
CHENEY – Several community members came out to speak out against coronavirus vaccine and mask mandates as well as a vaccine clinic at Cheney High School during last week’s School Board meeting. The Spokane Regional Health District added several pop-up clinics at elementary and high schools around the county earlier this month to administer a COVID-19 vaccine and flu shots to youth between ages 5-11. The Cheney High School clinic will be using the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in children by the FDA. One wo...
CHENEY - It’s the season of giving and last week Eastern Washington University student-athletes partnered with the Salvation Army to try and raise some money for indigent families before Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Salvation Army’s red buckets and bells are usually associated with Christmas. But this year marks their fourth annual Corporate Kettle Cook-off and the 130th anniversary of the red kettle campaign. Eastern Athletics Director Lynn Hickey was on hand to wel...
OLYMPIA — The state Fish and Wildlife Commission may implement new firearms restrictions and hunting closures when it meets virtually Oct. 21-22. In addition, commissioners will discuss a new rule on importing and retaining dead non-resident wildife, and a non-native game fish policy, in addition to accepting public comment on the 2022 spring black bear hunting season. Public comment will be taken Friday morning. And on Friday, Oct. 22, the board will consider transfering a 0.37-acre parcel on the west back of the S...
OTHELLO – The state Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking public input on a draft management plan for the Columbia Basin Wildlife Area in Adams and Grant counties. Comments will be accepted through Nov. 17. The plan will guide management of the wildlife area, including fishing, hunting, boating and water sports, horseback riding, rock and ice climbing, biking and wildlife viewing opportunities. The last plan update for the Columbia Basin Wildlife Area occurred in 2017. The proposal is available online at h...
OLYMPIA – State Department of Fish and Wildlife officials say they need to spend nearly $4 million in the next two years to protect pygmy rabbits and sage grouse from over development and wildfires in Eastern Washington. To that end, the agency is moving ahead with plans to spend $2.35 million to restore and protect shrubsteppe habitat and an additional $1.5 million, to rebuild “wild life-friendly” fences. Fish and Wildlife officials said they will work with other natural resource agencies and “diverse stakeho...
SPRAGUE – Residents and dozens of visitors hit downtown over the weekend for the annual Sprague Days celebration, enjoying the sunny weather. The theme of the event was Remembering 9/11. The festival parade was led by a National Guard truck and various veterans and enlisted service members. There was a lot of classic chassis and motorcycles, too, in the parade as well as the Car and Bike Show. The celebration included live music, good food, free family fun activities and v...
SPRAGUE – A local civil leader and businesswoman has been named grand marshal of the Sprague Days parade. Dorothy Giddings, 90, will lead the parade on Saturday morning, Sept. 11. The theme of the event is “Remembering 9/11.” Local veterans are invited and expected to join the patriotic event. Giddings fell in love with the area in the early 1980s when she and her husband, Gary, visited on weekends to help his cousin operate Four Seasons Resort. The couple was hooked and b...
SPOKANE - Voting is a process - one as essential to our democracy as yeast is to making a good loaf of bread. On it's surface, that process involves the voter opening their ballot, reading and learning about candidates and measures up for consideration, properly making their choice and then sealing and returning said ballot. That's on the surface. Like an iceberg, most of what takes place at the Spokane County Elections Department - and similar departments around the state -...
CHENEY — Eastern Washington University’s women’s soccer team is still searching for its first goal of the season, having come close on several occasions in back-to-back losses to open the 2021 campaign. The Eagles fell 4-0 in the season opener Aug. 19 at Gonzaga University, finding themselves in an early 3-0 hole on the strength of three goals in the first 15 minutes by the host Bulldogs. Eastern followed that with a 1-0 loss in the home opener Aug. 21 against Arkansas State, the lone goal coming in the 11th minute of play. ...
SPOKANE COUNTY — The Medical Examiner’s office has identified the man who was killed in a single vehicle accident Aug. 4 on Cheney-Spokane Road near Latah Creek. Nyckolas Davis, 20, was killed then the vehicle he was traveling in, a 2002 Lexus driven by 19-year-old Rayce R. Kent, left the roadway at approximately 6:45 p.m. and rolled near the intersection with South Sherman Road. Spokane County Sheriff’s Office deputies said the Lexus was traveling toward Spokane at a high rate of speed, failed to negotiate a curve and left...
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Isaiah Rigo's current mental state is somewhat cyclical when he thinks about the upcoming Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. "I get excited, nervous to serious, then back again," the Cheney High School state cross country wheelchair champion said in a July 26 interview. Rigo, who attends the University of Illinois and competes in NCAA wheelchair track and field under head coach and Paralympian Adam Bleakney, was named to Team USA after track and field trials... Full story
AIRWAY HEIGHTS — At their Aug. 16 meeting, City Council members elected to postpone consideration of a request by the state Department of Transportation for concurrence with their U.S. Highway 2/West Plains Subarea Transportation Management Plan. WSDOT staff presented a draft of the plan, which included some draft strategies for development, during a study session on Aug. 9. The department was requesting the council provide a letter of concurrence expressing support for those strategies. But at the Aug. 16 regular session, s...
One aspect of the last 18-plus months that has struck me is how life can sometimes imitate art. Specifically, for me, how some events with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic correlate to the Steven Spielberg summer blockbuster “Jaws.” In the movie, a woman is killed while swimming. The movie’s unwilling hero, Sheriff Martin Brody, gets a report from the medical examiner that the death was caused by a shark attack. But under pressure from the mayor and city council of the island town of Amity, the examiner backtracks, saying “yes,...
CHENEY — Implementation of the city’s new afterhours utility service dispatch system has been put on hold and won’t be initiated for another 3-4 weeks. Light Department Director Steve Marx said the July 20 startup of the new incident response management system through Daupler, Inc. didn’t take place due to a technical glitch in the program. The system was to have begun routing calls for utility service directly to utility employees through a separate phone line rather than through the current system of calling 911 dispatc...
SPOKANE — After a months-long search, the West Plains Chamber of Commerce has finally found its next leader. The Chamber announced on Aug. 2 that Eastern Washington native Mark Losh has been named its new executive director. Losh, who is currently director of membership with the Missoula Area Chamber of Commerce, begins his duties Aug. 23. He succeeds former West Plains executive director Toby Broemmeling, who stepped down from that role in October 2020 after almost two y...
I’ve been in the public safety profession in one capacity or another, since the late 1970’s, and I have seen significant changes in the profession — some good and some not so much. However, recent events in Olympia and across the nation regarding “police reforms” has caused me to wonder where these reforms are going to lead us, particularly here in our hometown of Cheney. Candidly, the recently enacted police reform measures in Washington have made it harder for good cops to do an already difficult job, and more complicated t...
SEATTLE — Advocates for expanding passenger rail service in Washington state – including a new, east-west route, are bringing a public presentation and fact-finding session to Eastern Washington. All Aboard Washington’s “2021 Train Trek” is making two stops in the Spokane area next week. Thursday, Aug. 19, will feature a session at the Spokane Airport Event Center, 9211 W. McFarlane Road, beginning at 5 p.m. The organization follows that with another session on Friday, Aug. 20, at Cheney’s Wren Pierson Community Center, 615...
