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CHENEY — Back in late September of 2020 when the first pages of fall had been turned, Bob Quinn went out on his usual limb and suggested some near certainties loomed for the months ahead. The decades-long experience the now retired Eastern Washington University meteorology professor called upon — along with careful study of his go-to statistic of North Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures — suggested that a significant La Niña pattern had emerged. This is the first fully...
MEDICAL LAKE - The long-awaited effort to return more students to in-person learning in the Medical Lake School District took another step on Feb. 1. On that Monday students with last names beginning with letters A-K at both the middle and high schools stepped foot inside their respective buildings for the first time in some 10 ½ months. The following day students L-Z repeated that exercise, reconnecting with classmates for the first time since COVID-19 closed school bu...
AIRWAY HEIGHTS — On Feb. 1 the Airway Heights City Council learned about the 13 candidates who had tossed their names into consideration to fill a pair of openings on their panel. Later in executive session that list was down to six finalists. And on Feb. 8 council got to officially meet — via Zoom that is — and get to know a little more about Hank Bynaker, Dave Malet, Jonathan Schrock, Arthur Bubb, Davin Perry and Paula Randall. Each had identical 15-minute sessions where...
MEDICAL LAKE — Call it a COVID-rich environment at the Jan. 26 Medical Lake School Board meeting. No, there had not been an actual outbreak amongst the board — minus the absent Laura Parsons — nor staff. It’s just the agenda had a natural COVID color to it from top to bottom. That would be a natural considering the district’s middle and high school students went back to in-person classroom instruction Monday, Feb. 1. It’s the first time that’s happened on a large scale s...
AIRWAY HEIGHTS - For close to 70 years since it first took root along Sunset Highway as a stopping off spot to tend to the needs of the gigantic Fairchild Air Force Base just down the road, Airway Heights has grown as if its seeds were sown by West Plains wind. The recently reenergized City of Airway Heights U.S. 2 Corridor Plan will look to provide a roadmap to address, among other things, what the thoroughfare that dissects the city will look like, as well as dealing with...
AIRWAY HEIGHTS —The citizens of Airway Heights got a peek at the future composition of its city council and a jump start on how its main street might look like following actions of the council at its Feb. 1 meeting. In a move that required a brief executive session, council pared a list of 13 applications down to six in an effort to fill a pair of vacancies that have existed since a pair of recent resignations. Steve Lawrence announced his intentions to resign Dec. 14 from h...
CHENEY — After crafting a five-game winning streak to say good-riddance to 2020 and hello to 2021, the Eastern Washington University women’s basketball team has run into a cold spell. That was well-illustrated Jan. 21 and 23 when the Eagles dropped a pair of Big Sky Conference contests to Northern Colorado, 58-55 last Thursday and 74-55 Saturday at Reese Court. In both contests slow starts came back to haunt them. The setbacks, which dropped Eastern’s record to 4-4 in confe...
MEDICAL LAKE — Before the voters in Medical Lake cast their ballots on Feb. 9 for the renewal of the school district’s Educational Programs and Operations levy, superintendent Tim Ames asks that they scratch the surface and look a little deeper. Because during what are perceived to be strange times over that last year, those who have historically supported asks for supplemental funding beyond what the state provides might be asking things like: But your school buildings hav...
MEDICAL LAKE — Gerri Johnson from Medical Lake’s Farm Salvation business traces her retail roots back to the time when her family operated a small business Spokane. And she’s translated that experience to today as she tries to steer both her business, and lend whatever assistance that background provides to others in the community amidst the fallout from COVID-19. Johnson’s step-dad, a military vet, operated a business known as Current Outdoor Power Equipment (C.O.P....
CHENEY — Among the hats that Doug LaBar wears, along with that of owner of Mason Jar, is captain — well president — of the Cheney Merchants Association. While LaBar has his finger directly on the pulse of his own business, he’s also observing from a distance, those in Cheney. While he offered no specifics, one can speculate based on Mason Jar’s performance. If they mirror the challenges he’s faced, and many do, business is down. In LaBar’s case that number is 30%, which on...
CHENEY - Not only have Derek and wife Alexx Baziotis successfully steered one business through the COVID-19 quagmire, but out of that challenge has emerged a new venture. The Baziotis own and are on the frontlines at Bene's Restaurant, a breakfast-focused eatery where Eggs Benedict are the signature dish - hence the name. It opened in 2017. Now Eagle Bites, Cheney's first food delivery service, has been hatched. That Plato-authored proverb, "Necessity is the mother of inventio...
AIRWAY HEIGHTS - Each year as part of capping their year, the West Plains Chamber of Commerce celebrates achievement in various areas through its "Best of the West" Awards Gala. In normal circumstances the winners in a variety of personal and business categories would be celebrated live at a dinner event. But in 2020 due to constraints from COVID-19 - like many others - the Best of the West was held virtually on Friday, Nov. 6. Based on voting from chamber members, awards...
MALDEN, Wash. — The smoke has pretty much subsided, and with fall officially in the books and winter ahead, the victims of the Babb Road Fire gathered Sept. 23 to learn what the path ahead looks like. Meeting in open-air tents behind the makeshift city hall which is housed in a mobile office structure, many masked — and some not — area residents heard from a variety of government officials. They outlined the steps necessary to first clean up and then rebuild following the L...
MALDEN, Wash. — Almost wherever one travels on the streets of Malden, Wash. piles of ash and rubble are all that remain following the Babb Road Fire that raced through the community on Labor Day. Even the Mason’s Hall was reduced to just ashes and a few small artifacts that volunteers found as they sifted through the basement on Sept. 16, a little over a week after the wind driven blaze torched some 18,000 acres with the nearby community of Pine City also feeling its eff...
Over two weeks after the Babb Road Fire, the wheat at the Pine City elevator was still on fire in a smoldering smoky blaze....
LAWRENCE, Kan. - Dr. H. George Frederickson, the lightning rod president who oversaw the transformation of Eastern Washington State College to Eastern Washington University, passed away July 24 at his home in Lawrence, Kan. having just recently turned 86. Frederickson, a 1961 graduate of Brigham Young University, and who earned his master's in public administration from UCLA and a doctorate down the road at USC, was chosen to replace Emerson Shuck who had served Eastern...
LAWRENCE, Kan. - Dr. H. George Frederickson, the lightning rod president who oversaw the transformation of Eastern Washington State College to Eastern Washington University, passed away July 24 at his home in Lawrence, Kan. having just recently turned 86. Frederickson, a 1961 graduate of Brigham Young University, and who earned his master's in public administration from UCLA and a doctorate down the road at USC, was chosen to replace Emerson Shuck who had served Eastern... Full story
Crews begin to install the new red turf at Eastern Washington University's Roos Field on Tuesday, July 21. It's the second go-around for the turf, which was first installed in 2010, replacing the original grass while the university changed the name of the facility from Woodward Field to Roos....
Over the past dozen years, two former Eastern Washington University football players have gone to Italy to check out the world of European football. There was Craig McIntyre who played at Eastern in 2004 and 2005, seasons where the Eagles won back-to-back Big Sky Conference championships and in a pair of postseason appearances. His takeaway from the Italian Football League at the Parma Panthers: becoming part of the inspiration for novelist John Grisham’s book, “Playing for...
CHENEY – Meteorological spring is easy to pinpoint at it spans the months of March, April and May. The astronomical version of the season might require a calendar to pinpoint its start, but here’s a hint if you did not already know — it started Thursday, March 19 at 8:50 p.m. and is earlier than it’s been in over a century, according to The Farmer’s Almanac. Otherwise it might sometimes be hard to know what season is what when it comes to the weather in the Pacific Northwest...
Remember way back when in the 1960s when, upon returning to the classroom in the after summer break that your teacher might have asked you to pen a few paragraphs on “How I spent my summer vacation?” The past few weeks got me thinking about a hybrid version of that assignment I call “How I spent my COVIDcation, subtitled “Things I did NOT and did do while sheltering in place.” Turns out there’s a pretty sizeable list with some good and other activities not so much. Where...
MEDICAL LAKE – Years in the making, Medical Lake’s water intertie with the city of Spokane moved an important step closer to fruition recently. The low bid $651,692.45 from General Industries, Inc. from Spokane was accepted, but when the final steps are completed remains somewhat clouded by COVID-19. Contractors are idled by decree from Gov. Jay Inslee over in an effort to contain the so-called coronavirus and that has made Mayor Shirley Maike’s signing of the contract not a p...
MEDICAL LAKE – There are many casualties of COVID-19, aside from the actual virus victims themselves. And one of those was an effort to assist Medical Lake residents tackle the every decade chore of completing the U.S. Census. The Innovia Foundation awarded a $10,000 grant to a variety of community entities to assist those who may not be computer savvy or have internet access. The money paid for a laptop computer at City Hall that allowed residents to do an online entry and a...
MEDICAL LAKE — It’s one thing to be one of 200-plus school districts in the state to be relative observers in the daily COVID-19 reality show. But when it hits home like it did in Medical Lake where a teacher tested positive for the virus, it presents a completely different response. Medical Lake Superintendent of Schools, Tim Ames got word on Saturday, March 14 that a staff member at Hallett Elementary — and an advisor with the Circuit Breakers robotics club — had indeed...
CHENEY – What if? Those two words continue to echo throughout college basketball locker rooms following the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Basketball Tournament way back on March 12. In the span of a few hours “what if” reverberated through Eastern Washington’s basketball family when minutes from tipoff Eagle players and coaches got word that the Big Sky Conference Tournament opener vs. Sacramento State — and the event itself — had been cancelled as a precaution against further...
