Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 45
Tuesday night was a good night for public safety measures on the West Plains. As of press time, the city of Cheney’s Proposition 1 was passing easily with 58.73 percent of the vote. The measure would do a one-time lift of the city’s property tax levy lid, raising over $410,000 officials have tagged for use by the police and fire departments to meet personnel and equipment needs. Meanwhile, Airway Heights’ Proposition 1 for the purposes of funding emergency medical services in the city was also passing, receiving 66.40 perce...
The Medical Lake girl’s soccer season ended on a positive note with a 2-1 nonleague shootout win for the Cardinals over St. Georges (7-5) last Thursday, Oct. 29. Earlier in the week the Cardinals dropped their final Northeast A League contest 5-1 to Riverside to finish 3-11 in league play and 3-13 overall. As she has all season, Makayla Geiger scored the Medical Lake goal to tie the contest versus the Dragons in the 68th minute, sending the match into a scoreless overtime a...
The 2015 football season ended on a positive note for Medical Lake as they closed with their second consecutive victory. Behind the efforts of a pair of seniors — 100 yards rushing and a pair of touchdowns by Dawson Lack plus the two scoring tosses and 132 yards passing from quarterback Cory Wagner — Medical Lake topped Chewelah 27-12 in the final Northeast A League game for each. “Yeah, that was a good feeling,” Cardinals head coach Wes Hobbs said as he watched his team on...
As they have in the past two years in winning the state 1A cross country championship the Medical Lake boy’s have often surprised their coach, Gene Blankenship. The Cardinals did it again with a second place finish in the District 7 championships staged at the Chewelah Golf Course, Oct, 29 trailing champion Deer Park 41-60 but edging Lakeside, which turned in a score of 63. As a result the Cardinals will send their entire team to Pasco for this Saturday’s championships at Sun...
Zane McDaniel of Medical Lake was the winner in Week 6 of the 2015 Cheney Free Press football contest, earning a $50 merchant’s gift certificate. McDaniel missed two games. Also missing two games was Spokane’s Bob Pierce who was runner-up in a tiebreaker and won a $20 Owl Drug gift certificate. Russell Shepherd also missed two games but incorrectly picked the San Francisco 49ers in his tiebreaker. Winners must come to the Free Press office at 1616 W. First St. in Cheney to pick up their prizes. Be sure to try to beat the Fre...
The Cheney High School girls soccer team saw its 2015 season come to a somewhat inglorious end last week at the hands of the West Valley Eagles. The Eagles scored three goals in the first 13 minutes of the first half, and three more in the first 11 of the second half en route to a 9-1 routing of the Lady Blackhawks in first-round, loser-out Great Northern League playoff action in Millwood. Cheney’s only goal came on a penalty kick by Olivia Swenson in the 77th minute. West Valley out shot the Lady Blackhawks 24-7, with g...
(Note: All schedules subject to change. Consult school or facility websites to confirm.) COLLEGE CROSS COUNTRY Friday, Nov. 13, EWU at Western Regionals, Seattle, times TBA. COLLEGE FOOTBALL Saturday, Nov. 7, EWU hosts Northern Arizona, 3:05 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, EWU at Montana, 12:35 p.m. COLLEGE SOCCER Thursday, Nov. 5, EWU vs. Sacramento State at Big Sky Championships, Mosco, Idaho, 10 a.m. (quarterfinal). Friday, Nov. 6, Big Sky Championships (semifinal). Sunday, Nov. 8 Big Sky Championships (final). COLLEGE VOLLEYBALL...
The Cheney girls swim team finished third out of 13 teams with 225 points at 2A-1A Districts in Moses Lake, Oct. 31. Makenzie Norman once again took home two district championships in the 50-yard freestyle in 25.07 seconds and the 100 freestyle (54.14). Alexis Schmidt won her first district title in the 100 butterfly in 1:01.98. She also took second in the 200 individual medley in 2:19.46. In team events, Norman, Schmidt, Meghan Krantz and Courtney Hanson took second in both the 200 freestyle (1:48.12) and 400 freestyle...
The fourth-ranked Eastern Washington University football team seeks to extend its six-game winning streak when the Eagles play their 89th annual Homecoming game this Saturday in an intriguing Big Sky Conference contest versus Northern Arizona at Roos Field. Kickoff is set for 3:05 p.m. Eastern sits atop the Big Sky Conference at 5-0, has won 22 of its last 23 league games, and has been victorious in 19-straight regular season home games. The only conference loss in the last...
The Cheney Blackhawks football team kept its season alive after a 30-22 win over the Pullman Greyhounds, Oct. 30. The Blackhawks finished with a 3-1 Great Northern League record, 8-1 overall, to earn the second seed in a regional glue-in game against the winner of tonight’s (Nov. 5) Selah vs. East Valley-Yakima game. Although Cheney tied with Clarkston (3-1, 7-2) in the GNL standings, the Bantams, who defeated West Valley 39-0, Oct. 30, won the regular season district title by virtue of their 52-25 win over the Blackhawks, O...
“I see a red field and I want to paint it black.” That used to be the funniest thing I have ever read about Eastern Washington University’s red turf, written on a website back when it was rolled out in 2010. I say used to be because I’ve heard something I think is funnier — more on that later in the column. But let’s talk black. It’s the new rave in color, or rather absence of color, for many football teams these days in jersey selection. College and professional, teams seem to desire putting their traditional colors on the b...
After a year's absence, the Cheney High School boys cross country team is headed back to back Pasco. The Blackhawks used a 40 second time gap between their first five runners, with all five finishing in the top 20 overall, to take second at regional competition between the Central Washington Athletic Conference and Great Northern League last Saturday in Ellensburg. Cheney scored 61 points, edging fellow GNL opponent Pullman by seven while finishing 24 points behind regional...
CHENEY Oct. 26 Rape was reported on the 200 block of South Cheney-Spangle Road. An investigation is ongoing. Drugs and drug paraphernalia were confiscated on the 500 block of First Street. Oct. 27 A 16-year-old male and a 17-year-old male were arrested for third-degree theft on the 2700 block of First Street. Police responded to a 911 hang up call on the 2400 block of University Lane, and took a report of a man walking around the complex knocking on doors, possibly using drugs. Oct. 28 Harassment was reported on the 600 block...
Do what I say and not what I do is the mantra of Cathy McMorris Rodgers. When asked how to solve our political problems, her canned answer is we must have lots of committee meetings. She doesn’t talk about resolutions, just convening meeting after meeting and asking questions and more questions. How ironic for Cathy to say meetings are important, as Cathy missed 92 percent of the committee meetings she was to attend. This figure is based on 1,000 committee and subcommittee hearing minutes that were analyzed for congressional...
Permit some random, somewhat related thoughts on today’s political class. Hillary Clinton, while a U.S. senator, voted for the Defense Of Marriage act, and against same sex marriage. Now that she’s in favor of same sex marriage, she says she voted for this law because she was afraid that if it failed as a Senate bill, it would come back and pass as a constitutional amendment. After several years of negotiations, some tax benefits and a drop in gas prices, Ford decides to move a plant from Mexico to Ohio. Now Donald Trump, who...
You did it again, Cheney. It will be a warmer winter for many thanks to the hard work and generosity of the Cheney community. A total of 236 coats were donated to this year’s coat drive and 213 were given away at three separate distributions. Special thanks to the Cheney Kiwanis without whose work this event could not happen, Big Wash for laundering many of the coats and Copy Junction for printing the publicity fliers. Thanks, also, to all of the schools, businesses and churches that had collection boxes and to church m...
The Center for Rural Affairs has worked to support and assist beginning farmers and ranchers for over 25 years. And increasingly, beginning farmer and rancher inquiries come from military veterans. They have the same needs as other new farmers: access to land, financing and information. But they also bring new issues: disabilities, returning to civilian life, a drive to help fellow veterans, a powerful sense of wanting to be of service to their country. The Center’s “Veteran Farmers Project” was launched to provide infor...
(Editor’s note: Capitalization, phrasing and line breaks from Walt Whitman’s poem “An Artilleryman’s Vision” used in this column have been retained in keeping with the original meaning of the work.) When I did not receive my weekly email of his political rants, I was uneasy. When I emailed him to inquire and it got kicked back as “undeliverable” I felt worse. When I called his cell phone number and it was disconnected, I knew what had occurred. This Air Force veteran friend of mine lived on his family’s estate in Keene...
The volatile and emotional fight over engaging in prayer on the grounds of a public school recently jumped back into the headlines, and did so with a regional flavor. Bremerton, Wash. High School assistant football coach Joe Kennedy was placed on paid administrative leave because he ignored orders to stop engaging in group prayer before and after football games. The practice, which began in 2008, has only recently got the attention of administrators and naturally has ignited a firestorm of opinions. Kennedy has of course...
Airway Heights behind in property tax collections Airway Heights’ officials are waiting on a bit of money. According to the city’s latest financial report, the city is running at about 54 percent of its projected property tax collections for the period running Jan. 1 through Sept. 30. The city has collected $561,431 year to date of its budgeted $1,022,000 for 2015. Clerk/Treasurer Amy Wiedrich told City Council members at their Oct. 26 study session the city collects the majority of its property tax revenues at two poi...
It’s budget season, and not to be left out the Airway Heights City Council held a public hearing at their Nov. 2 meeting to review the city’s planned revenue and expense forecasts for 2016. City officials are projecting current expense fund revenues at $6,196,485 while expenses will total $6,276,124 — a difference of $79,639 that will be made up by tapping into the $730,000 beginning fund balance. The city will also be drawing on reserves in several other funds to meet some public safety needs including hiring another polic...
When it comes to Cheney’s Public Works Department budget, over half of it is in some liquid form. Water and wastewater account for 54 percent of the department’s $7.18 million budget in 2016, with the larger portion — 36 percent — going to the latter. Tied with water at 18 percent is solid waste, thanks in part to the city’s decision to take on hauling its own municipal waste to Spokane’s Waste to Energy Plant in 2014. When it comes to wastewater revenues, 98 percent of the $2,637,900 projected to be taken in during 2016...
Growth and a long overdue rate increase have helped Cheney’s Light Department from dipping further into its reserves. At the City Council’s Oct. 27 meeting, Light Department Director Steve Boorman told the council revenues and expenses are expected to jump 8.79 percent, $769,800, to a projected $9,528,700 in 2016. The largest portion of revenues come from utility service charges and are projected to increase by 20 percent, $1,552,200, to $9,184,500. That jump is due to a 6 percent rate increase approved by the City Cou...
Eastern Washington University senior Jorge Garcia, from Wenatchee, attempts to help EWU mascot Swoop with a T-shirt selection during Monday's Homecoming week kickoff rally on the campus mall. Garcia and other students were handing out free Spirit Week T-shirts and gloves...
Three quarters of the way through 2015, statistics from the Cheney Police Department paint a picture of what has become, at least for now, the new normal — relatively low criminal activity, high dispatch call volumes and overtime exceeding budget. With regards to the latter, it’s all about maintaining officer safety as requirements negotiated into the Police Guild’s contract with the city at the beginning of the year to always have at least two officers on duty during any shift are being met. That’s driven the department to e...
