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1 Years Ago May 10, 2007 The West Plains Community Fair held its "Sweet Social" where the fair royalty were crowned. Amanda Hansen, a junior at Cheney High School was crowned the queen while CHS sophomore Meagan Roberts was named princess. Several moving companies hauled off a house that had been sitting on land behind the Cheney Trading Company. The property the house formerly sat on was the future site of the new Bi-Mart membership store. The Cheney High School boys soccer...
Following ex-President Obama’s 2008 election, a Canadian relative sent congratulations, adding, “I didn’t think the U.S. was ready for a black president.” Unfortunately, she was probably right. Following Obama’s election, Southern Poverty Law Center documented a big hate group spike. Beginning his presidency, Rush Limbaugh said “I hope Obama fails,” the Tea Party arose and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated the singular Republican Party priority was Obama’s 2012 defeat. Before his inauguration, R...
Last month, a Wall Street Journal editorial hit the nail on the head recommending Amtrak focus its limited funds on shorter more heavily traveled routes between Washington, D.C., and Boston. The money is needed to prevent more derailments. The situation will only worsen unless Amtrak plows additional funds into rebuilding its dilapidated northeast railroad infrastructure. It must quit subsidizing runs greater than 750 miles. One is the Empire Builder, the passenger train...
I am responding to only one part of your Opinion piece in last week’s paper (“Not taking a stance diminishes discussion,” In Our Opinion, April 27), when you asked “To those who oppose abortion, how often have you stepped forward and volunteered physical, emotional and financial assistance to women who find themselves in the situation of having to consider terminating a new life?” I am not going to try to convince you of a different stance, but I want you to be aware, there are several organizations in the Spokane area that a...
“Hate radio, hate speech, hate groups, hate crimes really don’t fit in, in the America that we know today,” — Kweisi Mfume, former President/CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I’ve seen hate speech in different forms, but vandalism seems to be one of the more common types of spreading it. One example of this was last Friday (April 28) when graffiti was found on the back door of the Community Building in downtown Spokane. It’s not uncommon to come cross graffiti in a city like Spokane or...
It’s a bit disappointing that there is no resolution to Cheney’s Parkside Commons rezone issue. At its last meeting, the City Council made the decision to send the proposal, which would change the zoning of a section of land near Eastern Washington University from multi-family (R3) to multi-family high density (R3-H), back to the Planning Commission for further review. We applaud the council’s decision to be thoughtful and thorough. But it’s difficult to see what more information might be out there. The biggest concern...
Al Stover, your April 6 column (“Blocking Planned Parenthood funding harms women, children’s health”) in the Cheney Free Press reveals how you were raised. I am so sorry you apparently know nothing about the Bible. You probably have never cracked its cover. Has no one ever told you that it is the textbook for living this life? It says: “Thou shalt not kill.” You are misleading young people. The Bible is a fabulous book. It is full of famous stories, history, admonitions, how to be successful, how to prosper. When you catch...
StageWest wrapped up it’s 2016-2017 season last weekend with the Dinner Theatre performance of Tom Dudzick’s “Miracle On South Division Street.” We had an excellent run with this production and would like to thank several people that helped make it successful. To Mike Hartman our caterer extraordinaire: What a wonderful dinner you prepared and all of the diners loved it, thank you for your service. To Harry Schafer our prop master and master kitchen man: Thank you for the great set. We were asked too many times if the ref...
Last week, Whitworth University in Spokane announced it was discontinuing an affiliation with Planned Parenthood wherein university students could receive credit for internships or volunteer at the organization’s Spokane Office. As reported in the media, university President Beck Taylor said the affiliation sent a “confusing signal to many of our constituents” that somehow the university had “taken a side” in an issue — abortion — that has become highly politicized over the years. But by discontinuing the relationship,...
By JOHN McCALLUM Editor Now that the annual stress-inducing ritual of income tax filing deadline has passed, how you doing? Still feeling stressed, or are you relieved it’s done? You’re not alone if you feel worn out by the requirements of our tax system. According to an April 14 Pew Research Center report, 43 percent of Americans are bothered a lot about the complexity of our tax system, with another 29 percent bothered some. Soon, politicians will be trumpeting “Tax Relief Day,” that mythical moment when, hypothe...
“Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value,” former vice president Joe Biden, quoting his father, knew that a budget reflected the values and priorities of our nation. Each April our country funds its priorities. Ultimately, as the Rev. Jim Wallis has said, “Budgets are moral documents.” Each year Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles calculates how much money the United States spends on nuclear weapons programs for the current tax year. The Nuclear Weapons Community C...
Earth Day, birthday. Kinda’ rhymes doesn’t it? Come to find out I was born on Earth Day, or since I first appeared in the world April 22, 1953 and Earth Day was hatched in 1970, it must be the other way around. I’ll blame my confusion over the celebration of the environment on two things: 1960s “new math” and nuns with rulers. I realized well after the first Earth Day — initially organized in 1968 by the U.S. Public Health Service as a conference for students to hear from s...
Among other things, April is recognized as “National Child Abuse Prevention Month” across the United States. The annual observance, which began in 1983, focuses on preventing child abuse and neglect in all of its forms and ensuring kids grow up in a safe and loving environment. The Revised Code of Washington defines abuse and neglect “as injury, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, negligent treatment or maltreatment of a child by any person under circumstances which indicate that the child’s health, welfare and safety is harm...
Oh the hypocrisy of it all. Our President Donald Trump and his great unflinching supporter, our Congressional Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, promote repeal and replace Obamacare with a bill that would throw millions of American families, including babies, off their healthcare and give tax breaks to the rich. In addition, they want to prevent Syrian refugees, which include babies, from entering the country without extreme vetting on top of already stringent vetting. However, Trump points his finger at (Syrian President Bashar)...
American entrepreneurs’ ability to invent, create and bring products and services to market makes our nation great. Their success generates the tax revenue which fund our schools and puts people to work. Many “big businesses” started in the imaginations of immigrants who came to our country – a place of boundless possibilities. America is a land where your station in life doesn’t matter and where hard work, innovation and perseverance are the keys to success. The story of...
We recently exited quite a winter. It was snowy, cold and long. In some ways it lingers. From a celestial standpoint, winter began Dec. 21, 2016, but some might argue it was earlier, on Nov. 9. Regardless, the past 100 or so days have combined to produce an outbreak of “cabin fever” that has been hard to break, and for many reasons. According to the National Weather Service, the first snow arrived on Dec. 9 and never left until George Washington’s Birthday, Feb. 22, a total of 76 long days. Through April 1 we were bless...
Saturday evening my wife and I attended the Stage West Production of “Miracle on South Division Street.” We thoroughly enjoyed the humorous, well-acted play presented by a delightful cast. We feel it’s important to support our local theater; in return we were well rewarded. Ralph Laws Cheney...
Driving east along State Route 14 these days, you see water pouring out of Columbia River dams. It is already a high water year with much of the runoff from our heavy mountain snowpack yet to come. It is part of our “feast or famine” weather cycle. As you pop over the hilltop near the historic Maryhill Museum, you look down to see John Day Dam with its floodgates open spilling massive amounts of water. Then you see remains of the razed Goldendale Aluminum Company smelter nex...
The long — and some would argue pointless — war against Planned Parenthood continues. On March 30, Vice President Mike Pence was the tiebreaking vote on a Senate-proposed bill that would give states permission to withhold more than $200 million in Title X federal family planning funds from abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization that provides reproductive health, maternal and child health services. The organization, which has been around since 1921, is often the tar...
The U.S. Supreme Court recently handed out a ruling that legally entitles special needs students across the country the opportunity to make progress in public schools In the recent Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District case in Colorado, the parents of an autistic child were seeking reimbursement from the school district for sending their son to a private school. Like all special needs children in the United States, Endrew is entitled to free appropriate public education from schools that take certain federal funds, as...
The owners of a mid-sized manufacturing plant in a nearby small town were ready to retire, but no one in the next generation was interested in taking over. The plant was sold to an out-of-state buyer with no local ties. The business was profitable, but the new owners chose to merge operations and close the local plant. The story is familiar in small towns. Is there an alternative? I think so. Worker-owned co-ops and employee stock ownership plans could offer another path forward for these businesses. Rural people have a long...
Please make a point of attending our latest production Miracle on South Division Street by Tom Duzick, and directed by myself, Kay Byron-Pacheco. We had an outstanding first weekend and there are only two weekends, or five shows left. Our stars are Kathryn Schafer from Ritzville, Russia Demetro, and Jamie Javorsky from Spokane Valley and Mark Sheldon from Cheney, and of course the Virgin Mother Mary, who is present throughout, or is she? This story is a comedic view of a mother and her grown children living and believing in...
Most people have never heard of Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción. It was recently in the news, but relegated to the inside pages, despite what happened there. Not a lot of follow up either, likely because it’s located on the outskirts of Guatemala City and not many people in this country care what happens in that country. The “USA Today” version is that Virgen de la Asunción is a state-run home for minors, and not necessarily homeless or orphaned minors. According to a March 19 story in The New Yorker, simply put, it’s ha...
We understand the financial and physical burden public records requests put on employees at local, regional and state agencies. Especially large requests, which are time consuming, as the city of Cheney found out not long ago. But we have doubts and concerns about whether two pieces of legislation moving through Olympia carry the answers to this problem. Both bills have passed the House and are now in Senate committees. House Bill 1594 would provide $25,000 for a study by a consultant picked by the state archivist to...
There is a bill currently in the Legislature that would change the duration and some of the procedures when it comes to sexual assault protection orders issued in Washington state. House Bill 1384 would allow courts to issue permanent protection orders for victims of sexual assault. In cases where a permanent protection order is not issued, the bill allows courts to renew the order unless the perpetrator can prove they will not attempt to contact the victim after the order expires. The third part of the bill establishes...
