CHS senior restores welcome sign

Olivia Swenson said she has a lot of respect for Cheney, and on Sunday, May 29, she turned that respect into action.

The Cheney High School senior, who walked down the commencement aisle June 3, said she kept seeing the city's "Welcome to Cheney" sign on Cheney-Spokane Road each time she came and went from school and kept thinking it wasn't right what somebody had done. Cheney Police reported the sign was vandalized on May 6.

Swenson said she and her father, Cheney School Board Director Mitch Swenson, were talking about the sign recently, and decided they were going to do something about it. So Sunday morning, the two picked up a gallon of brown paint along with white spray paint, and stopped by the sign.

Olivia Swenson said it only took about an hour to replace the pastel blue paint used by the vandals with fresh brown paint and new white lettering.

"Cheney's my home," she added. "I'd rather have it clean."

The city originally had plans for restoring the sign, with City Administrator Mark Schuller telling the City Council at its May 24 meeting that a local Scout troop would do the work with the city providing materials. When contacted by email about the Swenson's efforts, Schuller said they were caught off guard.

"Got beat to the punch," he wrote. "We weren't aware who did any of the work until receiving this email. If the Swenson's did all the work we would like to recognize them."

Now that graduation is behind her, Olivia Swenson said she is thinking of attending Spokane Falls Community College with hopes of eventually studying to be a physical education teacher. The senior was recently in the news when she was attacked and severely bitten by a dog on First Street in Cheney May 2, wounds that required hospitalization, but have since healed pretty well, she said.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].