Looking Back

10 Years Ago

Feb. 19, 2009

The National Collegiate Athletic Association slapped Eastern Washington University’s football team with several sanctions for violating participation rules regarding academically non-qualified and ineligible students. The college was banned from participating in the 2009 playoffs, lost two scholarships and one coaching position and was given three years’ probation.

Local homeowners took issue with their neighbors, saying some houses were occupied by four to five college students at a time. They claimed this violated the Cheney’s single-family zoning codes that restricted the maximum number of unrelated persons allowed to live in the same residence in an R-1 zone to three.

The Cheney Blackhawks varsity boys wrestling team qualified four students for the Mat Classic XXI in Tacoma.

20 Years Ago

Feb. 18,1999

Medical Lake officials sought funds to replace more than three dozen large trees along Lake Street as the avenue’s renovation loomed. More than 38 trees were set to be damaged or destroyed over the course of the construction process.

Cheney began looking for a new city administrator, sparking controversy when the mayor made slight changes to the job’s necessary qualifications without consulting City Council.

A new state law expanded students’ rights to free speech and freedom of religion in schools, leading to excitement from students and concern about potential disciplinary problems from school officials.

30 Years Ago

Feb. 16, 1989

Garden Springs Elementary celebrated Cheney’s centennial anniversary in style, with several students dressing up in fashions circa the 1800s.

The Cheney Cemetery Association purchased two acres of land adjacent to the city’s Fairview Cemetery to free up more space for locals to be buried.

Two Medical Lake residents pooled their resources to build six condominium units on the south end of Medical Lake to the tune of nearly $600,000. The pair said the condos were primarily for “empty-nesters.”

40 Years Ago

Feb. 15, 1979

Three Spokane County Fire District 3 firefighters nearly died when their fire truck flipped and caught fire on its way to a Medical Lake house fire. Thanks to an ax strapped to one of the firefighters’ side, they were able to smash out a window and escape with only a few scratches.

Fairchild Air Force Base’s Detachment 24 of the 40th Air Force Rescue and Recovery Squad logged its 300th life-saving mission, rescuing a woman who had been seriously injured in a snowmobile accident.

Eastern Washington University’s Primate Research Program study group met in Cheney to discuss an embryo transplant program being initiated at the Medical Lake Field Station.

50 Years Ago

Feb. 13, 1969

A Cheney-born woman named Carolyn Malmoe became the first woman combat intelligence officer in the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD.) She was also the only woman officer in Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), a radar defense system. She said she joined the service because “I found the outside world discriminated against women in what was then my field.”

The accident rate in Cheney spiked suddenly without warning, with more minor accidents in two weeks than in the previous four months.

A new series of books added to the Cheney library included instructional volumes on elementary mathematics and language arts.