Spring Horizon 2012

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SPRING 2012

HORIZON

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2 Horizon|2012 Spring

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Spring 2012|Horizon 3

PUBLISHED: April 2012PUBLISHER: Fred WillenbrockWRITERS & EDITORS: Michelle Nedved, Janelle Atyeo and Don GronningDESIGN: Greg Smith, Michelle Nedved and Janelle AtyeoADVERTISING: Lindsay Guscott, Cindy Boober and Amy Robinson

HORIZON is published quarterly as a supplement to The Newport Miner

and Gem State Miner, P.O. Box 349, Newport, WA 99156. Editorial and advertising offices are located at 421 S. Spokane, Newport.

TELEPHONE: 509-447-2433 E-MAIL: [email protected]: 509-447-9222Reproduction of articles & photographs is prohibited without permission of the pub-lisher. See all issues at The Miner Online: www.pendoreillerivervalley.com

Community HorizonAbout the cover:

Editor’s Note:

Miner photo|Don Gronning

Three-year-old Anna Walton actively listens to a story “My Friend Rabbit” at Story Time at the Newport Public Library March 29. The library holds Story Time for kids Thursdays at 1 p.m. Activities include crafts and treats as well. The photo is artistically enhanced by Miner graphic designer Greg Smith.

The idea of this Horizon started when we received in the mail a signed copy of “Jennie’s Tiger,” a newly published book from local historian Eva Gayle Six.

Her novel is based on a true story, drawn from the memoir of a pioneer woman who settled with her family on the banks of the Pend Oreille River and helped form what was the com-munity of Tiger.

“To The Miner,” she signed on the title page in dedication, “who became a character in this book. Thanks for your help.”

I took my wintry nights earlier this year reading with fervency Jennie Wooding’s story.

Coming off of Pend Oreille County’s centennial year in 2011, all of us reporters had delved into the past to write about life here from 1900 to the present. We’d also written in 2010 about the devastating fire, the Big Burn, that tore through the area 100 years ago. Seeing those events unfold in Jennie’s story made them really come alive.

It was exciting to find the mention of local people and places in Eva Gayle’s book, and even closer to my heart was the mention of The Miner – good or bad (we hear those same sort of things today).

But in itself, Jennie’s story is gripping. Her life and trials are very human, but how she deals with them is an inspiration. In the book, she describes one very difficult winter as “inter-esting.” I like that. An easy life would be dull. It’s a good way to look at things.

After finishing the final chapter, I was eager to talk to

Eva Gayle about the book. I came to her with questions like “What happened next?” and “How did you come across such a great story?” That interview resulted in the story on page 4.

About the same time, reporter Don Gronning came across a book in the library by local poker pro Phil Gordon. “The Lit-tle Gold Book,” is an instruction book about the ins and outs of the game, and the way it’s changed with advent of Internet poker. Don says it’s an interesting read, and it makes it ap-parent that Phil is highly intelligent. But what’s more is his life from computer software wiz to professional poker player to local philanthropist is pretty amazing. (See page 8.)

It got us to thinking what other local authors are out there and what are they writing about. We came up with a list of nearly 20 authors and put out a call to local writers that generated a handful more.

This issue of Horizon puts the spotlight on those behind the writing. We talked to authors whose background and style of writing run the gamut – from textbooks to children’s books, fantasy fiction to local histories. We also talked to them about the many ways to get your writing out there, especially with the advent of the ebook, many are finding its getting easier to reach your audience.

Spring is around the corner, as evidenced by this torrent of rain, and it will soon be time to put together your summer reading list. Consider adding some local authors this year.

-J. L. Atyeo

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Jennie’s Tiger” is a tale of a strong pio-

neer woman who not only carved out

her family home in the wilderness of

the 1900s, but she made it a community

with a store, a post office and a school.

And she did it all here, in the Pend Oreille

River Valley.

Based on the real life story of Jennie Wooding, Ione-

area resident Eva Gayle Six wrote the book, subtitled “A woman’s pioneering stand in an untamed corner of Washington state.” Jennie started the project herself, writing her adventures in a memoir she hoped to publish some day.

Word of Jennie’s memoir came to Six from local historian Tony Bamonte. He had read reviews of it in The Spokesman-Review and the Seattle P-I. Jennie had hoped to have it published, but that never came to be.

Six started trying to trace down copies of it through Jennie’s descendants. None of them had ever read it. One great-granddaughter in Pinehurst, Idaho, thought she had a copy in her shed. She dug around and dusted off a copy for Six.

That was back in the 1990s. The memoir sat on Six’s shelf. She started seriously pursuing the book based on Jennie’s writing in about 2000.

Picking through the memoir was a puzzle in itself. Jennie never learned to read and write. But she must have told stories about her life, Six speculates, and

those listeners urged her to learn to type and write it down in a book. So in the late 1940s, when she was in her 70s, Jennie took on another challenge. She had become blind in her later years, Six said, but typed out a 166-page memoir, doing the best she could to spell things phonetically.

Six’s book is fiction, but it’s based closely on Jennie’s life.

“I hope there’s nothing in it that wouldn’t have hap-pened,” she said.

Six was very meticulous about dates, and most names are actual names of residents of the time, she said. “Most incidents are embellished, but real,” she said.

The only part of Jennie’s story that she entirely embellished was when Jennie and her young son are walking through the woods and she notices they’re being watched by a cougar.

“But that happened to me,” she said.

Six says she spent much too long doing research. She had origi-nally intended to write about Jennie’s entire life, not just her time in the Pend Oreille, she said.

She made a trip to California, where Jennie grew up and her husband Wes Wooding lived before coming to Washington. She interviewed all the descendants of the Woodings’ four sons – the ones she could find anyway. Three of them clearly remembered spending grandma-time with Jennie, she said.

She did a lot of reading in achieved copies of The Miner to learn about the local happenings. There was a Tiger correspondent at the time, and the Wooding name came up often.

She researched the time period, the logging industry and the labor movement. Socialism and pro-union sentiments were prevalent among the miners, log-gers and farmers in the county at the time. Wes was an avid reader and loved his Socialist newspaper, The Appeal to Reason.

In her research, Six also got the special privilege of visiting the original log cabin Wes and Jennie built by hand when they first settled at Tiger in 1900. It was the 14- by 24-foot cabin where they raised their boys. They called it Hawthorne Lodge.

“It was thrilling, of course, to find that that was there,” Six said.

It sits in someone’s pasture. “It’s decrepit but still rec-ognizable,” Six said.

It was used as a barn at some point, she learned. On her visit, Six saw for herself another distinctive mark the Woodings had made there. Still on the walls of the cabin were pages from The Appeal to Reason that they had used as insulation.

“That was the clincher for me,” she said. “This is really it.”

When she was already well into her research, Six learned another interesting fact. Part of the land she and her husband now call home was part of the Woodings’ original homestead.

That was her connection to the family. She’s not related otherwise, but she tells their story and tells it well. It’s gotten the Wooding descen-dants interested in their history here, and people locally have been very delighted with the book, she said. They’ve thanked her for writing it, which is pleasing to hear, she said.

Six self-published the book through Xlibris. It’s a print-on-demand pub-lisher that allows Six to order books 100 or 200 at a time. So far, she’s sold 800 copies, she said.

The book is available at local libraries, online, as well as at select local stores: Mountain Traders in Ione, the Washington Hotel and Falls Market in Metaline Falls, Seeber’s Pharmacy in Newport and Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane.


A story of strengthand struggle

Local author recounts a pioneer’s past; ‘Jennie’s Tiger’ is as local as it gets

BYJANELLEATYEO

Eva Gayle Six Ione Age: 76 Style of writing: Historical fiction Number of books published: One, “Jennie’s Tiger”

Courtesy photo|Eva Gayle Six

Ione resident Eva Gayle Six turned pioneer Jennie Wooding’s memoir into a novel that tells of life in the Pend Oreille River Valley in the early 1900s.


Early Tiger residents gather for a photo beside the Pend Oreille River. In the foreground is a dugout canoe, a vessel like the older Wooding boys spent a summer making in Eva Gayle Six’s book “Jennie’s Tiger.”

Courtesy image|Eva Gayle Six

Six’s book came out in 2011 and is available at local libraries, online, as well as at select local stores in Ione, Metaline Falls, Newport and Spokane.

Six did a lot of reading in achieved copies of The Miner to learn about the local happenings. There was a Tiger correspondent at the time, and the Wooding name came up often.


Quality docks enduring the test of timeality docks end


The Wooding family stands outside the first cabin Jennie and Wes built at Tiger in the early 1900s. The couple raised their three boys in this 14- by 24-foot cabin.


The one-store Wooding home is still standing today. Six found Wes Wooding had used as insulation copies of his favorite reader, The Appeal To Reason, which could still be seen on the walls.


The Wooding family stands beside their second home, a two story they built on their homestead after the 1911 fire. The home was torn down when the highway was built through Tiger.

Six is retired after 25 years of teach-ing English at Selkirk High School. After retirement, she spent more than a decade leading the charge to turn the run-down Metaline Falls High School into what is today the center of the Down River community, the Cut-ter Theatre. Six has dedicated herself to the good of community, not unlike Jennie herself.

“Jennie’s Tiger” is Six’s first book. She

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6


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has published some other non-fiction his-tory articles.

“I always assumed I’d write a book,” she said. “I didn’t get it done until after retirement and after my children were grown.”

She found the writing process enjoy-able, she said, and she tried to get to her office to type every day while working on the novel.

“Most writers will tell you there’s too much interruption,” she says. “So it took not a short amount of time.”

Jennie’s story is still on her mind. She said she is thinking of writing a book on Jennie’s earlier years, trav-eling through California and the Southwest, using some of what she’s learned from more distant relatives of Jennie’s who’ve come out of the woodwork since learning about the first book.


Jennie Wooding, right, sits with friends outside the hotel at Tiger. Wooding was a strong pioneer woman who was integral in keeping her home running and also building the community of Tiger in the early 1900s.

What’sNext:Eva Gayle Six will be talking about her book at two upcoming events. • There will be showing of the Nell Shipman 1923 movie, “The Grubstake,” mentioned in the book and Six will sign copies of “Jennie’s Tiger” Thursday, April 12, at 7 p.m. at the Cutter Theatre in Metaline Falls. • Six will talk about her book at the Usk Community Hall April 7 in an event sponsored by the Pend Oreille County Historical Society.

“I always assumed I’d write a book. I didn’t get it done until after retirement and after my children were grown.”

EvaGayleSix


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History writer publishes three in a year

BYJANELLEATYEO

Duane Becker has

written history

articles for the local

museum and guitar history

articles that appear online, but

he’s never attempted to publish

a book of his own until now. He

has three coming out this year.

Becker, 52, has been collecting information on the history of Mount Spokane over the last 20 years. A history on north Spokane’s tallest mountain hadn’t been written before. Becker decided to take it up just be-cause he likes the area.

“It’s just out my front window,” says the Camden resident. “And I don’t even ski.”

His book covers more than just

skiing. It’s a history of the lodges and other buildings, the Civilian Conser-vation Corps camp, the state park and the eventual construction of the ski resorts.

He didn’t’ think he’d have enough photographs when he started putting the book together, but he put the word out to ski clubs and others involved with the mountain and ended up with more than 850 pictures. In the end, 192 were selected for the illustrated history book, which totals 127 pages in all.

“It was a long process, I spent five months putting it together,” Becker said.

“Mount Spokane” is being published through Arcadia Press, which specializes in local history. He went to them on a whim because his wife buys many of their his-tory books, and they accept-ed his proposal right away. It should be out this August.

In the meantime, Becker has been

working on two other histories. One, a history of Spokane television, is being

published by the Westerners Spokane Corral, a histori-cal society focused on the Pacific Northwest. Another is a reference paper on the Great Northern Railway from Spokane to Priest River, to be published by the Great Northern Railway Historical Society.

Courtesy image|Arcadia Press

Duane Becker’s history of Mount Spokane is due out in August. It includes almost 200 his-toric photos. Becker said it was a long process putting the book together, and he plans to stick to shorter histories for the Pend Oreille County Historical Society.

Duane Becker Camden Age: 52 Style: Historical Books published: Three coming out this year, the main being “Mount Spokane”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 11

“It was a long process, I spent five months putting it together.”

DuaneBecker


Poker pro offers advice forplayers of all levels

BYDONGRONNING

Phil Gordon was al-

ready a world-class

poker player who

hosted “Celebrity Poker Chal-

lenge,” a cable television show,

when a publisher asked him if

he would write the introduc-

tion for a poker book.

“Simon and Schuster had already hired a writer,” Gordon said. “I told them I didn’t want to write an introduc-tion. I wanted to write the book.”

That was the genesis for Gordon’s first book “Poker: The Real Deal.” His latest book “Phil Gordon’s Little Gold Book,” came out last October and is the fourth poker book Gordon has written.

The latest book deals with what Gor-don calls Poker 2.0. The game of Texas hold’em poker has evolved a lot over the last decade, he maintains. Younger players who have sharpened their skills in online poker have taken the game to a new level, Gordon said. The new players have a solid grasp of the math involved in poker and are incredibly ag-gressive in their play.

The “Little Gold Book” is like taking a doctorate course in poker, he said. He

interviews some of the top online play-ers in the game to get their take on the modern game.

Gordon’s four books each deal with a different level of play, he said. The first book is sort of a poker primer, the second is like a high school course, the third like a practicum and the latest like a doctorate course, he said.

Back in 2003, Texas hold ’em poker was getting big. Gordon himself had won more than $1 million in the game. The game was on cable televi-sion and there were more casi-nos than ever.

Still, it was an un-tested mass market for how-to books. There have been how-to poker books for years, and Gordon pays homage to many of them in that first book that he wrote with Jonathon Grotenstein.

But it was still an unknown mar-ket as far as Simon and Shuster was concerned, so the first book didn’t come with an advance. But it sold.

“It was a runaway smash hit,” Gordon said. “It was the right book at the right

time.” In addition to timing, the book had

something else going for it. “It is easily digestible,” Gordon said. “I

worked hard to make difficult concepts understandable.”

The first book sold more than 100,000 copies. In addition to bookstores, the book was also sold at Restoration Hard-ware stores.

“It sold more copies at the hardware stores than at bookstores,” Gordon said.

Part of that first book’s success and something Gordon tries to do with all his books is to have some-thing for every level of player.

“About 60 percent is for the intermedi-ate player, 20 percent for the

advanced player and 20 percent for the beginner,” he said.

He sprinkles the books with quotes from “Star Wars,” Muhammad Ali and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and he includes some poker history and behind the scenes details, such as the antics of the Tiltboys.

The Tiltboys were a group of guys Gordon hung out with who gambled

and tried to get their op-ponents “on tilt,” mean-ing they got so rattled they’d make mistakes. The Tiltboys went to great lengths to get an angle on somebody or to just engage in really immature male behavior, such as skirt-ing the rules to a women-only poker tournament by appearing and playing in drag.

The success of “Poker: The Real Deal” led to a deal to write two more books. This one came with a hefty advance, Gordon said.

He said that the process of writing isn’t fun.

“It was much more painful than I had anticipated,” he said.

Gordon went through a similar pro-cess for each of the four books he has written.

“I procrastinate until the pressure is so intense that you have to do it,” he said.

When he does start writing, he devotes all the time it takes to complete

Horizon photo|Don Gronning

Phil Gordon’s four books each deal with a dif-ferent level of play. The first book is sort of a poker primer, the second is like a high school course, the third like a practicum and the lat-est like a doctorate course.

Courtesy photo|Simon and Schuster

Phil Gordon retired from professional poker in December 2011 but not before he won more than $3 million in tournament play.

Phil Gordon Newport Age: 41 Style of writing: Instructional poker books Books Published: “Poker: The Real Deal,” published in 2004. “Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book,” published 2005. “Phil Gordon’s Little Blue Book,” published 2006. “Phil Gordon’s Little Gold Book,” published 2011.

“I know all about overbetters: I used to be one. Those seeking proof need to look no further than my heads-up performance at the 2003 Ultimate Poker Classic, where I attempted to dispatch ‘amateur’ overbetter Juha Helppi with a variety of substandard hands and overbets. Warning: Due to the stunning violence used by Juha to eliminate me, the professional, in what I’m guessing is record time, the video footage of the event is not recommended for small children or the faint of heart.”

From“PhilGordon’sLittleBlueBook”Gordon’s third book

“It is easily digestible. I worked hard to make difficult concepts understandable.”

PhilGordon


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the book. “It is pretty intense for months at a

time,” he said. For the latest book, he figures he spent about 12 hours a day, every day, working on the book from February to April.

Gordon has the advantage of being an elite poker player who counts many other top players among his friends. So when he has a draft manuscript, he sends it to people he trusts for their critique.

In addition to poker pros, he asks his mother for feedback. When he gets the marked up manuscripts back, he lays them all out and systematically

goes through the draft and makes changes. After he makes the changes, he sends the manuscript out again. The whole process contributes to a better book, he said: “It’s extraordi-narily helpful.”

There is more to

getting a book deal than the writing. You also have to promote the book.

The advances are doled out in thirds, Gordon said. The writer gets a pay-ment on signing, another payment

when the manuscript is delivered and the third payment after the writer has done all the book sign-ings and other promotions to sell the book. Gordon said he did a 12-city book tour for his second book, “Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book.”

The business side of writing books is best left to a professional literary agent, Gordon said. They get 15 percent but are worth it, he believes.

“You don’t sell a good book without a good agent,” he said.

Gordon has sold more than a few books. He figures there have been over 300,000 books sold in North America. He doesn’t know how many books have been sold overseas but the books have been translated into 12 languages, including Japanese, Hebrew, Italian and Spanish.

Gordon has an interesting back-ground.

He got his start playing poker early. As a youngster he would do yard work for his great aunt for money. After she was done, she would play cards with him and win it back.

“She never let me win,” he laughs. Gordon was also a serious student.

He was a National Merit Scholar and earned a computer science Bachelor of Arts from Georgia Tech by the time he was 20. He took a year off from college to play professional bridge, winning two

national championships. While he played a little

poker in college, he didn’t really get started playing seriously until 1994, when the high tech company he was working for was sold and he became wealthy.

Still, he didn’t call him-self a pro until he won $400,000 for his fourth place finish in the 2001 World Series of Poker Championship.

Until he retired from professional poker last December, he played in about 30 tournaments annually. He won more than $3 million playing poker in

Courtesy photo|Simon and Schuster

Gordon’s instructional books on poker have been translated into 12 languages and have sold more than 300,000 copies in North America alone.

“The greatest poker players in the world share five qualities. 1. They are invariably aggressive. Aggressive poker is winning poker. They apply pressure to their opponents with bets and raises. 2. They are patient. They wait for situations at the table that are profitable. 3. They are courageous. They don’t need the stone-cold nuts to bet call or raise.

4. They are observant. They watch their opponents during every had.

5. They are always working on their game and want to be even better players. They talk about the game with other players. They practice. They read poker books. They analyze their play and work to plug ‘leaks’ that have developed.”

From“PhilGordon’sLittleGreenBook”Gordon’s second book

“I procrastinate until the pressure is so intense that you have to do it.”

PhilGordon,onthewritingprocess

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and their two children moved to Pend Oreille County about three years ago.

They both have been ac-tive in local causes.

They formed Pend Oreille Micro-enterprise Development Organiza-tion, which backed Bear Naked Adventures, a student-run kayak tour company that operates out of Oldtown.

Gordon’s newest venture is a software company called Jawfish Games that makes games for Facebook and Apple’s iPhone operating system.

“Our first game, Word Joust, launched a few weeks ago,” Gordon said. “We are focused on real-time, competitive games of skill.”

For now, poker is a thing of the past for Gordon. But his legacy will exist in the form of his four books. His love of poker will continue, and he gets a lot of satisfac-tion – along with royalty checks – from his writing.

“The most rewarding thing is to have people tell me that I’ve turned

them from a losing player into a win-ner,” Gordon said. “I know that they will play and enjoy the game for a very long time.”

Courtesy photo|Phil Gordon

Phil Gordon and Barb Smith, pictured here in 2011 with their two small sons, at their Almost Idaho Ranch in Pend Oreille County. Smith is a retired attorney and Gordon is a retired professional poker player.

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He had been working for a long time on all three books and they all happened to come together at once. After the whirlwind of publishing this year, Becker says he’ll stick to smaller pieces for the local museum.

“It’s really time consuming,” he says. “It takes a lot out of you.”

In writing, Becker got help from many local historians, including Tony and Suzanne Bamonte. With the photos that didn’t make the Mount Spokane book, Becker will set up a file at the Pend Oreille County Histori-cal Society Museum. Though all the hard work, he’s happy with finished product.

“It’s rewarding in the fact that it’s done now,” he says.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

Courtesy photo|Gene Crissey

This aerial of Mount Spokane shows the ski runs on the Inland Northwest’s highest peak. Local author Duane Becker has written a history on the lodges and the state park at Mount Spokane.

Courtesy photo|Duane Becker

A lodge on Mount Spokane peaks out from the forest. This lodge burnt in 1952. Duane Becker had been collecting information on Mount Spo-kane history for about 20 years before starting his book.


Former sheriff chronicles history with publishing venture

Tony and Suzanne Bamonte publish a variety of books

BYDONGRONNING


Former Pend Oreille County Sheriff Tony Bamonte and his wife, Suzanne, run Tornado Creek Publications. They are shown here with the makings of their next book, a revised edition of an earlier book on the history of Pend Oreille County.

Tony and Suzanne Bamonte Spokane Age: 69 and 63, respectively Style of writing: History Books published: 13, available through Tornado Creek Publications


When he was sheriff, Tony Bamonte wrote a book on the Pend Oreille County sheriffs who proceeded him and used much of the research for his master’s thesis.


Bamonte donated the rights to his book on Newport’s history to the Pend Oreille County Historical Society. Whenever you see this book in a library or bookstore, it was purchased from the historical society.

Former Pend Oreille County Sheriff Tony Bamonte is

best known these days as a history writer. He and

his wife, Suzanne, own and operate Tornado Creek

Publications from their home in Spokane. They have writ-

ten 13 books on Northwest history and have published 14

books for other writers. But Bamonte wasn’t exactly a star

history student when he attended school in Metaline Falls. “I flunked history,” he said. Writing came easy for him, he said, but he found history boring. That

changed, and today the Bamontes’ niche is publishing Northwest history books.

Suzanne didn’t particularly like writing when she was a student growing up in the north part of the county. She started writing only after she was out of school.

“After high school, I started journaling,” she said. She went on to work as a certified public accountant for 20 years in the Seattle area and didn’t think much about writing until she met Tony.

They were married in 1994 and now work together, writing, editing and publishing. Tony was voted best non-fiction writer for two years in a Spo-kane readers poll, but Suzanne should have been mentioned as well, he said.

They work together on the books and their writing styles have grown similar.

“You can’t tell the difference be-tween us,” he said.

Tony started to get interested in history when he bought the Pend Oreille Mine build-

ing in Metaline Falls. It had a safe that had a lot of old records in it. He felt that there was a lot of his-tory that would be forgotten if he didn’t do something with it, so he put together his first publication, a mimeographed history of Metaline Falls.

The Pend Oreille County Histori-cal Society still sells “The History of Metaline Falls,” said Evelyn Reed, president of the historical society. The Bamontes gave them the rights to the book, so proceeds benefit the historical society, which operates

the museum in Newport. Reed says the Bamontes have been

generous with the historical society, where they do some of their research.

“They donated the rights to “Histo-ry of Newport, Washington,” she said. “Whenever you see a copy of the book at a library or in a bookstore, they bought the book from us.”

Reed said the Bamontes research thoroughly. “They do a good job,” she said. “The accuracy is important.”


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The Spokane Police Department was the subject of Bamonte’s 2008 book.

The Bamonte books are popular at the Newport Library, said Yvonne Sherman, library aide: “We can hardly keep them on the shelves.”

Because of the popularity of “The History of Metaline Falls” Bamonte started on

another book, on the history of the Sheriffs in Pend Oreille County. By this time he was one of those sheriffs, so the topic was of particular interest to him.

He was enrolled in a master’s program at Gonzaga, so he figured he might as well use the research he already had. He ended up writing his master’s thesis on the management styles of the different sheriffs.

That was pretty academic for a book, so when it came time to publish, he cut a bunch of that out and focused on the law enforcement part of it. The result was “Sheriffs 1911 – 1989: A History of Murders in the Wilderness of Washington’s Last County.”

Bamonte self-published “Sheriffs” in 1990 before he and Suzanne started Tornado Creek Publications. While researching the book, he uncovered the 1935 unsolved murder of a George Conniff, a Newport night marshal, who was shot and killed when he confronted some men burglarizing a Newport creamery.

The more he looked into it, the more

he believed Conniff was killed by a Spokane police officer. The year before “Sheriffs” came out, Bamonte pulled a rusty pistol out of the Spokane River where he figured the cop had thrown it.

Bamonte became the subject of Timo-thy Eagan’s book “Breaking Blue,” and Conniff’s murder be-came the topic of an

episode of the televi-sion show “Un-solved Myster-

ies.”

The public-ity faded but Bamonte’s

interest in history did not. He and Suzanne have written books on the Spokane Police Department, the history of Newport, Spokane’s Davenport Hotel, Manito Park, vintage postcards from Spo-kane and the history of Pend Oreille County, to name some of them.

“Spokane’s Legendary Davenport Hotel,” has been one of the best sellers.

“We sold 2,000 copies in one week,” Tony said. The book was in bookstores

in time for Christmas, he said. Another top seller was “Manito

Park: A Reflection of Spokane’s Past.”

Bamonte does his research, not just on the history, but on what readers want as well.

“I went to a number of bookstores and asked them what would sell,” he said. “They all said a his-tory of Spokane would do really well.”

So the Bamontes turned a book on the history of Spokane real estate they were working on for the Spokane Board of Realtors into a history of Spo-kane. “Spokane Our Early History” was the result. It is the latest publication of Tornado Creek Publications, and is available online and at Costco and Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane.

The Bamontes are working on a revised edition of the first book they wrote together, “History of Pend Oreille County.” The book is scheduled to come out later this year and will be about a third bigger than the first edi-tion that was published in 1995.

They attribute much of their suc-cess to the historic pictures that are in every book.

Like most writers and publishers, the Bamontes aren’t getting rich with their work. Their advice for other writers?

“Don’t quit your day job,” Suzanne said.

But the Bamontes get a lot of satisfac-tion from their publishing. They regu-larly get correspondence from readers saying how much they liked the book.

“It’s a way to give back,” said Tony. “It’s one of the best things you can do to leave a mark behind.”

“We can hardly keep them on the shelves.”

YvonneShermanNewport Library Aide

“It’s a way to give back. It’s one of the best things you can do to leave a mark behind.”

TonyBamonte

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Life on farm inspires collection of stories

BYDONGRONNING

Jo Anne Salness Byars Elk Age: 64 Style of writing: True stories of a Southern California girl living on a farm in Elk Books published: “I Love Horses and Tractors”

When Jo Anne

Salness Byars

and her hus-

band, Steve, moved to Elk from

Southern California, they

didn’t know what they were

getting into. They both were retired and wanted to

raise horses and cattle. But, with little experience around large animals, they encountered challenges almost daily.

“I started emailing my friends daily with stories,” Byars said. “They’d write back and say, nobody could make this stuff up. You have to write a book.”

So she did. The result was “I love Horses and Tractors,” a 27-chapter collection of her accounts of life on the farm.

The writing went pretty quickly, she said. She started in April 2011 and by June had turned the manuscript into her publisher, AuthorHouse, an Indiana company.

She self published the book, meaning she paid the cost of getting it into print. She shopped carefully for a publisher.

“We could have put as much money into it as we wanted,” she said. She put up $750 and had 10 paperback copies printed.

The book has sold about 200 copies. Byars said the process was well worth the investment. She is working on a sequel.

Byars is a retired teacher. She taught math and physical education and coached volleyball for three decades in Southern California.

Interestingly, she also taught English but only for a year.

“I loved reading the students’ work,” Horizon photo|Don Gronning

Jo Ann Salness Byars wrote her self-published book about her and her husband’s experiences moving to a rural area from Southern California.



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Jo Ann Salness Byars read from her book “I Love Horses and Tractors,” to these students in Jeannette Clary’s class at Bess Herian Elementary School in Cusick. The kids loved making the Whoosh sound from the eagle story.

she said. Many of the students would pour their heart into an essay, which touched her. “What I didn’t like was grading them,” she said.

Byars’ book chronicles their time moving to Elk and setting up their farm.

The tractor in the title refers to the Byars’ purchase of a tractor. She truly does love the tractor. In fact, she loves most everything about country living, something that come through when reading her stories.

The Byars raise California Mountain Horses, a breed characterized by their calm dispositions and flaxen manes and tails.

One story deals with one of her horses, Josie, who came down with colic, a painful condition that can be fatal. After eight days of not eating or drinking and several trips to the vet, she finally started to get better.

In another story, Byars tells of a young eagle they found lying on its back. The youngster hadn’t much practice flying and the Byars wanted to help him. But Steve was leery of getting too close to the bird. They eventually got the bird rolled over and waited for it to fly.

“After a couple minutes, he stretched out his wings and flew, he hit the fence, hit the tree and hit the other fence,” Byars wrote in “I Thought He Was Dead,” her account of the eagle. She wanted him to be safe and fly. They left the young bird to rest and went down the road to do some other chores.

Within a short time they heard a big bird.

“As we went down the hill, we heard this big whoosh, whoosh and saw a big brown eagle fly by,” Byars writes. “It bounced off a tree, went to another tree and then finally settled into a third tree.”

The story was a big hit when Byars was asked to read for some Cusick stu-dents in Jeanette Clary’s class.

“The little kids love to go ‘whoosh, whoosh,’” she said.

Other stories include “The Most Snow Ever,” “The Electric Fence,” and “The Chicken Attack.” The various animal characters, such as Licorice the calf, are featured in this account of retire-ment, adoption and the adventures of two city people living on 70 acres in Elk.

Byars started getting some royalties from her writing.

“I got a check for $1.87,” Byars said. “My friend said she would give me $1.87 to not cash the check.”

The next check was bigger – $11.51. “Everybody makes more money than

me,” laughs Byars. “But I enjoyed writ-ing it.”


Former assessor continues towrite for the love it

Pulp FictionThe term originated from the maga-zines of the first half of the 20th cen-tury, which were printed on cheap “pulp” paper and published fantastic, escapist fiction for the general enter-tainment of the mass audiences. The pulp fiction era provided a breeding ground for creative talent, which would influence all forms of enter-tainment for decades to come. The hardboiled detective and sci-ence fiction genres were created by the freedom that the pulp fiction magazines provided. Bigger-than-life heroes, pretty girls, exotic places, strange and mysterious villains all stalked the pages of the many issues available to the general public on the magazine stands. Today, the short story has changed into a different breed of creative writ-ing, leaving the stories found in the pulp magazines a unique offering. But, beyond the legacy of entertain-ing stories, pulp fiction must be given some credit for the evolution of literature and popular fiction heroes of today. Many authors that got their start in the pulp magazines grew to be great writers that changed the landscape of popular fiction. Writers such as Carroll John Daly changed the detective fiction story from the staid whodunits popularized in Great Britain to the more “hard-boiled” version where the bad guy was bad and the detective was tough and street-smart. Edgar Rice Burroughs was another pulp writer who helped to define the science fiction story into what it is today. The other well-known alum-nae of the pulps include Max Brand, H.P. Lovecraft, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Ray Bradbury. And of course, there were the legions of other authors, less well known today, that had an equally important hand in forming popular fiction.

BYFREDWILLENBROCK

There’s a 70-year-old

writer in the county

who is well known

and has been writing for more

than a decade, but his friends

and the world haven’t seen his

work and may never. Former Pend Oreille County Assessor

Steve Thompson says he doesn’t really care if he is ever published. “I get a lot of pleasure out of doing it.”

So what is “it” that keeps the man who grew up on a ranch, served 24 years as the county’s chief land apprais-er – a man known for arguing dry facts and figures with property owners and state officials – writing?

It started when he was still the elected assessor with attempts at writing sci-ence fiction.

“I asked my brother what he thought I was writing and he said it was Pulp Fiction,” Thompson said with a smile. He still has the chiseled lean features many remember from his younger days wandering around the historic county courthouse, a place rich with charac-ters and stories. One can imagine these same features on one of his western characters riding the range near Cusick.

“My writing isn’t literature but more for entertainment,” he said of the three plus books he has written.

“I wrote one book and threw it away,” he said of his early writing.

His writing training has included a college creative writing course and a short time with a Sandpoint writer’s seminar. He said he figured out that he could either go to school to learn to write or start writing and teach himself. He chose the latter.

“I still don’t know all the tricks,” he said of the activity he started before re-tiring in 2002, but planned as a retire-ment activity. He never thought about it as a source of income, which is good because he hasn’t sold anything.

He said his stories were probably more westerns at first and now more modern days. After living his entire life in rural Pend Oreille County, he says the setting is rural.

“One lawyer friend read some of my early stuff and advised me that I needed to change the names or get sued,” he said with a chuckle.

He said he isn’t close to submitting a novel length book yet. Thompson won’t

even submit a work to a publisher until he thinks it is good and now he won’t let friends read them because he doesn’t believe they will give him an honest opinion.

Thompson is aware of all the new ways to publish, from self-publishing to the electronic, but he said if he gets a work he thinks is good he will send it off to a traditional publisher.

If he doesn’t ever get published, he says it won’t be the end of world.

“I’m trying to paint a picture that other people will see,” Thompson said about the goal he is chasing and what gives him pleasure. Sometimes he gets very excited about his work or an idea while other times it is hard work. He says at first he was surprised at how much time it took to write what was in your mind’s eye.

Thompson, who lives in Newport but still has an 80-acre ranch in the county, writes about 1,000 words a day. He usu-ally writes and edits in the morning on a computer.

He likes John Steinbeck and Ivan Doig, a regional writer. Doig is also in his early 70s and bases his writing on his native Montana, much of it histori-cal western fiction.

Thompson says he prefers reading real books and doesn’t own a Kindle.

He is working on a book now that he got inspiration for from another book about a character who commits a crime to start the book. But the rest of the book is based on why this person is dif-ferent than any other person.

“Don’t know where it will go,” Thomp-son said. But he doesn’t plan to stop writing.

Horizon photo|Fred Willenbrock

Steve Thompson has written several books for the pleasure of writing, but hasn’t had any pub-lished. “It’s not the end of the world,” he says.

Steve Thompson Newport Age: 70 Writes for the pleasure Books published: None and may never publish; but says it’s not the end of the world


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For her fatherDaughter writes about dad’s adventure to give a quiet man

the credit he deservesBYJANELLEATYEO

Nancy Owens Barnes

knew the story of

her dad’s journey

when she was growing up.

His adventure started in 1926

when he was a 10-year-old

Oklahoma boy who saw a

picture of Alaska in his geog-

raphy book. It captivated him

and that draw to America’s

last frontier stayed with him

through his adult life.

A strange endeavor in the landlocked Midwest, he toiled away in his back yard, building a seaworthy boat that he would eventually sail from Arkansas – through the Panama Canal – to Alaska, where he made his home.

“When I was younger, I just didn’t realize what an amazing thing he had done,” said Barnes. “When I got a little bit older, I realized – I don’t see other fathers doing this.”

Her father, the late Melvin Owens, was a quiet, gentle person, she said: “He

didn’t look for credit from what he had done.” Thus she wrote his story in the travelogue/memoir “South to Alaska.”

“I wanted dad to know that this was an amazing thing he did,” she said.

Wanting to tell her dad’s story prompted Barnes to take her first writing class in the 1990s. She wanted to nail down a structure for her story. She needed something that would hold readers’ interests, she said.

During the writing pro-cess, she would pull chapters out of her manuscript and spread them out on the floor to decide what went best where.

Over the course of writing “South to

Alaska,” she also learned about writing in an active voice. What she learned got her started on another project. Barnes has published through her own Rush-ing River Press an instructional book-let: “How to Swat the Killer Bees Out of Your Writing.” She said she sells many of those in ebook format.

Before Barnes started her own pub-lishing company, she first published

Nancy Owens Barnes Priest River Age: 62 Style of writing: Memoir as well as poetry and instructional books Books published: “South to Alaska,” “How to Swat the Killer Bees Out of Your Writing,” “Moose for Breakfast”


“When I was younger, I just didn’t realize what an amazing thing he had done.”

NancyOwensBarnes

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“South to Alaska” with a small pub-lisher in Illinois. She had a three-year contract with them that she chose not to renew. She was doing so much publicity for her book on her own she figured she could keep at it under her own publishing company. That way all her work would benefit her and not the publisher.

“Unless you’re with a well es-tablished, big publisher, it’s really hard to get your book out there,” she said. “They have the channels to push (your book) in to book-stores.”

“South to Alaska” is available at local libraries, and she sells it in a few stores locally and in Oklahoma where the story started. She also sells quite a few in Ketchikan, Alaska, where people knew her dad and knew his story.

All of Barnes’s books, including the instructional book and a collection of poetry called “Moose for Breakfast,” are avail-able online through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and her own website, www.NancyOwensBarnes.com.

They’re also available as ebooks, and she said they outsell the paperback ver-sions by far.

“Ebooks are going gangbusters for now,” she said. “That’s the way we’re going.”

She points to the benefits: they’re more accessible in that a reader can download them at home and begin reading immediately as opposed to hav-ing a hard copy shipped through the mail, and they don’t come with all the publication costs.

Barnes lived much of her adult life in Alaska, working in Anchorage in CAD design and drafting for an engineering firm. She also did some marketing and would write proposals for that firm. She

moved to the Priest River area in 1999. Owens approached writing as a

hobby, and although life has been too busy lately, she stays active in the writ-ing community. She started a blog for writers in North Idaho – WritingNor-thIdaho.blogspot.com – and meets with the group quarterly. They’re always looking for guest writers, she said.

She and her husband are in the process of moving to a home on Garfield Bay so they can launch the second boat her dad built on Lake Pend Oreille. The Pretty Lady, named after her mom, has been sitting in their back yard awaiting

Courtesy image|Nancy Owens Barnes

In the book “South to Alaska” the author tells the story of her dad’s spectacular journey, boating from Arkansas to Alaska in a vessel made by his own hands, through the many tri-als and adventures that meet him on the trip.

Horizon image

This screen shot shows the blog page Nancy Owens Barnes created for writers in North Idaho. Visit WritingNorthIdaho.blogspot.com. She said they are always looking for guest writers.


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Synopsis: “South to Alaska” relates the story of 10-year-old Melvin Owens who, born in the dusty heart of Oklahoma in 1916, dreams of living in Alaska. Nearly 50 years later, he single-handedly constructs the 47-foot Red Dog in his backyard. After launching the boat on the Arkansas River in 1971, Melvin, along with his wife and daughter, cruises the Arkansas and Missis-sippi Rivers to Galveston, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico. From Galveston, after struggling for more than a year with mechanical diffi-culties and an entanglement with a fraudu-lent boat-business owner, Melvin begins a solitary journey along the Caribbean coasts of Mexico and Central America, through the Panama Canal, and into the Pacific Ocean to Alaska. The problem is, Melvin has never crossed the southern border of the United States, has never even ridden on a boat in the open ocean, and has certainly never navigated a homemade watercraft for thousands of miles in the Caribbean and Pacific. Faced with illness, threats of jail from Mexican authorities, thievery, loneliness, violent ocean storms and a fragile marriage back home, Melvin fears a deadly end before reaching the place of his dreams and re-turning to the woman he loves.

the water. Once they’re settled at their new

home, Barnes hopes to get back to writ-ing. She’s thinking of doing a project with her brother who is a nature pho-tographer in Arkansas.

Courtesy photo|Nancy Owens Barnes

The Red Dog, a boat built by her dad, sits in the back yard of Nancy Owens Barnes’s Priest River home. She plans to move to Garfield Bay and launch the boat on Lake Pend Oreille.

Courtesy graphic|Nancy Owens Barnes

This map show’s Melvin Owens’s journey from Arkansas to Alaska on the boat he made himself to reach his boy-hood dream of seeing the Alaska wilderness.



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Boyhood games become trilogyBYJANELLEATYEO

When Mitchell Bonds was growing

up on his parents’ 20 acres near

Priest River, he, his brother and

their friends would spend the days romping in the

woods pretending sticks were swords. In his head,

Bonds created a world where a young boy could

be the protector of the realm. “It was like I was writing a role play-

ing game in my head the whole time,” he says.

He would play all the characters – from the hero to the shopkeeper – like staging a whole theatrical production with no audience.

When Bonds, now 24, became too old for running in the woods with sticks for swords, he realized he missed that world. That’s when those charac-ters from his child-hood days became the

Courtesy images|Marcher Lord Press

Bonds’s first novel, “Hero, Second Class,” was written during his first year of college and published when he was 19. He’s currently working on the third in the trilogy. “Hero in Hiding,” Bond’s second novel, continues the tale of the hero Cyrus and his quest to unite the races of the world against the arch villain Voshtyr Demonkin. The story evolved from his childhood games of playing swords in the woods around Priest River.

Mitchell Bonds Priest River Age: 24 Style of writing: Fantasy fiction Books published: “Hero, Second Class” and “Hero in Hiding”


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makings of his first short story that he wrote on the long road trip with his family to college in Michigan. He is the son of Zack and LeeAnn Bonds of Priest River.

Bonds didn’t go to school set on becoming a writer. He was a political science major, but he used writing as an escape. The self-admitted “fantasy writing geek” found himself stuck in the dorm with the jocks.

“I spent a lot of time in my room hiding from the baseball and bas-ketball players,” he says. He started writing the stories he’d been making up in his head since he was a kid.

Within his first year of college, Bonds had finished the 600-page book of his trilogy, “Hero, Second Class.” He says it’s been described as Monty Python meets “Lord of the Rings.” It’s fantasy with some humor, lots of humor. It’s downright silly, in some spots. In one scene that spun from his first short story, Bond’s hero narrates his battle, announc-ing his moves before he makes them, only to be laughed at by the dragon, who’s also got an ear for his punc-tuation errors.

Bonds was 19 when he finished the first book and started shopping for a publisher.

“And I thought writing was hard,” he said, recalling the difficulty of finding a press willing to look at his

manuscript in a time when Harry Potter copy cats were flooding the market and most kids couldn’t be prodded to pick up a book in the first place.

He ran across a brand new publish-ing company that was just starting up in an online ad. He sent his script off to Marcher Lord Press, touted today as the “premiere publisher of Chris-tian speculative fiction,” and the publisher worked with him on the edits.

“I thought I knew how to write, and a professional edi-tor showed me the errors in my ways,” Bonds says, add-ing that he learned more through the editing process than he had in any of his university fiction writing classes.

He loves talking about what he’s learned and the writing process. He’s visited the Newport High School honors English class as a guest speaker.

“I’ve never had that much fun talk-ing to an audience before,” he says.

Bonds’s books are available

through the publisher’s websites and at Amazon.com. Both are available in ebook format for the Kindle reader.

Bonds doesn’t know how many he’s sold, but says it was enough that he had to claim the royalties on his taxes. He’s given his books to some visiting missionaries, who’ve taken them on their travels, so Bonds knows his writing has reached Britain, Rwanda and Austra-lia, and one fan girl sent him cookies form Colorado. But Bonds is always looking to reach a larger audi-ence.

The second in his series, “Hero in Hid-ing,” was also pub-lished by Marcher Lord, but the third is a bit delayed. Bonds

lost the manuscript when his laptop was stolen. He’s started picking at it again, but it’s nowhere near finished, he said.

Now graduated from the Univer-sity of Idaho, Bonds has a degree in journalism, but with the declining industry, he’s working at the Grit-man Medical Center in Moscow, but keeping up with writing on the side.

Bonds doesn’t know how many books he’s sold, but says it was enough that he had to claim the royalties on his taxes.

Bonds was 19 when he finished the first book and started shopping for a publisher.

Bond’s work has been described as Monty Python meets “Lord of the Rings.”

CONTINUEDFROMPAGE21

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POW recounts Death March of Korean War

BYMICHELLENEDVED

Donald Donner Usk Age: 82 Style of writing: Autobiography, Fiction, Poetry Books published: One book, “A Death March and Nightmares”

Donald Donner is one of the 25 percent of soldiers

who survived the Korean Death March. He lived

as a prisoner of war for three years, from 1950

to 1953, during the Korean Conflict, sometimes called the

“Forgotten War.” It’s because of this lapse in collective memory that Donner decided to

write “A Death March and Nightmares,” his autobiography first published in 1999.

The book began as notes Donner took while a POW and shortly after his release from North Korean forces.

“At the time that I completed the original text, I viewed it as just another war story, and perhaps of little interest to most people, so I put it away – or rather, my wife did – and in time it faded from my thoughts,” Donner wrote in the book’s forward.

In time, however, his family came to him for information on the war. His children wanted to interview him for school projects, saying there was not much to be found on the Korean Conflict.

As his kids grew up, his grandchildren and other people’s children began to ask him the same questions. Donner began to realize his experience needed to be told.

Horizon photo|Michelle Nedved

Donald Donner published “A Death March and Nightmares,” the true story of his time in the Korean Conflict, where he was a prisoner of war. He has written two other books, but this is the only one to be published.



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In 1990 he took his old longhand notes and began to type his book.

“It is so asinine that those of us who lived this nightmare must also be the ones to preserve for prosperity the truth of what happened there,” he writes.

“A Death March and Nightmares” is a harrowing story, with details all the more horrifying by being true – things that happened to this now 82-year-old man with a kind face, and easygoing laugh.

Once the 127-page book was complete, Don-ner found Traf-ford Publishing in a newspaper advertisement. The company was at the time located in Vancouver, B.C., and is now in Illinois.

The book can be purchased online at

various websites, including Amazon.com. Donner will hand deliver a copy for $15, and mail one for $20.

He’s written two other books that haven’t been published, “The Legacy of My Dad,” and “William Conrad Crowl.” He’s been thinking of having the lat-ter published.

It’s a work of fiction about a young Air Force pilot shot down in Korea. It involves espionage, duplicate identities and prisoners of war.

Crowl finds himself as a POW on a boat near Russia when an American ship collides with

it, cutting the boat in half and send-ing those on board into the sea. Crowl wakes up in an Alaska hospital but has a difficult time convincing anyone of his true identity because Russia has sent his duplicate back to the United States.

Donner has also written a book of poems.

Donner bought prop-erty near Newport in 1965, and he built the family log home on Spring Valley Road. He

had to move to Usk 15 years ago when he was diagnosed with cancer, to be more accessible to the highway.

“At the time that I completed the original text, I viewed it as just another War story, and perhaps of little interest to most people, so I put it away – or rather, my wife did – and in time it faded from my thoughts.”

DonaldDonnerForward, “A Death March and Nightmares”

Courtesy image|Donald Donner

Donald Donner of Usk wrote this harrowing tale about his time as a POW during the Korean Conflict. The book is available online at Amazon.com.

CONTINUEDFROMPAGE23

As his kids grew up, his grandchildren and other people’s children began to ask him the same questions. Donner began to realize his experience needed to be told.

When Sunni Jeffers

needs to find some

inspiration for her

novels, she doesn’t have to look

far. The Newport-based author of

Christian fiction

writes about life

in a small town

setting. “Townsfolk relax on

their porch swings or gather to discuss the day’s events at the coffee shop over homemade pie. It’s the kind of town where friendship and faith flow to-gether like a wide river on a fine spring day,” one book is described on Jeffers’s website, www.sunnijeffers.com.

Getting into writing was kind of a fluke, Jeffers says. She started when she was 40 when she went with a friend to a class on novel writing and it caught her attention.

“I started writing a book and realized I didn’t know what I was doing,” she says.

That’s when she enrolled in some classes at a community college and took on some non-credit adult education classes and eventually

joined writers’ groups such as the Romance Writers of America.

She wrote her first novel in 1989, but it was almost 10 years before anything was published.

“I wrote four complete novels before I sold my first one,” she says.

Writing has been profitable for her, but it’s a lot of work.

“If I broke it down to dollars per hour, it is probably less than minimum wage,” she says. “Very few authors get rich, and very few authors make a living wage.”

Her first book was published by the Christian


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BYJANELLEATYEO

Sunni Jeffers Newport Age: 65 Style of writing: Christian fiction, some mystery and romance Books published: She’s working on No. 12. Six books are part of the Grace Chapel Inn series: “The Start of Something Big,” “Rosemary for Remembrance,” “Fond Memories, Fresh Beginnings,” “Sing a New Song,” “Eyes on the Prize,” “Christ-mas Memories at Grace Chapel Inn”; two are of the Mystery and the Min-ister’s Wife series “A Token of Truth” and “To Have and to Hold;” plus a romance “Flowers for Victoria.”

Horizon photo|Janelle Atyeo

Sunni Jeffers holds three of her titles published by Guideposts Books. She writes fiction, but draws on her own experience for some part of the story.

Courtesy image|Guideposts Books

Inset: In “Rosemary for Remembrance,” published by Guideposts in 2006, the Howard sisters find themselves at the center of activity planning for these events and counseling a young Southern bride who is having trouble adjusting to life in Pennsylvania. Their most difficult task, however, is preventing gossip from ruining this time of reflection and celebration. CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

publisher, Guideposts Books, in 2001. Twelve years latter, she’s working on her 12th book.

Jeffers’s first book came out after she entered an unpublished version in a national contest and won. She

called it “Kicking and Screaming,” and it won the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award for Best Unpublished Inspirational Romance.

The book was published in 2004 by Cook Communi-cations, another Christian publisher, as “Flowers for Victoria.”

The publisher changed the name, but she says they know best: “They are profes-sionals and they know what the market wants. If you want something that will sell, you pretty much listen to them and do what they want.”

The book is described on Barnes & Noble’s website: “Victoria Halstead is torn be-tween Matt, the ex-husband who has recently changed his tune, and the suave and mysterious Cleve. ‘Flowers for Victoria’ explores real-world themes of divorce, remarriage, forgiveness, and the beginning of faith.”

It’s enjoyable and it’s horrible,” she says of the writing process.

“When the ideas are flowing it’s great and when the ideas aren’t coming and it seems like you have to write it’s hard. It’s an artistic endeavor. You hope to have some inspiration, but it’s an art that’s based on technique.”

Story ideas simply come out of life, she says. She draws from stories she reads in newspapers and magazines. When she’s writing part of a series, she’ll brainstorm with the editors from Guideposts and they’ll toss ideas back and forth.

“Just observing life mostly,” she said.

She’ll also draw from her life. She and her husband were at a music camp once, and she wrote that setting into her story. Many friends and family members’ names are in her books.

Jeffers has a family that’s very talented and actively involved in the community through church, politics and many lo-cal causes. Her husband is former Pend Oreille County Republican chairman Jim Jeffers. Her daughter Laura Merrill is cur-rently in her second term as Pend Oreille

County Commissioner, and her granddaughters Madeline and Katherine Merrill are active in New-port High School sports and activities.

Jeffers is retired, so writing is her full-time focus. She was the office manager and bookkeeper for the family business in Denver before they moved to Newport.

Jeffers compares her books to small town Americana series

like those of Jan Karon Mitfort. The stories take place in contemporary times.

Her most recent novella “Christmas Memories at Grace Chapel Inn” came out last fall. That book and five other Jeffers books – “The Start of Something Big,” “Rose-mary for Remembrance,” “Fond Memories, Fresh

Beginnings,” “Sing a New Song,” and “Eyes on the Prize” – are part of the Tales from Grace Chapel Inn series. Other authors write for the series too. It follows the Howard sisters in a small town in Pennsylvania where they run a bed and breakfast.

She’s written books for another Guide-posts series, Mystery and the Minister’s Wife. The books are available through the Guideposts by calling 800-431-2344 or online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Christianbook.com.



Sunni Jeffers writes at the computer in the office of her Newport home. Jeffers has published 12 books ranging from mystery to romance to general fiction and has contributed to series in some cases.

Courtesy image|Guideposts Books

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CONTINUEDFROMPAGE25


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Forest products prof writes papermaking textbooks

BYMICHELLENEDVED

Textbook writing is

a bit different than

other book publish-

ing, according to Christopher

Biermann. He wrote textbooks

when he was a forest products

professor at Oregon State Uni-

versity. With textbook writing, you find a

publisher before you begin the work. Biermann’s first book, which he co-edit-ed with Gary McGinnis, was published by CRC Press Inc. in 1989. “Analysis of Carbohydrates by GCL and MS,” is a col-lection of papers by leading scientists.

“These are the best authors in this field from around the world,” Biermann said.

His second book, which came out in 1993, is a textbook titled, “Essentials of

Pulping and Papermaking.” Biermann did most of the photography

and drawings contained in the 450-page book, and did an extensive expansion in its second edition, “Handbook of Pulping and Papermaking,” published in 1996, by Academic Press Inc.

Biermann said he spent most of his time writing in his office at Oregon State, scheduling large blocks of time to work on it. The first edition of the pulp and papermaking book took three years.

“Whenever the grad students came in, I’d snarl so they’d leave me alone,” he said.

Biermann has lived in Newport for five years now and is a stay at home dad. He teaches biology part time at Spokane Community Colleges Newport Center, Institute of Ex-tended Learning.

Horizon photo|Michelle Nedved

Christopher Biermann wrote two editions of a textbook on pulp and papermaking, and edited the textbook “Analysis of Carbohydrates by GCL and MS,” along with Gary McGinnis.

Christopher Biermann Newport Age: 54 Style of writing: Textbook Books published: “Analysis of Carbo-hydrates by GCL and MS,” “Essentials of Pulping and Papermaking,” “Hand-book of Pulping and Papermaking”


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Telling a story quietlyLocal writer tells history of a hidden lake but aims to keep it under wraps

BYJANELLEATYEO

Around 1930, Patty Brigham Geaudreau’s

dad built one of the first cabins at Bead

Lake north of Newport. The property is

still in her family, and Geaudreau has always been

interested in the area’s history. Her dad, Edmund T. Brigham, was an attorney in Newport from

1923 to 1973. He would go up to Bead Lake with his hunting bud-dies. Before World War II, the area was practically void of residents.

“It was very isolated. There wasn’t a good road to go up there,” she said, explaining why the area wasn’t developed. When she wrote the history of Bead Lake in her book “An Eastern Wash-ington Treasure: The Story of a Pristine Lake,” she didn’t want word about it to get out too far and wide. While celebrating its history, she wanted to keep Bead Lake a secret.

“It is a pristine lake. We still drink the water up there,” she says. “I didn’t want people coming in with tons of money and changing the atmosphere.”

She purposefully sought out a small publisher to put out her book. It came out with C & G Publishing in 2005. The book is available at the Pend Oreille Historical Society Museum in Newport, which has a stand of books by local authors in the gift shop.

“I didn’t really want to scatter it around,” she says.

Geaudreau started working on the book in 2000. She took a creative writing class and found writing and research to be kind of fun, she said.

“I like to put a hook to begin the story and a little humor instead of just hard dry facts,” she says. “It’s been a fun thing to do.”

Geaudreau continues to write history articles for the museum. She’d like to someday redo her Bead Lake book, making it more of a family history, in-cluding some of the adventures she and her brother had there.


Patty Geaudreau holds a copy of her book about Bead Lake, “An Eastern Washington Treasure” by a stand of many other local books for sale at the Pend Oreille County Historical Society Mu-seum in Newport.

Patty Brigham Geaudreau Newport Age: 87 Style of writing: History Books published: One on the history of Bead Lake, “An Eastern Washington Treasure: The Story of a Pristine Lake”


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Artwork brings books to lifeLocal artist lends her work to children’s books

BYJANELLEATYEO

Patricia Hicks Ruiz is known local-

ly for her watercolors of delicate

flowers and beautiful landscapes.

She also lends her art to children’s books. Hicks Ruiz has put out one children’s book of her

own called “Roberto Listens.” She describes it as a simple tale about poor little Roberto who all day long has to take orders from everyone he knows. At the end, he finds that people also listen to him. It’s an edu-cation tool in that the story is bilingual. Everything the characters say is also written in Spanish with a phonetic pronunciation available.

“I always wanted to do a book. I’m a big reader my-self,” said the Oldtown-based artist. “The first thing I do at a new location is get my library card.”

In 2006, Hicks Ruiz put the entire book together on her own, from the story to the artwork to the binding. It’s for sale at the artists shop at the Create Arts Center in Newport, where Hicks Ruiz is very involved with local art groups.

She has also done illustrations for a family memoir called “Tales of a Keweenaw Mom” that was written by K. Carlton Johnson and published by Traprock Press in 1992.

Courtesy photo|Patricia Hicks Ruiz

Patricia Hicks Ruiz works on a paint-ing. The artist has illustrated children’s books, including “Roberto Listens.”

Courtesy image|Patricia Hicks Ruiz

Patricia Hicks Ruiz, a local artist who has been involved with the Create Arts Center for years, made the children’s book “Roberto Listens,” from start to finish. She wrote the story, did the artwork and bound the book herself.

Patricia Hick Ruiz Oldtown Age: 71 Style: Children’s books, illustrations Books published: “Roberto Listens” was put out entirely by the author, and she also provided artwork for the book “Tales of a Keweenaw Mom” published by Traprock Books


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In their own wordsHistory professor captures Priest Lake’s

history through its past residents

Kris Runberg Smith St. Louis, Mo. Age: 54 Style of writing: Historical Books published: Two books, including “Pioneer Voices of Priest Lake,” and several other historical pieces

“We had this lovely material from Leonard Paul, but it wasn’t enough for a book.”

KrisRunbergSmithEditor, “Pioneer Voices of Priest Lake”

BYMICHELLENEDVED

Priest Lake is not only a place Kris Run-

berg Smith visits on a regular basis,

but it’s the center of a history woven

throughout her life. Runberg Smith

edited “Pioneer Voic-es of Priest Lake,” a project begun some 25 years prior to its publication, and one that makes possible her current venture, a comprehensive history of the Priest Lake area.

Runberg Smith, 54, is a history professor at Linden-wood University in St. Charles, Mo., and lives in St. Louis. Her great-grand-father, Howard Gumaer, arrived at Priest Lake in 1897 and her family has held gatherings at Coolin Bay since.

When Runberg Smith was studying in the public his-tory program at the University of Idaho in the early 1980s she pursued a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council and orga-nized an oral history project of Priest Lake.

“I trained a lot of people and I talked to a lot of people,” she said.

Twenty-five years later, her mother, Jeanne Tomlin, joined the board of directors at the Priest Lake Museum. Volunteers there found a reel-to-reel of Leonard Paul talk-ing about his experiences as a pioneer at Priest Lake. Paul began the Leonard Paul Store, a land-mark that still stands as a popular spot in Coolin.

“We had this lovely material from Leonard Paul, but it wasn’t enough for a book,” Runberg Smith said.

The group of researchers at the Priest Lake Museum gathered the stories of other “voices,” Runberg Smith said, all but one of whom has passed away.

The book, published by Keokee Pub-lishing in 2007, is a collection of oral histories, photos, maps, and tales of life at Priest Lake.

At the beginning of the book, Runberg Smith explains the sometimes tricky process of preserving the past through historical voices, while appealing to a contemporary audience.

“I followed guidelines adopted by the national Oral His-tory Association as I edited each interview, removing false starts and repeated information,” she writes. “At times I reorganized the sequence of some stories, making them easier for the reader to follow.”

Runberg Smith explained the effort was that of a group, with many volunteers gathering photos, writing captions and organizing the index.

“I hate books without an index,” she said with a laugh. Because of that volunteer mentality, the profits

from the book have spurred another project. Runberg Smith is now writing a comprehensive history of Priest Lake, a task that’s taking her across the country.

Talking with The Miner recently, she was in Seattle to celebrate her mother’s 80th birthday and review the National Archives there. She’s also worked with the Idaho State Historical So-ciety and Jesuit Archives, among other sources, and found a wealth of information in New

Haven, Conn. “We found some wonderful sources on Priest

Lake at Yale,” she said. She’s been doing a lot of the work at Priest

Lake. “The Priest Lake Museum … board has done

an amazing job outfitting an office there with the technology we need,” she said.

While the project doesn’t yet have a title, she hopes to get the manuscript to the Washington State University Press by the end of this year.

Priest Lake isn’t Runberg Smith’s only historical area of expertise. She’s written several pieces on St. Louis, Mo., her current hometown, and she wrote “Housing with Dignity: Fifty Years of the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority.”

She, her brothers and mother still share the cabin at Coo-lin that’s been in the family for generations.

Courtesy image|Keokee Publishing

Kris Runberg Smith edited “Pioneer Voices of Priest Lake,” in a col-laborative effort of the Priest Lake Museum. Her mother volunteered her for the project because of work Runberg Smith did in college.


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Still asking whyWriter explores characters by asking what makes them think

the way they doBYJANELLEATYEO

Veteran Gerald Beers

writes fiction under

the name G. Edward

Beers, but he draws from his

experience when he fought in

Europe as a teenager for his

books. “I like to write factually,” said the Priest

River area resident who’s 87 and a half, his wife Marie points out.

“I’m still asking why,” he said. “I don’t like to take the surface of what people think. I want to know why they think that way or what makes them think that way.”

Beers has been writing since retirement, doing some articles for magazines on cur-rent events and religion. He had a career as a civil engineer, and he’s written for trade magazines as well. “I use those same fact finding techniques whenever I write,”

he said. One of his unpublished

books, “Battle in Turin,” is not so much about a war battle, but a battle of the mind, he explains. “Who Was That Man,” is a book Beers self-published. It’s fiction, but based on his experience in Europe. It looks at the life of Jesus Christ from

the standpoint of a skeptic. Not all of his stories revolve around reli-

gion, but it’s a major contributor to people’s lifestyle, so he finds it’s an important aspect

of the characters in his books.

His other books include, “Terror in the Tunnel” and “The Rebel: Arams Odyssey in the One True

God,” available online through Barnes & Nobel.

G. Edward Beers Priest River Age: 87 1/2 Style of writing: “Fiction based on truth and experience” Books published: Three self-pub-lished, including “Who Was That Man,” “Terror in the Tunnel” and “The Rebel: Arams Odyssey in the One True God”“I don’t like to take

the surface of what people think.”

GeraldBeers


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Heavy machinery inspires children’s series

BYMICHELLENEDVED

Priest River’s Kelly Lynch owns a

landscaping and exca- vat-

ing company with

his two brothers. Their work

inspired his children’s book

series about Mighty Mike, a

project he worked on with

his other brother, Casey,

the illustrator. “We’ve always had the heavy equipment and enjoy

it,” Lynch said of his landscaping business. He’s done freelance writing for various hunting publications and publishes a local hunting newsletter. Putting his two pas-sions together, he came up with Mighty Mike, a construc-tion worker who helps out his community.

“I just thought of this character, and one day I thought that’d be a good idea for a book,” he said. The name Mike came from a beloved member of Lynch’s landscaping crews.

The result is a six-book collection published around Christmastime 2010.

Lynch said he wrote the story and talked with his brother, Casey, a Spokane painter, about illustrating the book. Casey did a handful of illustrations that Kelly sent out to various publishers, along with the story. Abdo

Publishing of Minnesota picked up the series and then worked with Casey, telling him what pictures were needed for the book.

Abdo Publishing focuses on library and school books, and the Mighty Mike series can be found at the Priest River Library and is used in a Sand-point school. The series should be com-ing to the Newport Public Library soon.

The project has led Kelly and Casey to start a new project, titled, “I’m Esther,” named after Kelly’s 4-year-old daughter. The series will be about Esther doing

things with her dad, such as collecting firewood and planting a garden.

Esther is one of four kids born to Kelly and his wife Lori, ranging in age from 6 to 1.

“They’re all really small and really fun,” Kelly said. Casey is married to Maggie and they also have four

kids, ranging in age from 10 to 1. The Mighty Mike series can be purchased online at

Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and is available in some Barnes & Noble stores.

Courtesy photo|Lori Lynch

Kelly Lynch, left, and his brother Casey Lynch together wrote and illustrated the six-book Mighty Mike series, about a construction worker who helps out his community. Kelly was inspired by the landscaping and excavating company he oper-ates with their two other brothers.

Kelly Lynch Priest River Age: 35 Style: Children’s books, hunting publications Books published: Six-book series on Mighty Mike


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Idaho writer raises kids, writes of vampires

BYDONGRONNING

Whether they enjoy the process or not, most

authors will tell you that writing is hard.

But for Jennifer Malone Wright, finding the

time to write is hard. She has five children, aged 15 to 1. “I mostly write at night,” she said. “I try to write at least a page or two

every day.” “The Birth of Jaiden” is the story of a male vampire who is raising a hu-

man child, one who is a powerful witch. “I had the idea about 10 years ago but it took a couple years to start writ-

ing,” she said. “I really struggled until the end was in sight.” The writing is only part of the work, as Wright researches extensively. “I had to make sure I wasn’t writing about an oak tree when there were

no oak trees there,” she said. When she writes about archery, she wants the work to be authentic, so extensive research is required.

“The Birth of Jaiden” is a self-published book, meaning no publisher paid her to write it. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t make money from her writ-ing.

“I made $1,000 this month alone,” she said. Her ebooks are published at Create Space, a part of Amazon. She said she sold 2,000 of the ebooks in March. The ebooks sell for 99 cents apiece.

Wright has always enjoyed reading and has written since she was a youngster.

“I wrote poetry, greeting cards, I physically made books,” she said. She wasn’t shy about getting her work distributed.

“I forced the teacher to put it in the library,” she said.

Jennifer Malone Wright Blanchard Age: 33 Style of writing: Paranormal fiction Books in print: “The Birth of Jaiden” E-books: The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter series, volumes 1-3

Courtesy photos|Jennifer Malone Wright

Jennifer Malone Wright has sold about 700 copies of “Birth of Jaiden,” which has been out since April 2011. She sells both ebooks and paperback versions of this novel. The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter is a series with four books by Blanchard author Jennifer Malone Wright. It’s available only in ebook format


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Sci-fi writer working on third in seriesCusick teachers encouraged writing


Pend Oreille County District Court Adminis-trator T.J. Keogh, right, with artist Mia Harper, who also works in District Court. Harper illustrated Keogh’s second book, “Time Begins Here.”

T.J. Keogh Newport Age: 35 Style of writing: Epic science fiction Books published: “The City of the Sky” and “Time Begins Here”

Excerpt: “For twelve hours there was only silence, punctuated now and then by the

occasional heavy sigh or yawn. Sean recognized the undeniable cultural truth in evidence: Ozzeans would not speak unless there was something to say, just as they would not act without a constructive purpose. Chitchat and idle conversation were left to outworlders, and it was only through the lens of his experience on the surface, as well as that on board Brighton the year before, that allowed him to see it.

And so the transport sped onward, toward an unknown fate, which its oc-cupants were unwilling to discuss. If there were opinions, they were kept hid-den. If there were concerns, they went unvoiced. Throughout the long hours, Sean remained in the pilot’s seat, vigilant and focused on the glass bubble in front of him. The vehicle’s brain pattern recognition system took all his thoughts as commands and translated them into actions, but once the course and speed were set, few actions were required. It was just a matter of waiting.”

-From “Time Begins Here,” Keogh’s second book

File photo

T.J. Keogh signs a book for a young reader at a book sign-ing event in Newport a couple years ago.

Pam Santilli had an

influence on T.J. Ke-

ogh’s writing. She was

his home room teacher when

he was in junior high school at

Cusick. He dedicated his 2010

novel, “Time Begins Here,” to

her. “She’s the one who got me interested in

writing for pleasure,” Keogh said. He was also encouraged by his Cusick high school math teacher Larry Brown.

Today Keogh has two epic science fic-tion novels out in print and is working on a third novel. He also offers e-book versions of the novels.

It took him 10 years to get his first novel, “The City of The Sky,” written. It is about the interactions between two cultures, set 700 years in the future.

The second book, “Time Begins Here,” went faster. He wrote that one in about a year.

He enjoys the process of writing. He has a day job as District Court Administra-tor, so he writes in the evening, usually spending a couple hours at it.

“I love it,” he says of writing. “It’s relax-ing to me.”

He works with a story board, block-ing out scenes for what will become a 130,000 word, 333 page novel. After he has a finished draft, he sends it to an editor, who marks it up and sends it back. Keogh makes the changes and sends it back. The book goes through at least three drafts and takes about four months.

The cover art for “Time Begins Here” was created by Keogh’s Pend Oreille County District Court colleague, Mia Harper, who has a degree in art.

“She did a great job,” Keogh said.

Keogh’s books are produced by iUniverse, Inc., a Indiana publisher.

“It’s subsidized publish-ing,” Keogh said, meaning the writer pays for editing, and the publisher handles distribution. The books are printed on de-

mand and are distributed online through several channels, including Barnes and Noble and Amazon, among others. They are also available in digital form.

“I sell more of the regular books,” Keogh said. He has sold hundreds of the books and gets a quarterly royalty check. He receives about 20-25 percent of the price of the book, he said.

Keogh’s advice to young writers? “Don’t get discouraged,” he said. “That’s

the trick, to you have people who encour-age you.”

BYDONGRONNING


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‘I’m not getting rich’Writing a creative outlet for Stratton

BYDONGRONNING

My whole life I

wanted to write

a book. One day I

just did,” explains Brad Strat-

ton, a Newport author who has

published two books “Colored

Waters” and “White Lies.” Stratton wrote “Colored Waters” in

2003. He self published the first edition of the book. Stratton’s advice for people interested in self publishing?

“Be careful, they’ll overcharge you,” he says.

Stratton had better luck when he got an agent.

“If you can get an agent, you can get a publisher,” he says. Stratton entered some excerpts from “White Lies,” in an Amazon writing contest, which led to the second book and a reprinting of “Colored Waters,” in 2010 by Second Wind Publishing.

Writing fiction is work, he says. “It’s torture,“ he says, “but it’s fun.”

He enjoys the challenge of the process. He works from an outline that takes a little time to develop.

“It takes about a month of just sitting, staring into space,” Stratton says. Then he sits down and writes. Even though he has an outline, the work takes on a life of its own.

“You don’t know anymore than any-one else how it will turn out,” he says. He will add or delete characters, as the story develops.

It took about two years to write “Col-ored Waters,” a mystery/crime novel featuring Michael Chambers, a private investigator, who is engaged to find out who is blackmailing his client, the beau-tiful daughter of a Hollywood producer.

His second book, “White Lies,” also features Chambers, this time in a story about a beautiful missing woman, a compulsive boyfriend and a mysterious monthly $5,000 payoff.

His advice for other writers? “Research, write honestly and edit

aggressively,” Stratton says. He quotes Stephen King’s book “On Writing,” in which King says “cut, cut, cut.”

Stratton, a former securities and bond trader, says he has sold a few thousand copies of the books.

“I’m not getting rich from it,” he said. But it is rewarding in other ways.

“It’s nice to have people who like your work,” he said.

Excerpt“Mr. Silverman, perhaps we should dispense with the pleasantries. We both know you aren’t the kind of man who hires a pri-

vate investigator on the basis of someone’s recommendation, at least not someone as far down on the guest list as Barry Mann. With your juice, you’ve already checked downtown and they gave me the nod.

“Probably a very conditional one but good enough or I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’ll bet the Mayor called personally. You said it was urgent and I’m here. Why not tell me about it.”

“All right Chambers, let’s get to it. They told me you weren’t stupid. They also said you had something of an attitude and were too fond of your own wit, that you could be difficult, although that’s not how they put it. I can see I was informed correctly. I was also told you were honest and could be counted on to see something through once you took it on, that you wouldn’t fold if things got a little rough. I hope they were right about that, too.

“I’m being blackmailed, Chambers, that is, my daughter is being blackmailed. It is an intolerable situation. I want you to find out who is doing it and I want you to make them stop.”

-From “Colored Waters,” Book 1 in the Michael Chambers Series by Brad Stratton

Brad Stratton Newport Age: 62 Style of writing: Mystery novel Books published: “Colored Waters” and “White Lies”


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Library HoursNewport Public Library

116 S. Washington Ave.509-447-2111www.pocld.orgMondays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Tuesdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.Wednesdays 1-5 p.m.Thursdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.Fridays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Saturdays 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.• Story Time, Thursdays 1 p.m. with

crafts and treats• Kid’s Movie Club, second Saturday

of the month, 10 a.m. with crafts and treats

• Classic Movie Saturday, second Saturday of the month 12:30 p.m. with snacks

• Family Movie Night, Thursdays 5:30 p.m. with snacks

Ione Public LibraryCommunity Center, 210 Blackwell509-442-3030Tuesdays 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., 2-6 p.m.Wednesdays 1-7 p.m.Thursdays 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., 2-6 p.m.Saturdays (first and third only) 10

a.m. to 3 p.m.• Book Discussion Group, first and

third Tuesdays, 4-5 p.m.• Teen movies, Wednesdays 5-7 p.m.• Lego fun, Saturdays 1-3 p.m.

Metalines Community LibraryCutter Building, 302 Park, Metaline

Falls509-446-3232Mondays 10 a.m. to noon, 1-6 p.m.Wednesdays 1-6 p.m. Fridays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.Saturdays (second and fourth only)

10 a.m. to 3 p.m.• Story Time, Mondays 10:30 a.m.• Story Time and Crafts, Fridays at

10:30 a.m.• Book Discussion Group, fourth Sat-

urdays at 10:30 a.m.• Writers Group, Second and Fourth

Mondays, 10 a.m. • Teen Movie, Wednesdays 3-5 p.m.• Lego Fun, Saturdays, 1-3 p.m.

Calispel Valley Library107 First Ave., Cusick509-445-1215Tuesdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.Wednesdays 1-5 p.m.Thursdays 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.Saturdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.• Story Time, Thursdays at 10:30 a.m.• Pinochle Night, Tuesdays at 6 p.m.• Loosely Knit, Thursdays, 1-3 p.m.

Blanchard Library412 Railroad Ave., Blanchard208-437-0801

http://westbonner.lili.orgTuesdays 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Thursdays 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.• Story Time, Wednesdays 10:30 a.m. • Pre-School Story Time, third Thurs-

days at 10:30 a.m.• Blanchard Book Talk, third Thurs-

days at 5:30 p.m.

Priest Lake LibraryHighway 57 – mile 28208-443-2454http://priestlake.lili.org/Tuesdays 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.Wednesdays 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.Thursdays 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.Fridays 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.• Knitting club, Wednesdays at 4 p.m. • Bounce N Books Baby Lap-sit Story

Time, Thursdays at 10:15 p.m.• Pre-school Story Time, Wednesdays

at 11 a.m.

West Bonner Library219 Main St., Priest River208-448-2207http://westbonner.lili.orgMondays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Tuesdays 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Thursdays 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.Fridays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.• Story Time, Thursdays 10:30 a.m.• After School Readers Club, Thurs-

days at 3 p.m. • Youth Advisory Council, first Mon-

day at 4 p.m.• River Writers, first and third Fridays

at 10 a.m. • Priest River Book Talk, fourth Tues-

days at 10 a.m.• Story Hour, fourth Tuesdays at 2:45

p.m. • Friends of the Library Book Sale, first

Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Spirit Lake Library217 N. Fifth Ave.208-623-5353http://spiritlake.ksalibraries.org/Mondays noon to 5 p.m.Tuesdays 2-7 p.m.Wednesdays 2-7 p.m.Thursdays 2-7 p.m.Fridays noon to 5 p.m.Saturdays noon to 4 p.m.• Pre-school Story Time, Mondays

11:30 a.m. to noon, for children ages 3-5

• Library Club, Thursdays, ages 5-8 from 3-4 p.m. and ages 9-12 from 4-5 p.m.

Libraries offer more than just books. Below are the hours for local library branches and schedules of some of the programs they offer

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Calendar of Events Spring 2012The following are events happening around the Pend Oreille River Valley this spring.

April

April 2No Foolin’ AuctionThe “No Foolin’” is a fundraiser at the

Ranch Club. Money supports the vari-ous events the Priest River Chamber of Commerce puts on each year.

April 6Open MicThe Pend Oreille Playhouse hosts a

monthly open mic night on the first Friday. Come play between 7-9:30 p.m. Admission is $2.

April 7Easter Egg HuntsAn Easter Egg Hunt is held in New-

port City Park at 10 a.m. It is sponsored by the Greater Newport Area Chamber of Commerce and the Newport Soropti-mist Club.

An Easter Party takes place at the Priest Lake State Park Indian Creek Campground starting at 12:30 p.m. The parking fee is $5 per car.

The Lion’s Club hosts a hunt at the Mudhole in Priest River.

The Blanchard Grange hosts an Easter egg hunt at 11 a.m.

April 13-15Boy Scouts Spring CamporeeBoy Scouts from around the region

will gather at the Newport Rodeo Grounds for classes on topics from horsemanship to space exploration.

April 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29‘Anne of Green Gables’The Pend Oreille Players stage this

classic country tale at the Pend Oreille Playhouse in Newport. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m.

April 14Sweets and DrinksThe sixth annual Sweets n’ Drinks

features wine, beer, chocolate and a fashion show with men in evening gowns and women in tuxedos at the Ranch Club in Priest River. The fun starts at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 each or two for $35 with proceeds benefiting area scout groups.

April 14Spring BazaarThe Usk Community Club hosts lunch

and craft booths to raise money for the Usk Community Hall. The community hall is located at 2442 Black Road. To save a craft table, contact Francis Hupp at 509-445-1223.

April 14Creative Spirits Art AuctionAn art auction along with a wine and

microbrew tasting will be held at the Blanchard Community Center.

April 19Spring ConcertThe Newport Middle and High School

Band puts on its spring concert at the middle school at 7 p.m.

April 21Priest Lake Loggers DayLogging competition in Nordman at

the Nordman Complex begins at noon. Barbecue ribs and burgers are available.

April 28Plant SaleThe WSU Extension Master Gardeners

will be selling plants and giving advice for your gardens at Stratton Elementary in Newport, starting at 9 a.m. For more information call the Extension Office at 509-447-2401.

April 28Health FairThe Newport Hospital and Health

Services Foundation hosts the Healthy Habit, Healthy Living Health Fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

May

May 4Open MicThe Pend Oreille Playhouse hosts a

monthly open mic night on the first Friday. Come play between 7-9:30 p.m. Admission is $2.

May 5Regional Yard SaleRunning for more than 7 miles along

Highway 2 from Priest River through Newport, many homes have their first yard sale of the season.

May 5Pend Oreille Valley Farmer’s MarketThe farmer’s market is open each Sat-

urday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. from May through October. It’s located at the Pend Oreille Playhouse, 240 N. Union Ave. in New-port. Vendors offer locally grown produce and plants and handmade crafts.

May 5Museum opensPend Oreille County Historical Society

Museum in Newport opens for the season. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day through mid-October.



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May 5Entrée Gallery Opens for the SeasonThe Entrée Gallery at Priest Lake’s

Reeder Bay opens for the summer season. A Mothers Day open house if planned for May 13 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

May 6Senior ShowcaseThe Pend Oreille Players Association

showcases talent of its graduating seniors. The event will be held at the Pend Oreille Playhouse at 3 p.m. The show is free, but donations are accepted for POPA’s schol-arship program.

May 11Tony Furtado ConcertThe Cutter Theatre hosts the guitar

playing and banjo artistry of Tony Furta-do at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance through May 4 and $12 at the show.

May 12Golf TournamentMillies hosts the third annual Foreplay

Open golf tournament at the Priest Lake Golf Course.

May 13Iris Garden OpensNewport Naturals iris gardens open to

the public on Mother’s Day and remain open through Father’s Day, June 19. The gardens are located at 205 N. Craig Ave. in Newport. Viewing is available Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

May 14-15Health FairPriest Lake’s St. Blanche Church hosts a

health fair from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.

May 18-19Artwork Through Generations ExhibitLocal arts groups co-sponsor an event

where they will explore your family tree and where your talent came from. A reception is planned May 19 from 5:30-7 p.m. at Create Arts Center in Newport.

May 18-19One Act Play FestivalYoung playwrights and young actors

put on the first ever Pend Oreille Players in Training one act play festival at the Pend Oreille Playhouse in Newport.

May 19Cutter Clutter SaleThe Cutter Theatre in Metaline Falls

holds its spring rummage sale and bake sale from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

May 19Puttin’ on the RitzSelkirk High School musicians put on

“Those Were the Days,” the 25th anniver-sary show of Puttin’ on the Ritz. Paid res-ervations are required for the 7 p.m. show held in the Sam Nicholas Gymnasium at the Selkirk junior/senior high campus.

May 25-27Priest Lake Spring Festival

CONTINUEDFROMPAGE37



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YEARS OF PEND OREILLE

COUNTY HISTORYpresented in this beautiful book.

Page 4

1910s a decade of growthfor the region, birth of Pend Oreille County

BY JANELLE ATYEO

OF THE MINER

The Pend Oreille valley

was growing rapidly

100 years ago, as the people of

Washington’s northeast corner

looked to break away from

Stevens County and form their

own government. Business

was booming, with lumber

mills working around the clock

and a new cement plant in

the new, new town

of Metaline Falls

(also established in

1911).Over the last 25

years, the Pend Oreille valley

had been homesteaded, and numerous little communities sprang up all along the river. Places like Blueslide and Jared that are all but wiped from the map today looked just as bustling as the established towns of Newport and Ione.

Stevens County was all well and good with the division, so long as those Pend Oreille folks didn’t inch the boundary line any further west than was proposed. Stevens County had once encapsulated much of eastern Washington. For the last 40 years leading up to Pend Oreille’s split, 10 or so counties had been formed from its reach. Pend Oreille was the last to leave the nest. It’s the states youngest county.

Talk of taking Pend Oreille on its own had been going

major players from King and Spokane counties didn’t take so warmly to the idea. Their major quarrel was with representation in the Legislature. At the time, each county had one rep. Giving lil’ ole Pend Oreille its own man would mean populous King County would have that much less of a say over things. King County’s delegate pointed out that representation would be 6,500 to 1 (Pend Oreille’s population) versus 15,000:1. We all know how much of a pull our rural counties have in Olympia today. I think King is

The division’s major movers were Fred and Fred. Trumbull and Wolf, that is. Trumbull was an attorney from Ione who planned the town’s incorporation the year before, and Wolf was publisher of The Newport Miner. He was an all-around citizen activist

to take the helm of the paper in 1907. The county division

He also served three terms in the state House of Representatives, starting in 1919. He pushed for an improved highway through Newport, and all the way into the 1950s, he helped bring about

the construction of Albeni Falls Dam.

The two local men sent petitions around and lobbied for the division in Olympia. The reasons for splitting off from Stevens County had to do

with transportation and population growth, but mostly – as in

most movements in history – it was money.

Taxes from Pend Oreille citizens contributed $32,000 per year to the Stevens County general fund. They guessed they could run their own county government for $27,000 per year, and they’d be better off for it. The people felt under represented. The Pend Oreille side held only 17 of the county’s 77 voting precincts. They didn’t like all the new bridges and infrastructure they saw going up on the other side of the mountains.

And there being no roads across those Selkirks, the trip to Colville was exhausting. For a local person wanting to conduct business with Stevens County, it was a three-day journey from Newport. The way the train schedules worked, a Pend Oreille resident would have to overnight in Spokane and in Colville, and again in Spokane on the homeward journey.

Choosing a county seat was a hot issue. Newport was named as the temporary seat by the legislature’s bill. It would stand until the next general election in 1912, so that meant a lot of talk in each community’s newspapers about why they were the best. Cusick and Usk proclaimed their central locations as their claim for the title. Ione edged Newport on population (both were about 1,600) and infrastructure, but Newport had the link to the outside world with the railroad there connecting so readily to Spokane and Idaho. Ione

THE VOICE OF PEND OREILLE COUNTY SINCE 1901

The county chronicles of 1911

1911 AT A GLANCE

March 25

May 25

May 30

June 22

July 24

Aug. 15

Aug. 22

Sept. 17

Sept. 29

Nov. 27

Dec. 31

A county is born

FILE PHOTO

Traveling on Cusick streets was rough in 1910. The Wike family’s store was one of the town’s first businesses.

IONE DEPOT IN 1910 – COURTESY PHOTO|PEND OREILLE COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM

The New CountyFROM CHINOOKERS IN THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW

(PRINTED IN THE NEWPORT MINER FEB. 23, 1911) The people up to MetalineExult in nature’s bounty,And know they’ve land enough in signTo continue a county;But how they groan and grouch and yellWhen people call it Penn Dorell. Ione, we know, has got the worth,Surrounding towns to dazzle;Her boosters say she has the earthAll pounded to a frazzle;What boots it if competitorsAre ground into a jelly,When rank outsiders call the placeA name like Pan Dorelly? There’s Newport, future county seat, A lively town, believe me;But what a wrenchThey give their French –Or do my ears deceive me?For even boosters proud as theyPronounce it blandly Ponderay. Small wonder that the senatorWhose soul is steeped in historyShould find the new-found titleAn Orthographic Mystery.But vain regrets would bow his headAnd salt tears drip a gallonShould he successfully imposeThe sainted name of Allen. Accept we then this county new,And place the name on fileWhere every prospect pleaseAnd only man is vile. But wish yourself in for HawaiiBefore you call it Pon-Do-rye-ee!

COURTESY PHOTO|PEND OREILLE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM

Two loggers work in nearly perfect winter logging conditions – cold with moderate snow. They started a cut with a saw and axes on the left side and are about halfway through the trunk on the right.

COURTESY PHOTO|PEND OREILLE COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM

Haying operations are in progress at George Johnston’s “Sky Ranch,” located southwest of Newport in Spring Valley.

The first county officers, appointed by Gov. Hay, were sworn in at 2:10 p.m. on June 12, 1911.

Fred Wolf

Fred Trumbull

The Miner Celebrating 100 years of Pend Oreille County

SEE 1911, 30

Page �


The county chronicles of 1910 -1919

The Miner Celebrating 100 years of Pend Oreille County

THE 1910S AT A GLANCE

1910

1911

1912

1913

1914

1916

1917

1918 1919

Rough and tumble Pend OreilleThe 1910s weren’t a walk along the Pend Oreille

BY JANELLE ATYEO

OF THE MINER

Thinking of life in early

Pend Oreille County,

it’s not a stretch to

imagine settlers toiling away

to raise a crop and feed their

families, or loggers with crude

equipment bucking away in

the dense woods. The 1910s weren’t easy.

residents went through some trying times.

People from all over the U.S. and other countries were settling in northeast Washington in the early 1900s. When neighbors bickered, they preferred to take matters into their own hands. Several murders resulted in the early days. A mining man in Metaline Falls was poisoned with strychnine in his coffee after an altercation with a nearby homesteader. Neighbors at Blueslide and Ruby were quarreling in what was called the “Kentucky Feud,” named after the state many of them had moved from. An ambush at the Blueslide train station happened in 1915. Shots were meant for the county’s prosecuting attorney, and the suspect wasn’t captured for nearly two years.

Even the founding fathers weren’t always on their best

behavior. Joe Cusick, who founded the mid-county town, shot and killed a former employee of his who did him wrong. It took two trials to convict him, but he went to prison, serving four years before the governor gave him a pardon. Still, he didn’t return to Cusick. He lived out his days in California.

occurred when a man at Lost Creek came home drunk and took to beating his wife and kids. As they ran away, he followed them, but not before getting in a tussle with the neighbor and threatening him with a knife. The neighbor

notoriously bad man dead on

Alcohol was often the incendiary factor when confrontations between neighbors and partners turned violent. Prohibition didn’t take effect in Washington until 1916 (lasting what must have been an agonizing 17 years), but controlling alcohol sales was one of the law’s major tasks. Women and “lewd persons” were prohibited from loitering at the saloons.

One Chinese immigrant, Sam Lee, was suspected of selling liquor without a

license, an article in The Miner said. The law set up a sting, sending in a couple of hoboes to order a round. That was at the City Cafe, not to be confused with the City Bar, which advertised on the

same page of The Miner that

Gilt Top (brewed in Spokane), Schlitz, Budweiser, Olympia, and Pabst Blue Ribbon in pints and quarts.

Along with that “unneighborly” conduct, the people of early Pend Oreille

County had plenty of other hazards to watch for. The area had in 1910 experienced one

recorded history. Structure

mid-night blaze that started in

the back of T.J. Kelly’s general store (located at the present Club Energy building) burned so hot that it turned the butter on the store’s front shelves to

Union Avenue leveled three buildings, two residences and outbuildings within an hour.

annually where there were no dams on the river. Logging accidents were frequent.

Businesses, particularly hardware stores, were victim to burglars, and bandits still held up the trains now and then.

SEE 1910-1919, 30

COURTESY PHOTO|PEND OREILLE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM

Fid’s Bar was a popular watering hole in early day Newport. It operated on Union Avenue in a building that is no longer standing. Fid’s Opera House, built in 1911, brought live shows and movies to Newport. It survives today as the apartments behind Owen’s Grocery.As the newly established

Pend Oreille County began to grow and expand, it was constantly defending itself and its worth to the state’s larger cities.

THIRD AND WASHINGTON IN NEWPORT, JANUARY 1913 – COURTESY PHOTO|PEND OREILLE COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM

COURTESY PHOTO|PEND OREILLE COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM

Smokes all around in Locke. This photo from the Ralph R. Isaacs album is one of several showing the pipe-smoking dog. Pictured here is possibly Isaacs and his son-in-law on the porch of the Isaacs cabin at Locke.

FILE PHOTO

A Kalispel Indian mother poses with her baby at Cusick in 1911. In those days, the tribe numbered fewer than 100 members and suffered from foreign disease brought by white settlers.

NEWPORT – Hundreds of swans migrate

through the Pend Oreille River Valley in

February and March, resting and feeding

on Calispell Lake during their journey to

their northern breeding grounds.

The Pend Oreille River Tourism Alli-

ance organizes a Tundra Swan Festival

each year. This year it will be held March

20, near Calispell Lake. Registration ends

Friday, March 12. The cost is $10 for

adults and $5 for children 12 years old and

younger. Registrants will gather at the Camas

Center for Community Wellness and leave

by bus at 10 a.m. for Calispell Lake. The

owners of the property have afforded access

to the site. Participants will then return to the

Camas Center for lunch. Presenters during

lunch include biologist Martha Jordan,

known as “The Swan Lady,” Kalispel Tribe

of Indians’ wildlife program manager Ray

Entz, and Pend Oreille Public Utility District

resources biologist Bart George.

Entz will review the tribe’s wildlife

program and projects. Jordan will discuss

the tundra swan – myth, legend and fact.

George will cover a survey of osprey, eagle,

Great Blue Heron and Cormorant along the

Pend Oreille River.

This will be the third year for the Tundra

Swan festival, organized in association

with the Kalispel tribe and PORTA.

Tundra swans draw a crowd, being a

rare site for bird spotters. Their summer

breeding grounds are the lakes and ponds

of the North American tundra. During

migration and the winter months, birders

�nd the Tundra swan most often on shal-

low lakes, ponds and estuaries, often near

agriculture lands.

Sometimes called the “whistling swan,”

Tundra swans feed on seeds, roots and

Weeks will retire;

endorses Botzheim

BY YOUSSEF SLEIMAN

OF THE MINERNEWPORT – One high pro�le

election this year already has its

�rst candidate. And Pend Oreille

County Sheriff Jerry Weeks says

he will retire and endorse him.

Alan Botzheim announced this

week something many people

have know for years: that he is

running for Pend Oreille County

sheriff this fall. He is currently

sheriff’s inspector

and third-in-charge

of the county sheriff’s

of�ce. He is a former

Ione council member.

Weeks said Monday

that he is retiring at

the end of his term,

ending his 40th year

in law enforcement.

Weeks said he is endorsing

Botzheim for the position since he

has “helped bring us in a big way

to the level of pro�ciency we have

today.” Botzheim has worked his way

THE NEWPORT MINER

THE NEWPORT MINER

www.pendoreillerivervalley.com

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Volume 107, Number 4 | 2 Sections, 22 Pages 7


Planning a wedding?

Check out our guide on 6A & 7A

FIND IT OR S in The ClassiN

Online T

Botzheim

OPINION 4A • WEDDING G

| | B R I E F L

MINER PHOTO|YOUSSEF SLEIMAN

Spring sports start outside

For the first spring in many coaches’ memories, the Newport High School spring athletes began March 1 on dry fields.

Baseball, softball, cross country and boys’ soccer got in their first practice. Boys’ soccer coach Jerry Person said they would

be practicing on the Stratton Elementary field with the possibility of a home game on the Don Ellersick Memorial Field. All

Washington schools began Spring sports practice Monday. In Priest River, softball and baseball practice began Friday, Feb. 26,

and track began Monday.

FILE PHOTO

Tundra swans migrate through the Pend Oreille River Valley through the late winter, stopping for rest and

food on Calispell Lake. The white swans with dark beaks end their journey on breeding grounds in the north.

Broadband stimulus funding hopeful

NEWPORT – Pend Oreille County hopes are one

step closer to getting a �ber optic broadband con-

nection. The public utility district’s application for

stimulus funds has moved on to a due diligence pro-

cess where federal workers are delving into details of

the project for an exhaustive review.

If funded, the PUD would put $35 million into

expanding its �ber system to homes in the county’s

south end. “So there’s no Styrofoam check yet, but it’s a really

good sign,” community network system manager Joe

Onley said Monday. He and the PUD’s consultant

are working with the feds on a list of 25 items th

want to know more about. The state’s legi

ave been watching the issue in Washi

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., plans to make sure th

administration knows that she supports the P

application for funding, according to her

The project was denied from one r

but that money came mostly in t

The program it is being con

vides grant funding. Th

up with $7 million

grant.

First candidate

announces 2010

run for sheriff

SEE SHERIFF, 2A

Personnel complaint

prompts consultant hire

BY JANELLE ATYEO

OF THE MINERNEWPORT – Pend Oreille Coun-

ty commissioners have received a

complaint about a county em-

ployee, and in order to impartially

review the issue, they’ve hired a

consultant. The investigation concerns an

employee from the public works

department, which covers roads,

solid waste and facilities. Com-

missioners would not divulge

whether the complaint stemmed

from a county employee or from

the public. Personnel issues are

exempt from the open public

meetings law.

Chairwoman Diane Wear said

she could only con�rm that this

is an internal investigation. In

reviewing the board minutes, no

one has been placed on leave.

Prothman consultant Mike

Cecka will be conducting inter-

views and reviewing documents,

policies and procedures over the

next two to three weeks.

Wear said he will likely work

two to three days per week, at $50

SEE COMPLAINT, 2A

Impact payment bill awaits Senate floor

BY JANELLE ATYEO

OF THE MINERNEWPORT – Pend Oreille County of�cials are

shocked at how well their bill on impact payments

is doing in the Senate, especially after such a cold

reception at the beginning of the session.

The bill received the go-ahead from the Senate’s

Ways and Means Committee after a hearing

Thursday. It passed one of two steps in the Rules

Committee, which will decide if it will go to the

Senate �oor for a second reading.

The county introduced a bill that would set a

formula for calculating impact payments Seattle

“If we’re going to make … any

amendments to the bill … let’s put a

formula in.”Nancy Lotze

Selkirk School District Superintendent

SEE PAYMENT

Tundra Swan Festival March 20

SEE SWANS, 2A

Big election year in Bonner C

Filing deadline

in two weeksBY MICHELLE NEDVED

OF THE MINERSANDPOINT – A majority of

county ofces and several state

positions are up for election i

Idaho this year. Candid

le to run from Mo

8 through Frid

Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.

to 5 p.m. To review ling rules a

download forms, vi

ner County Web

there clickthe Cod

Wednesday, July 2, 2008 75¢

The Voice of Pend O

reille County Since 1901

Volume 1

07 • Num

ber 21

3 Sections

• 26 Pa

ges

The Miner Online: www.pendoreillerivervalley.com

Have a Happy &

Safe 4th of July

See pages

1B -3B

Sign up now for

Poker Paddle

See page1

0B

tyeo

Newport Rodeo blows fa

ns away

Miner photo/Janelle Atyeo

A bull tosses his rid

er Saturday at the Newport R

odeo. The 2008 Newport Pro-West Rodeo entertained

crowds Friday and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, June 27, 28 and 29. Festivities also included

a carnival, live music, a parade and fo

od. There were 220 cowboys and cowgirls entered into th

e

competition. Audience attendance was down slightly this year, b

ut exact numbers were not yet available

Tuesday. See more pictures on page 8A and at The Miner Online, www.pendoreille

rivervalley.com.

en regular hours o

n Thursd

or Fourth

er

Two districts

move to merge

By Youssef Sleim

an

Of The Miner

NEWPORT – Discussion of an

idea to consolidate Pend Oreille

County’s eight fire districts have

moved two fire districts to begin

the process of m

erging with Pend

Oreille Fire Distr

ict No. 3.

Commissioners f

or fire districts

No. 1 and No. 7 have begun

drawing legal petitions to start

the consolidation process. Fire

chief Mark Havener of fire distr

ict

No. 3 has continued to meet fire

commissioners about the process

and benefits of consolidating fire

districts.

The fire commissioners

for fire districts N

o. 1 and No. 7 will

draw a petition to fire distr

ict No. 3,

requesting the merger.

Once fire district No. 3 approves

the petition, each distric

t will

begin phrasing the question for th

e

ballots in November. Fire district

consolidations require 60-percent

approval among the registered voters

in an affected district.

Fire district No. 7 chief Bruce

Coleman said his fire commissi

oners

are filling out the information.

Coleman said the greatest benefit to

them is the increased coverage. Fire

district N

o. 7 has nine volunteers,

including Coleman. At times, th

e fire

station has two volunteers a

vailable

while the rest work jobs, le

aving the

district so

metimes vulnerable.

“If the residents

get all the

information, and they don’t see just

the tax raise, it will p

ass,” Coleman

said, adding that fire district N

o. 7

residents often wait fo

r service fro

m

See FIR

E on page 2A

POVN expanding

wireless s

ystem

New projects hope to

reach Cusick, Sacheen Lake

By Janelle Atyeo

Of The Miner

NEWPORT – P l ans a re

materializing for providing Internet

service through wireless signal

along the Pend Oreille River Valley

– possibly to Cusick and also to the

Sacheen Lake area.

Newport-based Internet se

rvice

provider Pend Oreille Valley

Network (POVN) w

ill constru

ct a

wireless tower on Cooks M

ountain

sometime this month. The tower

may allow the signal to reach Cusick.

It will a

lso allow the company to

install repeaters a

long the river to

stretch the signal further. POVN

also plans to add new equipment to

See POVN on page 2A

Hearing delayed in PUD-PNC case

The PUD and the U.S. Forest

Service have examined four scenarios

for future operations of each of th

e

Sullivan Lake and Mill P

ond dams.

The cost estimates vary with the

amount of mitigation measures

required. All options excluding

complete removal of the dams have

continued annual operations and

maintenance costs, as lis

ted.

Here are the estimated costs

of

each:

Sullivan Lake Dam

Mill Pond Dam

Keep as is

$30,000 to $50,000 O&M

Add fish passage $500,000 to $2 million

$500,000 to $5 million

Plus $150,000 O&M Plus $100,000 to $500,000 O&M

artial removal

$130,000 to $600,000

$400,000 to $2 million

Plus $20,000 to $40,000 O&M Plus $50,000 to $200,000 O&M

l$500,000 to $2 million

$3.6 to $10 million

Weather

doesn’t

phase

crowds

By Michael Denuty

Of The Miner

NEWPORT - Hot weather and

high fuel prices had their effect

but didn’t stop Newport fro

m

having another successful rodeo

weekend.

Reports are that ro

deo attendance

was down a bit, but the parade,

music in the park, craft booths,

Soroptimists

’

barbecue and Eagles’ cowboy

breakfasts all w

ent well.

Spectators filled the sidewalks

downtown Saturday even though

the temperature was already topping

90 degrees.

Heat didn’t appear to hurt the

concert in the park - th

e park was

pretty full through the afternoon and

people said the music was good,

Leona Raven of the Newport

Soroptimist

Club said they had a

good turnout at their b

arbecue in

the park until it sim

ply got too hot

late in the afternoon.

There were some complaints

about the Paradise Amusements

carnival being small b

ut it met its

contract obligation of eight rides,

according to Chamber of Commerce

manager Dave Livingston. The

See RODEO on page 2A

Public reviews scenario

s

for Sulliv

an Lake future

Will dams re

main?

By Janelle Atyeo

Of The Miner

NEWPORT – Public informatio

nal

meetings regarding the future of

Sullivan Lake, a popular camping

destination in north Pend Oreille

County, wrapped up June 24

by exploring different scenarios:

keeping or removing th

e dams at

Sullivan Lake and Mill P

ond.

The license to operate the dams,

known collectively as the Sulliv

an

Creek Hydroelectric Project, expires

this fall. D

am owner Pend Oreille

Public Utility Distr

ict has chosen not

See LAKE on page 10A

BY JANELLE ATYEO

OF THE MINERNEWPORT – Rising costs of

the Box Canyon Dam turbine

upgrade project brought the Pend

Oreille Public Utility District and

its largest customer, the Ponderay

Newsprint Co., into the court-

room. While power costs are at

the heart of the issue, it’s unclear

if the parties are ready to resume

negotiations over the company’s

power purchase contract just yet.

Before �ling suit against the

PUD, Ponderay Newsprint,

which operates a paper mill in

Usk, brought up six issues in the

20-year contract it would like to

change. PUD general manager

Bob Geddes responded to those

requests last month, outlining

where the PUD would be will-

ing to negotiate and asking the

newsprint company to drop the

lawsuit.

“We hope that PNC can join us

in such negotiations, and move on

to the real issue of contract adjust-

ment that you have outlined,”

Geddes wrote. “However, an es-

sential element of any settlement

would include

your agree-ment to drop

the pending lawsuit …”In a re-sponse dated

July 28, Paul Machtolf,

Ponderay Newsprint resident

manager and vice president,

reiterates that dropping the suit

would involve resolving certain

points of the power contract. The

company is not willing to drop

the lawsuit unless the two parties

reach an agreement, he told The

Miner Tuesday.

“The PUD needs to be open to

THE NEWPORT MINER

THE NEWPORT MINER


Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Volume 106, Number 26 | 3 Sections, 28 Pages 75¢

THE VOICE OF PEND OPREILLE COUNTY SINCE 1901

34th Annual Kalispel Powwow

check out the highlights. 7A

State Legislature Candidates address

Pend Oreille County issues. 1C & 2C

And the ducks are offM

After being postponed once this summer due to a fa

town Chamber of Commerce’s Duck Race was

place winner of a $150 gift certificate wa

ertificate, went to Big Moose Rent

Betty Wells. The chamber

5 last year. The duck

took about

Kalispels host 34th a

In a blur of color, a young dancer makes his

urday night, Aug. 2. The Kalispel Trib

stick games, a softball tournam

Miner Online, www.PendO

Riley Creek Lumber Company buys JD Lumber

Fate of the mill is unknown

BY MICHELLE NEDVED

AND MICHAEL DENUTY

OF THE MINERPRIEST RIVER – After 27 years

of operation, the JD Lumber Inc.

mill in Priest River has been sold

to Riley Creek Lumber Co., effec-

tive Oct. 3. The sale includes the

sawmill, equipment and the plant

property, according to Random

Lengths, an industry publica-

tion. The mill is located on Bodie

Canyon Road, on the west side of

Priest River. Managers announced the

decision to employees on Fri-

day, though mill manager Dave

Slaugther said they do not wish to

speak to the media. Calls to Riley

Creek’s owner and president Marc

Brinkmeyer were not returned.

While speculation is running

rampant in the community, there

has been no of�cial word about

the fate of the mill, whether Riley

Creek will close it down, or con-

tinue operations.

The mill site is not within Priest

River’s city limits, but mayor Jim

Martin said the switch will most

likely affect the local economy.

“I don’t know what’s going to

happen. I don’t want to speculate.

I know it’s going to have an affect

on the economy,” Martin said.

If the mill does close, Martin

said the community will have

to �nd ways to absorb those lost

jobs. As other companies move in

and expand in Priest River, such

as Aerocet and Harrison Dock

Builders, Martin sees a switch in

industry that has been a long time

coming. In December 2007, Slaughter

said the mill employed about 230

people. In January of this year,

between 10 and 12 people were

laid off. The sale isn’t the only major

change planned for Riley Creek.

The Laclede lumber company and

Bennett Forest Industries Inc. of

Grangeville announced in early

July that the companies plan to

merge by Sept. 1.

Company of�cials said this move

will help the two family-owned SEE RILEY, 10AElection ballots in

voters’ hands

BY MICHAEL DENUTY

OF THE MINERNEWPORT – Ballots are start-

ing to come in for Pend Oreille

County’s primary election. As of

Tuesday afternoon, 583 ballots

had been returned to the county

auditor’s of�ce. Ballots were

mailed out on July 30 and as of

Monday the county had approxi-

If you are a registered voter and

have not received your ballot by

now contact the county auditor’s

of�ce. Ballots may be voted at any time

in the next two weeks, but they

must be turned in by Tuesday,

Aug. 19, at 8 p.m. or be post-

marked by Aug. 19.

This election operates under the

state of Washington’s new “Top

2” primary election rules – the

top two vote getters move

the general election i

ber, regardless

Partisan cas pr

Power contract revisions

could drop lawsuit

SEE PUD, 2A

WEB EXTRA:

VISIT THE MINER

Online to download letters

from the PUD

and Ponderay

Newsprint.

PUD and Ponderay square off on issues via letters

C

ause she had not heard

nd didn’t have a

other event for

is responsible

booth o

public garden in Priest River. The meet-

ing will be 6 p.m. at city hall.

Two property owners will allow the city

to use their land in the city as public gar-

den, where people can plant and harvest

their own fruits and vegetables. Anyone

interested in �nding out more or helpin

organize the garden is encouraged t

THE NEWPORT MINER

THE NEWPORT MINER


Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Volume 107, Number 15 | 2 Sections, 22 Pages 75¢


Join the fu

n at Prie

st Lake M

emorial

Weekend Spring Festiv

al. See Schedule 6A - 7

A

Need a Pet? Check out all

the pets

in the

Adopt-A-Pet

6B

MINER PHOTO|ROSEMARY DANIEL

ly iel, left. Also performing are Miles

Northern pike making splash on Pend Oreille

BY MICHELLE NEDVED

OF THE MINER

SPOKANE – Northern pike are becoming

a successful sport �shery in the Pend Oreille

River, and tournaments are being held a

couple times a year.

Most recently, Keith Hoffman of Gone Fishin’

Lure Co. of Spokane, held a tournament April

18-19 at Box Canyon Dam. He said it was a

partial success, but the weather wasn’t as

warm as he had hoped.

Hoffman said he held the tournament not to

make a pro�t, but to raise money to put in

to

research of northern pike on the river.

“Until the research is done, we won’t have

regulations implemented on pike in the river,”

he said. “I would like to see a trophy �shery

preserved for many years to come. If managed

properly, a trophy �shery for pike as well as

the other highly targeted �sh in the river is

possible.”

The tournament consisted of 15 anglers and

six people serving as judges, two of which were

biologists from the Kalispel Tribe of Indians.

Several �sh were hooked but only two were

landed. The water had warmed enough to put

the �sh in the spawn, Hoffman said, making

them nearly impossible to catch, especially

using arti�cial lures only. The winning �sh

went to Ryan Quaintance. It m

easured 25

inches. The other �sh caught was even smaller

at 22 inches, by Hoffman’s grandfather Tom

McManus.

Hoffman said he plans to hold the tourna-

ment again next year, at a later date to avoid

spawning. He said this was a learning year,

and he’ll take what he learned and use it n

ext

year.

Fishing on the Pend Oreille River is open

year-round, but a license is required from the

state you are �shing in. “Until the research

is done, w

e won’t

have regulations implemented on

pike in the river.”

Keith Hoffman

Gone Fishin’ Lure Co.

PUD turbine

project may

be delayed

Manufacturer behind

schedule

BY JANELLE ATYEO

OF THE MINER

NEWPORT – Crews at Box

Canyon Dam have been gear-

ing up for the �rst new turbine

that is to be installed there over

the next year. But th

e unit is

behind schedule at the manu-

facturer, and the project may

have to be delayed a year.

Timing is critical for install-

ing the massive new unit.

The current schedule has it

complete

by March

15, 2010.

The turbine

needs

to be in

operation

by the time

spring melt

starts causing high �ows in

the Pend Oreille River. If the

STOCK PHOTO

A northern pike fishery is growing in the Pend Oreille River. Two fishing tournaments are held on the river a year.

WEB EXTRA:

DOWNLOAD THE

CONSULTANT’S

turbine report on

the scheduling

concerns at The

Miner Online.

SEE TURBINE, 2A

Verizon sells o

ut of this area

Frontier will ta

ke

over in Pend Oreille

and Bonner counties

BY YOUSSEF SLEIMAN

OF THE MINER

NEW YORK – The last major

telephone company in Pend

Oreille and Bonner counties

has sold its remaining �ber-

optic and landline telephone

accounts.

The historic departure of

Verizon Communications’ resi-

dential service from Newport,

Priest River, Priest Lake and

Sandpoint – as well as 10 other

states – will transition own-

ership to Connecticut-based

Frontier Communications.

In 1997, the federal govern-

ment created the Universal

Service Fund to tax urban

SEE VERIZON, 2A

Extension program not

expecting large cuts

BY JANELLE ATYEO

OF THE MINER

NEWPORT – Though the

Washington State University

announced a proposal to cut

$3.14 million from the exten-

sion program in order to deal

with state budget reductions,

the Pend Oreille County branch

is not expecting any large cuts.

“We’re �ne,” extension agent

Janet Lambarth said, adding

that the 4-H program is part

of extension and should not be

cut.

She said there will likely be

no increase in salaries for the

next two years, and the of�ce

may not receive its allocation

for postage and bulk mailing.

Pend Oreille extension current-

ly has a $2,800 annual budget

for mailing. The of�ce sends

out three quarterly newslet-

ters: the 4-H Pipeline, Garden-

ing in Pend, and Diggings, for

which extension partners with

the Kalispel Tribe of Indians.

SEE EXTENSION, 2A

Two Selkirk teachers la

id off

Two more teachers

won’t be replaced

BY JANELLE ATYEO

OF THE MINER

METALINE – Amidst funding

cuts and declining enrollment,

the Selkirk School District

has laid off one full-time and

one part-time teacher. T

wo

teachers who either retired or

resigned will not be replaced

next school year, and one staff

member had hours reduced.

Notices went out to staff

Friday, May 15. One full-time

teacher in the high school was

laid off.

“Once the budget is �nalized

I am hoping the funding will

be there to rehire this staff

person,” superintendent Nancy

Lotze said. SEE SELKIRK, 2A

Wednesday, October 18, 2006 75¢

The Voice of Pend Oreille County Since 1901

Volume 105 • N

umber 36

4 Sections •

36 Pages


Miner photo/Michael Denuty

Pend Oreille County Library Library District trustees meeting at Cusick

Community Center Oct. 10 included, left to rig

ht, Debbie Harkness, Kim

McNaughton, Bettie Perry and Pat Weeks. Chair D

ale Weathers was not

in attendance. Library director Janet Lyon is at right. B

oth Harkness and

McNaughton turned in their resignations to the county commissioners after

the meeting.

JUST FOR YOUR

HEALTH. . .See pages 1D - 6D

Assesor

candidate

interviews

See page 9B -10B

Library board reprimands director

TEDD plans grind forward slowly

By Jeanne Gustafson

Of The Miner

NEWPORT – The Tri-County

Economic Development District

(TEDD) has several plans in

the works, which all seem to be

progressing at a much slower pace

than originally anticipated by TEDD.

There is some feeling in the county

that the turnover in the Pend Oreille

economic development specialist

position has affected Pend Oreille’s

coverage by TEDD.

TEDD recently hired John

Halterman as Pend Oreille County’s

new economic development

specialist. Halterman is t

he fourth

economic development specialist

in less than four years. H

e replaced

Josh Hall, who resigned June 30.

Hall had replaced Suzanne Norquist

in September of 2005. Norquist

replaced Theresa Sanders in July

2004.

Members of Pend Oreille County

government have expressed concern

over the turnover in the position

since TEDD became the county’s

Associate Development Organization

(ADO) in April of 2002.

Newport Mayor Fred Anderson

said he thinks it is very difficult to

attract quality people who can stay

in the area with the low salary the

development specialist positio

n

pays, and Pend Oreille County

commissioner Dean Cummings

See TEDD on page 2A

Two board members

resign after hot meeting

By Michael Denuty

Of The Miner

CUSICK – The Pend Oreille County Library

District Board of Trustees presented list

s of alleged

insubordination to Library Executive Director Janet

Lyon after a tense library board meeting last week.

After the meeting two board members, apparently

frustrated by the situation and heat fro

m the community,

resigned.

At a 4-1/2 hour long special meeting held Oct. 10

at the Cusick Community Center, the board voted to

“deliver” to Lyon a previously discussed Corrective

Action Plan and they also voted to issue a Writte

n

Reprimand that Lyon said she had not seen.

The trustees’ allegations against Lyon include

comments she allegedly made to the board that sh

e

was not willing to eliminate the computer network

specialist’s job or reduce his hours as they directed.

Lyon had previously responded in writing to the

Corrective Action Plan but said she didn’t understand

some of the complaints. She said at the meeting that

since she had not seen the Written Reprimand before,

she would be responding in writing this week, delivering

her response at the Oct. 17 board meeting (after The

Miner’s deadline).

The board of trustees on Oct. 10 approved a

preliminary budget that cuts the positio

n of computer

specialist Kevin Paulus fro

m 40 hours per week to

30 hours and also eliminates the outside Webmaster

position, which costs $

4,800 per year.

The board held the special meeting to finish the

agenda of the Sept. 19 regular meeting. Vice chair Bettie

Perry ran the meeting; chair Dale Weathers w

as not

present and called later to say he was still at work.

After the meeting that included a few harsh exchanges

between some of the 25 people in the audience and

the board, trustees Debbie Harkness and Kimberly

McNaughton sent letters of resignation to the county

commissioners effective immediately.

On Monday, the county commissioners agreed

to advertise for applications for the open library

board seats. Commissioner Ken Oliver said several

applications had already been submitted before they

had even accepted the resignations.

Oliver said he wants to

have a careful interview

process before appointing new members. H

e said he

doesn’t believe they have the authority to appoint an

entire new board as some have suggested.

Harkness stated in her letter of resignation that, “I

do not feel that my position is promoting the long-term

objectives of the library. During my tenure as a trustee

I did what I believe is r

ight for the library and Pend

Oreille County by being objective, taking an active role

in being informative on all issues and being fiscally

responsible.”

She also stated in the letter, “I feel that I have been

unjustly scrutinized in public and in the media for

making people accountable for their actions and for

implementing library policy. The hostile environment

See LIBRARY on page 12A

Still OK to push powder in Washington

Colville National Forest caribou recovery area

named in lawsuit but not banned to snowmobiles

By Jeanne Gustafson

Of The Miner

TALINE FALLS – The

rest isn’t the only

ibou – and

le the

Washington state forest, Newport

and Sullivan Lake District Ranger

Betty Higgins said.

According to the U.S. Forest

Service, about 11 percent, more

than 105,000 acres, of the

woodland caribou recovery area is

h Colville National Forest in

Higgins said that so far

m to be happy

n Lake

district is

making to limit im

pacts

on caribou.

Mark Sprengle, executive director

of the Selkirk Conservation Alliance,

said the topography and dense

vegetation in the Colville National

Forest lessens th

e effects there. He

said they don’t plan to seek any

specific remedy on the Washington

side of the caribou habitat at th

is

time, because they are hopeful they

can negotiate with that district, and

See CARIBOU on page 12A

Candidates out in

Newport in full fo

rce

By Jeanne Gustafson

Of The Miner

NEWPORT – Neither rain nor

dark of night could prevent the

nd Oreille County candidates

s from coming together

night at Newport

t 16. They

of

answers.

David Livingston, director of

the Newport/Oldtown Chamber

of Commerce, presided over the

event, in which each candidate had

the opportunity to talk free form

for three minutes, then answer

questions from the audience for

one minute each. After the question

eriod, the candidates each got a

ute wrap up.

ns ranged from th

u runnint

IEFL

Wednesday, November 8, 2006

75 ¢

The Voice of Pend Oreille County Since 1901

Volume 105 • Number 39

2 Sections • 22 Pages


Win a Turkey! 52 Chances to Win!

Entry forms on page 8A and 9A

Honored for leadership

Miner photo/Jeanne Gustafson

Newport American Legion Commander George Lunden accepted a

plaque from Newport High School Monday, Nov. 6 at their Veteran’s

Day assembly. Newport student Amanda Parsley described how

Lunden served in the Army after graduating from Selkirk High

School in 1945. Lunden was a clerk in World War II, then re-enlisted

after graduating from Washington State University and served as a

supply sergeant in Korea. Lunden retired from the U.S. Forest Service

after 35 years and served on the Pend Oreille County Civil Service

Board and the Newport Cemetery District board. A number of area

veterans gathered at Newport High School for the ceremony. The

school also presented the legion with a red, white and blue wreath,

pictured at left.

See LEVY on page 2A

See LIBRARY on page 2A

Weather woes for PUD

eille PUD crews were still repairing a powe

ad in Newport early Tuesday mornin

ng for the PUD, said the soft we

eep the trees in place. The

r hour.

County unsure if

road level shift

is in the future

By Janelle Atyeo

Of The MinerNEWPORT – During Pend

Oreille County budget hearings,

which are now complete, officials

talked about penciling in money

for a road levy shift. Taking money

from the road department was one

idea they are considering as they try

to balance a budget with almost $1

million dollars more of expenses

than revenue. Auditor Carla Heckford said

she did not include the shift in the

updated budget this week.

“Who knows if we’re going to

have to do that,” Commissioner

Ken Oliver said.

He said because the county doesn’t

know where the revenue will stand at

the end of the year, it’s difficult to tell

if the levy shift will be needed. At the

beginning of this week, the current

expense budget totaled just over $8

million in expenditures and $7.06

million in revenue – a difference of

just under $950,000.

Last year was the first time

commissioners implemented a road

levy shift – taking $200,000 worth

of levy power from roads to balance

the current expense budget. This

amount from the road budget was

backfilled with money from capital

Library board upholds

disciplinary actions

Brewster, Six appointed

as library trustees

By Michael Denuty

Of The MinerNEWPORT – The Pend Oreille

County Library Board of Trustees

voted last Friday to uphold the

disciplinary actions they had

previously taken against library

director Janet Lyon – a Corrective

Action Plan and written Reprimand

for insubordination. The only

change made was that the trustees

determined that she had not violated

the open meetings act when she e-

mailed the board members.

Meanwhile, the Pend Oreille

County Board of Commissioners

voted on Tuesday afternoon to

appoint Jim Brewster and Eva Gayle

Six to fill two vacancies on the five-

Student arrested for making bo

Juvenile with knife at school suspected of makin

By Michelle Nedved

Of The MinerMETALINE FALLS – Law

enforcement agents arrested a 14-

year-old freshman from Selkirk High

School last week on felony charges

of possessing an explosive d

after the juvenile alleged

three pipe bombs

The Pend Oreille CountyS

Office did not release

name, but he will

Court ThusaidCo

The event begins with the Priest Lake EMT’s bake sale Friday at Milepost 22 on Highway 57. The Sportsman’s Association Pancake Feed is Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to noon at Coolin Corners. Coolin invites everyone on Saturday and Sunday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., for the arts and crafts fair, food booths including pancakes, sausages and hamburgers, free horse-drawn wagon rides, and the Coolin Days Parade Saturday at noon. “People Helping People’s” wine and cheese charity auction, sponsored by Elkins Resort, is Saturday 3-9 p.m. A silent auction begins at 3 p.m. with a buffet dinner at 5 p.m. and the annual live charity auction at 6 p.m. The evening wraps up with live mu-sic at Elkins Lounge at 9 p.m. The annual Priest Lake 10-mile fun run and 4 mile run/walk is Sunday at 9:30 a.m., starting at Coolin Corners.

May 25-28Blanchard Community Rummage SaleThe Blanchard community holds a

plant sale and rummage at 26299 High-way 41.

May 24Tiger Museum OpensThe Tiger Museum and Gift Shop,

located at the junction of Highways 20 and 31, opens for the season. The mu-seum’s exhibits feature the early history of the region. It will be open May through September, plus the first three weekends in October during Lions Club Train Rides.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Monday.

May 24Boundary Dam Tours BeginFree guided group tours of the Bound-

ary Hydroelectric Project north of Meta-line are available Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, Thursdays through Mondays at 10:30 a.m., noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Reservations are not required, but groups of 10 or more should call in advance, 509-446-3083.

May 27Memorial Day CeremoniesNorth county communities have

Memorial Day ceremonies Sunday with a service at the Ione Cemetery at noon, the Metaline Cemetery at 12:30 p.m., and a ceremony at the Metaline Falls Bridge at 12:45 p.m. A luncheon at the Metaline Falls Legion will follow.

May 28Memorial Day CeremoniesThe American Legion puts up flags at

the Newport Cemetery at 8 a.m. Monday. Ceremonies start at 10 a.m. at the Ever-green Cemetery in Priest River. After-wards, the group travels to the Newport Cemetery, arriving at approximately 10:45 a.m. and continues onto the Old-town Bridge at 11:15 a.m. or so. At about 12:15 or 12:30 p.m., the veterans will be at the North Cemetery in the Kalispel Indian Reservation and then at the South Cemetery. The day ends with a lunch and ceremony at the Cusick American Legion.

CONTINUEDFROMPAGE38


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They acted quickly and provided

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Spring Horizon 2012