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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Huckleberries Online

AM Hucks: Police Chief Wannabe Knows Regis

You may have heard that Wayne Longo and Steve Childers are finalists to replace retiring Wendy Carpenter as the next Coeur d'Alene Police Department chief. And that they are captains, respectively, for the Idaho State Police and CPD Blue. But did you know that the only nonlocal finalist won $250,000 on ABC's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" in 2000 when he was a narcotics officer? Eric Buske, now the deputy chief of the Omaha (Neb.) Police Department, won the money by correctly answering Regis Philbin's question re: which U.S. president was the first target of an assassination attempt: Andrew Jackson or Abraham Lincoln? Buske had narrowed the choices down to two. Then, he nailed the answer: Jackson. This, according to the Daily Nebraskan. Buske was 90 percent sure of the answer for the $500,000 question: "Murdered in 1995, zoologist Dian Fossey was buried with more than a dozen of her gorillas in what country?" The choices? A. Tanzania. B. Burundi. C. Uganda. D. Rwanda. He thought – correctly – that the answer was Rwanda. But walked away. "When you're watching the show on TV, it's easy to say, 'Go for it,' " he told the Daily Nebraskan. "The question on my mind was, 'Am I $218,000 sure?' That's an easy decision to make when there's real money on the line." Buske will answer more questions July 2 when Coeur d'Alene officials conduct a second round of interviews.



Huckleberries Online

D.F. Oliveria started Huckleberries Online on Feb. 16, 2004. Oliveria's Sunday print Huckleberries is a past winner of the national Herb Caen Memorial Column contest.