Picture stories

As many as 160,000 people are expected to line the streets of downtown Spokane tonight for the Armed Forces Torchlight Parade. It’s the 75th celebration of the Spokane Lilac Festival.

Here is a gallery of photos from the 3A/4A Regional track meet held Friday and Saturday, May 17 and 18 at Spokane Falls Community College. Top runners, jumps and throwers earned a berth to the state tournament.

The Spokane Shock take on the New Orleans VooDoo in a home game, Friday, May 17, 2013. The Shock recover a fourth quarter New Orleans fumble and seal a 65-54 victory.

The Inland Northwest has a strong military tradition. For generations it has sent its sons – and now too, its daughters – into harm’s way when the nation is at war, knowing that not all will come back. The men and women in this slide show are part of a national toll of some 1,084 military personnel who have died in Afghanistan since the fall of 2001 and 4,400 who have died in the Iraq war since March 2003.

The 2013 Armed Forces Torchlight Parade will be held on Saturday evening, May 18, 2013. Take a look back at the Lilac Parade through the years.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported last month an 8 percent increase in the number of people seeking asylum worldwide from 2011 to 2012. Last year’s total was the highest since 2003. Congolese refugee Dakie Tshilobo recently moved to Spokane with her parents Patrick Kazadi and Jolie Ngenda. World Relief, the organization helping Dakie’s family get their bearings has resettled about 12,000 people in the Inland Northwest during the past two decades, about 100 of them Congolese.

The Spokane Shock take on the Orlando Predators at home in the Spokane Arena, Saturday, May 11, 2013. The Shock had possession of the ball and a 13-point lead with less than 1 minute remaining, but a turnover and the inability to recover an onside kick allowed Orlando to pull out a stunning 83-82 victory in front of 8,370 Saturday night at the Arena.

Middle school and elementary groups danced, played and tumbled for the audience at the annual Junior Lilac Parade Saturday, May 11 in downtown Spokane.

When the local chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association met Friday, May 10, Tyler Voss was on the agenda. He and two others, Capt. Victoria Pinckney and Tech Sgt. Herman Mackey III, died in the May 3rd crash of a KC135 tanker aircraft in support of the war in Afghanistan. Voss was a member of the EAA chapter and was rebuilding a homebuilt aircraft in their hangar. So friends and colleagues showed up to honor Voss and the EAA organizers recruited the flyover pilots to perform the “missing man” formation, where a single plane, trailing smoke, pulls away from the other three planes and slowly flies away.

Firefighters battled a devastating house fire near Nora Avenue and Morton Street that has destroyed half the home. Firefighters heard reports of a child inside the home and began a search-and-rescue operation as portions of the two-unit residence began to collapse, Spokane Fire Chief Bobby Williams said.
Those who lived in the home are all accounted for and were not injured. The flames sent two firefighters to the hospital due to heat exposure. Another firefighter injured his arm, Williams said. Firefighters rescued a pet bearded dragon. Other pets, cats and dogs, got out, a resident said.

2013 marked Bloomsday’s 37th year. At start time the temperature was in the mid-50s. By the time many walkers finished after noon, temperatures had risen above 70 degrees. Race Director Don Kardong said 47,165 participants finished the annual race.

CHALDOVAR, Kyrgyzstan — An aerial tanker jet reportedly flown by a Fairchild Air Force Base crew crashed today in the rugged mountains of Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian nation where the U.S. operates an air base key to the war in Afghanistan.

2013 will mark Bloomsday’s 37th year. Started in 1977, the race grew into the region’s signature athletic event. Here’s a gallery from the first 10 years of Bloomsday.

The Eastern Washington University football team held the annual Red-White game in Cheney at Roos Field. The team will open the 2013 season on August 31 against Oregon State in Corvallis.

Twenty teams from around the Northwest and Canada met in Spokane for a full weekend of roller derby, a women’s sport enjoying a surge in popularity in recent years. Skating around an oval, teams try to get one of their players, the “jammer” around the track and lapping the field while impeding the opponents’ jammer. It’s rough and tumble, but officials watch for illegal contact and call penalties where players must leave the rink for a prescribed time, similar to hockey.

From 1935 to 2000, Playfair Race Course, established on the original Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds, entertained fans from throughout the region. From the starting gate to the stretch run, the sport of kings brought excitement and countless photo opportunities to three generations of racegoers and news photographers.

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure filled downtown Spokane with a crowd dressed in pink for the seventh running of the race under cool Sunday morning temperatures.

The Cougars played the Crimson and Gray Spring Football Game, April 20, 2013, at Joe Albi Stadium in Spokane, Wash.

Two explosions shattered the euphoria of the Boston Marathon finish line on Monday, sending authorities out on the course to carry off the injured while the stragglers were rerouted away from the smoking site of the blasts.

Spokane got a stop, then another and the Shock never slowed down on offense behind quarterback Erik Meyer in posting perhaps their biggest win in a couple of seasons, toppling No.1-ranked Arizona 66-49 in front of 10,358 fans Friday night at the Arena.