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

Student Bridges Gap Between Ibm And Macintosh

Alison Boggs Staff Writer

While setting up a computer network, a group of Spokane Valley junior high students stumbled onto a problem.

A software company said its program, designed to search magazines, couldn’t be run on both an IBM and Macintosh server.

It sounded like a job for Mac Man.

Greenacres Junior High School ninth grader John Knuth, 14, is the Macintosh specialist on the school’s student technology action team. He took the troublesome disc home that night and figured out a way to make it run on both servers.

“They said, ‘You can have it run on one or the other, but not both,”’ Knuth said. “I didn’t listen to them.”

“He’s pretty much our Mac specialist,” said Kathy Bjorklund, the adviser for the technology action team at Greenacres.

Software technicians at EBSCO Publishing, the Massachusetts company that sells the magazine search program, were impressed with Knuth’s accomplishments.

Technicians know it’s possible to run the program on both servers, said manager Jennifer O’Malley, but they don’t encourage people to do so because it requires more maintenance.

“When somebody says don’t do that, they regard that as a challenge,” said Greenacres principal Sharon Jayne of the technology team members.

That’s pretty much been the attitude of the technology team all along.

Knuth is part of a group of students who have been meeting since September and working together to set up the school’s computer network and solve any problems that surface along the way. The team members also coach other students on the computers.

They and other students are involved in a larger technology group that advises school officials on what computer equipment to buy.

“Next year, our plans include Internet, but that’s a dream,” said Bjorklund.

Celebrity readers visit Adams

Celebrities read to students at Adams Elementary on Friday.

Nineteen guests visited the school to join the annual celebration of reading.

Among the guests: T.J. Agha, a pilot at Fairchild Air Force Base, Spokane County Sheriff John Goldman, ballet instructor Janet Wilder and Central Valley School District Superintendent Dick Sovde.

Other readers included firefighters, television news reporters, radio station disc jockeys and foreign exchange students.

During a noisy assembly, the students gave the readers a hearty round of applause. Students then led celebrity readers by the hand to separate classrooms.

Annual western dinner/auction

Round-up time is coming at St. John Vianney School. The eighth annual western jamboree dinner auction will be held Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Red Lion Inn.

The auction is the private school’s largest annual fundraiser, last year raising $33,000. This year, school officials are hoping to pass the $40,000 mark.

Among the items to be auctioned: a 1993 Jeep Wrangler, a Polaris three-person jet ski, two hot tubs, a mountain bike and several vacation packages.

Signed celebrity items - such as a hat from Seattle Seahawk Eugene Robinson, a book from G. Gordon Liddy and a script from TV cop show “NYPD Blue,” signed by former star David Caruso - also will be auctioned.

A western-style barbecue will be served including: smoked turkey, barbecue ribs, pasta salad, corn on the cob and corn bread with honey.

For information, call 926-7987.

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