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

Woman struck in crosswalk

The Spokesman-Review

A 76-year-old Rathdrum woman was seriously injured Thursday morning when she was struck by a pickup while walking her dog.

Lois Whitmire was in a marked crosswalk at Highway 41 and California Street in Rathdrum when she was hit by a 2004 Dodge Ram driven by Michael S. Nichols, of Spokane, according to Idaho State Police Sgt. Kevin White.

White said Whitmire was using the walking path that parallels the highway and was crossing California Street using the crosswalk. Nichols, who was eastbound on California Street, was cited for inattentive driving.

“He indicated when he pulled up to the stop sign he looked both directions and started out,” White said. “That’s when she was struck.”

Whitmire was halfway across the street when she was hit. Her dog, a shepherd-blue heeler mix, was not hurt.

The woman fell to the pavement and struck her head. She was transported to Kootenai Medical Center with serious injuries, White said.

Speed and alcohol were not factors in the accident, White said.

Coeur d’Alene

Bank robber gets 52 months

A Sagle man will serve more than four years in prison for robbing a Coeur d’Alene bank.

Steven L. Howard37, robbed Horizon Credit Union on Dec. 11, 2003. He admitted the crime at a sentencing hearing this week, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Idaho.

U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge sentenced Howard, who was convicted following a trial in April 2007, to 52 months. Howard was first identified as a suspect in the robbery by his car, and tests revealed Howard’s DNA matched samples found on a baseball cap and bandages the robber wore, the release said.

Those items were found discarded in a trash container at the nearby Silver Lake Mall.

The FBI and Coeur d’Alene police investigated the case.

Moscow, Idaho

Fire damages UI women’s house

The Pi Beta Phi Fraternity for Women house burned early Thursday at the University of Idaho in Moscow, leaving the women who live there without a place to live for the upcoming school year.

The fire was first reported to the Moscow Fire Department shortly after midnight. No one was injured, but the building was extensively damaged, according to fire dispatchers.

The fraternity members were set to return to campus Monday for their work week in preparation for recruiting new members for the upcoming school year, said Pi Beta Phi spokeswoman Stephanie Gurley-Thomas at the group’s headquarters in Town & Country, Mo.

Now national, regional and local Pi Beta Phi officials are working with university officials to find alternative housing for the women who have been displaced.

The University of Idaho chapter was formed in 1923.

Spokane

Woman, 89, retires from job

Deaconess Medical Center bid farewell Thursday to a woman who worked at the hospital for more than half her life.

Friends and coworkers gathered in the medical center’s cafeteria Thursday to say goodbye to Alma Ahrendt, 89. “I never expected any of this,” she said.

The Spokane native was hired in 1959 as a switchboard operator with the starting pay of $1.29 an hour. Now, almost 50 years later, she ends her career as a PBX phone-switchboard supervisor at about $18 an hour.

“She’s a firecracker; as old as she is, she doesn’t miss a beat,” said Suzy Kephart, PBX supervisor who has worked with Ahrendt for the last seven years.

Weston Davis, an assistant vice president at Empire Health Services, which operates the hospital, said Ahrendt did well at keeping up with technology even though she still used sticky notes and had reminders posted everywhere.

The center started using the PBX operating system in the late 1970s.

“It was the computer age and we went with it,” Ahrendt said.

Kephart said, “we’re excited for her, but it’s going to be a big hole for our organization.” She said people at Deaconess depended on Ahrendt’s customer service skills and knowledge of the operating system.

But Ahrendt said retiring now that she’s almost 90 just seemed to be the natural thing to do.

“It’ll be one day at a time,” she said.

Airway Heights

Prison back to normal after feud

The Airway Heights Corrections Center has returned to normal operations after fights among inmates prompted a lockdown Friday.

There were no injuries during the lockdown, though 48 prisoners were put in the Special Management Unit for investigation, according to a corrections center news release. No violence has broken out since the prison came off lockdown Wednesday.

Prisoner jobs, classes, programs and visitation are back to normal, the release states.

The lockdown involved the main prison and not the minimum security unit. It was believed that the entire main facility had not been locked down since the mid-1990s, spokeswoman Risa Klemme said Friday.

No prison representatives were available for immediate comment Thursday.

Medium- and minimum-risk prisoners are held at the Airway Heights facility.

Spokane

Shuttle service for ticketholders

Free parking and shuttle service to “Antiques Roadshow” will be available for ticket-holders to the event on Saturday. KSPS Public Television, the Spokane Transit Authority and The Spokesman-Review are providing the shuttle service, which will be available from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Free parking is available in a lot at WSU-Spokane, south of Spokane Falls Boulevard, as well as in the parking lot at the McCarthey Athletic Center at Gonzaga University. The shuttle will run in a loop every 10 minutes, stopping at those lots as well as at the Convention Center.

More information and a map of the route are available at many Spokane hotels, and online at www.ksps.org.

Eagle, Idaho

Family killed by gas poisoning

The members of a young family died in their sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning after their trailer caught fire early Thursday, Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg said.

Eight-year-old Star Waterer, her father, 38-year-old Harold Waterer, and his pregnant girlfriend, 19-year-old Heather Bohlin, had just moved into the Horseshoe Bend Mobile Home Park Wednesday night, Boise television station KTVB reported.

Both Harold Waterer and Bohlin were deaf, the coroner’s office said.

Harold Waterer was pronounced dead at the scene. Though Star Waterer and Bohlin – who was 32 weeks pregnant – were taken to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, they did not survive. Doctors operated in an attempt to save Bohlin’s baby, but the girl was stillborn.