Huckleberries: If mermaid’s hair looks familiar, ask Cheryl

You wouldn’t think Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” would have ties to a burg on freshwater Lake Coeur d’Alene. But the inspiration for Ariel’s hair may come from the strawberry-blond locks of Harrison resident Cheryl Prueher. In a St. Maries Gazette-Record article last week, Prueher recounts that she was about 25 and working for Walt Disney Imagineering when animators sent out an SOS for footage of Russian figure skating champ Katia Gordeeva. The animators wanted to pattern mermaid Ariel after Gordeeva. Prueher, a figure skater at the time who taped skating events, told the Gazette that she responded. The animator accepted the tape but kept looking at Prueher’s hair, which she wore down the middle of her back. When Ariel appeared on screen, Prueher noticed that she had the same color, length, and style of hair as she. She concluded: “The animator never told me that he used my hair, but most women can tell where a guy is looking, and it was my hair, not my chest.” They can?

Banned in Lake City?

The blog site that has opposed seemingly everything proposed by Coeur d’Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem’s administration has now turned its cyber guns on the Coeur d’Alene School District. Seems the keyboard commandos of OpenCDA.com, who tirelessly bash the urban renewal engine behind such popular projects as the Kroc Center and John Stone’s Riverstone development, are upset that schoolchildren saw a video about proposed McEuen Field changes Feb. 18. After learning a school had shown the video in which parks Director Doug Eastwood explains proposed upgrades to the downtown green space, Bill McCrory fired off a letter to Superintendent Hazel Bauman. He demanded to know how many schools approved the video. Who OK’d its showing? Whether the video was optional or required viewing? Fourteen questions in all. Never mind that the changes will affect today’s students for decades. Gotta keep Coeur d’Alene school kids in the dark regarding issues that affect them. It’s the Idaho way.

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: “Wars and earthquakes,/tears and sadness;/a ray of light – /we cheer March Madness” – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“A Welcome Break”) … Hat tip to the only two North Idaho representatives with the common sense to vote against the goofy bill that will allow guns on Idaho college campuses – Julie Chadderdon of Coeur d’Alene and George Eskridge of Dover … Bumpersnicker, on white pickup in front of S-R’s Coeur d’Alene building Thursday: “My golden retriever is smarter than your honor student” … Scanner Traffic (Wednesday afternoon via Post Falls dispatch): Woman making 911 call wants to see a female Post Falls officer, none of whom are available. Male officer tells inquiring fellow male cop: “I don’t think you qualify” … Quotable Quote: “Wow … just clicked on the Account Review of my payment records to UIdaho and found out how much that 3-year party in the ’90s really cost” – Sandpoint High instructor William Love.

Parting shot

North Idaho gadfly Larry Spencer tells of being challenged about his uber-conservative credentials by religious Rally Right organizer Bob Pedersen. Spencer tells Huckleberries: “You have to be a pretty darn skinny person if you are standing to the right of me, ’cause just a few inches to my right is the edge of the cliff. And Bob isn’t that skinny!”