Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spirit Lake, Idaho, announced that it would hold the Spirit Lake Chautauqua in the summer of 1912 – a Chautauqua being a cross between an educational symposium and an arts festival.

The principal topic of the Spirit Lake Chautauqua would be “forestry.” The lectures and discussions would include the following titles:  “Our Timbered Northwest,” “From Tree to Board,” “The Lumberjack” and “Fighting Forest Fires.”

The Chautauqua would also cover general rural topics such as “The Nation’s Greatest Asset: The Soil,” “The Helpful Hen,” “Swat the Fly” and “The Country School: The Social Center.”

From the high school beat: A free-press fight was under way at Lewis and Clark High School over the independence of the school paper. The student editor and staff resigned over restrictions imposed by the administration. Another student editor was appointed, but students were circulating petitions calling for the editor to be elected by the student body, not appointed by the principal.

The petition further stated that a school paper “must be the organ of the student body, who are its publishers and patrons” and that it must always be the “sincere and independent work of the students.”

They asked for freedom to voice their opinions, as long as they were “courteous and respectful.”