Eli Francovich: My favorite stories of 2016

I have a strange, strange job.

I get paid to transgress sacrosanct social boundaries. I’m allowed, and I do, ask people I’ve just met how old they are, how much money they make, how they felt when they learned their brother/uncle/mother/son died, was born, was promoted, fired, ran away, came home, went to jail, was freed.

Then I communicate their experience to you, the reader.

I’ve been present for intimate moments. Moments I’d have no right to witness if it weren’t for my job. This fall I went to a 13-year-old’s birthday party. Her mother bought her a rich chocolate cake and lavished her with attention. The kicker? They hadn’t seen each other in nine years.

Now, as I close in on my second year of full-time journalism, I know two things. I’m excited to continue doing my job, and I’m anxious to improve. The stories in Spokane and in this region are important, and deserve to be told with honesty and empathy.

I hope I’m up to the challenge. Below you will find seven of my favorite stories, presented chronologically.

Spokane Public Schools tries active but patient approach to decrease suspensions

When David Staley was caught with marijuana at school for the third time, he figured he was done. A short, muscular, 17-year-old junior at North Central High School, Staley had a reputation for breaking the rules.

This was a strange story, in the sense that the longer I waited, the better it got. Although it was published in May, I first started working on it in early March. That was around the time the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction released discipline data for Washington school districts. Spokane’s numbers were troubling.

The district was responding, but the response, restorative discipline, came with its own set of problems. Giving students individualized and personalized attention, and keeping them in school, takes more staff time and attention. Some teachers felt they weren’t given enough resources to both manage a classroom and respond individually to troubled children.

A transgender child’s journey

It’s a Monday morning and Rachel is just waking up. After a hectic morning in the family’s small home near Chief Garry Park, Rachel, Faith and their 10-year-old brother Dakota White walk to Stevens Elementary together. Rachel is wearing high heels and a long, colorful dress.

“I just put them on and knew how to walk with them,” Rachel says of her shoes.

This is, to date, the longest, most in-depth story I’ve done. Photographer Colin Mulvany and I spent four months with Rachel White, an 8-year-old transgender girl.

We’d visit them at least once a week. I filled notebooks with details from these trips. Condensing and crafting those observations into one narrative was a challenge, but one that I enjoyed.

Although this story was hardly groundbreaking in its form, or topic, the timing couldn’t have been better. Transgender rights were just coming to the forefront of public discourse. Simultaneously there was a push in Washington to make it illegal to use a bathroom at odds with your gender identity (that initiative eventually failed).

Telling the story of one, very young, transgender person, highlighted some of the difficult decisions families and individuals make as they transition. And, more importantly, humanized a bitterly polarized issue.

Spokane nonprofit brings relief to Nepal, where struggles continue after 2015 earthquake

Ten days later Pradeep Karki was delivering hundreds of pounds of food to some of the worst-hit areas, while larger, better-equipped aid organizations were mired in red tape. His quick response was made possible by an unlikely friendship started decades ago in Nepal, a friendship that stretches all the way to Spokane.

In June I took a three month sabbatical from The Spokesman-Review and traveled to Nepal, India and Europe. I’d heard that there was a Spokane-based nonprofit doing work in Nepal. The week before I left the United States I got coffee with Denise Attwood, the founder of that nonprofit.

She put me in touch with some of her friends in Nepal. When I landed in Kathmandu I met up with Pradeep Karki and his father, Ram. Three days after landing I left on a 14-day trek, during the monsoon season. I was not prepared.

Other than the fact I was reporting from a foreign country, this story was unique in the way it morphed. When I started the trek I thought I knew what the story was. But as I hiked through villages that were two days walk from the nearest road, I was struck by the improbability of men and women living in the mountains of Nepal knowing, and loving, a Spokane woman.

An additional twist was I took all my own photos for this story. Photography is hard. Makes me respect (even more) Spokesman-Review photographers.

The end of the scenic Ione-to-Metaline Falls train ride will impact the whole North Pend Oreille Valley

On the left, an abandoned cement factory. To the right, the remains of a town. Over there is where logs used to float down the river. The train stops, suspended above the Box Canyon Dam, and the passengers peer at the sparkling water below.

“This type of stuff is always sad, you have a big boom and then it’s all gone,” Debra Shepherd said of both the train and the local history.

At first, it sounded like a simple story. A beloved, scenic train ride was ending. Sad, but contained. The reality was, as it usually is, much more complex.

Turned out the scenic train ride was an important piece of the economic landscape for the Ione area. A rural area already devastated by mine and timber operation closures.

The resulting story was more complex, and more important than it otherwise would have been. Plus, photographer Tyler Tjomsland and I had a great time on a beautiful October day, doing what we like to do best – talk to people.

Election stress sending people to Spokane therapists’ couches

Kurt Wilson has a grim prediction for this year’s presidential election.

“What’s happening now is the most pivotal political race in the history of the USA,” he said. “No matter who gets elected, there will be riots.”

Elections. Politics.

The thing I realized, and learned to appreciate, about politics this year is that it externalizes some of the most intimate and sacred portions of our lives. It takes things we hold dear to our hearts, and thrusts them under the public eye.

This presidential election, for conservatives and liberals alike, was an incredibly stressful time. That stress, it turns out, was manifesting itself on Spokane therapists’ couches.

Mother’s addictions caused nine-year separation, but she’s finally reunited with her daughter

As Skupien tells it, she lost Avery in July 2007. She was drunk, as was her husband, Tony. They fought, and then, inexplicably, Skupien let Tony drive off with her youngest child, 3-year-old Avery. The family lived in Horn Lake, Mississippi, a small town about 30 minutes from Memphis, Tennessee.

“I was stupid,” Skupien said. “I allowed him to take her.”

This story came out of left field.

I was out at the Community Colleges of Spokane interviewing members of an apprenticeship program. Stephanie Skupien was in that program. As we talked she mentioned off-hand, that she’d just been reunited with her daughter after a separation of nine years.

Nine years. I asked her to repeat herself.

That changed the whole course of the interview, and eventually lead to this story. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to focus only on Stephanie and Avery (her daughter).

Although the larger context of drug addiction, child abuse, etc. is certainly important, sometimes we just need to hear a story, suspended in time and beholden only to itself.

For-profit American Honors program, offered at Community Colleges of Spokane, draws scrutiny

A national for-profit honors program offered at Community Colleges of Spokane has drawn scrutiny for making claims that some parents and higher education officials say don’t live up to promises.

A mother on the west side of the state filed a complaint against American Honors, a for-profit honors college piloted in Spokane. In her complaint she accused the program of misleading students about the price and what it could offer.

After talking to officials in higher education it appeared her claims had some validity. As a side note, several days after the publication of this article American Honors changed language on its website to clarify what they offer and charge.

This story is rather dry, but important, I believe.