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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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News >  Idaho Voices

Nails go purple for Valentine

Madison Valentine, a pre-kindergartner at Holy Family Catholic School in Coeur d’Alene, loves purple – and the whole school knows it. Earlier this year, Valentine started showing symptoms of Cushing’s disease, a hormonal disorder caused by prolonged exposure of the body’s tissues to high levels of the hormone cortisol. Numerous doctor visits and an MRI would later confirm that she had a tumor growing on her liver.
News >  Idaho Voices

Restaurateurs entice with ‘Tunnel’ vision

Aptly named because of its underground location, the Tunnel Cookery & Drinkery is a new restaurant with a tempting menu at 2021/2 N. First Ave. (former home of Three Glasses) in downtown Sandpoint. “Simple food cooked well at affordable prices with great beer and wine” is the Tunnel’s description by Adam Starchman, co-owner with Jeff Spencer. The menu includes appetizers of clams, oysters, naan pizza, portabella fries and bacon artichokes, several salads and sandwiches with sides, and entrees of seafood, steak, lamb ravioli and prawn linguini.
News >  Idaho Voices

Spokane in Bloom tour likely to be showy

In some ways, this long cool spring has been great for gardens, even with the late frosts. Now the soaking rains of the last couple of weeks have set us up for great shows in the June gardens. Just in time for the Inland Empire Gardeners’ annual Spokane in Bloom garden tour Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This year’s tour theme is Best in the West, and it will feature six gardens on Spokane’s South Hill.
News >  Idaho Voices

Warmer weather is on the way – really

Warm weather has finally arrived. But will it last? That sounds like the weather tease from one of the local TV stations. But with tomato, basil, and pepper plants floundering from the below normal temperatures from the last 5 weeks, and kids starting to get out for summer vacation, many are probably wondering when we will start seeing more summerlike conditions. In Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, the month of May through the first 11 days of June saw overall temperatures more than 3 degrees below normal. Three degrees doesn’t sound like much, but you have to remember that the number is taken from the average daily highs and lows throughout the period. There were many days where afternoon highs were 10 to 15 degrees below normal, but because of cloud cover or wind, overnight lows ended up warmer than normal. Idaho, as a whole, saw the second coldest May on record.
News >  Idaho Voices

Wearing many hats

In an average month, she washed 170 to 180 tubs of laundry, matched 420 pairs of socks, made 240 school lunches, averaged 60 to 70 hours of homework and maintained a 5,000-square-foot home without hired help. During this busiest time of her life, and while Carla Hofstee was managing a family of 14, she learned that her challenges gave her opportunities to learn more about time management and household organization. Her focus moved to solutions instead of problems.
News >  Idaho Voices

Attending Mountain View provided DeVonna Williams incentive

At 17, DeVonna Williams has already overcome many challenges in life. It was just 2 ½ years ago when she reluctantly transferred from Lakeland High School in Rathdrum to Mountain View Alternative High School. But looking back, Williams said it was the best thing for her. “I was hanging around with the wrong people and didn’t care about academics at all,” she said. “And I was disrespectful to authority.” But all that has changed.
News >  Idaho Voices

CDA High senior says classmate taught him what matters

Coleman Boyer was a sophomore when he learned the most important lesson of his life. It came not from a teacher, but from classmate Layne Woolley, a courageous and kind youth who taught those around him to always live in the moment and be gracious no matter the circumstance. Woolley died in January 2008 after battling cancer. He was 16 years old.
News >  Idaho Voices

Despite expulsion, Devin Benzing earns diploma and CNA certification

When Devin Benzing walks across the stage to accept her diploma from New Vision High School, it will be her second notable accomplishment this year. For someone whose high school career almost never happened, those are two clear reasons to celebrate. With a certified nursing assistant course having been completed through the North Idaho College Workforce Training Center recently, in which Benzing job-shadowed nurses for several months, she’ll step onstage later this month as one of about 30 New Vision graduates. The diploma carries additional meaning for the 18-year-old – she’s the first person in her family to have finished high school.
News >  Idaho Voices

Graduate leaves Timberlake for MIT with a scholarship

In elementary school, while the rest of his class went outside to soak in the sunshine and let loose on the playground, Gaelen Guzman could often be found indoors. Standing at the chalkboard. Solving algebra problems. This wasn’t punishment, either. It was self-inflicted betterment, and Guzman and a handful of other students preferred it that way. For a student who would rather solve for X than slip outside with the rest of his classmates, it’s a fitting example of Guzman’s approach to academics.
News >  Idaho Voices

Illness made sports difficult, so Colleen McHail achieved elsewhere

When 18-year-old Kootenai High School senior Colleen McHail is met with an obstacle, she does what she can to turn it into a positive experience. All one has to do is look at the past four years to know this young woman has faced and overcome challenges that could have left others defeated. As a seventh-grader, McHail was often sick and fatigued. But it wasn’t until her freshman year of high school when she was diagnosed with inappropriate sinus tachycardia – a heart condition in which an individual’s resting heart rate is abnormally high, usually greater than 100 beats per minute. Her heart rate increases rapidly with minimal exertion, and she also experiences symptoms of palpitations, fatigue, and exercise intolerance.
News >  Idaho Voices

Independent student moves ahead of pack

Kali Karst will graduate from Project CDA on Thursday, but the 18-year-old high school senior is already partly finished with her freshman year of college – an accomplishment which can be attributed to her strong work ethic and determination. For the last two years Karst has been enrolled at both Project CDA, a fully accredited alternative high school, and North Idaho College. She has taken eight college-level courses and earned 15 credits.
News >  Idaho Voices

Innate talent led Joseph Lanker on winding path to Bridge Academy

Since the moment Joseph Lanker could wield a brush or sit on a piano bench, he showed an innate artistic talent that carries through today. By most accounts, he’s well on his way down a career path he set for himself nearly a decade ago. “I always wanted to be an artist,” said Lanker, his back propped up against a wall, his feet folded underneath him, during a recent weekday at the Bridge Academy and Project high schools, which share a building in midtown Coeur d’Alene. “I started playing music when I was really young, at around 5, and my grandma was a painter. So I pretty much grew up painting, too.”
News >  Idaho Voices

Katy Krieger oozes school spirit, service

For some students, mascot-inspired spirit and student body leadership are as intertwined in high school life as good grades and forging friendships. At Lake City, that attitude is embodied by Katy Krieger. The senior is counting down her final days as she prepares to say goodbye to a place where she left an indelible mark as an outgoing personality with an exceptional student record and as the voice of the student body who frequently donned a navy-and-teal tutu for Timberwolves sporting events.
News >  Idaho Voices

Lakeland senior learned to overcome shyness through 4-H

Alissa McCullough was a shy and bashful youth before joining 4-H. Not anymore. Over the course of a few years and helped along by the many activities offered through the organization, the Lakeland High School senior broke out of her shell. Since then, McCullough has transformed from a soft-spoken student into a humble yet confident young woman with plans to become an interior designer after high school.
News >  Idaho Voices

Malcolm Colbert shines as student and athlete despite injury

For Malcolm Colbert, pain had become an everyday part of his young life. It was the constant reminder of an injury he suffered in middle school, a dislocated right kneecap that followed him on the basketball court, where the 6-foot-1 guard shined despite the tendon damage in a four-year varsity career that culminated in a state title this year. And it followed him around the classrooms and hallways of Post Falls High School, where the 18-year-old had built a reputation as a leader.
News >  Idaho Voices

Reaching for the sky

If there is one lesson 18-year-old A.J. Smith has already learned, it is that attitude is everything. “Life is full of good and bad things, but life will only get you down if you let it,” said the Sandpoint High School senior.
News >  Idaho Voices

Active hurricane season predicted for this year

The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1 and runs through Nov. 30. The 2009 season was quieter than normal thanks to El Niño, producing only nine tropical storms of which three became hurricanes. There are numerous forecasts for the 2010 season from various weather experts, but the consensus is that it will be an active year – possibly the most active on record–with as many as 18 named storms (the average is 11) and eight hurricanes. Reasons for an above-average season include a weakening El Niño and warmer waters in the tropical Atlantic. While we usually think of hurricanes as affecting just the coastal states across the southern and southeastern U.S., these massive storms can have an impact far removed from the tropical waters from which they were born. While a hurricane is over warm water and at its peak strength, storm surges, damaging winds, tornadoes, and heavy rains all batter the coastal areas. But even after a hurricane weakens to a tropical storm or tropical depression and moves inland, it can still be quite destructive.
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