Becky Kramer

Valerie Fast Horse, 46, is the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s director of information technology. She’s a “technological visionary,” says Chief Allan, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s chairman, “helping bridge the digital divide in Indian Country.” Fast Horse headed up the effort to bring wireless Internet service to the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation in 2002. Now, she’s working on a $12.2 million project to provide faster Internet service through fiber optic connections. Her department is also the force behind Rezkast, a website for Native American videos and blogs.

It was a turkey showdown in Nils Rosdahl’s pasture Wednesday morning. Tail feathers unfurled, a male strutted toward a group of females. As he neared the hens, two other toms moved aggressively to block his path. Deceptively casual, the first tom strolled away before stealthily circling back.

An estimated 352,000 pounds of lead washed into Lake Coeur d’Alene on Jan. 18 after flooding related to a rain-on-snow event. That’s the weight equivalent of 70 Dodge Ram 1500 pickups – and the highest volume of lead recorded in a 24-hour period since major flooding in February 1996.

A hazardous waste repository built two years ago near Old Mission State Park has stirred debate among archaeologists about whether federal and state officials complied with historic preservation laws on the project. The Old Mission, built by Jesuit priests and ancestors of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in the 1850s, is both a national historic landmark and Idaho’s oldest standing building. Nearby, a 14-acre repository accepts contaminated soil from the cleanup of old mine sites in the Coeur d’Alene Basin.

Mt. Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park could get a definitive answer this spring on a long-standing effort to expand operations into pristine terrain on the mountain. The ski area wants to build a new chairlift and seven ski runs on the undeveloped west/northwest side of Mount Spokane State Park, which contains old-growth forests, alpine meadows and wetlands. Operators of the nonprofit ski area say the expansion would help them compete with private resorts in the region, allowing Mt. Spokane to extend its season by giving skiers access to deeper snow on north-facing slopes.

A historic carousel that once entertained crowds on Coeur d’Alene’s waterfront has come home. A pony with a fiery orange mane, carved in the 1920s, was unveiled near the carousel’s original location at Independence Point on Monday afternoon. It was one of 20 antique wooden horses that arrived by van over the weekend.

Wayne Yates is a coral connoisseur, collecting exotic-looking specimens the way some women acquire closets full of shoes. In five saltwater aquariums, under halide lights, his corals glow in neon shades of green, purple, pink and blue. The glass tanks create a “Discovery Channel” ambience in Yates’ home near Richmond, Va.

Can cutting trees help save a forest? In northeastern Washington, a broad coalition of loggers, environmental groups, government officials and others think so. They’ve put together a forest restoration grant proposal that would step up timber harvests in the Colville National Forest over the next 20 years.

The Church of St. Thomas the Apostle is one of Coeur d’Alene’s landmarks. Built for $46,000 at a time when U.S. manufacturing workers earned about $11 per week, the ornate brick church resulted from the vision of an early Catholic priest. “Father Thomas Purcell was hopeful that the diocese’s main cathedral would be in Coeur d’Alene. He built accordingly – that’s the rumor, anyway,” said Don Johnston, a longtime church member.

Hecla Mining Co. has reached a tentative settlement with the federal government, Coeur d’Alene Tribe and state of Idaho over its role in turning the Coeur d’Alene Basin into a Superfund site, company officials said today.

Avista Corp.’s profits increased by 6 percent last year, a growth in earnings that Chairman and CEO Scott Morris attributed in part to lower power supply costs. The lower costs helped the Spokane-based utility recover from weak electric and natural gas sales during the 2010 heating season that resulted from warmer weather.

Every half hour, a new couple stood before the Rev. Al Holm, promising to love and cherish each other. By the time twilight fell on Valentine’s Day, the retired police chaplain had performed six weddings and one renewal of marriage vows at First Christian Church in Coeur d’Alene.