Cindy Hval

Last month Thor got an email from the vet notifying him that he was due for a checkup. I found the note in my spam filter. Very clever, Thor.

Dale Eastburg has never forgotten the first time he saw his future wife, Eva. Neither has she. “I was in the front yard and Dale drove by on his motorcycle and almost crashed, because he was gawking at me,” Eva said.

This is the annual summer update from the hen house. The short version: Miss Chicken came ever so close to becoming a dead duck this year. So to speak. For the uninitiated – Miss Chicken is the former feral fowl of undetermined heritage that wandered into our yard a few years ago and allowed us to provide her with food as she lived wherever she darn well chose in the neighborhood – handily surviving a winter outdoors and, remarkably, avoiding demise in the belly of a coyote. Fearing her luck could only last so long, after a lot of devious pre-baiting, we managed to trap her and relocate her to Joan Nolan’s home for wayward chickens in Spokane Valley. Since it was an open adoption, I have retained visitation privileges, and Joan keeps me updated.

On May 18, Kathy LeDuc, of Kalispell, took her daughter, Gabby, 5, to the doctor. “She had a fever and said her tummy hurt,” LeDuc said. “She had a dance recital coming up and I thought she was coming down with strep throat.”

Say you’re a first-time visitor to downtown Spokane, and you’d like to know where the closest sushi place is. Or maybe you need help to figure out your parking options. Or perhaps you’re a downtown business owner and you’ve got a marmot trapped in your store. Who are you going to call?

Thousands of folks across the area ooohed and aahed over fantastic fireworks displays last night. But while I enjoy the bang, flash and dazzle of pyrotechnics, they really can’t compare to what Mother Nature has to offer. I am a thunderstorm junkie. And summer is my season.

Say you’re a first-time visitor to downtown Spokane, and you’d like to know where the closest sushi place is. Or maybe you need help to figure out your parking options. Or perhaps you’re a downtown business owner and you’ve got a marmot trapped in your store. Who are you going to call?

When Joel and Beverley Novin exchanged wedding vows on July 18, 2001, they included the traditional promise of “in sickness and in health.” Four years later, that vow would be put to the test in ways they could never have foreseen. Paper brought them together in 1999.

For Amanda Furrer the dream started small. “I just wanted to win a medal,” she said. And she did. In 2007, she won a bronze medal at the Pan American Games. But that win only whetted her appetite for more and her dreams are now Olympic-size.

I didn’t cry, but I wanted to scream. And I really, really wanted to stamp my feet and maybe throw something – preferably a cellphone. Three hours at a Costco phone kiosk can have that effect on anyone.

Witter Pool was awash with swimmers this weekend as hundreds of athletes from around the region gathered to compete in the Summer Solstice Swim Meet. Colorful beach umbrellas and striped awnings surrounded the pool, and shouts of encouragement echoed as the competitors warmed up for the Saturday afternoon session.

He was a single dad raising seven children. She was a single mom with five kids. In 1966, Mel and Darlene Le Claire met when she moved into a house behind him in south Spokane. “Our kids played together,” Darlene recalled. His oldest was 13 and the youngest just 5. Her kids ranged in age from 14 to 7. The kids ran back and forth between the two houses, but the adults didn’t meet until Darlene saw Mel walking past her house.

Tall and thin at 94, retired Maj. Gen. Robert Goldsworthy still carries himself with posture befitting an officer. On June 4, a crowd gathered at the Southside Senior Center to hear his harrowing tale of the nine months he spent as a prisoner of war in Japan during World War II. Ten-year-old Ben Roth was part of that crowd. Roth wore a leather bomber jacket and sat with notebook in hand. His mom home-schools him and his sister, and had brought them to hear an eyewitness account of history.

My cookbook exploded last week. Well. It’s not exactly a book. It’s a 3-inch white binder filled with recipes ripped from magazines, or scribbled on note cards and wedged between neatly typed computer printouts.

The menu reads like something from your favorite diner. Chicken Noodle Soup. Beef and Sweet Potatoes. Mutt-Loaf.

The Olympic anthem rang out across the track at Mead High School on Friday, while dozens of athletes marched in front of the bleachers, waving to the cheering crowd. Some athletes used wheelchairs and some used walkers, but all came ready to compete. As the 10th annual Mead DLC (Disabled Learning Center) Olympics got under way, the student carrying the makeshift Olympic torch was loath to relinquish the spotlight. Eventually she was persuaded to stand with her classmates.

Gary Brown has more than 1,000 baseball caps displayed in his garage. Numbered and cataloged by date, place, and his acquisition of it, each one has a story. But the tale of his 60-year marriage to his wife, Noreen, outshines the story of even 1,000 baseball caps. Noreen likes to joke that he picked her up off the street. It was the summer of 1951, she recalled, “I was walking up Division Street with two friends, and he picked us up.”

Mead High School guidance counselor Colleen Thornton describes Patrick McKee as “ambitious, driven, inquisitive, inventive and creative.” Indeed, not many high school seniors have designed computer software or organized a citywide parade and Flag Day event.

Katie Sprague has a lot to celebrate. Not only is she graduating from high school but last May she also was officially adopted by Brandon and Paula Sprague. For a girl with a troubled childhood, finding a forever family as a teenager has been nothing short of miraculous.

When Andrea Nolan receives her diploma, one face will be missing in the commencement crowd: her mom’s. Debbie Nolan died Aug. 26, 2010, just days before her daughter started her junior year of high school.

She may be small in stature, but Ange Nemerimana’s high-wattage smile and colorful African garb make her difficult to miss in the halls of Lewis and Clark High School. Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nemerimana spent her formative years in a refugee camp in Tanzania. LC adviser Marty Frazier said, “She was placed with her grandmother at birth because her mother didn’t feel like she could care for her.”

Jeanynes Bell has traveled a rocky road to graduation. Teacher Jane Wright said when Bell came to Five Mile Prairie School last year she was struggling with some hard issues, as her family has grappled with drug addiction and mental illness.

More than 2,100 people greeted Elizabeth Smart with a standing ovation at the 20th annual Women Helping Women Fund luncheon on Monday. Smart, who was abducted from her Utah home in 2002 and rescued nine months later, is now advocating for safety programs and legislation that protects children from abduction.