Cynthia Taggart

Sarah Knott tried to ignore the security fencing surrounding Kootenai County's Juvenile Detention Center as she headed to her first meeting with Julie. Julie, 16, was a juvenile offender, a drug abuser. As a juvenile, her identity is protected by the judicial system. "It was a great place to begin our relationship," Knott says, thinking back to that first meeting about two years ago. "She was very vulnerable at the time, away from her family, broken, no access to the coping tools she'd normally use." Knott, then 25, was Julie's lifeline. Knott was a volunteer mentor with Juvenile Probation. It was her job to befriend Julie and serve as a role model and a trusted adult. Knott had no intention of grilling Julie about the crimes that had landed her in detention.

Robert Ancker has made the end of life his professional focus. Ancker is the first palliative-care doctor at Kootenai Medical Center and the new medical director at Hospice of North Idaho.

Emily Evans wants the man who hit her head-on with his car July 2 to know that he nearly left her two children orphans. "He took my entire summer away from me with my kids," said Evans, a 27-year-old single mother in Post Falls. "I couldn't walk, cook for myself. It upsets me that someone could be that stupid to drink and get behind the wheel of a car."

Patients at Kootenai Medical Center are getting more specialized care since the hospital opened its Heart Center nearly two years ago. Job opportunities are the result. The hospital needs respiratory therapists and needs them soon, said Mike Blee, KMC's director of cardio-pulmonary services. He's seeking applicants now for four new respiratory therapist positions.