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Dan Hansen

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News >  Spokane

Lawsuit filed over alleged school bus attack

A girl who says her shoulder was separated during an unprovoked attack on a school bus is suing the Spokane school district, the bus company and the family of her alleged attacker. The lawsuit, filed June 20 in Spokane County Superior Court, alleges that the bus driver stood watching as the victim identified only as JKB was pummeled by another girl, identified only as JLF. It happened the afternoon of Feb. 22, as students were filing onto bus No. 121 at Rogers High School.
News >  Spokane

As bills swell, funding shrinks for schools

Economics doesn't get any simpler than this: When expenses rise faster than revenue, something has to give. As school districts work out budgets for next year, many are being forced to make six- or seven-figure cuts as they cope with rising costs for fuel, salaries and employee benefits. Others also are dealing with falling enrollments and a resulting loss of state money.
News >  Spokane

Spokane Moms campaign is grass-roots success story

Spokane Public Schools is restoring some of the funding cut from elementary libraries last year, thanks largely to the lobbying efforts of three women who have become heroes among librarians nationwide. "They call us the Spokane Moms, which I think is so funny," said Lisa Layera Brunkan.
News >  Spokane

Storm rushes through region

A brief thunderstorm dumped nearly an inch of rain and hail in less than an hour in Spokane County, flooding streets, basements and backyards while keeping emergency crews busy. The storm began in north Spokane about 7:30 p.m. and was south of the city by 9 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. Wind gusts from 30 to 35 mph were reported in northwest Spokane.
News >  Spokane

77-year-old completes high school education

Undoubtedly, there will be other parents among the students who accept diplomas the night Gloria Tofte speaks at her own commencement ceremony. After all, the people who earn their high school certificates through the Institute for Extended Learning often are adults whose educations were derailed earlier in life.
News >  Spokane

In milestone year, nine in 10 seniors overcome WASL

Back when he was a fourth-grader, Alan Guthrie drew a picture of a creature with fangs and claws. Beneath it, he wrote, "My WASL is a huge monster that eats children and gets stronger from their fear." Eight school years later, the monster is dead, at least for Guthrie. Part of the most closely watched graduating class in state history, he is departing Lewis and Clark High School having passed the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.
News >  Spokane

Underground blast rattles downtown

Authorities shut down Main Avenue in downtown Spokane after an explosion popped the covers off manholes outside River Park Square and sent up a plume of smoke so thick that witnesses said they couldn't see from one side of the street to the other. "You know when you were a kid in camp and you set off smoke bombs?" said Jennifer Olsen, who stepped out of Starbucks just after the explosion. "It was that yellowish color."
News >  Spokane

As lake refills, history fades again

History revealed by the annual drawdown of Lake Roosevelt will go back into hiding now that spring runoff is refilling the sprawling reservoir. As it does every year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation allowed the level of Lake Roosevelt to drop over the winter.
News >  Spokane

Big night for even smallest outfit

Odessa High School's band director is competing against spring sports as he prepares for the biggest event of the year. Five of Craig Holman's musicians will be playing baseball in Yakima today.
News >  Spokane

Wall of water washes away roadway, trees

A 100-foot stretch of road was wiped out and a home and barn destroyed when a creek turned into a wall of water Saturday. "Willms Road is gone," and left behind is a gouge in the earth about 50 feet deep, said Ed Lewis, chief of Spokane County Fire District 4, which covers a small portion of southern Pend Oreille County where the washout occurred.
News >  Spokane

Yellow fever vaccine in short supply

You've got your passport and your plane ticket. A neighbor will water the plants and relatives have agreed to dog-sit. But if your spring travel plans include certain areas of Central America, South America or Africa, you'd better be making arrangements now to be vaccinated against yellow fever. A worldwide shortage of the vaccine – caused by changes in production – has the Spokane Regional Health District and Idaho's Panhandle Health District doling it out on a priority basis.
News >  Spokane

More are listening to a good book

Santa apparently delivered a lot of MP3 players to Spokane County residents. And they're not all being used to listen to Yanni or Plain White Ts. The day after Christmas, the Spokane County Library District saw a "huge surge" in the number of patrons downloading digital recordings of books from its Web site, said district spokeswoman Beth Gillespie. Once downloaded, patrons have two weeks to listen to the recordings before they fade away; some also can legally be burned permanently onto CDs.
News >  Spokane

Mandate preserves EPA library system

Librarians nationwide, including two from Eastern Washington who were part of the effort, are celebrating what they consider a victory over Environmental Protection Agency budget-cutters. Tucked into the Omnibus Appropriations Bill signed this week by President Bush was a mandate that the EPA preserve its library system and reopen four that had been closed to the public. It was a relatively tiny matter in the 11,000-page document that authorizes $555 billion in domestic spending.
News >  Spokane

Man sues Scouts, alleging sex abuse

A man who was a Boy Scout in the early 1960s is suing the national organization and its Inland Northwest Council, saying leaders should have taken steps to prevent his being molested by a scoutmaster. Len Zickler, who lives in Federal Way, Wash., was a Scout for two years starting about 1962 in a troop that met at Spokane's Hamilton Elementary School.
News >  Spokane

Missing mother, daughter are found in Spokane

A 16-month search for an American girl taken from her father in Germany ended Friday in Spokane. A security guard walking the grounds at Sacred Heart Medical Center recognized Megan Mulczynski, now 13, from missing-person fliers, according to a Spokane Police Department press release.
News >  Spokane

Early ski opening unlikely

A little advice for snowhounds going into Thanksgiving week: Help with the dishes, watch a little football and get a start on the holiday shopping season. But as far as hitting the slopes … it's not likely to happen. Not even on your worst pair of rock skis.
News >  Idaho

At Cabela’s, the great outdoors is indoors

If your freezer smells like fish eggs. If you would consider buying an unsuitable house just because it’s on Winchester Drive. If you’ve imagined your wife in a camo teddy. If any of those statements apply to you, there’s no question where you’ll be the second weekend in November. Not stalking whitetails. Not drifting shrimp for steelhead. Not shivering in a muddy duck blind, though that’d be fun too. You’ll be shopping. And you’ll enjoy it.
News >  Spokane

100 firefighters battle warehouse blaze

About 100 firefighters battled a spectacular blaze that destroyed a straw warehouse in the farming community of Rockford on Thursday night. The fire was in a Seeds Inc. warehouse that stored bagged bluegrass straw, but the massive effort kept it from reaching the business' seed processing plant, said Kevin Miller, deputy fire marshal for the Spokane Valley Fire Department, one of many agencies that assisted in the effort.
News >  Spokane

CEDU shutting down

CEDU Educational Services, the largest private employer in Boundary County, failed to meet payroll Thursday and announced Friday it is going out of business immediately. The company, which runs expensive academies for troubled teens, is sending its students back to the homes – mostly out-of-state – from which they came, said Julia Andrick, CEDU's marketing and communications manager in Sandpoint.
News >  Spokane

Pickup truck found, man still missing

A days-long search has become a law-enforcement investigation, now that a missing wood-cutter's pickup has been found on the Colville Indian Reservation. Leonard J. Bauer "is still a missing person," said Chief Deputy Dave Rodriguez of the Okanogan County Sheriff's Office. "We don't have a body or any evidence of violence, but somebody took some suspicious steps with the vehicle that indicate that things aren't on the up-and-up."
Sports >  Outdoors

Returning to the Cedar

The Cedar was a workingman's river. It flowed past cement plants, airplane factories and trailer parks in southeastern King County, feeding Lake Washington, a poor-man's Puget Sound.
News >  Spokane

Fenton’s gone fishing

Father of John. Grandfather of Jess. That's how Fenton Roskelley has been identified in recent days when quoted by media about the younger men's conquest of Mount Everest. But by the time the two mountaineers returned to Spokane on Thursday night, the family patriarch had reached a summit of his own. On Thursday at 6 a.m., the venerable journalist filed his last outdoors column for The Spokesman-Review. It appears in today's sports section, ending a career that started in 1940.