Doug Clark

Jim Pendleton, 42, invented the Bodysled, which allows the sledder to become one with the sled. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review

Although he's only 14, local magicians say Dave Womach has a mature touch when it comes to sleight of hand. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review

For optimum reading enjoyment, the opening of today's column should be sung to the tune of the TV classic, "The Beverly Hillbillies." Come listen to my story 'bout a man named Bill. He says his neighbor's wood stove was makin' him ill.

No office betting pools celebrate this brand of March Madness. Inane ESPN mouthcaster Dick Vitale won't shriek "Prime time, bay-beeee" at this Final Four. Even the most die-hard hoops fan won't give a jump shot that the National Wheelchair Basketball championships will be waged in Nashville this Friday and Saturday. Or that after 24 years of sweat and effort, lowly Spokane's St. Luke's Cyclones have finally made it to the big show.

Praised as a "harmonic genius," Arnie Carruthers plays the intro to "Satin Doll." Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Long path to recovery Friday afternoon's golden light and mild temperatures found Jeff Ames mobile, with a little help from aide Joanne Hart, for the first time since his accident in Mexico. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review

I awoke Wednesday morning to a shocked-sounding radio reporter announcing that Spokane's Sen. Jim West is under police investigation for threatening to kill a lobbyist. Let me repeat this: Republican West is in big trouble for wanting to kill a lobbyist. Putting partisanship aside for a moment, what's so wrong with that?

No matter what happens today in court, one verdict is already in: Adam Wyble needs to associate with a better crowd. The role models this 19-year-old Moses Lake-area resident has hung around haven't been a great influence. They invited Wyble to their Christmas functions last Dec. 13.

Kathie Lee Gifford, prim and proper daytime TV diva, sprawls outdoors on a plaid blanket, her unclad fanny pointed to the heavens. Courteney Cox of "Friends" fame bares it all on the David Letterman set. Barbara "I Dream of Jeannie" Eden seems to have misplaced her silky harem pants. Welcome to Scott's Fake Nude Celebrity Gallery, where reality blurs with fantasy, but no one seems to care.

If the recent Winter Olympics taught us anything, it's that behind every malnourished, sobbing ice skater lurks a tough-minded, caring coach. Team Doug knows he, too, needs plenty of help if he's ever to win the gold.

An animal-rights activist tries out the cage he'll inhabit during a protest of Procter & Gamble. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review

It almost sounds too good to be true, the way Spokane's Todd Horner tells it: He and a few other ingenious gamblers found a numerical pattern in the Coeur d'Alene Tribal Casino's on-line lottery and used it to win more than $45,000.

Spinning like a rag doll, he dropped 1,500 feet out of the sky, landed on a concrete patio and survived. That's the good news. The bad news is that Jeff Ames, a world-class paraglider from tiny Valley, Wash., needs your help. Fast. His broken, uninsured body lies in a Mexico City hospital. The 26-year-old is racking up incredible bills. He may need to be moved to an American medical center for additional care.

With the misguided stroke of a few keys, the U.S. government killed off June Reynolds two months before her time. The Hayden Lake woman, 78, lost her struggle with cancer last Dec 10. Not on Oct. 10 as some bureaucrat in a Coeur d'Alene office mistakenly typed on a form two or three days after June's death. Cathy Evans, June's daughter, has no problem with that. "Mistakes happen all the time," says the Spokane resident, who is one of my co-workers. "I know that."

They've snapped like overstressed postal workers. Humor-impaired Eastern Washington University administrators have taken a header off sanity's short pier. This supposed institution of free thought has embarked on a bizarre witch hunt to track down and persecute the unknown smart aleck who penned a bogus letter under President Mark Drummond's name.

David Laabs displays two vintage Ku Klux Klan brass belt buckles. The Rathdrum, Idaho, native wante to trade them for "a little pistol of some kind." Photo by Doug Clark/The Spokesman-Review

And here I thought attorneys chased ambulances instead of wrecking them. John Clark, however, is definitely no tort-sucking vampire. No sir. On this night, the otherwise sane 45-year-old Spokane trial lawyer will be lucky if he doesn't soil his legal briefs. For two years running at the Spokane Arena's big monster truck show, Clark has had the questionable judgment to risk his jurisprudence in the rollover contest.

Tom Biss stands in front of his steakhouse in Almira after it burned last year. File/Spokesman-Review

Patti Gilbert didn't normally phone home from the road during short overnight runs. But something made the Spokane trucker pull her 18-wheeler over before heading west up the steep incline of Snoqualmie Pass one week ago today. Patti, 41, told her daughter, Shawna Harding, how much she loved her family.