Hannelore Sudermann

1. When Key Tronic closed in 1994, Sandi McCarty and her fiance, Tony O'Neill, were left without jobs. But McCarty applied to be retrained and now owns her own business in Cheney. O'Neill works at the factory that replaced Key Tronic. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review 2. Above, Tony O'Neill is sandwiched on the couch by his children Treavor, 9, and Lauren, 8. 3. O'Neill, a former Key Tronic worker, and McCarty share a home near Cheney (left). 4. Sandi McCarty (right), a former Key Tronic employee, now owns her own hair salon in Cheney. Here, she gives Abigail Quinnett a haircutt as the child sits on mother Kelly's lap.

Jim Chapman turned around Kaiser's Newark, Ohio, plant. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review

A hail storm ripped through Chelan County last July, leaving broken apple trees and a damaged harvest in its wake. Now the federal government wants to help those farmers and others in 10 Washington counties by offering low-interest farm disaster loans. Gov. Gary Locke announced Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture would extend low-interest loans to family-size farms and ranches in Chelan, Douglas, Kittitas, Okanogan, King, Skagit, Snohomish, Island, San Juan and Whatcom counties. Applicants must prove they suffered significant property or crop losses in certain natural events that occurred last summer.

U.S. companies may feel like they're walking a tightrope when trying to do business in Asia. They face the challenge of developing customers thousands of miles across the Pacific and, if they can, they're still not sure their business connections will weather the current Asian financial crisis. Two businessmen, S.I. Ko from Korea and Jim Lin from Taiwan, tried to allay some fears over coffee and muffins with Spokane business leaders and students Tuesday. They talked about how their countries are recovering from the regionwide economic collapse and the potential for American business.

Disney representatives Frank Thompson and Kaye Bundey shared "The Disney Keys to Management Excellence" with Spokane-area business leaders Tuesday. Photo by Hannelore Sudermann/The Spokesman-Review

Critics fear that proposed national organic standards would blur the distinction between organic and conventional produce. Photo by Shawn Jacobson/The Spokesman-Review

The Northwest's leading agriculture lender announced Wednesday that it had another year with near-record annual profits. Even though at $52.8 million in 1997 Northwest Farm Credit Services' earnings were down from $57.7 million in 1996, the Spokane-based lender outperformed its 1997 business plan. "Despite declines in market prices for key commodities such as potatoes, wheat and dairy, we added new high-quality accounts and earned more than expected from accounts that had previously experienced problems," President and Chief Executive Officer Jay Penick said in a press release.

After a change of hotel owners and two months of negotiations, unionized employees at Cavanaughs Ridpath Hotel have a new four-year labor contract. The deal, approved by workers with a 64-3 vote, means the hotel will keep business, including a Washington State Labor Council five-day convention booking, that hinged on the Ridpath retaining a union staff. The labor contract ended Dec. 31 when Dunson Ridpath Hotel Associates sold the Ridpath to Spokane-based Cavanaughs Hospitality Corp. Cavanaughs couldn't begin negotiations until after the sale closed. But discussions went smoothly, both parties say. "We got an excellent contract out of them," said John Workland, an officer of the Hotel and Restaurant Employee's Union. "It's pretty close to the same as the last one." He extolled on the pact's excellent medical benefits, including dental, vision, life insurance and pay for time lost due to illness. Details of pay increases were not disclosed. One bargaining issue in Workland's favor was the threat of losing several major convention bookings if the hotel didn't keep the union. The bookings include a meeting of the Washington Federation of State Employees scheduled in June, the Washington State Labor Convention in August and the Governor's Industrial Safety and Health Conference in October. "And there's a great deal more incidental business that comes to the area," said John Taffin, Cavanaughs' VP of hotel operations. "We'll have people stay one or two nights (at the Ridpath because it's union) when they're in town on business." He said that since Cavanaughs rehired most of the union employees when it took over the hotel, it was legally obligated to negotiate the contract. This now makes the Ridpath the only union hotel in town. The Doubletree downtown formerly had a union staff, but that contract expired Jan. 31 and employees asked that the union be decertified. "The Doubletree's management received an unsolicited petition to decertify the union, signed by an overwhelming majority (of the bargaining unit)," said hotel General Manager Lynn Ericksen. The union then filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board charging that hotel management was involved in getting employees to support the petition. "We are responding to that complaint," said Ericksen. "We believe it is frivolous and unfounded." The company, he said, was responding to the request of the employees. "We are compelled by law to honor their request." Of 250 Doubletree staffers, between 120 and 140 people, mostly in housekeeping, engineering and food and beverage service, were represented by the bargaining unit.

Prime beef. Washington State University students Pat Dougherty, left, and Jaime Meenach groom a Hereford bull for the Cowman's Classic Bull Sale Tuesday at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds. Photo by Jason Clark/The Spokesman-Review

If Pacific Northwest grain growers want to improve wheat sales to Asian markets, they better know their noodles. It takes a hard white wheat, which isn't grown much in the area, to make the perfect Korean noodle with just the right texture. When it comes to light noodles, the soft white wheat varieties which constitute most of the Northwest's wheat production just don't cut it.

1. Craven's Coffee Co. roaster Paul Moore empties a batch of freshly roasted Costa Rican beans from the Probat machine. Photo by Jason Clark/The Spokesman-Review 2. Simon Thompson and his wife Becky Templin of Craven's Coffee Co. have come a long way since starting their venture five years ago. Photo by Jason Clark/The Spokesman-Review

Four Spokane-area United Parcel Service employees filed charges last week against their union for unfair labor practices. According to the charges the employees filed with the National Labor Relations Board, the Teamsters Union, including Teamsters Local 690 in Spokane, did not deal properly with workers who returned to their jobs before last summer's strike ended. The charges, written by attorneys at the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation, also claim the Teamsters contract with UPS was illegal because it required union membership "in good standing" as a condition of employment.

Alex McGregor is the new president of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers. Photo by Hannelore Sudermann/The Spokesman-Review

Chain of command. From left, the Barbieri team members are David Bell, Don Barbieri, David Barbieri, Stephen Barbieri, Tom Barbieri, Art Coffey and Dick Barbieri. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

And the last shall be first. Washington's wheat growers have gone from being last in percentage of acreage in a federal environmental program last spring to being the state with the highest acceptance rate in the nation.

Farmers will learn Thursday whether acreage is enrolled After two months, growers in Eastern Washington will hear if they've won federal funding to idle portions of their farmland under the Conservation Reserve Program. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman will announce changes in the number of Washington state acres enrolled in the 10-year program when he visits Olympia on Thursday. Wheat farmers and landowners have been waiting since the last CRP sign-up ended on Nov. 14 to decide what to do with the 591,509 acres they have offered.

Even after acquiring three Northwest hotels since the beginning of the year, the growing Cavanaughs Hospitality Corp., plans to buy two more. The family-owned company formerly known as Goodale & Barbieri plans to acquire the Hallmark Inn of Hillsboro, Ore., and the Outlaw Inn of Kalispell, Mont., once its initial public offering of stock is completed, according to the company's filing with the Security and Exchange Commission. Cavanaughs, which owns and operates hotels, retail and office properties and entertainment services, registered with the SEC on Monday and has applied to sell its shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

Donavan Ensz, 16, of Othello, checks out a John Deere tractor Tuesday while visiting Ag Expo at the Convention Center. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

The Teamsters may have lost last week, but they're not ready to leave Washington's apple packers yet. Teamsters spokesman Patrick Lacefield said Monday the union will object to the elections Jan. 8 in Wenatchee and Yakima on the basis of unfair labor practices. During that day more than half of nearly 300 workers at the fruit-packing warehouses of Yakima's Washington Fruit and Produce Co. and more than half of about 500 at Wenatchee's Stemilt Growers Inc. rejected the union.

In separate elections today in Yakima and Wenatchee, nearly 900 apple packing workers will vote on whether they want Teamsters Union representation. The future of tree-fruit workers throughout the state could hinge on whether a majority of those voting at two of the largest packing plants in Central Washington decide to join the Teamsters. Currently no tree-fruit workers have union representation. The elections come after a twoyear Teamster campaign in both areas and a battle for worker support between the union and the employers, Stemilt Growers Inc. in Wenatchee and Washington Fruit and Produce in Yakima. Each election is independent of the other. Stemilt has about 550 apple packers and Washington Fruit about 300 eligible to vote.

In order to keep the country's Southeast Asian trading partners, the U.S. Department of Agriculture this week offered $545 million in credit guarantees to five countries. But the move probably won't help boost wheat prices in the Northwest. Now at about $3.20 a bushel, wheat is selling for less than what it cost farmers to produce. The credit, however, may keep valuable long-term wheat customers in the Phillipnes, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore. They, along with South Korea, recieved about 11 percent of all U.S. agricultural exports in 1997. The credit guarantees come at a rough time for the Asian markets with the Malaysian ringgit and the Phillipine peso falling to new lows early this week. The countries that receive much of the Pacific Northwest's soft white wheat are left in an economic lurch.

It may be a season of change for the Intermountain Grass Growers Association. Plans to restructure the group that represents grass farmers in Eastern Washington and Idaho comes as a response to member concerns that it is too narrowly focussed on the grass-burning issues and bans in the area of Spokane. "We're doing it to bring in outside areas that are non-traditional IGGA members," said John Cornwall, former president of the association.

Tessa and Scott Fitzgerald run Adventures in Advertising in Spokane. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

They won't be home for Christmas. They won't stand loaded with tinsel next to a crackling fire or in front of a picture window with flashing lights wrapped lovingly in their branches. This year hundreds of Christmas trees in Spokane and North Idaho are headed to shredders.