Jim Camden

Two Central Valley teens won essay competitions for new solutions to the nation's drug abuse problem. The competition, Students Taking Action and Responsibility, was created by U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt and open to all junior high and high school students in Eastern Washington's 5th Congressional District. Devon Van Dyne, a sophomore at University High School, won the essay competition in the older division with an essay outlining a new mentor program to help steer children away from drugs.

Washington state has tens of thousands of seats where fans watch sporting events. Taxpayers helped pay for most of them. From the Puget Sound to Yakima to Spokane, domed stadiums and modern arenas provide homes for professional sports teams. In some cases taxpayers are paying off bonds with sales taxes or property taxes. Other times, legislators agreed to dip into state funds.

Rep. George Nethercutt is inching closer to a run for the U.S. Senate as Bellevue's Jennifer Dunn backs away. "I will consider it," he said Friday on KSPS-TV's "Spokane This Week." "I would hope that around (June 19) I would be in a position to say yes or no," he added later in an interview with The Spokesman-Review editorial board.

The check may or may not be in the mail. But for voters in Spokane and three nearby counties, the ballots are. Ballots for the June 17 special election on a new $425 million football stadium in Seattle will begin arriving today for nearly 230,000 people eligible to vote in Spokane County. This will be the county's first all-mail election, although voters who want the experience of casting their ballot on election day will still have that chance, elections supervisor Tom Wilbur said.

Getting an initiative to ban job discrimination against homosexuals on the state ballot is a risk worth taking, said a former military officer who was discharged for being a lesbian. "Whether you win or lose at the ballot box, this is a wake-up call for the state," Margarethe Cammermeyer said Wednesday. "We're giving the voice of reason a chance of saying, 'Let's show what the state of Washington is made of."'

Supporters of a new stadium for the Seattle Seahawks have a tough sell in Eastern Washington, if a Friday morning debate before the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce is any indication. Stadium proponent Wes Uhlman, a former Seattle mayor and legislator, acknowledged as much while he battled Spokane populist John Talbott at the microphone and fielded questions from some two dozen skeptical businessmen and women in the audience. Talbott blasted the proposal as a "sweetheart deal" for businessman Paul Allen, who will buy the team if the stadium is built.

Master Sgt. Napolean Bailey is either a manipulative monster or a conscientious boyfriend living "every man's worst nightmare." Those opposing views - the first from military prosecutors, the second from attorneys for the 21-year Air Force veteran - were given to an eight-man court-martial jury before it began deliberations Thursday. The Fairchild Air Force Base security policeman was portrayed by the prosecutor, Capt. Chris Santoro, as a sexual predator who lured women into relationships where he increasingly controlled their lives, then beat and raped them.

When a passing pedestrian wondered about the signs being handed out Wednesday to a group of protesters outside the Spokane Arena, Debra Smith was quick to tell him they were not against celebrating heroes. "I think that the event itself is wonderful," said Smith, of Lewiston. "I just don't think that Norman Schwarzkopf is a hero." Smith and her husband Dave, a former Marine who served in the Persian Gulf, organized the protest to highlight the medical problems some veterans of that war now face.

A Spokane woman who says an Air Force police sergeant raped her admitted Tuesday that she continued their relationship for months after the alleged assaults. The mother of three told a court-martial jury that she only filed a complaint about one of the alleged rapes after two of her friends told military investigators about the assault. A few days later, she initially withdrew the complaint against Master Sgt. Napolean Bailey.

An Air Force security policeman once threatened to beat his live-in girlfriend to death because he thought she was cheating on him, the woman told a military jury Monday. Master Sgt. Napolean Bailey went from charming and gentle to violent and possessive over the course of a two-year relationship, said the 28-year-old woman, also an Air Force security officer.

FOR THE RECORD: 5-20-97 Wrong plane: An F-16 Falcon fighter plane was misidentified in Sunday's story about Aerospace Day at Fairchild Air Force Base.

Master Sgt. Napoleon Bailey is charged with all-too-familiar-sounding crimes of rape, assault and kidnapping, but he faces a trial that is strange to most Americans. Courts-martial differ from civilian trials on several key points.

Napolean Bailey will be painted by military prosecutors as a manipulative, dangerous man who drew women into relationships, then beat and raped them. "He groomed these victims. He attempted to control every aspect of their lives," said Capt. Eric Dillow, one of three prosecutors in the court-martial of the Fairchild Air Force Base master sergeant.

Whether a new round of military base closures would put Fairchild at risk is anybody's guess, Lt. Gen. Charles Robertson Jr., the Lilac Parade grand marshal said Thursday. If Congress approves the proposal by Defense Secretary William Cohen to consider closing more bases - and the initial reaction last week was not favorable - all military facilities would be on the table, said Robertson, commander of the 15th Air Force.

Rae Black carries a ladder back to his truck after sprucing up the Fort George Wright Military Cemetery in preparation for today's ceremony. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review

Just before announcing her candidacy for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Rep. Linda Smith talks with supporters at the Davenport Hotel on Monday. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

This year's drop in the number of people entering and finishing Bloomsday doesn't suggest any serious problems for Spokane's annual exercise in sweat and camaraderie, race officials said Monday. It could have been a result of the weather, new deadlines for early registration or the increase in fees for late sign-up.

Facing staff cuts because of low enrollment, Eastern Washington University is trying to beef up recruitment in the Puget Sound area while it decides which programs to discontinue. "We must be more efficient," James Hoffman, senior vice president for academic affairs, said Thursday. "We have to eliminate our own duplication."

Spokane delegates to a national youth summit plan to hold a local conference this fall in an attempt to improve health, safety and education for children in the community. "We need to find out what we've got out there, and how do we tie it all together," Spokane City Councilman Jeff Colliton said as the Presidents' Summit for America's Future drew to a close Tuesday in Philadelphia. "There's a huge challenge to energize the city." For 2-1/2 days, speaker after speaker stressed the national summit's five goals for volunteers: Provide an adult mentor for each child who needs one.

Senators from the Northwest joined an effort Monday to block cuts to a federal erosion program important to the region's wheat farmers. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Larry Craig and Dirk Kempthorne, R-Idaho, signed on to a letter criticizing cuts in the Conservation Reserve Program.

Candi Lewis snipped the picture of an apartment building from the magazine photo and pasted it on a big street map of downtown Spokane's west side. The slick color picture joined others of restored storefronts, bed-and-breakfast inns and smiling people that dotted the map with the hopes of the residents and property owners of a once-blighted area. "This is what we want to see," said Lewis. "We want to get vital businesses in this area. We want to convince people this is not a bad area of town."

Forcing television stations to give free time to politicians violates the stations' First Amendment rights, a top lobbyist for the nation's broadcasters argued Tuesday. James May, executive vice president for the National Association of Broadcasters, criticized a campaign finance reform proposal in Congress.

Self-styled psychic wonder Uri Geller wants to help find a Spokane psychologist and three other Western tourists who were kidnapped 21 months ago in Kashmir. He's taking out ads in newspapers in India and Pakistan, asking people around the world to think positive thoughts about the four captives every morning and to touch an orange circle on his Internet home page to focus energy on the cause.

U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth opened a congressional hearing this week with a tale that seemed to typify the bureaucratic thinking people love to hate about the federal government. The U.S. Forest Service has its priorities so messed up, the Idaho Republican lamented, that it will send a helicopter into the wilderness "without question" to rescue a sick wolf. But it won't let one land to rescue a lost Boy Scout.