John Craig

A 19-year-old man was charged Wednesday with leading police on a high-speed chase through Colville and Kettle Falls in a stolen car. Raven Brealan, who was living temporarily in Inchelium, Wash., was charged in Stevens County Superior Court with vehicle theft, attempting to elude police, drunken driving and reckless driving.

At least one of two Pend Oreille County commission races presents a clear choice. Democratic challenger Sandi Lewis and incumbent Republican Mike Hanson are poles apart on growth management, the central issue in their contest to represent the southern end of the county. She wants to preserve rural lifestyles; he wants to preserve property rights.

Stevens County needs to support its struggling timber and mining industries with tax breaks and lure new industries with tax incentives, county commissioner candidate Jeff Johnston says. But the county can't lure new businesses without shaking off ultraconservative opposition to land-use planning and government in general, fellow Democratic candidate M. Grant McMullen believes.

Rural Stevens County voters will decide next Tuesday whether they want a library district. If they do, the price probably will be 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed value.

FROM FOR THE RECORD (Wednesday, October 30, 1996): Correction Oliver J. Riehart, who pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree murder in Ferry County, Wash., will spend 20 years in prison if a judge accepts a plea bargain recommended by the prosecutor. A story in Tuesday's paper misstated the recommended sentence.

Former Newport police officer Ed Miller Jr. will begin 30 days of electronically monitored home detention Nov. 6 for illegally searching the home of a man he says harassed him on the telephone. Pend Oreille County District Judge Chuck Baechler sentenced Miller this week after Miller admitted there was enough evidence to convict him.

Democratic candidates for two 7th Legislative District state representative positions want better education. Their Republican opponents want less government. All of the candidates - Brad Lyons, Kurt Matter, Cathy McMorris and Bob Sump - consider themselves penny pinchers.

Elected two years ago as a Republican, Stevens County Commissioner J.D. Anderson defines his party's furthest right boundary. The ardent constitutionalist isn't active in Republican politics, but is still a major factor.

A struggle for control of the Stevens County Republican Party has produced the largest number of precinct committee officer candidates that election officials can remember. Ninety-eight candidates are running for 53 positions. In most of the 45 contested precincts, there are two candidates: one supported by mainstream conservatives and one that presumably represents the party's right wing.

A 15-year-old boy may join James and Tracie McMurtrey in adult court to answer charges that he participated in a violent break-in last week at a Springdale, Wash., home. The boy, who has no apparent relationship to the McMurtreys, faces a hearing Nov. 4 to determine whether he should face trial as an adult. Until then, he is being held in the Yakima County Juvenile Detention Center on charges of first-degree burglary and second-degree assault as an accomplice.

A Stevens County judge has refused to grant an 18-year-old rapist leniency, despite a Western Washington appeals court decision that threatens to turn the state's statutory rape law on its head. Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson rejected arguments Friday that Bassah Curd deserves a light sentence for raping a 13-year-old girl last July.

Marvin L. Shepard, legally blind from a gunshot wound, walked to the front of a federal courtroom on the arm of his public defender Friday and admitted helping torture a man to death with a hot poker. Shepard, 33, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting aggravated assault and being an accessory to first-degree murder. U.S. District Judge Frem Nielsen ordered a presentence report before he decides whether to accept a plea bargain calling for a nine-year prison sentence.

Economic development, property rights and political balance are on the minds of four men running for two Ferry County commissioner positions. At the north end of the county, Republican Dennis Snook and Democrat Chris Kroupa are competing to replace Democrat Ed Windsor, who is stepping down.

A tax-dispute settlement Thursday between Pend Oreille County and Ponderay Newsprint will pump $4.3 million into government coffers and give some taxpayers a rate cut next year. Ponderay Newsprint started withholding almost 51 percent of its taxes in 1994 under state law that applies only to taxpayers who represent more than one-fourth of 1 percent of a county's assessed value.

Incumbent Stevens County District Court Judge Pam Payne violated professional ethics by breaking attorney-client confidentiality, according to election rival Patty St. Clair. St. Clair's husband, Cliff Hopper, said he will complain to the Washington State Bar Association that Payne improperly divulged information in April that he gave her when she represented him two years ago.

Two challengers for Pend Oreille County commissioner seats think the people who hold those posts need to spend more time on the job. Republican Wanda Stenzel and Democrat Sandi Lewis agree the commissioners need to keep office hours at least two days a week in addition to the time they spend elsewhere on the $23,760-a-year jobs.

Democratic challengers Jeff Johnston and M. Grant McMullen are focusing on economic development in their uphill battles against two incumbent Republican Stevens County commissioners. The county needs to support its struggling timber and mining industries with tax breaks and lure new industries with tax incentives, according to Johnston.

Meningitis victim Micah Brisbane remained in serious but stable condition Monday, but no new cases were reported in the boy's hometown of Republic, Wash. A Sacred Heart Medical Center spokesman declined to comment on prospects for the 16-year-old. He was hospitalized Wednesday.

Newport High School social studies teacher Roger Coplen's claim that two female colleagues sexually harassed him is unbelievable, a state administrative law judge has ruled. The judge, David G. Hansen, rejected the 51-year-old Coplen's appeal to the state superintendent of public instruction. He agreed with the Newport School District that former curriculum director Pam Veltri, 42, and counselor Sylvia Campbell, 36, did not violate district and state rules against sexual harassment.

A Republic High School junior is hospitalized with the same strain of bacterial meningitis that killed a Coeur d'Alene girl less than two weeks ago. Micah Brisbane, who will turn 17 in two weeks, was in serious but stable condition Friday night at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane.

1. This sidewalk in Springdale was scarred with slogans, foot prints and bike tracks. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Springdale is building a new city hall after a teen set fire to the original building. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

A Tonasket, Wash., woman convicted of child molestation is suspected of leaving three crude package bombs in the Republic post office last week. Republic Police Chief Chuck Kells confirmed Wednesday that Laura Frank, 32, is expected to face numerous federal charges. She was booked into the Okanogan County Jail Tuesday after police searched the home where she was living.

Lovelace

Self-proclaimed racist Faron Lovelace, 39, worked his way up to a capital murder in North Idaho from a Louisiana burglary and theft conviction at age 17. In between, federal prison records show, Lovelace has spent much of his time in prison.