John Craig

Incumbent Republican Pend Oreille County Commissioner Mike Hanson has two Democrats breathing down his neck. Sandi Lewis and Al Earl will compete in the Sept. 17 Democratic primary for the right to challenge Hanson in the November general election.

Two Republicans and a Democrat want to replace 7th District state Rep. Steve Fuhrman when he steps down at the end of the year. Republicans Penny Rosenberg of Grand Coulee and Bob Sump of Republic will compete in the Sept. 17 primary for the right to battle Democrat Kurt Matter in November.

Incumbent Stevens County commissioners Fran Bessermin and Fred Lotze face challengers in Tuesday's Republican primaries in the county's northern and southern districts. The district winners will meet Democrats Jeff Johnston and M. Grant McMullen in the countywide November general election. Johnston and McMullen have no primary opposition.

Lovelace

Lincoln County businesswoman Penny Rosenberg has some important support in the race to replace 7th District state Rep. Steve Fuhrman, but Ferry County mechanic Bob Sump has some important money. Sump and Rosenberg, making their first bids for elected office, are competing for the Republican nomination in the Sept. 17 primary. The winner will face Stevens County heavy equipment operator Kurt Matter in the Nov. 5 general election.

Three candidates want a half-time Stevens County District Court judgeship with more work than a full-time judge is supposed to be able to handle. Based on statewide averages, the Washington Court Administrator's Office said the Stevens County District Court workload justified 1.2 judges in 1995.

Criminal charges against bankrupt L-Bar Products Inc. of Chewelah may be dismissed because they weren't brought to trial soon enough - and unpaid employees may benefit. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Harrington concedes in court documents that criminal charges against the defunct magnesium-waste recycling company weren't brought to trial within the required 70 days.

Newport attorney Doug Lambarth is being reprimanded by the Washington State Bar Association for mishandling a debt-collection case. Lambarth, 54, will be summoned before Bar Association directors for a public rebuke as soon as the reprimand text is completed, said Barrie Althoff, the association's chief disciplinary officer.

The grandson of former Springdale mayor and councilman Ray Turner was charged Thursday with burning down the town hall this summer. James S. Clark, 15, was charged in Stevens County Juvenile Court with second-degree arson and second-degree burglary.

Two veteran attorneys want to replace Fred Stewart, who will retire in January as a Superior Court judge for Stevens, Pend Oreille and Ferry counties. Both Rebecca Baker, of Republic, and Andy Braff, of Colville, are 47 and already have some judicial experience.

The county commissioner's position being vacated by Democrat Ed Windsor in northern Ferry County has the most crowded primary field of any commissioner's race in rural northeastern Washington. Republicans Lorna Johnson and Dennis Snook and Democrats Chris Kroupa and Ed Watt want to represent the district, which extends south from the Canadian border to a line about a half-dozen miles north of Republic. In the county's southern district, incumbent Democrat Gary Kohler and fellow Inchelium-area resident Jerry Sullivan are competing for the right to face Republican David Schumacher in November. Johnson, 39, came to the Curlew area in 1975 after graduating from high school in Seattle. She has been a Republican precinct officer for three years and is the party's Ferry County secretary, a state committeewoman and vice chairman of the 7th District Republican organization.

A 33-year-old Deer Park man was sentenced to 18 years in prison Friday for kidnapping, beating and raping a 17-year-old girl before leaving her on a snowbank - apparently unconscious - in the woods near Loon Lake. Stevens County Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson said he is convinced David R. Craig is a "predator" who was "leaving her to die." Court records show Craig got a year in jail for raping a drunken woman in 1987 in Spokane County. A presentence report says he is suspected in two other rapes, but the victims declined to testify. The 17-year-old Mead victim told authorities she feigned unconsciousness to escape Craig. Defense attorney Charles Burns said he thinks Craig knew she was conscious when he carried her into the woods, but Craig continued to insist he never attacked her. Unremorseful, Craig called the victim a liar who convinced him to give her a ride to a party at Loon Lake by claiming she desperately needed to get home. Earlier, he told authorities the teen offered him sex for the ride, and he forced her out of his car at Loon Lake when she couldn't find the house where she wanted to go. "I am sorry I tried to be a helpful person," Craig told Kristianson. A jury saw pictures of the teen's battered face and convicted Craig in June of firstdegree kidnapping, second-degree rape and second-degree assault as charged. Kristianson recalled that Craig took the stand and called himself "a people person," opening the door for the jury to hear his criminal history. In addition to the thirddegree rape in 1987, Craig was convicted of first-degree trespass in 1983. "A people person is someone who cares about his fellow citizens," Kristianson said. "No, sir, you are something else. ... You're a predator." Authorities say Craig approached the teen Jan. 7 at a north Spokane gasoline convenience store and offered to help her find a ride to Loon Lake to visit her boyfriend. Craig wound up giving her the ride himself after taking her to the nearby Diamond Bowl bowling alley and introducing her to some of his friends. When she refused to kiss him or date him, Craig drove her to a secluded area near Loon Lake and dragged her out of his car, the victim testified. She said he threw her on the ground and struck her three times in the face to stop her from screaming. The victim said Craig raped her after she pretended to pass out so he would stop beating her. Kristianson gave Craig more than twice the standard maximum sentence of 8 years because the victim was "particularly vulnerable" when Craig abandoned her in the middle of the night. It was raining, 37 degrees and "pitch black," Kristianson said. The victim was among some 40 people in the courtroom for Craig's sentencing. She didn't speak, but Prosecutor Jerry Wetle cited a letter in which she said the rape made her fearful of men. "I don't like what I've become," Wetle quoted her as saying. Her father and sister urged Kristianson to impose the maximum possible sentence.

Pend Oreille County and Ponderay Newsprint officials settled their 3-year-old tax dispute this week only to have a vexing new question pop up. The Cusick School District was in the middle of a two-year, $365,010-a-year levy when Ponderay Newsprint stopped paying 51 percent of its property taxes in 1994. Now the company must pay a substantial portion - $3.9 million - of the money it withheld from the school district and other government agencies.

Newport attorney Dennis Scott seldom misses an opportunity to tweak the noses of public officials who cross paths with his clients. But the tables were turned last week when one of Scott's flamboyant legal tactics backfired and a Newport police officer cited him for driving with a suspended license. Scott's license was suspended because he missed court dates while challenging a ticket for running a stop sign in Spokane, where he lives.

A pair of Democrats are vying to replace incumbent Pend Oreille County Commissioner Mike Hanson. Democrats Sandi Lewis and Al Earl will compete in the Sept. 17 primary for the right to challenge Hanson in the November general election.

Two incumbent Stevens County commissioners face challengers in next month's Republican primaries in the county's northern and southern districts. The district winners will meet Democrats Jeff Johnston and M. Grant McMullen in the countywide November general election. Johnston and McMullen have no primary opposition. One of the biggest questions in the primary races is the commissioner who's not up for election: J.D. Anderson, a far-right constitutionalist who represents the county's middle district.

Police say one or more teenagers may have been responsible for the apparent arson that destroyed the Springdale Town Hall July 1. Stevens County Sheriff Craig Thayer said an investigation is focusing on "a person of interest who is a juvenile." He and town Marshal Bob Lind declined to identify the suspect.

1. Howe 2. Lila Howe's Deer Lake home. Photo by John Craig/The Spokesman-Review

Hill

Pend Oreille County officials broke no law when they granted a shoreline permit for a controversial 65-mile-long high-voltage power line along the Pend Oreille River, a judge ruled Friday. Visiting Superior Court Judge Richard Schroeder of Spokane dismissed Newport-area physician Peter Wier's petition for a court order overturning the shoreline permit.

A dozen people picketed the Boise Cascade sawmill here Thursday in a last-ditch effort to convince the company to halt plans to spray herbicide on its timberland in central Stevens County. Protesters from the Waitts Lake area seven miles southwest of Chewelah brandished signs accusing Boise Cascade of hypocrisy in advertisements touting the company's environmental sensitivity.

Alice Ignace, the oldest tribe member, with her 2-year-old great-grandson William Bowman on the reservation. Photo by John Craig/The Spokesman-Review

Appeals were rejected Tuesday in a murder case that attorneys say may have been the first in the state to use the battered-spouse defense in a homosexual relationship. The Washington Court of Appeals upheld the tougher-than-usual sentence of Spokane resident Ronald A. Hall, 26, who solicited the February 1994 death of his homosexual partner. The three-judge panel in Spokane also upheld the first-degree murder conviction of Hall's cousin, Patrick N. Lowden, 25, of Addy, Wash. Lowden shot 33-year-old William Fisher to death at a cabin in northern Stevens County while Hall watched.

Republic's tavern-operating mayor, William "Skeeter" Burnett, faces a drunken driving charge and the wrath of at least one constituent who says he is unfit for office. Former councilwoman Kymbra Blank says she'll lead a recall drive against Burnett if he doesn't resign. Burnett thinks she should wait for a conviction.