Jonathan Martin

Deer Park wants just a little bit of snow for its 12th annual Deer Park Winter Festival. Too much snow, and people will stay away. Too little, and the popular snowshoe softball game gets axed.

Sheriff's deputies arrested a 45-year-old former garbage man after he threatened a former co-worker with a homemade spear and a 10-inch knife at a North Market gas station last week. William Feldmiller of Mead remained in custody in Spokane County jail Tuesday on a $4,060 bond for a variety of charges, including criminal intimidation and an outstanding warrant for driving while intoxicated.

Nic Som, foreground, and Luke Nervig, get their screwdrivers and soldering iron out after the robot they built suffered a minor malfunction. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

This time every year, when school standardized test scores are reported, school principals dust off their Paul Harvey impersonations and tell the media they have "the rest of the story." They say test scores should not be taken at face value and that several factors - from the breakfast kids ate the day of the test to the amount of pretest preparation they were given - tremendously affect how students score on the tests.

A Nine Mile Falls teacher facing a civil rights lawsuit told state investigators she has given students religious counseling at school at least twice. When Joanne Bovey's principal, Larry Guenther, heard about the most recent counseling incident, in 1994, he reacted as he had before - he did not reprimand her.

1. Karen Lloyd of Nine Mile Falls shoults "Bingo" and shows her card during Speed Bingo at Guild School Bingo. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review 2. John Neighbors calls out the numbers at speed bingo at Guild School Bingo Hall. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

From left, Andrea Fiedler, 13, and Amanda Reeve, 12, rock out with dance instructor Chris Anderson in a dance class for children with cerebral palsy or multiple sclerosis. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review

Sunday was a peaceful conclusion to the most violent year in Spokane's history. According to police, there were fewer than usual arrests on New Year's Eve in North Spokane, a quiet lull in a year that saw more murders than any other year in city history. Police Sgt. Earl Ennis, who investigates crimes in the northeast sector of the city, said the stack of cases to investigate on his desk was about half the normal load for a New Year's weekend. "I was really shocked at the few number of reports that came through," said Ennis, who was assigned 15 cases, rather than the normal 30 or 35. Sgt. Larry Evans, who investigates crimes in northwest Spokane, said it was also more peaceful than normal in his sector of the city.

An 84-year-old Spokane man, suffering a fatal heart attack, lost control of his car on the North Division bridge Sunday while his wife watched from the passenger seat. Guy Butler was pronounced dead at Deaconess Medical Center shortly after the accident. His wife, Helen, was not injured.

CORRECTION (Page N2, North Side Voice, January 4, 1996): In a story last week about Call the Play, a new board game created by Doug Jordan, the name of the game was misstated. Doug Jordan, inventor of The Play, watches a football game with his wife Judy and neighbor Dan Woods. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review

Linwood Elementary teacher Helen Harding, left, helps her students with an exercise in probability. Photo by Shawn Jacobson/The Spokesman-Review

They laid out the ground rules on the neutral territory of Didier's restaurant last month - one point per item, gum not allowed. Each day the principals of Midway and Brentwood elementary schools met at high noon to give updates; fudging the numbers down to give opponents a false sense of security was definitely against the rules. "We agreed not to sandbag," said Dave Stenersen, Brentwood Elementary principal.

Spokane County Sheriff's Sgt. Gerald Fojtik got a chance to exercise his wrestling moves this weekend when a man got violent as Fojtik attempted to arrest him for trying to pass a forged prescription. At 1 p.m. Sunday, Daniel Nathan Endholm, a 32-year-old North Spokane man, tried to get a prescription drug from the pharmicist at the Payless drug store at Wandermere Mall, police said. The pharmacist became suspicious, called police and went through the motions of filling a prescription to keep Enholm waiting.

It was not just your average Joe who was ripped off last week. This Joseph was husband of the Virgin Mary. While Colbert homeowner Cindy Linton watched in horror from her living room, at least two people stole a glowing, four-foot plastic statue of Joseph and tried unsuccessfully to take statues of Baby Jesus and a wise man. "I can't believe people would be that low to steal Joseph," said Linton. "Santa Claus is one thing. But the father (of Jesus)?"

Jody Spears' husband now calls her "my little gunslinger." Spears earned her nickname Monday night when she dropped a bag of milk and cookie dough and whipped a .38-caliber pistol out of her purse to break up a theft attempt at a north Spokane convenience store. "I watch all those (Sylvester Stallone) movies, but I'm not out there slinging my gun around at everyone," said Spears, a 30-year-old mother of two.

Sounding relaxed and comfortable, Quentin Evars phoned from Spokane International Airport Wednesday evening to say he was flying to Sandpoint to pick up boss Neal Treetman. "His last words to me were, 'I'll see you in 20 minutes,"' said Treetman, a Yakima businessman who was scouting Sandpoint property for his development company. Evars never made it.

Bob Lipe misses running the Sure Save grocery store he recently sold. The community activist is sorry the city didn't go along with his plan to build a teen center. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review

Students in Garry Middle School's Living Skills class are carrying sacks of flour 24 hours a day for five days in an effort to simulate the responsibilities of caring for a child. Many of the students put doll heads or made faces on the sacks of flour to make their babies appear more real. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

After 16 years at the helm of Mead High School, principal Steve Hogue will resign in June to raise cattle and play with bugs. Hogue's doctoral thesis at the University of Idaho was on insects and he has continued to study the little critters as an educator. The two go hand in hand, he says. "You have to be a little buggy to be a principal," said Hogue, 55.

Whirring and humming to itself, teacher Jan Steele's computer was trying to pull an elephant-sized ball of electronically scrambled words and pictures off the Internet and through a phone line as wide as a needle. Making it worse was the turtle speed of the computer - a 286 that was state-of-the-art five years ago, but is now a relic. After waiting almost 15 minutes, students in Steele's second-grade class at Lake Spokane Elementary marveled at on-line biographies of Italian artists Mogliani and da Vinci not available in any of the school's encyclopedias - then had to move along to the next lesson.

Volunteer search and rescue crews huddled on Mount Spokane as snow threatened and word came late Wednesday that the pilot's body was found. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review

The St. Lucia festival is like a Salem Lutheran Church heirloom. For the past 40 years, members of the West Central church have sung and eaten their way through the holiday celebration in honor of a Swedish martyr for the poor.

Three people suspected in a string of mail thefts in northwest Spokane are in custody in Western Washington. A 43-year-old man, a 33-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman were arrested Dec. 6 in Issaquah, a suburb east of Seattle, when a King County police officer saw them taking mail out of mail boxes. Police refused to release the names.

At his truck stand along Ash, Rick Owen pays an average of $10 for a pair of Levi's in good condition. For older jeans with holes, expect about $4. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review