Jonathan Martin

The homemade yellow sign on the rear window of Jeff Clancy's Toyota reads "Bellevue or Bust - or no turkey for me." To get to the family feast at his parents' house in Western Washington by 3:30 p.m., Clancy, rolled out of his apartment in Missoula at 7 a.m.

Already known as a quiet farming town, Deer Park is taking a step toward cosmopolitan status by adding an arts commission. The Deer Park City Council voted unanimously last week to create an arts commission and to provide $1,200 in funding. The commission will be governed by five commissioners, appointed by Deer Park Mayor Bob Dano. Applications are available at City Hall. The commission proposal was submitted by an informal group of local art enthusiasts who hope to add some refined culture to the list of activities available to school-age kids in Deer Park.

1. New Spokane residents Osvaldo Torres and his wife Yudit Hernandez at their North Side apartment. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Yudit Hernandez, 21, and her husband, Osvaldo Torres, 31, wanted to go to work immediately after arriving in Spokane. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review (This photo appeared in the In Home section only.)

Gonzaga freshman Jaime Hawk helps Chirayel Thierry with some paperwork prior to their agreement to enter a mentoring partnership. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Heather McCully has a cigarette on a public sidewalk near North Central during a class break. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

Elise Mordick and Megan Dudley are the kind of best friends who show up at school dressed alike without planning it. Standing in nearly matching earth-tone cords and burgundy T-shirts on the sidewalk outside the Spokane Opera House on Monday, the two North Central High School seniors decided the self-portraits they were assigned would be a collaboration that reflected their friendship. "Everyone says we are joined at the hip," said Mordick. "We can talk for one another, think for one another."

Two teens were beaten and robbed in Northeast Spokane Saturday afternoon by a gang of youths, at least one of whom was armed with a handgun. A 14-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl were walking north on 4900 block of Pittsburg at 3:45 Saturday when youths in two cars driving south on Pittsburg yelled at them. The two cars turned around and 10 to 15 youths piled out of the two cars. Apparently without provocation, the youths began hitting and pushing the two victims. The boy's baseball hat was stolen.

Lewis and Clark High School student body president Amy Budge said she "just lost track of time" during the lunch hour last week, talking with friends by her locker, when she heard the one-minute warning bell for fifth period. She grabbed her books and ran through crowded hallways to her English class in the school's basement. She hit the door a few seconds late. Instead of being allowed to slink into class under the disapproving glare of her teacher, Budge found the door locked.

Twenty three years ago, Mead School District built the high school of the future. The design was based on a hot educational concept that called for schools without walls. The school district is now looking for money to remodel the school because the design has proven a disaster. "People say if there's the biggest mess they have ever seen, it's trying to live in that space," said Mead Superintendent Bill Mester.

1. Kathe Renner explores ways to help a student in the truancy center while police officer Sean Nemec backs her up with his presence. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Kathe Renner uses her computer and a phone to check the story of a couple of students in the truancy center. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Brandon Stevens bought the Spokane image: a rental home in Nevada-Lidgerwood inexpensive enough for a beginning architect's salary, a five-minute drive or bike ride to work, solid public schools for his daughter, and a crime rate much lower than his native New Orleans. He moved to what he thought was the last of the All-American towns eight months ago. Now, in response to a pair of beatings on Spokane's North Side and several violent crimes in recent months, as well as a better paying job in the Midwest, Stevens is leaving. He is getting ready to leave what he calls just "another place with a problem with crime."

Tom Mcfarlane gets a little help with his international history class at Whitworth. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

For the record (Friday, November 17, 1995): In a North Voice story Thursday about calendar sales at Salk Middle School, the cost given for the mail-order calendars did not include a $2 handling fee. The total cost of a mail-order calendar is $7. In the same story, the work experience of Jan Foland was misstated. Foland taught at Shaw Middle School two years ago. Salk Middle School students Briana Main, Marie Winters and Dan Rodgers show the calendar that includes the drawing of the Schliebe children who died in a recent house fire. Photo by Molly O'Hara/The Spokesman-Review

Artist Don Nepean displays one of his latest paintings. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

As an amatuer juggler, Frank Hoover has tossed another club in the air. The Mead School Board appointed Hoover, a lawyer who learned to juggle from his eight-year-old son, as a replacement member Monday night. Hoover fills a vacancy left by the resignation of another lawyer, John Riherd. Hoover will serve a year and have to run for election in the November 1996 election.

Josh Hinnenkamp, Zach Fairbanks, Sara Hinnenkamp and Karli Fairbanks help build a mock city. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Property at 3907 E. Wedgewood is making neighbors unhappy. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

1. Firefighters inside 1327 N. Adams, where four children were killed by smoke and heat Saturday morning. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Gary Foster, Jill Schliebe's father, talks of the generous outpouring of support from the community after the fatal fire. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Lisa Vieira was walking her 5-year-old son Joshua and his friends home from their school bus stop and listening to them chatter about their day at Willard Elementary two weeks ago when she saw two angry Rottweilers race across the street toward them. The dogs, which broke out of a fenced yard across the street from the bus stop, circled Vieira and the kids, snapping and lunging, said Vieira, who was also holding a 7-month-old baby in her arms. "The kids were terrified - these were big dogs," said Vieira. "I started yelling at them and told them to go home."

Four years after Brenda Lippert beat Bill Moore for a seat on the Deer Park School Board, he is back to challenge her again. Moore said he is running because he enjoyed the four years he had on the board, which included two years as board president. During his time away from the board he has stayed involved in school decisions by volunteering for the school bond committee. "Managing a concensus is hard," said Moore, a mechanic for the Postal Service. "It's a good challenge." Both Moore and Lippert say they would push for more instruction in computers and their application in the work world.

As Paul and Bertie Hein picked through boxes of tarnished silver spoons, their breath, chilled by last weekend's 40-degree weather, billowed in clouds. "This is about the end of the garage sale season," said Paul Hein. "We kind of go into mourning." Self-professed garage sale junkies, the Heins were not dissuaded by ski weather in the air, good football on the TV or pumpkin carving in the living room.

A trio of conservative parents who homeschool their children is running for school board positions in the Nine Mile Falls School District in order to institute "big, big changes." The three - George Hanrahan, Michael Funston and write-in candidate Lynn Stuter - say they represent a majority of parents in the Nine Mile Falls and Suncrest areas who fear the schools and government are working to "dumb down" curriculum and turn students into clones. They say many in the school district are frustrated that the school board does not listen to their complaints.

Five out of six parents of Mead High School sophomores voted this week to keep the class of 1998 together when the district opens a new high school in the fall of 1997. As a result, Mead High School will hold half of the district's freshmen, sophomores and juniors and all of the seniors in the 1997-98 school year. The new school, still unnamed, will hold the other half of the 9th, 10th and 11th grades.

The 60 students at Orchard Prairie School study in the same two-room schoolhouse that students studied in 101 years ago. Concern for the future of the small, country school is driving four Orchard Prairie residents to run for school board. The candidates fear legislative bills to force consolidation of school districts with fewer than 100 students will surface in 1996 as it did two years ago. All four expect the Legislature to address the issue this session.