Jonathan Martin

Lamps flicker in the corners of the darkened Mead High School classroom. The deep bass of a haunting song - Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" - throbs. Students are told a tragic story about lost friendship and asked to write a poem of their feelings. Inappropriate public school instruction? Or a valuable teaching tool? As educators learn more benefits of teaching kids to relax and contemplate, concerns about the instructional techniques grow.

Jim Finley and Wilene Goodwin joint Riverfront Park protest Friday. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Mead students won three of the eight individual titles at the speech tournament, domination as impressive as the heralded Mead crosscountry teams. T he set-up: two old Vaudeville cronies, attempting a reunion.

Fifty years ago, Mount St. Michael was a self-contained city, far from its current use as a pastoral abode. During the mid-20th century, the mountain was home to Jesuit brothers and seminarians from Gonzaga University, who were served by tailors, bakers, cobblers, bee keepers and gardeners.

FROM NORTH VOICE page N2 (Thursday, March 20, 1997): Correction Our Lady of Guadalupe church holds a Latin Mass. An article in last week's North Side Voice incorrectly stated that Mount St. Michael was the only church in Spokane to hold Latin mass. 1. Fourth-graders Elizabeth Rojas and Sammantha Waco read with Sister Mary Petra in literature class at Mount St. Michael Academy. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review 2. Rev. Louis Kerfoot prepares to say Latin Mass. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review 3. From their classroom window, third-graders at Mount St. Michael smile at a visitor. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review 4. Mount St. Michael first-grader Trevor Johnson shares a story he wrote with his class. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review 5. Conservative doctrine and modern technology are melded in computer skills class, where Sister May Philomena helps St. Michael's junior Matt Bedker. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Mead's stringent intra-district transfer policy will likely mean school officials learning many ways of nicely saying no.

The Northeast Community Center has begun a project designed to match the needs of the Nevada-Lidgerwood neighborhood with its strengths.

Spokane police arrested a Spokane woman earlier this week with a full stock of drugs and drug paraphernalia, including a Loony Toons lunch box packed with methamphetamine, used crack pipe screens and cigarette papers. Kandy Lynn Campbell, 38, was booked into the Spokane City-County Jail for drug and drug paraphernalia charges, and for an outstanding theft warrant. She was in custody Tuesday, awaiting a bond hearing for the drug charges.

Student activities didn't get kid-glove treatment in Mead School District's budget boxing ring. Administrators are cutting off support for the Associated Student Body account, leaving the Math Club to compete with sports teams for funding.

Mead School District officials propose cutting spending for supplies, teacher training and travel to balance next year's budget. The plan, if adopted by the school board, will mean a minimum 10 percent reduction in all non-salary spending. No staff will lose their jobs, but several positions will be eliminated through attrition and retirement. The district's wallet has been stretched taut by construction of a second high school, by a new state law restricting property tax levy collection and by slower-than-expected student growth.

George Nethercutt, second from right, is shown in a photo that ran in the Glover Citizen, the Glover Junior High paper.

Three people, including two West Central residents, are in custody after trying to pass off to an undercover police officer a rumpled ball of paper towel as crack cocaine. Michael Gonia, 30, Sean Maclean, 29, and Jocelyn Painter, 22, were booked into the Spokane County jail for "delivery of a substance in lieu of a controlled substance." The deal went down on the 200 block of East Mission about 10 p.m. last Thursday. The three offered police the white ball as a rock of crack.

Turmoil in the woodsy Riverside School District is brewing hotter than a cup of Joe at Chattaroy's Ram restaurant. All 275 employees of the school district north of Spokane are working under expired contracts. Negotiations are stymied, and union officials and administrators snipe at each other like schoolchildren at recess.

Wayne Sieveke, right, along with John Repsold, Bill Goodrick and Rick Kienholtz, in back from left, hope to turn the old fire station at Indiana and Standard into a youth center and chapel. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Unpublished correction: In the published text the name of Jack Dein was spelled Jack Dien.

Fire officials are investigating an apparent fire bombing incident Monday that gutted a Yugo. The fire was likely started by a flammable liquid sprayed in the car's interior, said investigator Mike Zambryski.

Salk Middle School students can coast no longer. Under the school's strict new academic accountability program, the minute a student shuts down his or her brain in a classroom, they get a dose of tough love. Instead of anonymously sliding down to an "F," students are now confronted - and, if necessary, cajoled and counseled - by parents, teachers, advisors and the principal.

Advertisements of grand opportunities drew James Berridge away from his Ohio farm, all the way west of north Spokane County. He planted his family on 160 acres of prairie and hills, a big enough homestead even for his brood of 16. He quickly earned a reputation as an adept farmer, an honest gentleman and a war hero, wounded in the stomach, thigh, forehead and arm during the Civil War.

The competitive drive of Brentwood Elementary students has a lot of sole. Students at the Mead school this week donated more than 1,000 pairs of shoes to Rwanda's poor. They already helped round up almost a ton of food during Christmas. The promise of free milkshakes - and smiling Rwandans - drove classes to gather more than 500 pairs of shoes on Friday alone.

With a $30,000 investment, the City of Spokane is hoping to get back three self-reliant community centers. The city council last week approved spending the money to hire a grant-writer, a professional fisherman of sorts who will troll philanthropic waters for public and private dollars.

The Nine Mile Falls School District is wasting no time in building a new middle school. Funding for the school was approved last week, when voters endorsed a $7 million bond issue.

1. From left, Shane Nelson, LeShawn Trammell, Kyle Record and Sam Clopton get instructions from stand-in coach Jeff Goodwin before the second half of a game. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review 2. Louise Stamper, the team sponsor and surrogate mother, watches from the sidelines as gang members play ball. At upper right is West Central neighborhood police officer Ken Lesperance. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review 3. Sam Clopton of the West Side Ballers runs hard and fast in some heated competition on the basketball court. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review 4. Kelly Cranford, left, talks basketball with Jake Stamper, 4, during a game. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review 5. Ronnie Trammell displays a gang tattoo on his neck. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

Sara Lesher's horse helped keep her out of the fast life while she was growing up in a Seattle suburb. "I had to get up and feed the horse," said Lesher. "I didn't have time to do anything else."

Cops are keeping an eye out for someone buying steak sauce by the gallon. It's a good bet that the burglars who hit the Chattaroy Restaurant last Wednesday will need condiments to go with their beefy booty.