Jonathan Martin

It wasn't "Elvis' Actual Water Heater," of course, but Rick Shirman got three people to stop for the second look. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

1. Houses are going up all around the new Deer Park Golf and Country Club. Warren Development plans to build about 430 more homes and condos within eight years. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review 2. The intersection of Crawford and Main is shown in this pre-1908 photo. Courtesy of Lawrence Zimmerer 3. Lawrence Zimmerer has lived almost all of his 89 years in Deer Park. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

Hundreds of Spokane County classrooms will be getting new computers and Internet connections. School administrators were ecstatic Wednesday about being on the receiving end of $1.3 million in state money. Voters have been reluctant to approve high-tech bond issues.

David Tyler, who works at Garland Cycle, helped a boy get his bike back. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Dale Norton takes a load of insulation up to the roof of the straw bale house he is building. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Lake Spokane home page To check out the Lake Spokane Elementary home page, point your computer to: www.lkspo.9mile.k12.spk.wa.us J an Steele's class still has baby teeth, but geek speak is not babble to the precocious grade school kids. The Lake Spokane Elementary second- and third-graders showed off their award-winning World Wide Web home page earlier this week at an international technology show in Spokane.

They don't have money, a permanent stage or props, but they have the requisite performer's virtue: a love for the stage. A group of about 25 Deer Park and Riverside residents last month formed north Spokane County's first community theater group in hopes of bringing plays to the area. Civic pride is at stake, say organizers.

The Spokane School Board has closed the book on complaints against Madison Elementary principal Shari Kirihara, but four years worth of discord continues to brew. More than 60 parents packed a board meeting last week, responding to an invitation to tell board members about their problems with Kirihara.

1. Dr. Bruce Dentler visits with Clara Jackman during his rounds at Royal Park Nursing Home. Dentler enjoys discussing the backgrounds of his patients. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review 2. Dentler takes Eloise St. John back to the day room after an examination. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review 3. Dr. Dentler fill in the charts for patients at the Royal Park Care Center. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Funk is back. Gabardine hiphuggers are the rage. "Saturday Night Fever" is rarely in at the video store. So it's no surprise that retro logic has struck North Central High administrators. For the first time since the 1970s, NC teachers are hosting home rooms.

Construction at Mount Spokane High School remains on schedule and under budget. The exterior of the wedge-shaped, red-brick building is largely done. Locks are on most doors and windows have been installed.

1. Mick Miller, left, will remain at Mead High School while Mike Dunn will take over at Mount Spokane High when it opens. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review 2. The exterior of Mount Spokane High School is almost complete. Workers will be moving indoors when the weather cools. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

State parks officials are near to making a deal to obtain a coveted parcel of land inside Mount Spokane State Park, but northwest Spokane residents fear they will lose out in the exchange. The parks department wants to trade for 160 acres of timber land on Quartz Mountain that is owned by a Gig Harbor, Wash., development company. The parcel on Quartz Mountain, which is southeast of 5,800-foot Mount Spokane, is surrounded by state park land.

After a short protest strike, Nevada-Lidgerwood volunteers are again working on the neighborhood COPS substation. Work stopped for about a week after Neva-Wood COPS president Deborah Wittwer was suspended last month. Wittwer is appealing, and the city is mediating between an angry neighborhood council and the police department.

Most kids hate being stuck in the school library doing research. Not Nick Pierce. The other day, he tapped a few keys and went city hopping: CNN in Atlanta, Time magazine in Chicago, the Washington Post archives. Research for his paper on President Clinton's education policy rolled out of the printer next to him in the Rogers High School library.

1. Al French, chairman of the Nevada-Lidgerwood Neighborhood Council, inside the partially built COPS building at Wellesley and Addison. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review 2. Iris Little, a COPS volunteer, does paperwork at the North Market office. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

Blinded at age 5, Dean Sharp is regaining his eyesight through new eye surgery techniques. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

A pair of loud, late summer parties in West Central last week left hosts with the painful hangover of a criminal citation. Fifteen teenagers were cited just past midnight Saturday for underage drinking at a party at 719 W. Shannon.

Hillary Hunter and Amy Mullins, center, compare chemistry notes in one of the remodeled classrooms at Northwest Christian. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review

A bulging freshman class at Shadle Park High School needs more pre-algebra classes, gym teachers and time to boogie. A freshman mixer last week for the unexpectedly large 513-student freshman class saw almost all of them get down to the macarena, the latest dance craze.

While the Spokane School District asks for more parental involvement in schools, administrators have killed the district's only kindergarten program that requires parent participation. Low kindergarten enrollment at Garfield Elementary, the program's host school, meant one kindergarten class had to be eliminated. With little parent interest in Garden, principal Steve Ward said he reluctantly chose the special program.

Dano

Darlene Becker has fought construction of an apartment complex near her home and now fights for her neighborhood. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

Janet Davis expresses her concerns about neighborhood traffic and unresponsive city government at meetings of the council for her neighborhood, Cannon's Addition. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review