Jonathan Martin

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.

Kurt and Jana Beilstein follow the Block Watch home security tips. They have an alarm system and keep exterior lights on all night. The tips didn't work early last Friday morning when five teenagers went on a crime spree in the north Indian Trail area, breaking into several garages and stealing two cars. "You talk about bold and brassy, I had my lights on," said Jana Beilstein, who lives on Howesdale Drive. "We have motion sensors and lights on all night, and it didn't help."

Mead student Naelly Galvan, middle, from Mexico helps preschool and kindergarten kids learn to count to five in Spanish. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Mel West, member of the Nevada-Lidgerwood steering committee, hopes funding cuts won't threaten projects like the new COPS station on Addison and Wellesley. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

With the success of community development projects, it is inevitable that one occasionally will have a rough ride. Such is the case with the Nevada-Lidgerwood COPS shop, funded through a community development grant. After two years of work, the police substation continues to languish in paperwork purgatory.

Colby Parkins evaluates a water test during science class. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

Mead School Board member John Riherd will step down in November to avoid a conflict of interest. Riherd, an attorney, has joined the Perkins Coie law firm, which has done business with the school district and is being considered for future contracts.

Spokane drug enforcement officers seized 63 pot plants worth about $63,000 and pot-growing paraphernalia from a North Side residence last week. Police, serving a search warrant based on an anonymous tip, arrested Richard Townsend, 30, and Dee Anne Smith, 38, for conspiracy to manufacture a controlled substance. Both were released Oct. 11 on their own recognizance after a night in jail. Townsend and Smith were not listed on a search warrant filed with Spokane County. According to the warrant, officers were looking for a 21 year-old white male. As of Tuesday, he had not been arrested.

Compared to what they had in their old digs, the volunteers at Fire District 4's Station 44 on the Newport Highway are working in luxury. Instead of a station a little bigger than a double garage, volunteers now live in the station.

Mike Hoover, 8, concentrates on his juggling routine. Photo by Shawn Jacobson/The Spokesman-Review

Betty Campo, left, and Tania Beier help dish up kapana dinners at the 60th annual Greek Festival. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Following a nationwide trend, the Deer Park School District has equipped its school buses to carry surveillance cameras. Deer Park is the latest district in the area to buy into the idea that an extra eye on its buses will mean fewer discipline problems and fewer distractions for drivers. "Just having the camera on the bus calms them down," said Ed Dillman, a Deer Park bus driver for 12 years. "They know they are being watched."

Ruth Dearing visits the newly remodeled library at Rogers High School. Dearing led the drive to get the money to upgrade the facility. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Like a weatherman trying to follow hurricanes, District 81 planning director Ned Hammond tries to give warning, prepare for crisis, then offer theories to explain the unexplainable. This fall, student enrollment figures for North Side schools are as erratic as a storm. In the same West Central neighborhood, Garfield Elementary School added 32 students and Holmes Elementary School lost 35. "We just have an awful lot of movement within the school district," said Hammond. "In some cases we have neighborhoods that are very stable. Others ... are in the process of turning over, which happens every 20 years or so."

Police have arrested an 18 year-old North Side man for his role in a shooting at the Electron Palace last Friday. Joshua James Bailey, who lives at 7317 N. Colton, turned himself in Tuesday and was booked on first-degree assault. He remained in custody Tuesday on a $15,000 bond. The shooting happened near midnight, when four people were leaving the video parlor at 7452 N. Division.The four were walking across a parking lot to their car. Another car, with Bailey in the passenger's seat, drove by, and Bailey yelled a name at a man in the foursome, according to witnesses. When the man responded, the car stopped and Bailey, holding a gun, got out, witnesses told police.

Eileen Swanstrom leads her class through some steps. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review