Kevin Keating

The parent company for three pricey schools for troubled teens near Bonners Ferry is being sued by two former students for fraud, racketeering and battery. The suit was filed in District Court on Tuesday. It alleges that Rocky Mountain Academy, Northwest Academy, Ascent and their California-based parent company, CEDU Educational Services Inc., grossly overcharge parents, and have ill-trained staff who verbally and physically abuse students.

Coldwater Creek, one of North Idaho's largest employers, is lending its economic muscle to oppose plans for the Rock Creek mine in Montana. The Sandpoint based mail-order catalog company has purposely stayed out of local political battles until now. But company president Dennis Pence said the Asarco Inc. mine and its potential to pollute Lake Pend Oreille was too important an issue to remain silent.

Authorities are trying to find out how a middle-aged man died and how his partly decomposed body ended up in the woods near Bayview. A man gathering firewood stumbled upon the body last weekend. It was discovered south of Sandpoint, on the border of Bonner and Kootenai counties.

Sorry, no number Harlan Brown spent two weeks trying to get a phone hooked up at a house he is building in Boundary County. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

After watching school levies pass in Post Falls and Boundary County, school officials here are thinking it's their turn to tap taxpayers. School board members debated Thursday whether to put a $1 million levy before voters sometime this year to buy buses and put computers in classrooms.

City officials want to levy fines against two businesses for failing to comply with city and federal water quality standards. The city cited the businesses after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency accused Sandpoint of being too lax in enforcing water quality regulations.

Teachers in Boundary County won't face layoffs and students no longer will pay $100 to play sports, thanks to a two-year levy voters approved Tuesday. The $980,000 maintenance and operations levy will pay the bills and keep district officials from having to slash programs, reduce staff or close an outlying school.

For the first time in 30 years Idaho residents - not a panel of judges and lawyers - will decide who sits on the Supreme Court. The May primary election marks the first time in decades there will be a contested election for an open seat on the Idaho Supreme Court. Justice Byron Johnson is retiring when his six-year term expires in January. Justices often have left office or retired in the middle of their term. That allowed a judicial council to screen applicants and select candidates to present to the governor. The governor would then appoint the new justice, by-passing a popular vote.

1. Fourth-grader Natasha Ward shoots her hand skyward with the answer to a geography question at Valley View Elementary in Bonners Ferry. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review 2. Hand-lettered signs in Bonners Ferry urge support for the levy. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

1. Darlene McMullen wants justice for her sister. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review 2. Neva Rasmussen, Ninny's mother, cared for her daughter for 18 of the 31 years she was in a coma. Photo courtesy of family

FOR THE RECORD: 3-21-98; ID Headline wrong: No one died in a 1995 shootout between Bonner County sheriff's deputies and Ian and Rhyhan Higgins. A headline on an article in Friday's newspaper indicated otherwise.

Two Bonner County commissioners want to stop their colleague, Bud Mueller, from cruising to lunch, personal appointments and even Spokane in a county car. Commissioners passed a resolution Thursday - minus Mueller's signature - to crack down on abuse of county vehicle use. The resolution was spurred by complaints from residents who have seen Mueller and his wife out to dinner and driving around Spokane in a county car.

Two Schweitzer Mountain Resort owners are counting on cash from a prominent Honolulu developer to lead the ski hill out of bankruptcy. Jean Brown and Bobbie Huguenin want to thwart the sale of their family owned and deeply indebted resort. The mother-daughter team filed bankruptcy last November. This week they submitted a 100-plus page reorganization plan to a judge. The proposal aims to pay creditors some of the $28 million they are owed. The family claims it can do so with $30 million pledged by Bruce Stark, a developer in Hawaii.

Bonner County school administrator Ed Sansom is under investigation by the state Professional Standards Commission for alleged unethical conduct. Sansom was hired about three years ago as an area administrator charged with overseeing Sandpoint schools.

Motorists line up at the Flying J in Post Falls for gasoline that's about 18 cents cheaper than in Sandpoint. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

Former Bonner County school superintendent Max Harrell twice in his career has been paid not to work. Trustees paid the superintendent $222,000 in December to leave Bonner County. The district bought out Harrell's contract rather than endure two more years of discord in the community.

Welcome home, chief "I didn't come here to be a novelty," says Elaine Savage, Priest River's first female police chief. "I came here to do a job." Photo by Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review

Former economic development director Susan Johnson is suing the city, saying the mayor wrongly eliminated her job nearly two years ago. The lawsuit, which names all the City Council members and Mayor David Sawyer, doesn't ask for a specific dollar amount but seeks back pay from March 1996.

Joan Cramer stands in front of the smokejumpers exhibit featuring her husband, Albert, at the Bonner County Museum. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

Fields Cobb addresses Bonner County commissioners, asking them to reject the amnesty law. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

A parent who helped pass out ice-cream bowls at a Farmin Elementary School party exposed about 60 students to hepatitis A. The parent was helping with a Valentine's Day party at the school on Feb. 13. She did not know she had hepatitis and exposed a group of first- and sixth-grade students.

1. (Photo of license plate) 2. Allen Andrews shows off one of the 2-foot-long female rainbow trout he raises in his own pond, selling fingerlings for others to stock or catch. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

Spreading diversity The Sibikwa players from South Africa perform Thursday at the Panida Theater in Sandpoint for high school students. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

Sandpoint lost a well-known businessman and restaurateur Tuesday when Bill "Beaner" Johnson died of an apparent heart attack. Johnson was 70. He collapsed while working the morning shift at The Bagel Company, one of his downtown restaurants.