Marny Lombard

Sheriff's deputy Roger Knight helps youngster with their safety helmets. Photo by Shawn Jacobson/The Spokesman-Review

Valley Hospital and Medical Center volunteer Julie Rothfus is right where she loves to be: in the middle of the emergency room. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

The Liberty Lake Fun Run, a four-mile run with views of the lake, is coming up in August. The new event, on Aug 16, will benefit Friends of Pavillion Park, the group supporting further development of the neighborhood park at Liberty Lake. "There are no fun runs at Liberty Lake, so this is kind of filling a hole," said organizer Paul Merideth, a runner.

For the second year in a row, Spokane County's Department of Parks and Recreation has closed its children's summer general recreation programs, due to lack of participation. This year's program, called Kids Play, ran 10 days at Liberty Lake Park before closing. "I am disappointed," said Randy Johnson, recreation manager. "But we can't afford to have staffers just looking at each other." The two staffers at Liberty Lake were reassigned to other positions there.

About 50 Junior Volunteers are helping today as the Valley Hospital and Medical Center holds its annual Carnival of Safety. From 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. at the hospital, 12606 E. Mission Ave., kids can learn about safety from 59 booths. Many of the booths include hands-on activities. The carnival draws roughly 5,000 children and parents each year. New this year is the Archy and Sparky Electrical Safety Show, sponsored by Modern Electric Water Co. Situations such as a kite caught on a power line are used to teach safety.

Devon Van Dyne, 16, doesn't remember much about the drug education program she went through. Just one thing stuck in her mind, she said: the lack of a human voice. So last spring when she heard about the anti-drug essay contest sponsored by U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt, she decided to put forward her own ideas. Van Dyne was one of two Spokane Valley students who presented essays last week to national drug czar Barry McCaffrey and other officials in Washington, D.C. Christopher Holmes, 13, was the other winning student.

Greg Bever and Denny Ashlock lead commissioners Kate McCaslin and John Roskelly on a tour of the Mirabeau site. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Serving on a school board is not for the faint of heart. That's the consensus of a handful of former and current school board members. "It's a scary proposition frankly," said George Orr, a former member of the Central Valley School Board. "There were a couple of times I was going to quit. What you say and do can impact 10,000 kids, a couple of thousand employees and millions of dollars."

Next month, the organizers of Mirabeau Point will take folks from the Spokane Valley Senior Center on a tour of Mirabeau's 70-acre campus, where a new senior center is to be built. "I have a couple of places I want to show them," said Denny Ashlock, Mirabeau founder. "That really is going to be kind of fun." It does sound like fun - especially compared to wrestling with an elephant of a decision that Ashlock and other project supporters face.

Better access for handicapped anglers is part of the plan. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

A documentary film that records the sweet ties of family life in Orchard Prairie will have its premier showing this weekend. This film portrait of Orchard Prairie has been a year in the making. Sisters Lorna St. John and Linda Sharman created it after the death of their mother, Violet Clothier, a longtime community leader. Orchard Prairie is a rural pocket of a community, half hidden between the Spokane Valley and north Spokane. Residents celebrated its centennial in 1979 and held a 100-year school reunion just last summer.

Elsie and Don McClean treat strangers like friends at their Lazy S Ranch near Liberty Lake. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Getting landowners to comply with state mandated weed control is "a thankless job," says Dave Mundt, coordinator for the Spokane County Noxious Weed Board. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

1. Sptted knapweed is an Ebola virus of the weed world. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Diffuse knapweed. 3. Dalmatian toadflax. 4. Canadian thistle.

The group that's backing public spending for green space in Spokane County believes that 70 percent of county citizens support its cause. A survey taken this spring by Robinson Research showed that 70 percent of the county's voters favor continuing the tax that raises money to preserve natural areas in the county. Twenty percent oppose this use of tax money, while the rest are undecided. Craig Volosing last week told fellow members of the county parks advisory committee about the survey findings during the committee's discussion of the upcoming vote on the county conservation futures tax.

The Liberty Lake summer concert series eased off the ground last weekend with a crowd of about 350 people, a performer who bathed his audience in hand-clapping, hip-waggling fun and a sunny day actually worthy of the name summer. "This is just wonderful," said Tamara Adams, a newcomer to Liberty Lake, reclining in a stars-and-stripes bikini and listening to singer Norman Foote. "I couldn't believe this actually existed," said Gloria Riedlinger, a pink-hatted visitor to Spokane who brought her grandson along. The Summertime Music Festival at Liberty Lake is a throwback to - pick your era - free folk concerts in the '60s or free band concerts in the 1890s. Families with small children scattered themselves on blankets across the gentle amphitheater at Pavillion Park. Ninety-year-old Jim Brumm sat in the shade; 10-week-old Jason Dean, a diaper-clad redhead, reclined in his father's arms. Organizer Jim Frank said an amphitheater was one of the top requests from a neighborhood survey before Pavillion Park was designed. Events such as these concerts are a key way to knit a community together, Frank said. "You meet your neighbors, you talk with people," Frank said. Still, the small crowd spelled a combination of relief and disappointment. "I have to be honest, I'd like to see twice as many or three times as many people there. But for our first time, I was satisfied," Frank said. The low numbers made for an absence of parking problems and gave organizers a smooth run-through on other logistical details. Other concerts this summer, all better known names to Spokane, are expected to draw considerably larger crowds. Overflow parking is arranged for larger crowds. This year, that parking will be in vacant lots. In future years, overflow parking will be in a planned STA parking lot by Albertsons and at the Liberty Lake Elementary School, now under construction. The Friends of Pavillion Park hope to hold a free concert series each summer. Frank, developer and president of Greenstone Corp., put up $25,000 for this concert series. Friends of the Park will seek other sponsors and donors in the future. It's a safe bet that Friends of the Park won't have to worry about attendance. On Saturday afternoon, two girls peddled pop, popcorn and "popcycles." So said their cardboard sign, anyway. Sun-tanned matrons wiggled fire-engine red toenails in time to Foote's contagious music. Well-prepared moms sheltered babies under beach umbrellas. And a few boys on bicycles caroomed across the amphitheater, for those inevitable moments when toe-tapping wasn't quite enough fun to hold them down.

Three University High School graduates recently returned from national technical competition after placing in the top 10 of their divisions. Six U-Hi graduates and students competed at the National Student Technical Conferences in Washington, D.C., last month. They traveled with U-Hi teacher Dan Obenchain. About 3,000 students from across the nation competed. Brett Seefeldt and Jessica Coombs, competing as a team, won first in Construction Systems.

Eight school board positions across the Valley are up for election this fall. Challengers for those positions have about three weeks to decide if they want to run. The filing period for school board candidates is July 28-Aug. 1. All the incumbents in the Central Valley, East Valley and West Valley school districts say they'll run for re-election.

With one eye on the future, a group of citizens is working on this question: What social services don't exist in the Spokane Valley? A one-word answer is: plenty. And as these representatives from several agencies start to hammer out a more detailed answer, the obvious has dawned on them. The Valley's potential for growth, combined with today's concentration of social services within the city of Spokane, means the need here will only increase.

1. Joan Barnes is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, women who can trace their ancestry to veterans of the War of Independence. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Linda Shiflett wears the ribbons of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 3. DAR member Joan Barnes talks with family members about this Civil War sword that her husband found. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

1. John Bioto sprays the first coat of paint on a new medical building across from Valley Hospital and Medical Center. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 2. With Valley Hospital in the background, Dan Smith changes a flat next to property his father has up for sale. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Heather Cannon, a planner for Millwood, is waging a one-woman war. The town is developing its comprehensive plan - a vision for how the town should grow over the next 20 years - and Cannon urges Millwood residents from 10 years old to 100 to join the process. "It doesn't matter how old you are or how long you've lived here, or if you only work here, you should have an interest," Cannon said.

Every chair in Melissa Mayer's civics class is taken. That's 30 students who roll in each morning at 7:30 to learn about citizenship, current events and civic affairs. Why such devotion to a class that's almost never considered a picnic? Traditionally, some students have chosen to get civics out of the way early, said Laurie Sheffler, principal of Central Valley School District's secondary summer school.

Monica Haff has given up teaching children's art because of multiple sclerosis and her desire to write and illustrate children's books. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review