Pia Hallenberg

Don Gorman began volunteering for the Spokane Valley Heritage Museum before it existed and he never quit. The way Gorman tells the story, he met Chuck King at a picnic at Terrace View Park back in the early 2000s where King was giving rides in an antique merry-go-round shaped like a rocket ship.

When Jenifer Priest walked into the little antique store near Division Street and Sprague Avenue nearly 20 years ago, she wasn’t looking for anything specific. Browsing shelves and cases, a golden charm bracelet caught her eye and she picked it up.

One man was sorely missed among the nearly 15,000 people who were expected to move through the Salvation Army’s back-to-school backpack distribution by the end of the day Thursday: Ian Johnstone, the general manager of Cenex Zip Trip, who was one of the biggest supporters of the event. Johnstone died in his sleep early Wednesday morning at the age of 54. “You always heard him here before you saw him,” said Sheila Geraghty, Salvation Army business administrator. “He was boisterous and energetic, always ready to go. He is very much missed.”

At this time of the year, when smoke hangs thick over the Spokane area, overgrown lots covered in tall, dry grass and weeds are more than an eyesore: They may become a fire danger. At last week’s Spokane Valley City Council meeting, Valley resident Glen Flachmeyer told the council that he’s tired of all the unkempt lots he sees in the Valley.

Have you ever had a charm bracelet? Carefully picked each charm to have a special meaning, creating a time capsule of your life to wear around your wrist. Well - here's a story for you: a reader purchased this bracelet nearly 20 years ago and...

There's been a letter to the editor and a few public testimonials at Spokane Valley City Council meetings about the overgrown state of some vacant commercial lots.

When asked about the work they do for the Greater Valley Support Network, Diann and David Ross say the same thing: They don’t want to brag and they don’t want it to sound like they are saving the world. “It’s a very cooperative and collaborative effort,” David Ross said. “It’s a very diverse and broad group of people that shows up at our meetings.”

Spokane Valley resident suggest people near railroad tracks hang signs on their fences with a simple message.

Supporters of a new Spokane Valley library are weighing their options after failing again to capture the needed supermajority for a $22 million bond issue. Among the possibilities, library officials say, is tightening the boundaries of the areas that would vote on and pay for the tax increase needed for a new Spokane Valley library branch on Sprague Avenue across from the old U-City Mall and updating other existing library facilities.

An unexpected activity takes over the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center on Havana Street where volunteers moved in and set up a field hospital over the weekend.

The Spokane County Fair and Expo Center will be transformed early next week into a working field hospital that will provide free dental and medical care on a first-come, first-served basis. The event, Your Best Pathway to Health, will serve patients Monday and Tuesday. Boxes of medical equipment, office supplies and drugs began arriving Friday afternoon for the event.

At the Spokane Valley City Council meeting on Tuesday, city manager Mike Jackson suggested staff create a website with all train-related research, projects and problems generated in Spokane Valley.

Michael and Michelle Yarbrough got to feel safe in their own front yard for just a couple of weeks. They live on the northeast corner of East Eighth Avenue and South Carnahan Road, and over the years they’ve had a number of cars crash through their fence. To help protect themselves and their yard, they lobbied Spokane Valley to put Jersey barriers along the corner, creating an extra layer of protection outside their chain-link fence.

There’s a new basketball court at Browns Park in Spokane Valley. It was built as an Eagle Scout project, with help from Hoopfest.