Pia Hallenberg

Most residents know lilac is Spokane’s color. But most probably don’t know that lilac or purple is also the color of epilepsy awareness. Chris Engle knows. Engle was diagnosed with epilepsy “out of the blue” shortly after his 20th birthday in 2007. Two tonic-clonic – also known as grand mal – seizures in two days sent him to the emergency room, where he had yet another seizure.

Albert Gray wears a T-shirt that reads “Dads Against Daughters Dating” and a ball cap with a pirate logo. He smiles easily and his two children, Sylvia, 10, and Stephen, 8, crawl all over him every chance they get. At Chattaroy Elementary School, Sylvia and Stephen get all A and B grades, go to track meets and enter coloring contests. Together with their stepmother, Heather Gray, the family lives in a trailer park in Riverside, and on the surface they seem just like everybody else.

Students from Spokane Public Schools’ On Track Academy, a Hillyard-based alternative high school, have been working long shifts to finish an outdoor mural on North Market Street. The mural features a train winding down the tracks and a phoenix flying up toward the sky. It was designed by On Track students with the help of Cassie Stratton, a recent Whitworth University graduate, community volunteer and self-described starving artist.

Not much has changed on the corner of North Market Street and Queen Avenue since the Alaskan Tavern burned down in February 2010. Now Paul Breithaupt has bought a building, which is sitting on blocks just off Hawthorne Road where the Newport Cinemas used to be, and is planning to move it to the old Alaskan Tavern lot at the 5100 block of North Market Street. He may open a restaurant or a bar.

The music program at North Central High School received a $5,500 grant from the Grammy Foundation and Ford Motor Co. last week. North Central achieved Grammy Signature Schools Enterprise status with nine other schools across the country. Six of those schools received the Enterprise Award of $5,500. “We were pretty surprised that we got the grant,” said Collins Loupe, instrumental music director at North Central, on Friday The grant check was presented at North Central’s full band concert on May 30. “The kids here play really well, but I never have enough money it seems.”

When Capt. Kyle Smith of the Salvation Army of Spokane arrived here five years ago, he didn’t know much about Spokane. His Salvation Army career had already taken him from his native New Zealand, through relief work in Rwanda, a five-year stay in Hawaii and inner-city Salvation Army work in Los Angeles. “I honestly didn’t know what to expect about Spokane. I felt like I was being sent away to this little place,” Kyle Smith said. “And then it turned out that Spokane was a great town. I could easily have stayed here longer.”

What was supposed to have been an evening hanging out with friends around a fire pit in a South Hill backyard instead became a life-changing experience for Nikole Williams, 31. It was late March, and the damp debris in the pit wouldn’t catch fire. Williams got a can with gasoline and began to pour it on the smoldering fire. “Next thing I knew the flames were coming up the stream of gas and into the can,” Williams said. There was only a little gas left in the can, yet the fire ignited the gas fumes and the can exploded, setting Williams on fire. “I knew I had to drop and roll. I tried. It didn’t work.”

The Salvation Army created quite a log jam on North Division Street and Nora Avenue on May 23. That’s when Trans-System delivered two Idaho-grown white spruce trunks for the Salvation Army’s Marshallese Ministry Program’s outrigger canoe building project. The bigger trunk was 20 feet long and nearly 6 feet in diameter.

What was supposed to have been an evening hanging out with friends around a fire pit in a South Hill backyard instead became a life-changing experience for Nikole Williams, 31. It was late March, and the damp debris in the pit wouldn’t catch fire. Williams got a can with gasoline and began to pour it on the smoldering fire. “Next thing I knew the flames were coming up the stream of gas and into the can,” Williams said. There was only a little gas left in the can, yet the fire ignited the gas fumes and the can exploded, setting Williams on fire. “I knew I had to drop and roll. I tried. It didn’t work.”

Neighbors along the east side of Indian Canyon Golf Course got a surprise when they heard chainsaws at 5:40 a.m. on May 20. A subcontractor was topping trees to clear a path alignment – or line of sight – for a microwave dish that’s part of a new county emergency communication system. The work was done without the necessary permits, city officials said.

Ryan Johnson is a writer before he is anything else. The 19-year-old outstanding graduate from Bancroft School has already written several books and a play – writing is what he does for fun. “I would love to get my books published; that’s my biggest goal right now,” Johnson said.

When Alexandra Golikov, 18, attended a shot put and discus camp last summer, the Lewis and Clark High track star was baffled when she tried to throw a hammer for the first time. “I was totally the worst in the group,” Golikov said, laughing. “But then something changed. It clicked. It felt all natural and suddenly I could do it.”

Carson Murray set a new high jump record for Rogers High School. And then he broke it. In late April, he was named Rogers’ male scholar-athlete, and a week later he received a Gates Millennium Scholarship – an all-expenses-paid scholarship to a college of his choice. Yet, he’s humble and friendly. And he likes to make people smile.

The 16th annual Spokane Falls Community College Pow Wow brings drummers and dancers to its campus today and Saturday. Organized by the Red Nations Student Association, the spring powwow features dance categories for men, women, teens and boys and girls. A SFCC Veteran Special Dance has been added this year.

When Kenneth Murphy bought his little house on East Providence Avenue in 1970, he figured he’d live there for the rest of his life. He’s still there, but life didn’t go exactly as planned. Murphy got divorced and he lost his job. A roof leak got so bad it took out part of the ceiling in his bedroom. The back door was bent and wouldn’t shut properly. A leak in the bathroom destroyed part of the floor there. Unemployed, Murphy was barely able to make ends meet when he saw a notice about the city’s Single Family Housing Rehabilitation Program in his utility bill. “I thought it couldn’t hurt to apply. I didn’t think I was going to get any money,” Murphy said, sitting on the couch in his living room Monday morning. “Boy was I surprised when they called me and said I qualified for $35,000.”

When Marina Drake’s husband, Robert Drake, started bringing home beautiful, high-quality used books, she didn’t suspect it was going to change her life and career. Robert Drake’s company had relocated to a building downtown – on Wall Street next door to Europa Restaurant and Bakery – and Monkeyboy Books was in the same building. When the store came up for sale last year, one thing led to another, and the Drakes bought it.

Considering that Spokane architect Warren C. Heylman designed the downtown Parkade, Spokane International Airport and the Spokane Regional Health District building, just to mention a few of his many public projects, it may come as a surprise to some that Heylman also designed and built midcentury modern homes in the 1950s. One of those is located at 2020 E. 18th Ave. and it is part of the annual Mother’s Day Home Tour this weekend put together by the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

No matter where in the world children grow up they undoubtedly hear the phrase “Listen to your mother.” Sometimes it’s said sternly as a reminder to not act up. Other times it’s said more gently, pleadingly, with the hope a child will not repeat a particular mistake.

When Mark Lowry was 9 years old in the late 1960s, his parents made sure he got to record an album. They realized their young son had a gift for singing and with his teenage years fast approaching, they worried his voice would change. “My dad paid $500 so I could record that album,” Lowry said. “I have wonderful parents. They found out what you were good at and then fanned the flame.”