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Pia Hallenberg

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News >  Washington Voices

Disc golf in park draws following

It is a tiny bit weird, especially if you don’t know what you’ve walked into. On a somewhat sunny afternoon in High Bridge Park discs are flying left and right, coming out of nowhere and flying who knows where. At least that’s what disc golf seems like to the uninitiated. Casual passers-by may not even notice the big metal baskets with a bright yellow brim that are the targets of the flying discs, but they sure will notice the discs.
News >  Washington Voices

Palouse offers relaxation, education

“My father and mother, William and Williamina (Bunge) Buth, left Germany in 1867, hoping to find peace and opportunities in America to care for their family. I was born in South Dakota in 1883, the youngest of 10 children. Hail storms, wind and drought ruined our crops year after year, but when our home was struck by lightning I decided it was time to find greener pastures. … It was cold and foggy that January 8, 1908, when I stepped off the train in Fairfield.” Those are the words of Martin Buth, who submitted a first-person account of the pioneer days in Fairfield to a history book collected by Fairfield’s history committee in 1960. The spiral-bound “Early History of Fairfield: Glimpses of Life in a Pioneer Farming Town” can still be purchased at the Fairfield Museum, and it’s an excellent example of the rich local history available at museums and collections in small towns on the Palouse.
News >  Washington Voices

Wild West Days’ livestock won’t exactly be alive

Historic Hillyard Merchant Committee is celebrating Hillyard Wild West Days this Saturday with a great lineup of fun for everyone in the family. “We are going to have mechanical bull rides and calf roping of the practice kind, you know, with the plastic heads on sawbucks,” said Vickie Peterson, committee co-chair. “There really is no livestock involved.”
News >  Idaho Voices

Our destination: Wallace

This road trip to Wallace, Idaho, began on a sunny Saturday morning – the first really sunny morning in a long time. Locals say Wallace is “the center of the universe,” within a short distance of skiing and hiking, climbing and biking, all in the mountains that line the Silver Valley. The entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places and it has survived no less than two huge fires: The first in 1890 almost destroyed the town; the second fire in 1910 only took out parts of town as many of the buildings destroyed in the 1890 fire had been rebuilt in brick.
News >  Washington Voices

Businessman eyeing pharmacy building

Posted on July 1: The Altamont Pharmacy building has been sitting empty for some time now, and while there have been some interested buyers, nothing has panned out for the old building. Now Mark Camp - one of the current owners of the building - is ready to do something about that. Camp says he plans to purchase the entire building and divide it into three smaller retail spaces. “There will be two spaces facing Perry, and one toward the back that will be more like an office space,” Camp said. One tenant is ready to move in – though Camp won’t say who it is – and depending on financing he hopes the building will open in fall. Posted on June 28: The Spokane Parks and Recreation Department is pleading with folks to not feed the ducks. For the last two years the parks department has spent a lot of time, energy and money on educating park guests about why feeding the ducks bread is a bad, bad idea. Bread is like fast food for ducks: they get fat, yet are malnourished because they stop looking for their natural food when full of bread. Easy access to bread brings more ducks to the park ponds than what the eco-systems there can handle and the water quality becomes nasty. Bad water quality hurts other wildlife such as turtles and frogs – and finally, some ducks never migrate like they are supposed to because they stay where the fast food is readily available.
News >  Washington Voices

Check out Mullan trail, mission on the way to Wallace

This road trip to Wallace, Idaho, began on a sunny Saturday morning – the first really sunny morning in a long time. Locals say Wallace is “the center of the universe,” within a short distance of skiing and hiking, climbing and biking, all in the mountains that line the Silver Valley. The entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places and it has survived no less than two huge fires: The first in 1890 almost destroyed the town; the second fire in 1910 only took out parts of town as many of the buildings destroyed in the 1890 fire had been rebuilt in brick.
News >  Washington Voices

inspired to grow

The diversity in Kerry Absher’s vegetable garden is a bit like paradise what with plums and potatoes, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, dill, radishes and squash among the wealth of fruits and vegetables the unassuming man is growing on his corner lot on West Kiernan Avenue. The sign, however, says it all: this is God’s Garden. “The last yard I had was something like 20 years ago. I’m a carpenter so you can say I’m learning as I’m going,” said Absher, who grows the garden for the food bank and meal programs associated with Off Broadway Family Outreach and Family of Faith Community Church. “I started out blind and I grew all the plants from seed. At one point we had 144 of those little green houses in the basement.”
News >  Washington Voices

North Sider turns lot’s weeds into garden that feeds hungry

The diversity in Kerry Absher’s vegetable garden is a bit like paradise what with plums and potatoes, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, dill, radishes and squash among the wealth of fruits and vegetables the unassuming man is growing on his corner lot on West Kiernan Avenue. The sign, however, says it all: this is God’s Garden. “The last yard I had was something like 20 years ago. I’m a carpenter so you can say I’m learning as I’m going,” said Absher, who grows the garden for the food bank and meal programs associated with Off Broadway Family Outreach and Family of Faith Community Church. “I started out blind and I grew all the plants from seed. At one point we had 144 of those little green houses in the basement.”
News >  Washington Voices

Simple steps to lower crime rate

It’s always a good idea to get to know your neighbors, before disaster strikes. Not only does it make it a lot easier to ask to borrow a screwdriver, but neighbors who know each other just a little bit tend to look out for each other and that’s the best crime prevention tactic there is. “You don’t have to barbecue with them every Thursday night, but share a cell phone number so they can get a hold of you,” said Officer Dan Strassenberg, the neighborhood resource officer for the East Central neighborhood, which includes the South Perry area. “That way it’s easy to reach people if something out of the ordinary happens.”