Rebecca Nappi

Baby Duru, born with a malignant brain tumor, was a few days shy of 1 month old when she died Feb. 16 in her mother's arms, with her father close by. Her parents, Umut Eroglu and Duygu Toygur Eroglu, are from Turkey. In their country, young parents with dying babies are not encouraged to be with their babies as death approaches. "There is a belief that if you attach too much, you will be sad too much," mom Duygu said. But Duru's parents were surrounded during their baby's short life with people who know otherwise. They gently encouraged the parents to bond with Duru, no matter the number of her days.

When visiting cemeteries this Memorial Day weekend, pause for a few moments at the sections set aside for babies. The heartbreaking gravestones do not tell the story of a culture that often diminished the grief of parents whose babies were stillborn or lived only a short time after birth.

Fair trade is not charity. Fair trade is not the selling of trinkets.

A global chemical company is known for this slogan: “We don’t make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better.” The Assistants, a group of Spokane women, could adapt the slogan this way: “We don’t create the good causes. We make the good causes even better.”

  MacKenzie Johnson, a senior at Mead High School, is this year’s Spokane Lilac Festival Association Lilac Queen. In an interview last week, Johnson, 18, looked forward to the busy weeks ahead.

Margo Long, 65, founded the Center for Gifted Education and Professional Development at Whitworth University 36 years ago. She’s retiring this month as director of the center, but Long will continue to teach some classes in the School of Education, where she has mentored generations of student teachers.

The rules for this year’s Spokane Community Observance of the Holocaust essay contest were demanding. Read three articles on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website.

Sister Rosalie Locati, 68, has been part of the Sisters of Providence religious community for 49 years. In employee orientations, Locati – director of mission and values for Providence Sacred Heart and Providence Holy Family hospitals – tells newcomers the story of Mother Joseph of Vancouver, Wash., who designed and built hospitals throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Martin Meraz-Garcia would drive his mother to the Tri-Cities fields at 4:30 in the morning and together they picked cherries and his nose would bleed, stinging with pesticides, and he would think back to his childhood in Mexico, one of 14 children, the son of a murdered father, and how he worked shining shoes in the street until the family moved to the United States, and he was teased so ruthlessly his first day in sixth grade that he told his mother he would never return, and she insisted he go back, and then one day as a teen in the orchards he realized that even if he were the fastest cherry picker in the world, he would never rise out of this poverty. He decided that day to be anything but a field worker.

When Stephen Rice was asked to play Jesus in his church’s annual Easter drama, which happens a week from today, his hair was shaved close to his head. Soon after he said yes, his hair grew faster than usual. By the time rehearsals for the drama started in January, Rice’s hair was Jesus-ready.

In October 2007, Julie Evans, a Spokane finance professional, landed her dream job with a building-materials company. She worked as a controller, and took on information technology duties as well.

Julie Farley’s small business in downtown Spokane, The Make-up Studio, where women come for makeup lessons and sessions, will celebrate its ninth anniversary this year. Two years ago, Farley, 53, also founded a nonprofit, Project Beauty Share, which distributes donated makeup and hygiene items to Inland Northwest women living in homeless shelters and in low-income housing.

The fifth Our Kids: Our Business effort begins today. The monthlong community initiative is designed to launch children and teens into healthy adulthood.

Rush hour at the front desk at Silver Mountain Resort’s Morning Star Lodge looks like this: People are checking in. They ask: When does the water park open?

Maggie Miller-Stout, superintendent of Airway Heights Corrections Center, has worked for the state of Washington for 36 years – the past 12 in the top spot at a prison where she oversees about 650 employees, 2,150 offenders and a $40 million annual budget. It’s been a challenging winter.

Kathy Bryant, Spokane real estate broker, grew up an Army brat; she attended 13 schools by the eighth grade. Bryant, 55, believes it’s no accident she ended up in real estate. Homes represent stability and security.

Ted Solomon owns Digital Scanning and Imaging in Spokane Valley. The company scans and preserves documents involved in commerce and government. During the housing boom, the company’s growth reflected the boom in the private and public sector.