Scott Maben

Frank Addeman grew up with the Diamond Cup in the late 1950s and early ’60s and has good memories of the boats streaking across Lake Coeur d’Alene. “When I was a kid I used to collect all the (commemorative) buttons,” he said. “I loved the hydroplane races and I was sad when they had to leave.”

Many college students head home on weekends to raid the refrigerator or catch up on laundry. Leanne Asper will be driving between Pullman and her family’s ranch near Coeur d’Alene to continue her passion for riding and training Arabian show horses. Asper, 18, is headed to Washington State University this month on a track scholarship and plans to study mechanical engineering. But she’ll also be preparing to defend her national title at next year’s Arabian and Half-Arabian Youth National Championship Horse Show, which attracts hundreds of top-caliber horses from across North America.

The tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., has slipped from the headlines, but the lessons learned from the mass shooting of students and teachers last December are translating into millions of dollars in security improvements at Coeur d’Alene schools. The school district is upgrading door locks, surveillance cameras and fencing, tightening building access and updating emergency response plans at all 17 of its schools.

Nez Perce leaders said late Monday night they intended to intercept a shipment of giant oil refinery equipment as it reached the reservation boundary east of Lewiston en route along U.S. Highway 12 to Canada. Reports from the Lewiston Tribune quoted Tribal Chairman Silas Whitman saying: “We are tired of being pushed.”

When the thunderboats return to Lake Coeur d’Alene this summer, a champion of the sport’s piston-powered era will be back on the water, if not actually in the driver’s seat. Billy Schumacher, of Seattle, won an impressive string of Unlimited Class hydroplane races in the 1960s and ’70s and claimed back-to-back national championships.

If you enjoy browsing art and craft booths, have a healthy appetite and don’t mind summer crowds, Coeur d’Alene is your destination this weekend. Call it the mouthful festival – Art on the Green/Taste of Coeur d’Alene/Downtown Street Fair – a congregation of food vendors, artists and musicians spread across a mile and a half of Lake Coeur d’Alene’s north shore. The fun starts today and continues Saturday and Sunday.

Timing has been critical to staging the thrilling conclusion to the Royal Fireworks Concert in Riverfront Park since its humble beginnings in the late 1970s. And now the time has come for the finale to the free summer show. Sunday night’s 35th performance was the last one by longtime presenter Allegro Baroque and Beyond.

When the largest outdoor powwow in the Northwest begins tonight in Post Falls, participants will feel the absence of two substantial figures of the annual gathering. Clifford SiJohn, a Coeur d’Alene Tribe elder and storyteller who helped keep tribal customs and culture alive, died last Christmas Eve at age 67. His cousin, Spokane Tribe member and nationally known artist George Flett, died Jan. 30 at age 66.

Growing up a Democratic activist in conservative Idaho shaped Bruce Reed’s life in national politics, much of it spent in the White House and on the campaign trail. “Out here I learned that you can’t take anybody’s vote for granted. You have to earn it,” Reed told a roomful of Idaho lawyers and judges Thursday in Coeur d’Alene.

Derek Cleveland returned to his Dalton Gardens gym this week and sat on the edge of the mat, an oxygen tank at his side, to watch his jiujitsu students practice the martial art. Frail and short of breath, he still held their attention with a few firm coaching tips.

PULLMAN — Fire investigators Sunday pored over the ruins of four unoccupied apartment buildings demolished in what officials say was a suspicious blaze. The early-morning fire Sunday destroyed half of the 584-bed Grove apartment complex that was under construction and set to be filled this fall with Washington State University students.

Fire investigators Sunday pored over the ruins of four unoccupied apartment buildings razed in what officials say was a suspicious blaze.

Quanah Matheson of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe worked up a sweat Wednesday putting up a tepee like his father and grandfather had taught him. Watching from a crowd of dozens of children and adults, 12-year-old Milad was reminded of something similar from home: the khaima, a tent used by nomadic people moving their livestock between the seasons.

Coeur d’Alene school leaders hope to change a rigid discipline policy they say is too harsh on students who accidentally bring to school a pocketknife or something similar. Kids as young as 5 who have a small knife, perhaps left in their coat or backpack after fishing or camping with their families, are automatically suspended for five to 10 days and must go before the school board to face possible expulsion. That happens even if the student turns the knife in to a teacher or staff member.

The mad dash into the lake that heralds the start of Ironman was replaced Sunday by an orderly march into the water. In the Coeur d’Alene debut of a rolling start to the long-distance triathlon, athletes self-seeded on City Beach based on their expected swim times and strolled toward the start line, where their timing chips were activated. It’s the same procedure used for Bloomsday and most road races.