The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
25°F
Current Conditions
Overcast clouds
View complete weather report

Color Scheme

Subscribe now

Shawn Vestal

This individual is no longer an employee with The Spokesman-Review.

All Stories

Shawn Vestal
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Shoplifting sentence puts eye on prosecutors

Justice is blind, they say. And sometimes it’s dumb. Take the case of the $163 shoplifter and the 799-day prosecution. The overworked Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office overcharged a young woman and then appealed when a judge didn’t throw her in our overcrowded jail.
Shawn Vestal
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: WSP’s request a far cry from Colonial-era tyranny

There was a time in this country, before it was this country, when the king’s customs agents carried general warrants allowing them to search anyone, anytime, anywhere, and take anything they wanted. And then there is today, when the specter of tyranny is hoisted over the pettiest grievances.
News >  Spokane

Bouncing paychecks at Millwood plant leave workers in lurch

When Rich Spencer received his paycheck Feb. 22, he didn’t waste any time. He went straight to the bank to cash it. The checks from Millwood Manufacturing had been a little rubbery of late, and Spencer didn’t want to take any chances. A co-worker got there first, and his check was cashed.
News >  Spokane

Detective work pays off in quest to honor forgotten vets

When Lyndon A. Atwood died in Clarkston six years ago, no one noticed for days. He was broke. No next of kin. The county eventually cremated him, and an acquaintance apparently picked up the remains and placed them in the trunk of his car. Where they sat, it appears, until six weeks ago. That’s when workers at an auto-detailing shop in Lewiston opened that trunk and found the remains of Lyndon A. Atwood and an American flag.
News >  Spokane

Feisty George Diana stood up to MS, pot laws

Life could be tough for a Catholic kid in the 1950s. So Sam Diana got tougher. George Diana remembers the taunts he and his brother would get walking home from school in their uniforms: “‘Cat-licker! Cat-licker! Cat-licker!’” George recalled recently. “Other kids wouldn’t play with us and stuff.”
News >  Spokane

NC students’ bison study is a lesson in much more

Bison burgers were the entrée Thursday night at North Central High School. But the side dishes were all over the menu: history, geography, archaeology, sociology, climatology, genomics … Two teachers and five students have teamed up at NC in a project that’s remarkable in so many ways it’s hard to pin them all down. Suffice it to say that the project – built around studying the Northern Plains bison from every angle, now including the culinary – is a great illustration that if you want to learn about a lot of things, you should learn a lot about one thing.
News >  Spokane

Idaho’s McClure effective without resorting to vitriol

See if this rings any bells: The country was in a double crisis – budgetary and ideological. The cupboards were bare. The deficit was ridiculous. Democrats, unwilling to yield on program cuts, were too timid to make a straightforward case for new taxes. Republicans, unwilling to countenance a whisper about taxes, were too timid to make a straightforward case for meaningful cuts.
Shawn Vestal
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: In a recession, honesty is at an all-time low

So, to recap: The country sinks into a massive recession, caused by a fraudulent, out-of-control, unwatched-over financial institutions and free-market wheeler-dealers. The rest of us suffer. Jobs vanish, pay cuts and furloughs reign, home values tank, foreclosures rise. Banks – still thriving, thanks to the bailout and unwavering access to cheap cash from the government – botch the federal programs intended to help people stay in their home or borrow for a business.
Shawn Vestal
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Pardon would let wayward kids hear Ague’s story

Gov. Chris Gregoire has been fairly tight-fisted with pardons. But Starcia Ague presented a case the governor couldn’t refuse. Ague – a young woman who has spent eight years triumphing over a criminal mistake she made at 14 – was pardoned by the governor last week. It clears the way for Ague to become, officially, what she already is actually: a role model. The pardon should get her past the background checks needed to work with kids in the juvenile justice system.
Shawn Vestal
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: ‘Loan mods’ leave Main Street crumbling

In April 2009, a Kootenai County homeowner struggling to pay the mortgage got a letter encouraging enrollment in a federal program meant to help people avoid foreclosure. The homeowner called the mortgage company, gave them information, and awaited an application for the Making Homes Affordable program – one of the “Main Street” pieces of the federal stimulus plan, intended to help homeowners stave off foreclosure with lower payments. Her anonymous story is included in a new report from the Idaho attorney general.
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Spokane man strikes hard bargain for rare book on ‘Pawn Stars’

Rick MacKinnon’s day-to-day life sometimes resembles reality TV: “American Pickers.” “Hoarders.” “Storage Wars.” But it was MacKinnon himself lending reality to television recently, when a 220-year-old book he discovered while cleaning up a foreclosed home landed him on TV, wheeling and dealing with the country’s most famous pawn brokers, Rick Harrison and his father, Richard “the Old Man” Harrison.
Shawn Vestal
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Children’s rights don’t play in Idaho House

Kids in Idaho could use a right or two. Or maybe just a hand. About half are living in “low-income” homes. A fifth live in homes headed by single mothers, whose unemployment rate is twice that of married men and women. The state ranks 41st for overall child health and well-being, according to a new scorecard.
News >  Spokane

Trio has strange way of showing love for kids

John Beal, Marilyn Montgomery and Duane Alton just love children. They love them so much, in fact, that they’ve spent thousands of dollars opposing bond measures in districts where they don’t live. They love children so ardently that they can’t stand to see districts do misguided things like fix 30-year-old schools.
News >  Spokane

Vestal: Project pairs photography with social action

A couple of years ago, when Kathy Hirschel started as an outreach worker at the health clinic in Quincy, Wash., she was shocked by what she saw as she visited the families of migrant workers. A mom with an infant and a young child, living in a single-room trailer. That seemed cramped until she came across a family of six living in a trailer the same size. Mom, dad and the two youngest kids slept in the bed, and the two older ones slept on the couch. Wherever she went to visit families, she saw similar stories. Uninsulated homes with space heaters. Families doubled and tripled up. Paper-thin walls. Clothes stashed under beds. Electrical hazards.