The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
43°F
Current Conditions
Light rain
View complete weather report

Color Scheme

Subscribe now

Taryn Hecker

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

All Stories

News >  Voices

Showcasing Rathdrum

It’s a rocky ride to start. A 19-mile bike ride – most of that on logging roads around the backside of Rathdrum Mountain – then a 4.5-mile kayak from upper Twin Lake to Lower Twin, followed by a 4.5-mile run back to Rathdrum.
News >  Voices

CASA director ready for challenge

Judy Morbeck doesn’t mind the noise from the day-care playground across the street from her office in downtown Coeur d’Alene. She leaves her door propped open.
News >  Voices

Christian suspense

Call it creative license. Brandilyn Collins got rid of the mountains between Spirit Lake and Priest River and dropped a body of water and a community there: Kanner Lake, a town much like Spirit Lake – population 1,700 – only with a higher murder rate.
News >  Voices

Faces of leaders at some schools changing

It’s the principal shuffle. One retires, one goes back to teaching and another moves to South Korea – setting off a series of staff changes throughout the entire district.
News >  Voices

Recreation grants awarded

The bathroom at Hauser Lake Park had an odor only Pepe Le Pew could appreciate. Thirty years of heavy use rendered the county-owned commode so smelly visitors complained it was intolerable and the county, in 2006, decided people could no longer do business there.
News >  Voices

Bridge Academy moving

The Coeur d’Alene School District is moving two programs aimed at curbing the dropout rate under one roof. This fall, the district’s Bridge Academy will move into the Project CDA alternative school near midtown Coeur d’Alene.
News >  Voices

Law enforcement views CIT program

When someone with mental illness is in crisis, most times law enforcement is first on the scene. “The last thing you want to do with an unstable person is put them in the back of a patrol car handcuffed,” said 1st District Judge John Mitchell. “You are protecting the public, but you are doing nothing to deal with the mental health situation.”
News >  Voices

Assessment reduced on Bronze Bay homes

The Kootenai County Assessor’s Office has reduced the assessments on a handful of Spirit Lake waterfront homes by 20 percent. Similar properties throughout the county – mostly small lakefront cabins with septic restrictions that prohibit owners from making those homes much bigger – have also been assigned lower values.
News >  Voices

Still growing

Shelly Enderud has traveled the country as president of the Association of Public Treasurers. She sees the evidence of economic downturn in many places she visits.
News >  Voices

Her focus is on music

Jillian Grutta started playing piano seven years ago. She watched her stepbrother play and began teaching herself.
News >  Voices

Using their imagination

Xandra Sonandre stood back and cocked her head to one side. “There’s one thing you have to add,” Xandra said, and began wrapping Grace Butcher’s legs in blue plastic bubble wrap. “What if a 3-D monster came out of the swamp and grabbed your legs?”
News >  Voices

Athol amends town’s nuisance ordinance

Athol's City Council is cracking down on vehicles, trash cans and other objects left in city right-of-way, especially during snowplow season. The City Council this month amended the town's nuisance ordinance to prohibit vehicles, boats, trailers, garbage cans and other objects from being parked on city streets or in the right-of-way for three or more days in any five-day period.
News >  Voices

Concerts in the Park

The concert lineup at Farragut State Park this summer promises to be many things. But not a Woodstock West.
News >  Voices

SL has Centennial year parade

From a distance, the gray-haired men and women looked like they had the bodies of 20-something beach babes. As they marched closer in the Spirit Lake Fourth of July parade it was clear the muscular and suntanned bods were only painted on their T-shirts.
News >  Voices

Celebrations planned to dedicate new trail

COEUR D'ALENE – A daylong party with free food and events is planned next Saturday to celebrate the dedication of the Prairie Trail – a bicycle and walking path connecting several Coeur d'Alene parks, schools and the Centennial Trail. Organized bike rides are planned between the events, which are being held at three city parks linked by the new route.
News >  Voices

State says new float homes legal

BAYVIEW – Despite a state moratorium on new float houses, two could be built on Lake Pend Oreille and moored in marinas belonging to Bayview developer Bob Holland. While a group of Holland's critics are crying foul, state officials say – though they've seen nothing like it – it's perfectly legal.
News >  Voices

Former church up for sale

SPIRIT LAKE – A Spirit Lake landmark is for sale, but it's going to take more than prayers to restore to its former glory the century-old church with a tall steeple. Real estate agent Doug Setters estimates it'll take more than $100,000 worth of work to bring the former St. Joseph's Catholic Church to "usable condition."
News >  Voices

Learning a new language

One. Two. Three. That's all Aidan Jones could say in French when she walked through the doors of Ruth Inabnet's Coeur d'Alene home earlier this month.
News >  Idaho

Silver Valley seeks National Heritage Area designation

Hometown loyalties run deeper than the veins of silver in the hills surrounding Kellogg, Wallace and the small towns of the Silver Valley. Jim See first noticed it – on the football field and off – when he moved to Wallace in the 1970s.
News >  Voices

ATV Rally next weekend

It's a true test of one's backseat driving ability: Blindfold your spouse and then sit behind them on an ATV and try to direct them through an obstacle course. And it's the one time the person driving might not be tempted to say: Shut up and let me do the driving.
News >  Voices

CdA police focus on underage drinking

Coeur d'Alene cops are cracking down on underage drinking with the help of a federal grant that pays overtime for officers to go on party patrol. The first of six to eight emphasis patrols targeting "party houses" was Memorial Day weekend. That Friday, officers issued nearly 30 citations for minors in possession of alcohol and a DUI.