Treva Lind

Garrison Keillor brings his storytelling, along with humor and music, to Spokane 7:30 p.m. Saturday April 27 at the Fox Theater for "An Evening with Keillor & Company," with vocalist Prudence Johnson and pianist Dan Chouinard. His radio show, "A Prairie Home Companion," ran more than 40 years and featured stories about Lake Wobegon, a fictitious town based in part on his hometown of Anoka, Minnesota.

Four North Central High School students qualified in March to compete in the National ProStart Invitational in Baltimore. Similar to TV cooking-show pressure, they and about 400 competitors from high schools across the country will make a three-course meal in 60 minutes using only two butane burners and no running water or electricity. 

Big league talent spread across the 1946 Spokane Indians baseball team, until lives and dreams were shattered by a bus crash nearly 80 years ago. The bus heading to Bremerton began descending Snoqualmie Pass, tumbled off the highway and plummeted into a ravine before bursting into flames. Nine players died. Others who survived were badly injured. Three members who weren't on the bus escaped it all, but the memories never faded. Those individual players' stories, along with influences of post-World War II times, captivated Eric Vickrey, author of the new "Season of Shattered Dreams: Postwar Baseball, The Spokane Indians and a Tragic Bus Crash That Changed Everything."

Caitlin Quaempts, a new Spokane medical school graduate, has lined up a family medicine residency this June for a path she hopes leads back to the Yakama Nation. After her three-year residency in Klamath Falls, Oregon, she'd like to be a family practice doctor for tribal members – just as her father has. She is a Yakama direct descendent of her dad, Rex Matthew Quaempts, a longtime family doctor for Indian Health Services. Another classmate, Lili Szabo, recently matched to a Spokane internal medicine residency with Providence Sacred Heart, and she hopes to remain here. Both Quaempts and Szabo are among a 2024 class of 60 graduates from the University of Washington School of Medicine's Spokane site. They celebrated "match day" on March 15 for their selections into medical residency programs.

A Spokane nonprofit wants to hear from K-12 teachers about what resources they need in classrooms for students with dyslexia. Two free workshops – one in Coeur d'Alene and another in Spokane – are scheduled in April for educators to give input or ask questions about the learning disorder. The INW Dyslexia Alliance started its program, Champions for Dyslexia, to foster networks and support for educators. By fall, it will form parent-caregiver groups.

A researcher in pivotal sleep studies is scheduled to speak Tuesday night at Gonzaga University about why enough nightly slumber ties into brain wellness. Jeffrey Iliff, a sleep researcher at the University of Washington School of Medicine, plans to share new findings and advice on how to ensure the right type of sleep that's needed for the brain to function at its best. For audience questions, he'll be joined later by Dr. Don Howard, a Providence sleep medicine specialist and pulmonary doctor. The 6 p.m. Next Generation Medicine lecture, hosted by the UW School of Medicine and GU health partnership, is scheduled at the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center.

Before pickleball, racquetball bounced to the heights of popularity in sports. The fast-paced game boomed in the 1980s and into the 1990s, but then faded from the limelight. That doesn't mean racquetball has vanished in the Spokane area, said longtime player Rich Carver. Carver expects 100 enthusiasts will join a May 17-19 racquetball tournament at the Spokane Club. He estimates about 150 people in the area play regularly.