Treva Lind

The concrete staircase easily could be missed – one side is tucked among trees near a dead end of Perry at 20th Avenue. But the pedestrian pathway linking neighborhoods on the South Hill is beloved by many residents nearby.

Becky Van Keulen has worked nearly a decade to expand the reach of Cancer Can't, a cause she credits to her late husband Jonathan. As he fought a form of bone cancer in 2014, the couple realized this region didn't have resources dedicated to adult oncology, so they co-founded the nonprofit. After his death in 2016, Van Keulen continued that work, such as a transportation program for people getting to treatments and a plan to build a lodging facility for patients and families traveling to Spokane for cancer care.

As veterans pounded nails into the walls of birdhouses on a recent Sunday, their jokes got traded as often as a supply of hammers, nails and drills. A new woodworking club at the Spokane Veterans Home draws six regulars who meet once a week around a long table in the dining room. The group has become so popular that the center has put out a call for community donations of woodworking tools, from hand saws to electric drills.

In 1952, Karl Hoffmann came to Spokane from Germany at age 18 to join his sister and brother-in-law. Hoffmann, 89, died Oct. 28 in Spokane, after complications from a bad fall. Hoffmann left his mark on Spokane through decades of successes in insurance, financial consulting and as a co-founder of the city's earliest soccer teams, the Spokane Spokes and the Spokane Shadow.

Brea Seaburg thought she’d never run another marathon after a surprise Type 1 diabetes diagnosis four years ago.

Raised in north Spokane, Aaron McCarty figured he'd do a short military stint to pay for college. He's nurse manager today of the surgical-orthopedic unit at Providence Holy Family Hospital, where he was born. At his 1995 Rogers High School graduation, he didn't first envision a nurse career. McCarty also didn't expect he'd spend a decade in the U.S. Army, including a year in Iraq. While his military role wasn't medical, he credits that Army experience and Iraq deployment as helping him in his work now in handling sometimes chaotic moments and working with people.

Last winter, 100 Spokane County residents called for help to clear snow-covered residential paths. They're seniors or disabled, unable to do the shoveling, and often can't afford to pay someone. Now, Aging & Long Term Care of Eastern Washington is sending out a distress call before this winter. It urgently needs sign-ups among groups of snow-shoveling volunteers from churches, schools, businesses, community centers and clubs for a new initiative, Adopt a Neighbor.

Arico, 85, has perfected his stained glass handiwork for some 50 years to create suncatchers, lamps, ornaments, characters and glass panels. These days, he sells some pieces at two holiday craft fairs a year, including Dec. 2-3 at Ridgeline High School in Liberty Lake, but he's also enjoys gifting pieces of artwork. He recently made and donated 70 star-shaped ornaments in red, white and blue for a cause. The pieces adorn a patriotic-themed Christmas tree up for raffle at the Cancer Community Charities craft fair fundraiser on Friday and Saturday at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds. The stained glass topper is his handiwork, as well, and the tree with other decor and gift packages is valued at $2,000.

Cody and Laura Brincken's son Isaac needed 13 blood transfusions during his 157 days of life. Those transfusions – made possible by regional blood donors – gave them more days with Isaac before he died Oct. 10, 2018, his mom said. Moved by that generosity, they regularly donate blood and also organize a public Vitalant drive in Isaac's name each October. They also launched Isaac's Bookshelf in 2019 that brings literature to pediatric hospital patients.

Irrigation canals once stretched for miles across the Spokane Valley by the late 1890s to open the flow of lake and river water to early settlers to plant orchards or start farms. They also offered unsanctioned summertime swimming for countless children. The largest and most ambitious irrigation project, was known as the Corbin ditch. The Spokane Valley Heritage Museum' is presenting “Flumes, Ditches & Canals, the Irrigation Story," for a 19th annual fundraiser and history program. It's scheduled 1-3 p.m. Oct. 28 at CenterPlace Regional Event Center.

A beloved Spokane musician and teacher, Quindrey “Drey” Davis stood out as a talented drummer as early as middle school.

It wasn't many years ago that football pros gained fame for delivering – or receiving – repeated, skull-shaking tackles. Within the past two decades, that perspective slowly changed as awareness grew about the risks of sports-related concussions, especially the dangers of a secondary blow when the brain hasn't recovered. It led to return-to-play protocols now standard – from the National Football League down to kids' sports. For younger athletes, Washington was the first state to create a 2009 law to block prematurely returning a player to a sport after a suspected concussion, until getting cleared by a licensed health care provider.

Bobby Clark recalls earlier parts of a football game 12 years ago. He sounds excited, still, about being a senior player for his Priest River Lamanna High School's Sept. 11, 2011 homecoming. But he speaks with a slow, deliberate voice now that gets interrupted by unexpected emotions. Two separate hard hits causing concussions in that game – minutes apart – robbed him of life ever being the same.

Likely in the next two years, a biomarker blood test is expected to emerge as a diagnostic tool to catch Alzheimer's disease earlier, said a University of Washington doctor scheduled to talk in Spokane Wednesday. Dr. Thomas Grabowski, UW Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center director, argues it's best to battle the disease at the beginning of cognitive symptoms, or if possible, decades before. "Most people when they think of Alzheimer’s, they think about dementia and the worst case that can happen," he said. "In fact, the dementia’s phase is like the last eight or 10 years in something that is really a 30-year process." These insights and the latest in Alzheimer's research will be part of the 6-8 p.m. Next Generation Medicine Lecture at Gonzaga University's Cataldo Hall. It's open to the public and led by Grabowski, medical director of the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center. Dr. Silvia Russo, a Spokane-based Providence cognitive and behavioral, is scheduled to join in a question-and-answer discussion.

A vision to widen access to youth and family mental health services became reality Tuesday as MultiCare opened a new Hillyard facility. The $2.58 million MultiCare behavioral health clinic opened with a waiting room, 21 treatment rooms, three large group therapy rooms and a community classroom. It's in remodeled 8,200 square feet of the former Hillyard Library and uses some original building features such as natural lighting and stained-glass artwork. But what drew the most attention this week was the start of those outpatient therapy services.

Nancy Webster worked at Spokane's only acute rehabilitation hospital as it opened 30 years ago – before it was called St. Luke's. At that facility's helm the past seven years, she keeps that perspective in mind. Under a short-lived name of Deaconess Rehab Institute, Webster first was hired at the site as a recreational therapist. In September 1994, Webster recalls looking outside to see a stream of therapists with patients in wheelchairs coming down the hill from Sacred Heart Medical Center. That day came after Deaconess and Sacred Heart leaders decided to collaborate to form a single long-term rehab facility, known today as Providence St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Medical Center. A shared goal for long-term rehabilitation services helped shape what is now a regional hub for patients recovering from brain injuries, strokes, spinal cord injuries and amputations, Webster said.

The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture invited nine Spokane-area residents who are color blind to use the EnChroma glasses to view its “Minecraft: the Exhibition” and other displays. The group got to keep the glasses donated by EnChroma, which has a program for gifting the shades to museums and attractions globally, reaching more than 100 sites. This week, the MAC became the first Spokane museum now offering four of the specialty glasses – also EnChroma-donated – so that color blind visitors can borrow them to view displays.

An older sister had to talk Eli Waunch into going to his first ballet class at age 9. His two brothers also went along, so that the girls in the Deer Park program could dance with male partners. Before long, their mom started driving he and his sister to Spokane's Ballet Arts Academy. While his brothers bowed out long ago, he'll take a bigger leap this fall to study at a year-round ballet school, while finishing up his high school senior year online. He hopes to be a professional dancer.

Sarah Conover's parents disappeared in 1958 on a yacht in the Bermuda Triangle.

Dick Pruett, 76, could be a model in a poster promoting how seniors can reduce the risk of falling. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2008, Pruett calls that condition "the enemy." He fights back with regular activity to improve muscle strength, flexibility and balance – also among strategies to reduce falls. Pruet entered fitness classes at Touchmark on the South Hill after he and his wife moved there in 2022. After nearly two months of exercises, he advanced to walking around the grounds unassisted.

MultiCare is taking sign-ups for its Bridge to Brunch 5K fundraiser Sept. 30 that will benefit Deaconess Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.

Grandparents came through for grandkids as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, with unexpected numbers of elders moving in or opening homes to about 460,000 children, said a Washington State University researcher. A study found these co-residences made up a majority in a 2020 surge of nearly 510,000 children in all pandemic-era "doubled up" residences. That meant kids and at least one parent lived with another adult who isn't a parent figure – grandparent, aunt, cousin or roommate. Mariana Amorim, a WSU sociology assistant professor and lead author, said mainly grandparents stepped in to provide a safety net for their families, particularly for six months beginning spring 2020.

People seeking to quit stimulants drugs have few clinical interventions, except for an incentive-based approach shown effective in longtime Washington State University research. Contingency management is a behavioral approach using gift cards and small prizes to help motivate people to quit stimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine. Typically, visits are twice weekly for at least 12 weeks, with weekly drug-free urine samples to gain rewards. Just since 2020 in the state, the method has moved outside of research walls and into real-world clinics.