Did Helen Try To Ruffle Any Feathers?

It might not have gone over as well if U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth’s campaign had used the same fair-time handouts up north that it used in Boise.

At the Western Idaho Fair in Boise this summer, Chenoweth’s people handed out about a thousand Indian headbands for kids, with “CHENOWETH” across the front, an eagle pattern on the sides, and a brightly colored feather sticking up from the back.

Considering the rocky relationship Chenoweth has had with Idaho’s Indian tribes, the campaign souvenir might not have been welcome closer to Idaho’s Native American communities. Like, say, at the North Idaho Fair.

But when the campaign pulled in there, it was down to its usual fare of hats, buttons and bumper stickers.

Jim Gambrell, Chenoweth’s campaign manager, said the campaign received no complaints about the headbands, and limited them to Boise only because it bought a limited number.

“It was just a last-minute thought for down here,” he said. “It was just a logistical decision.”

Colors, reflections and big bucks

You may have heard the gentle piano musings of Kelly Yost, a Twin Falls pianist. You may not know it. But the former piano teacher’s soft interpretations of popular classical pieces have sold nearly 325,000 copies nationwide, launching the small record company she and husband Sam started in their garage into something much bigger.

Yost recorded “Piano Reflections” in Sun Valley in 1987, and sold out the first 2,000 cassette tapes within four months. Channel Productions was born.

A year later, Yost had given up teaching piano lessons to concentrate on recording, and her husband had left his banking career to work at the company.

By the time Yost released her second recording, “Quiet Colors,” in 1991, Channel had sold more than 100,000 copies of “Piano Reflections” on CD and cassette.

“Piano Reflections” features such classical standards as Pachelbel’s “Canon” and Bach’s “Minuet in G.” But something about the “gentle selection of reflective light classics,” as the record label describes it, caught people’s ears.

Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of the best-selling book “Simple Abundance,” swears by Yost’s music and says she listened to “Piano Reflections” every day for two years while writing her book.

Yost says her fans tell her they’re using the recording in everything from birthing rooms to memorial services.

This month, Yost will release her third recording, “Roses and Solitude.”

Don’t expect rock-n-roll. Like the earlier works, the Idaho record label says the new recording will feature “classical piano at its pure and lyrical best.”

Throw out the bathwater, too

Ada County’s three commissioners have been at each other’s throats for years, with the biggest split coming between the often-confrontational Gary Glenn and his two fellow Republicans, Vern Bisterfeldt and Roger Simmons.

Now the county’s voters are being asked to dump the commissioner system. Under Idaho’s new law allowing optional forms of county government, the Ada commission has placed a measure on the November ballot calling for five part-time commissioners and an appointed county manager. If it passes, the Boise area would be the first to change Idaho’s longstanding county commissioner system.

Naturally, the three name-calling commissioners didn’t agree on the proposal, which was recommended by a committee that studied various options. The vote was 2-1, with Glenn holding out for an elected chief executive.

With speculation running high that Glenn wants to run for that CEO job, Glenn said Thursday that he wouldn’t, at least not until after 1998.

He said he believes an elected executive would be more accountable than an appointed one, and accused Simmons and Bisterfeldt of wanting to apply for the appointive job.

Under the “hired bureaucrat form,” Glenn said, “People won’t be able to get their hands directly on the throat of the guy that’s responsible for proposing budgets and tax levies.” His comments evoke images that are all too realistic for this crew.

, DataTimes MEMO: North-South Notes runs every other Saturday. To reach Betsy Z. Russell, call 336- 2854, fax to 336-0021 or e-mail to bzrussell@rmci.net.