Author Takes A Humorous Look At Sandpoint Life

Stories flow from Marianne Love like lava from a volcano.

Before she knows it, she’s deep into the tale of her terrifying Spanish teacher or the painfully timid girl in her journalism class. She even forces a squeak from her normal Marlene Dietrich alto for dramatic effect.

“I’m a people person,” says Marianne, 49. “I do a lot of observation.”

For 25 years, she entertained students in her Sandpoint High School English and journalism classes with stories about growing up on a local farm. Her characters were rich with details only a lifetime in Sandpoint and a good memory could collect.

She blended in humor - the wry, anything’s-fair-game attitude that helped Marianne survive 17-hour workdays as a full-time teacher, free-lance writer and adviser and publisher of the high school newspaper, the Cedar Post.

Her students’ laughter told her that the stories were good. So when her workload threatened to break her four years ago, Marianne decided the only way out was to write a book.

“I knew it would sell,” she says. “But I couldn’t quit the Cedar Post until I’d done the book.”

She took her time writing until her mother, Virginia Tibbs, was diagnosed with cancer. Virginia was artistic but hadn’t pursued art much after high school. Marianne wanted her mother’s sketches in the book and pushed herself to finish so Virginia could participate.

“Pocket Girdles and other Confessions of a Northwest Farmgirl” hit bookstores in 1994, full of Virginia’s artwork and Marianne’s stories. Sandpoint gobbled up Marianne’s tales about Lincoln School, the family farm and her 4-H club to the tune of 7,000 books. Her friends wanted more.

Book income allowed Marianne to cut her teaching hours in half, but she kept advising the Cedar Post and started on a second book.

“Postcards from Potatoeland” came out this year, shortly before doctors declared Virginia cancer-free.

In “Postcards,” Marianne takes a humorous look at Bonner County life, from Marianne’s middle-age struggle to fit into jeans to her inability to keep up with Sandpoint’s rapid changes. Nearly every chapter starts with her mother’s artwork and ends with a potato recipe.

Marianne will give up the Cedar Post in June. She doesn’t know yet if her latest book will be a success, but she knows she wants to keep on writing.

“A woman told me she read my book aloud in the hospital while her mother was dying and that it kept the family going. That runs chills up my spine,” Marianne says. “I like to write things that make people happy and make people laugh.”

Good book

If you’re stumped when people ask where to find help to fight hunger, illness, homelessness, abuse, etc., you need a Community Resource Directory next to your telephone book.

The directory lists more than 750 Panhandle agencies and programs that offer help. Yawn if you must, but when you want to help the abused young mother next door, you’ll wish you knew where to call.

Information and Referral, which compiles the $15 directory, is nonprofit. Call 667-6400 to order a directory.

Bunch o’ bull

Sandpoint has the right idea. Every year at the North Idaho Timberfest, it honors an old-timer who has spent his (or her) life working in the woods or in the wood products industry.

The community chooses the Bull of the Woods by stuffing nominations in boxes spread around Bonner County. The winner has to be at least 65 years old and fun-loving enough to lead a truck rally through Sandpoint. Start looking. The ballots will be collected Wednesday. Call 263-0887 for ballot box locations.

Don’t keep the great people you nominate a secret. Share their names and qualities with Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; or send a fax to 765-7149, call 765-7128 or send e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo