The County Lines

Fri., Feb. 12, 1999

WASHINGTON

ADAMS COUNTY Ritzville

East Adams Rural Hospital reports 1998 to be its most profitable year in a decade. The district earned over $3 million, finishing $719,530 in the black.

FERRY COUNTY Inchelium

Donations and prayers are being sought for Sandy Seymour. A mother of four, the Inchelium resident is undergoing a bone marrow transplant in Seattle to fight scleroderma. Friends are raising $10,000 to defray costs. Both the Department of Social and Health Services and Indian Health Services have denied payment of the transplant, calling it experimental.

GRANT COUNTY Ephrata

A convicted Moses Lake rapist will spend more than eight years in state prison. Rogelio Garay Alvarado, 23, was found guilty of a 1998 rape of a 17-year-old girl.

LINCOLN COUNTY Wilbur

Students on Wilbur school buses are minding their p’s and q’s. The district installed video cameras on each bus to monitor student behavior. Driver Janel Boroughs thanked the board for the cameras. Already, she and other drivers are noticing a significant drop in discipline problems.

PEND OREILLE COUNTY Newport

Want to motivate kids? Let them shave your head. Newport High School teachers Rob Birdsell and Steve Shumski pledged to let students chrome their domes if they could raise $2,000 for the March of Dimes victims of domestic violence fund. Not only did the kids meet the challenge, they issued an additional $800 check to the Family Crisis Network, a domestic violence support group. A hairless Birdsell says it’s all worth it.

SPOKANE COUNTY Spokane

The Spokane Community Gardens group is getting ready for another season of building vegetable beds for the needy. A training day for volunteers is set for March 6 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Manito Park classroom, just east of the conservatory.

STEVENS COUNTY Chewelah

Citizens concerned about the overall cleanliness and attractiveness of downtown Chewelah are taking notes on facelift needs, such as lack of outdoor faucets to water flowers and clean off sidewalks.

WHITMAN COUNTY Colfax

Whitman County commissioners have approved a change in the county’s payday. The change is to prevent the county from losing grant money by allowing employees to estimate time for the last few days of the month before checks are processed.

IDAHO

BENEWAH COUNTY Fernwood

A pickup was destroyed by fire Feb. 2 near the Emerald Creek garnet mine. No one was injured and the cause of the fire is not known.

BONNER COUNTY Sandpoint

Overdue books from libraries in Sandpoint, Clark Fork and Edgemere can be returned with no overdue fines Feb. 13-20. The libraries will be closed Monday for President’s Day and are closed Sundays. For information, call the East Bonner County Library District at (208) 263-6930.

BOUNDARY COUNTY Bonners Ferry

Art classes sponsored by the Boundary County Library will be 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the library. Children age eight and older are invited to attend the classes, which are held every other Saturday through March 20. For information or to register, call (208) 267-3750.

KOOTENAI COUNTY Coeur d’Alene

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has $750,000 in grants available for programs to improve the condition of child care for students, teens, developmentally disabled children and infants and toddlers. For information, contact the regional office in Coeur d’Alene at 769-1515. Grant proposals will be accepted until Feb. 28.

LATAH COUNTY Moscow

D.B. Hughes, a longtime Elk River resident whose steady stream of opinionated letters to the editor over the years made her name famous on the Palouse, died of kidney failure last week at Latah Health Services. She was 88.

After moving to Elk River in 1964, Hughes became known as one of the most avid letter writers on both the Lewiston Morning Tribune and Moscow-Pullman Daily News editorial pages. Her last letter to the Moscow newspaper ran on Jan. 10.

SHOSHONE COUNTY Kellogg

The Kellogg School Board approved a timeline Monday for the sale of the current Sunnyside Elementary School building. Public hearings are scheduled for March and April, with bidding on the new school to begin in August.

MONTANA

LINCOLN COUNTY Troy

The U.S. Forest Service is seeking public comment on road improvements to provide access to a planned subdivision on Bull Lake in the Three Rivers Ranger District.

Comments can be sent to Jeanne Higgins, Acting District Ranger, Three Rivers Ranger District, 1437 N. Highway 2, Troy, Mont., 59935. Comment deadline is Monday.

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