School Chief Says Hi From Margaritaville
Slushy snow melted in the streets of Boise under a light rain, as Tom Dillon, head of the state Board of Education, convened a meeting with legislators and state officials.
“It’s 75 degrees, and I’m looking out at the golf course,” Dillon told the group over a telephone hookup. He was in Palm Desert, Calif., for the holidays.
Later in the meeting, a loud buzzing noise from the phone prompted one of the officials to ask, “Tom, are you getting your carpets cleaned?”
The noise stopped abruptly. “He’s running his blender,” muttered one of the Boise-bound officials. “Margaritas,” murmured another, wishfully.
They start ‘em early
Here’s one way they define “mixed marriage” in Boise these days: a UI Vandal fan married to a BSU Bronco fan. One couple is rumored to be so true-blue that when they travel to Moscow for match-ups, they go separately and stay in different hotels.
Shannon Squires, a Vandal partisan whose spouse favors the Broncos, figured she knew the perfect gift when her similarly situated friend Larry Kidd and his wife had a baby last spring. Squires presented the new parents with a little Vandal T-shirt.
This one’s not on fast track
It never got revved up last year. In fact, it stalled.
But Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden, is back again this year to make operating a snowmobile while under the influence of alcohol or drugs just as serious an offense as drunken driving.
Clark’s new bill, HB 55, is, if anything, even stricter than last year’s version. This year’s says drunken driving laws “shall apply to all operators of snowmobiles, whether they are being operated on a public roadway or highway…or off-road.”
Sounds like that would apply to scooting around your own back yard.
Is this a fitting memorial?
Rep. Twila Hornbeck, R-Grangeville, thinks it’d be a good idea to designate the entire length of U.S. Highway 95 in Idaho as “Veterans Memorial Highway.”
Hornbeck has introduced a personal bill to make the designation, with a plan for $130 signs to be posted up and down the much-maligned highway.
In her bill, HB 57, Hornbeck writes that the new name should come “in honor of all veterans who served our country and lost their lives during such service.”
“Veterans Memorial Goat Trail” isn’t the chosen moniker, however. Nor does Hornbeck make provision for the renamed highway to memorialize all those who have died in traffic accidents along its twisting, narrow stretches.
And there’s more
See those bills and more on the Idaho Legislature’s Internet site, where so-called “pre-filed” legislation is now posted. The 76 bills and two resolutions are measures that individual legislators or state agencies had ready and put in early. Hundreds more will start rolling in after a week from Monday, when the Legislature convenes.
The Legislature’s Internet address is: http://www2.state.id.us/legislat/legislat.html. Look under “1999 Legislation.”