1999 Can’T Go Away Without Its Budnicks

Not so fast, my millennial minions.

There’s unfinished business that needs to be dispensed with before we settle into year 2000.

Yes, people, it’s Budnick time.

This is the day we bestow the fabled Budnick Awards on those dubious achievers of the past 12 months: Suds-swilling Cougs of dear old Wazzu. A promise-breaking congressman named George. Radioactive tumbleweeds a’blowin’ in the wind …

It was a very Budnick year, that 1999.

A tradition now a dozen years old, the Budnicks are named in honor of Thomas P. Budnick. The former Massachusetts social worker discovered that the Spokane County auditor’s office was the only government agency in the nation willing to file his mining claims for the planet Mars.

That, alas, was then. Apparently our county is no longer so agreeable. Last April, Budnick sent me a copy of a heated letter he sent to a county office worker.

“Dear S.O.B.,” wrote Budnick. “You promised to record my claims or return them. You, sir, have done neither. Just think of the incredible damage you have done to American space exploration.”

It is in this lost-in-space spirit that we present the 1999 giving of the Budnicks. Before we do, however, it is fitting to bestow a bit of special recognition on Spokane’s Amy Ashley. She submitted the following clever ditty last April in The Spokesman-Review’s limerick contest.

“Doug Clark thinks he’s ever so quick

“To find innocents on which to pick.

“But he’s really unstable,

“So let’s turn the table,

“And give him his own Budnick.”

Touche! And now that my thick hide has been poetically pricked by Ashley’s sharp wit, here are the rest of the recipients:

Mr. Liar goes to Washington

Calling the three-terms-and-out promise he made to get elected in 1994 a mistake, Rep. George Nethercutt announces he will seek a fourth term.

Jim Nabors next if Bach blows it

Coeur d’Alene officials begin broadcasting classical music from rooftops in an attempt to drive unruly teenagers out of the downtown business area.

Projectile vomiting down 15 percent!

Despite a booze ban, Washington State University makes the 1999 top 10 list for the nation’s party schools. Even so, students are drinking more responsibly than in years past, claims Associate Dean of Students George Bettas.

Watch out for Jackass in the box

Reportedly upset over an undercooked hamburger at a family barbecue, a 23-year-old woman is arrested by Coeur d’Alene police for allegedly chasing her boyfriend with a 12-inch kitchen knife.

Talbott es un hombre estupido

“Maybe it was a dumb Mexican who stole the CD,” says Spokane Mayor John Talbott to a Mexican-American man who was telling the mayor about an insensitive jerk who complained that he used to have a particular CD “until some dumb Mexican stole it.”

Next up: Kidnap Regis Philbin

Spokane’s Athena Rolando, 19, fulfills her vow to one day be famous by breaking into Brad Pitt’s home and wearing the heartthrob’s clothes.

They all fell quite responsibly

Six WSU students are hospitalized after a crowded balcony breaks during an off-campus beer party.

Whath a bunth of nith withs

Child rape suspect Jonathan Lee Springer, 19, is mistakenly released from the Spokane County Jail after prosecutors add an incorrect “h” in Springer’s first name (Johnathan) on the charging papers.

Air bag not needed for airhead

Spokane’s Jeff Hendrickson, 24, falls asleep at the wheel and rolls his Subaru 200 feet off the side of Glacier National Park’s Going-to-the-Sun highway. “I guess the patron saint of dumb-asses was on my shoulder,” remarks Hendrickson, after walking away from the wreck.

Public urination down 17 percent!

“The data clearly shows that the image of WSU as a party school is somewhat inaccurate,” announces Washington State University President Sam Smith in a press release.

Killer Miller won’t take a hint

Richard Miller, who spent 10 years in prison after murdering a Rosalia grain inspector in 1981, loses his second bid to serve on the Airway Heights City Council.

Another Coug breaks law of gravity

An 18-year-old WSU student tumbles out of a second-floor window at the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house. Police say the injured man admitted he had consumed between 8 and 10 beers after dinner.

They missed noon rush at Dick’s

A Forbes magazine survey ranks Spokane as the next-to-worst place in the nation to do business.

Why do you think he needed a job?

Al French’s Spokane City Council campaign hits a snag at the news that he owes creditors at least $255,000.

Perfect symbol for Aryan movement

North Idaho racist kingpin Richard Butler presents a Jewish Defense League protester with a dirty toilet seat.

He should have said serial hothead

Spokane Police Chief Alan Chertok takes a forced vacation after joking to a high school class that a tipster urged investigators to consider former Chief Terry Mangan as a serial killer.

I wuz (hic) juz doin (hic) research

Logan C. Baldwin quits his job as head of a Spokane substance abuse treatment center after his third arrest for drunken driving.

No, it’s the test for strong mayor

Fred Grimes, 28, spends two hours stuck shivering above the Spokane Falls in one of Riverfront Park’s open-air gondolas. “Is this how a guy has to earn the key to the city?” Grimes wonders when rescued.

Real felons get feety pajamas

Locked up for not paying a tobacco possession fine, 18-year-old Ebron Triano is released from the Kootenai County Jail wearing only a pair of Looney Tunes boxer shorts.

Cock and bull gets hook and ladder

Dave Pace is charged with impersonating a fire chief after the Curlew-area man convinces a Pennsylvania fire department to give him a 100-foot hook-and-ladder truck. “There’s no state law that you can’t start your own fire department,” says Pace, 51.

And don’t feed the 50-foot ants

Hanford workers are warned to not touch the contaminated tumbleweeds that might be rolling through the nuclear reservation.

So that’s what “plowed” means

Michael Pluid, a Spokane County snowplow driver, is jailed after he allegedly punches his boss for telling the 48-year-old man he was too drunk to plow.

Bye Rose Bowl; hello Toilet Bowl

Three WSU football players, including star running back Kevin Brown, are arrested for stealing 72 CDs and electronic gear from a Pullman apartment.

Oh, tannen-bums, you tannen-bums

Eight Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity members at Eastern Washington University are arrested after they chop down and steal Cheney’s 18-foot living Christmas tree.

Maybe that’s “O” as in Ocean

The cancer-fighting “Vitamin O” sold by a Kettle Falls mail order company appears to be nothing more than saltwater, according to a lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission.

Robots cost more to replace

Sacajawea Middle School Principal Herb Rotchford picks up an object thought to be a bomb and carries it across the street to a garbage bin.

The only dopes had badges, guns

Spokane attorney Bob Critchlow sues the city and police officers for illegally searching his home before dawn in the mistaken belief that there was marijuana growing inside. No drugs were found.

That patron saint missed one

A 22-year-old WSU student fractures his skull after he falls five stories from a Pullman apartment balcony following a night of drinking.