Police standoff ends peacefully
A police standoff at a Greenacres rifle range ended peacefully Thursday when a man surrendered after holing up in a camper.
Gary Williams left a camper parked at the Spokane Gun Club as soon as police called for his surrender over a public address system, said Sgt. Pete Bunch of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department.
The 56-year-old Post Falls man had been talking with a girlfriend about their future; Williams became distraught and the woman fled, authorities said. She called police shortly after 12:30 p.m. because she feared Williams was armed, though he wasn’t when he emerged from the camper a half-hour later.
Not knowing if Williams had a gun, police responded to the incident with nine patrol cars and several officers armed with rifles. No one was injured.
Funerals planned for Gonzaga students
Funeral Masses will be celebrated Saturday for two Gonzaga University students killed by an avalanche.
The pair died Sunday while skiing south of Mullan, Idaho
The funeral for Brian Brett is scheduled for 11 a.m. at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Bellingham. A celebration of Brett’s life for his friends will be held at 8 p.m. Monday at Gonzaga’s Cataldo Hall.
Services for Pete Tripp of Bend, Ore., will be held at 5 p.m. Saturday at Gonzaga’s University Chapel, which is on the third floor of the Administration Building. A reception will follow at Cataldo Hall.
Both families have requested that in lieu of flowers contributions be sent to Gonzaga University, 502 E. Boone Ave. Donations made in tribute to Brett will support a scholarship in his name. Money given in honor of Tripp will support the Shaw Connection Mentoring Program, for which he volunteered.
Brett, a philosophy senior, and Tripp, a philosophy graduate student, were skiing on a steep backcountry slope when the avalanche occurred. A third Gonzaga student, Sean Forbes, was able to escape and after searching for his friends, hiked out and called for help.
Public invited to hear Aquifer research
The public is invited to learn about new research into the status of the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, the sole source of drinking water for nearly a half-million people in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area.
A report on the federally funded aquifer study will be delivered Jan. 27 at 6:30 p.m. at Red Lion Templin’s Hotel, 414 East First Ave., in Post Falls.
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Idaho Department of Water Resources and the Washington Department of Ecology will describe what’s been accomplished so far and what will be done this year.
The study, estimated to cost $3.5 million over several years, is being funded by Congress with contributions from Idaho and Washington. It is being done to “give both Idaho and Washington a scientifically defensible body of information on which to base future water-management decisions,” according to an Ecology press release.
The study got a $500,000 appropriation from Congress for the 2004 fiscal year and $1.5 million for 2005. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, worked with community leaders from both states to obtain the funds.
The study was triggered by a series of requests in 2002 by power companies for large withdrawals of water out of the aquifer in Idaho at a time when Washington had an informal moratorium on additional withdrawals. The proposed Idaho withdrawals were successfully challenged by environmental groups and others concerned that the aquifer is already overused.
Speaker explains new pharmacy-discount plan
Larry Belmont, retired Panhandle Health District director, will explain to the Kootenai Democratic Club at noon today a proposed pharmacy-discount program for lower income people that’s before the Legislature this year.
Affordable Rx Idaho is an AARP-sponsored plan that would grant up to 60 percent discounts on prescriptions for people of any age living within 250 percent of the poverty rate. A single person living on $23,000 a year would qualify. The bill was introduced to the Legislature last year and made it out of committee, but no further action was taken on it before the session ended.
Belmont will discuss a similar plan’s success in Maine and explain how the plan proposed for Idaho would work. The Democratic Club meets at noon at the Iron Horse Bar & Grill, 407 Sherman Ave., in Coeur d’Alene.
School superintendent having heart surgery
Sandpoint
The superintendent of the Lake Pend Oreille School District is scheduled to undergo heart surgery today in Coeur d’Alene.
Mark Berryhill, 58, was scheduled for quadruple bypass surgery after doctors discovered earlier this week that one of his arteries had a serious blockage, according to a press release from the school district.
The release said Berryhill is expected to be hospitalized for up to five days after surgery and will spend at least three weeks home recuperating before returning to work. Assistant Superintendent Doug Olin will fill in for Berryhill.
According to the release, Berryhill said he hopes to do some work at home before he officially returns to work, and he hopes he will be able to “hit the slopes for some spring skiing.”
Family wants answers in man’s drowning
Sandpoint
The family of a Sandpoint man whose body was found in the Pend Oreille River in December still wants answers.
Daniel Clune’s mother and two siblings are returning to Sandpoint next week to meet with a Bonner County Sheriff’s detective and to clean out Clune’s apartment.
“Just because they found him, we can’t just assume he fell in (the river),” said sister Kristen Clune, who lives in New York. “There’s still a lot of other possibilities.”
Daniel Clune, a 29-year-old software programmer, went missing in the early morning hours of Nov. 6. He was found in December by a duck hunter in a bay near Dover.
Sheriff’s detective Howard Burke said Thursday that Clune’s death remains under investigation, but he had no new details.
An autopsy revealed no broken bones and no apparent physical trauma. With nothing to indicate foul play, “we are probably heading for a fresh water drowning” as the listed cause of death, Lt. John Valdez, a detective with the sheriff’s office, said in December.
But Clune’s family, traveling Monday from New Jersey and New York, wants to know how Clune ended up in the river. Clune was last seen between 1:30 a.m. and 2 a.m. after he and a group of friends had spent the evening at the Long Bridge Grill, a popular bar at the south end of the Long Bridge, leading from Sagle to Sandpoint.
Family and friends had a memorial service for Clune on Jan. 4 in New Jersey. Kristen Clune said about 400 people attended the upbeat celebration of her brother’s life. She said a memorial also was held in Sandpoint at Schweitzer Mountain Resort.
Bloomsday looking for entertainers on route
Tune up those guitars and fluff up the tutus.
It’s almost time to entertain the masses at Bloomsday 2005.
The Lilac Bloomsday Association is calling on bands, singers, dancers, oversize vultures and other entertainers to register for a spot along the 7.46-mile course.
There’s even more incentive to get your act together this year. The three most popular performances will win $500, $300 and $150 prizes. Race entrants logged onto the Bloomsday Web site after the race last year and voted for their favorites, but this is the first time cash awards will be given. Last year’s winners were the performing troupe the Red Hot Mamas, the country music band Dusty and classic rockers PF Flyers.
Registration forms are available at the Bloomsday office, 1610 W. Riverside Ave., online at www.bloomsdayrun.org and by calling (509) 838-1579. Forms are due Feb. 10. The association will select performers by March 1 and assign them to spots along the course.
There’s still plenty of time to register for the race itself, but those who sign up online by Jan. 31 will be entered into a drawing to win a trip to the Carlsbad 5000, a road race in Southern California.
Bloomsday is May 1 this year.
80-year-old died of smoke inhalation
A Thursday autopsy showed that an 80-year-old man died from smoke inhalation from a fire Wednesday inside a warehouse near the corner of Lincoln Street and Boone Avenue.
Robert Farnum, 80, was found inside a 225-square-foot living area that had been built inside the warehouse. His caretaker, Penny, who only wanted to give her first name, discovered the fire at 1:40 p.mFire investigator Capt. Mike Zambryski said the blaze started from one of two possible causes.
“There were a number of electrical cords that weren’t properly set up,” Zambryski said. “But my gut feeling is that it was a cigarette. There were matches, lighters, etc., all over the floor. The place was in such disarray, there is just no way to tell.”
Penny said Farnum suffered from narcolepsy, which caused him to often fall asleep. Zambryski said that may have contributed to the fire if Farnum had been smoking at the time.
Farnum served 30 years in the Navy and told stories about serving on the personal security detail of Howard Hughes, Penny said.
Farnum had a son living in California and a daughter living in Arizona, Zambryski said.
S-R hosts forum on writing, starting blogs
A forum for North Idahoans who write blogs or who would like to start a blog will be presented at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the second-floor conference room of The Spokesman-Review’s Coeur d’Alene bureau at 608 Northwest Boulevard.
A blog is an online column. The Spokesman-Review’s Online Editor Ken Sands and Associate Editor D.F. Oliveria of Huckleberries Online will host the forum.