Interplayers artistic director resigns

Nike Imoru, artistic director of the Spokane Interplayers Theatre, announced her resignation on Monday.

The Interplayers board “regretfully” accepted her resignation, which will take effect at the end of the year.

Imoru said that she didn’t want to detail the reasons for her resignation, except to say it involved a complex mix of factors. The theater has endured several financial crises over the past several years.

“I have loved being artistic director and have been happy with the work we’ve done,” said Imoru, who said she plans to stay in Spokane.

Imoru, a native of London, has been with the theater since May 2004.

“We hate to have her go and we wish her all the best,” said Mary Ann McCurdy, executive director. “We just need to keep plugging along and working to preserve this theater, because it’s really worth preserving.”

McCurdy said she hopes that Imoru can return as a guest director at least twice a year.

Interplayers is a professional theater founded in 1980.

Man recovering after accidental shooting

A 19-year-old active-duty airman underwent successful surgery Saturday after an apparently accidental shooting in Medical Lake. A spokesman at the Medical Lake police department declined to give the victim’s name on Monday night.

According to the report, the victim was at a party in an apartment on the 100 block of East Spence Street, where the host was showing his weapons collection to guests.

A 22-year man, who also is in the Air Force, unintentionally discharged a .41-caliber revolver, police reported. The victim was struck in the forearm about 12:10 a.m. Saturday.

He was driven to Sacred Heart Medical Center and is expected to make a full recovery.

Police said there is no evidence that the incident was foul play, however the investigation continues.

Flags to fly at half-staff to honor Rosa Parks

Olympia Gov. Christine Gregoire, following the lead of the White House, on Monday ordered that flags be lowered to half-staff at all state agencies and colleges on Wednesday to honor the late civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

Funeral services were held in Washington D.C., Monday for Parks, who died last Monday at 92. She was called the mother of the civil rights movement, after her arrest in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man.

Gregoire’s order covers from sunrise to sunset on Wednesday, the day Parks is interred. President Bush previously issued a similar order for federal buildings and military installations, naval vessels, and U.S. embassies.

Recent quake had unusual epicenter

Salmon, Idaho Seismologists say a 4.5 magnitude earthquake that shook central Idaho occurred in an unusual location beneath where the Continental Divide separates Idaho from Montana – not on one of the state’s main fault lines.

“The areas between faults have to periodically readjust sometimes, too,” said Jim Zollweg, an earthquake scientist at Boise State University, adding the Sunday quake illustrates the seismic forces at work creating the region’s rugged mountain ranges and basins. “It’s probably stress that’s being relieved that’s off one of the main faults.”

The earthquake that shook prisoners at the Lemhi County Jail in Salmon, Idaho, likely had its epicenter near the tiny town of Leadore, 28 miles to the south. No damage has been reported.

Unlike a swarm of as many as 1,000 small, shallow earthquakes that in recent months have shaken the community of Cascade, Idaho, hundreds of miles to the west, the weekend earthquake was probably six to seven miles beneath the earth’s surface, Zollweg said.

Does all this earthquake activity mean something new is happening beneath Idaho? Not really.

“This is a return to normal,” Zollweg said. “Idaho has been awfully quiet for almost a decade. If you compare what’s going on now with the kind of earthquake activity that happened in the 1960s and 1970s, those decades were much more active than we are right now.”

Idaho has felt two destructive earthquakes in recent memory that resulted in fatalities. One was the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake in Montana, with a magnitude of 7.1; the other was the 1983 Borah Peak earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.

Idaho Guardsmen back from Gulf Coast

Boise Three hundred and sixty-nine members of the Idaho National Guard returned from the hurricane-stricken Gulf Coast over the weekend.

One plane-load of Guardsmen returned each day Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Guard spokeswoman Stephanie Dowling says there are no plans to deploy other Idaho Guard members to the Gulf Coast.

Wind farm construction under way

Bickleton, Wash. Construction has begun on a major wind power project in Klickitat County.

Crews have started to install more than 20 miles of access road and platforms for the 133 turbines that are part of the project. Officials with Portland-based PPM Energy say when completed, the project could provide power to more than 50,000 homes.

The project is part of an Energy Overlay Zone created by Klickitat County commissioners earlier this year to promote wind power in one of the breeziest areas of the state. Creation of the zone is a planning tool aimed at expediting renewable energy development.

The 21,000-acre site is on private land owned by five landowners. Construction of the nearly 400-foot-tall turbines is expected to be completed by summer, said Jan Johnson of PPM Energy.

The turbines will generate as much as 200 megawatts of electricity.

The project is expected to cost $270 million and bring 200 jobs to the area during construction, Johnson said.

Construction of a larger wind power project south of Goldendale is scheduled to begin next March.