Couple’s gift to fund WSU chair
A $3 million gift to Washington State University is allowing the school to create an endowed chair in Lewis and Clark scholarship.
The university announced the gift from Jack and Janet Creighton, of Bellevue, Wash., on Wednesday.
The Creightons wanted to promote scholarship in a subject relevant to the school’s location in the West and to encourage others to give by example, they said in a university news release.
John “Jack” Creighton was CEO at Weyerhaeuser for seven years in the 1990s and at United Airlines for a year. He and his wife had intended to leave money to WSU in their will but decided to make a donation now while they could see the effect it would have, the university said.
WSU officials have begun their search for candidates, with the hope of filling the job by next fall.
Spokane
Park board votes to match YMCA bid
The Spokane Park Board voted unanimously Wednesday to exercise its option to match a developer’s $5.3 million offer for the YMCA property at the edge of Riverfront Park.
By Monday, the Park Board expects to deposit $150,000 on the near-acre of land just off Post Street, said James Richman, a city attorney. That opens up a 120-day “investigative period,” during which the Park Board can examine the property and its funding options with no threat of losing the deposit.
An additional $850,000 deposit would be due following that period. The balance of the $5.3 million would be due when the YMCA successfully moves to a new location, expected in late 2008.
Language in the Park Board’s parking lot lease with the YMCA grants the right to match purchase offers for the YMCA building. The YMCA agreed last month to sell its property to developer Mark Pinch, who has proposed building a 14-story condominium tower there.
Two fires destroy house, cars, garage
Fire officials are investigating the cause of two blazes in Spokane late Tuesday night that destroyed a house, a garage, several cars and a carport.
The first fire Tuesday destroyed an unoccupied single-story home at 5816 N. Madison St. after a caller reported the fire just after 10 p.m., according to a Spokane Fire Department press release.
The second fire, reported around 11 p.m., destroyed a two-story garage, several cars and a carport at the corner of East Montgomery Avenue and North Addison Street.
The fires don’t appear to be related to a series of fires that damaged two stores, an apartment complex office and several vehicles on July 13, Spokane Valley Fire Department spokesman Bill Clifford said.
Fire officials haven’t seen any fires they suspect were related since police arrested four juveniles on arson charges related to the spree.
Two of those juveniles were released Wednesday, and the other two are scheduled to be released today, Clifford said.
Sequim, Wash.
Overturned canoe leaves one dead
An Indian canoe, part of a summer intertribal canoe journey, overturned near here Wednesday and one person was killed, a Coast Guard spokesman said.
All six people aboard the canoe were dumped into the Strait of Juan de Fuca off Dungeness Spit, Petty Officer Shawn Eggert said. A 55-year-old man died and the others made their way to shore, he said.
A man and two women from the canoe were being evaluated at Olympic Memorial Hospital in Port Angeles, a nursing supervisor said Wednesday evening. The other two people aboard the canoe apparently did not require a trip to the hospital, Eggert said.
Eggert said none of those in the overturned canoe was wearing a life jacket.