Logging accident victim identified

Latah County authorities have identified the man killed in a logging accident Friday as 44-year-old Kevin S. Marek, of St. Maries.

Marek was on the back of a loader when its counterbalance swung, pinning him against a load of logs, according to the Latah County Sheriff’s Office.

He died at the scene in the Feather Creek area north of Bovill, Idaho.

Boise

Author donates Lewis, Clark statue

An Idaho author of books about the Lewis and Clark expedition donated a bronze statue of the explorers on Tuesday that depicts their first meeting with Nez Perce Indians, to be displayed on the Capitol Mall in Boise.

“It’s the first time that the Nez Perce will be featured in a bronze sculpture in our capital,” said Carol Lynn MacGregor, whose books include “Shoshoni Pony,” telling of the arrival of horses in the American West.

The life-sized sculpture titled “Hospitality of the Nez Perce” shows Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as they are directed by Nez Perce tribal chief Twisted Hair.

Spokane

Suit filed in deaths of students in ‘04

The estates of two Japanese students who died on a 2004 canoeing trip have sued the state of Washington, Asia University and the trip adviser.

The suit alleges that adviser Michael Graybeal didn’t require the students to wear life jackets and didn’t wear one himself, overloaded the canoe and violated other safety rules.

The Asia University America Program students were attending a study-abroad program at Eastern Washington University.

The canoe carrying Graybeal and students Takumi Tanaka and Tetsuya Nasu capsized in Idaho’s Winchester Lake on Oct. 23. The Japanese men drowned; Graybeal reached the shore. The suit alleges Graybeal told them to swim rather than staying with the canoe and “made no effort to assist or save Tanaka or Nasu.”

The suit was filed in King County Superior Court in June and was transferred to Spokane County Superior Court.

EWU had no comment. Efforts to locate Graybeal were unsuccessful.