In brief: Mrs. Spokane to vie for state title
Samantha See has been selected as Mrs. Spokane and will represent the city in the Mrs. Washington America Pageant in Moses Lake on June 21 at the Moses Lake High School Theater.
She is married to Scott See, and they have two children. She is a student at Eastern Washington University, studying elementary education. Her volunteer activities include director of community outreach for the Eastern Reading Council, a member of the Success By 6 board, Life Center Four Square Church Children’s Ministries, AmeriCorps, PTG and PTO. She is a former Girl Scout leader.
Mrs. Washington America will be televised on PAX TV.
For more information, call the state office at (509) 766-7744, e-mail: curnel@nctv.com or visit the Web site www.mrswashingtonpageant.org.
East Central
Class teaches about scammers
The East Central Senior Center, 500 S. Stone St., will host a class called “Protecting Seniors From Fraud” today from 10:30 a.m. to noon.
Ed Neigel of the Office of the Attorney General, Protection Division, Public Outreach and Education, will speak on how the senior populations can protect themselves from fraudulent use of their identity, ways that scammers use to get your identity, day labor fraud and more.
For more information, call the senior center at 625-6693.
Northeast
Day will focus on homeownership
Community Frameworks will hold a Homeownership Resource Day Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Northeast Community Center, 4001 N. Cook St.
The event will provide information about getting assistance in down-payments, self-help homeownership, mortgage financing and credit counseling.
There also will be representatives from Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs, the Spokane Low-Income Housing Consortium, Habitat for Humanity, Consumer Credit Counseling, USDA Rural Development, Banner Bank and Washington Trust Bank.
For more information about this resource day, call 484-6733, ext. 117.
Airway Heights
Fundraiser benefits Hillyard center
The Hillyard Senior Center will present an Italian Dinner and Auction Friday in the Pend Oreille Pavilion Room at Northern Quest Casino, 100 N. Hayford Road, Airway Heights.
The doors open at 5:30 p.m. with a silent auction and dinner will be served at 6:30.
The funds raised at this event will benefit the programs and activities of the senior center.
The evening will include dinner, the silent auction, a live auction and entertainment. Tickets are $25. For more information, call 482-0803.
Gonzaga
Great philosophers’ ideas will be focus
The College of Arts and Sciences at Gonzaga University will present “What Can We Learn From Lincoln?” today from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Jepson Center Room 017 on the Gonzaga campus.
Michael Leiserson of the political science department and Matthew Raffety of the history department will discuss the topic, which is part of the school’s “What Can We Learn?” series which is designed to discuss the ideas and writings of great thinkers of the past such as Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, Jane Austen, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.
For more information, call the public relations department at Gonzaga at 323-6132.
Cheney
Tim Flannery to speak at EWU
Tim Flannery, an international global warming authority who has gained prominence through his scientific achievements and books, will speak at Eastern Washington University at 10 a.m., April 5, in Showalter Auditorium.
Flannery’s latest book, “The Weather Makers,” looks at how man is changing the climate and what it means to our planet.
“Dr. Flannery is an international voice on climate change, and climate change is the single biggest challenge our students will face in their lifetime,” said Dana Elder, director of the EWU Honors Program, who is bringing Flannery to campus through a grant received from the Strategic Planning Council. The EWU College of Science, Health and Engineering is cosponsoring the speech.
In addition to his numerous books, Flannery is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and has frequently been interviewed on ABC Radio, NPR and the BBC. He is currently a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
For more information, or to make arrangements for special needs, call Mary Benham by Wednesday at 359-2822.
Spokane County
PBS’ ‘Antiques’ features Carrousel
An “Antiques Roadshow” episode that includes a segment on Spokane’s Looff Carrousel featuring antique carousel carvings will air nationwide on Monday at 8 p.m. See it locally on Channel 7, KSPS Public Television.
The episode is part 1 of three filmed in Spokane last summer. Items on the Monday show include “a notable necklace,” an aerial map of Spokane, and various items signed by Abraham Lincoln.
Cheney
Author Wolff comes to Get Lit!
Eastern Washington University Press will present “An Afternoon with Toby Wolff” at 1 p.m. April 20, as part of the 10th annual Get Lit! festival for readers and writers. He will speak at the Spokane Athletic Club in downtown Spokane at 1002 W. Main Ave. and will sign books afterward.
Tobias Wolff is described as “a master of the short story who writes with the exacting precision of a bomb maker” in the March/April 2008 cover story in Poets and Writers magazine. Wolff is currently the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in Humanities at Stanford University where he studied Creative Writing as a Wallace Stegner Fellow in 1975.
Wolff’s latest collection, “Our Story Begins,” contains the best of three decades of short stories in the tradition of his famous memoir, “This Boy’s Life,” and his novel, “Old School.”
Get Lit! features author presentations and readings, writing workshops and panels, author visits to schools, youth poetry slams and more. Many events are free to the public. The festival will be held April 16-20 in Spokane and Cheney. For more information, go to www.ewu.edu/getlit.
Tickets for “An Afternoon with Toby Wolff” are available for $10 at Aunties’ Bookstore at 402 W. Main Ave., Spokane, or phone 838-0206, or from Eastern Washington University Press at 534 E. Spokane Falls Blvd., or phone 368-6587.
Cheney
Science Olympiad will be April 5
Hundreds of the brightest middle and high school students in the state will converge on the Eastern Washington University campus April 5, for the 2008 Washington State Science Olympiad.
Some 40 teams, divided by class standing, will compete in 50 events – including Junkyard Challenge, Robot Ramble, Trajectory and Science Crime Busters. The events are separated into different categories, such as biology, geology, physics, astronomy and anthropology. Each task is designed to test knowledge and problem-solving skills, while promoting science education throughout the state.
Students taking part in the state finals all advanced from regional competitions around Washington. Winners of this event will advance to the national Science Olympiad tournament at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in May.
Opening ceremonies for the state Olympiad finals will begin at 8 a.m., with events scheduled from 9 a.m. to 2:50 p.m. After events and judging, winners will be announced during closing ceremonies. The public is invited to attend the daylong competition.
Washington Science Olympiad was founded in 1986. EWU’s College of Science, Health and Engineering is serving as the main coordinating body for the 2008 state finals. For more information, including a listing of events, schedules and directions to the EWU campus, visit www.ewu.edu/ scienceolympiad.
– From staff reports