Human rights activist Tony Stewart is leaving North Idaho College but continuing his conversations on big issues as a producer and host for a new series of KSPS public television shows.

Stewart, who has taught political science for 38 years, is volunteering with the Spokane station to travel the Northwest and western Canada and interview academic experts on topics ranging from law and medicine to agriculture and the humanities.

“I’m going to have conversations with great minds in the academic world,” Stewart, 66, told a standing-room-only crowd gathered Thursday to hear his future plans, which had been a well-kept secret.

Stewart leaves a legacy as an educator and foe of racial hatred. He was among the founders of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, which became the leading voice against Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations.

At NIC he has organized the annual Popcorn Forum – a lecture series that brings top-tier speakers to town – since the 1970s.

Stewart said he doesn’t know who will continue organizing the event.

– Erica F. Curless

Spokane

Police pursuit leads to five arrests

Five people were arrested Thursday at what Spokane police described as a nuisance house well known to neighbors and law enforcement.

An officer recognized Michael Skinner, 36, as the man who fled on a scooter during a pursuit Wednesday in west central Spokane and arrested him at the home at 2004 West College about 11:30 a.m. on a Department of Corrections escape warrant and charges of attempting to elude and possession of methamphetamine, according to Spokane police. Also arrested were Erin Mackey, 29, and her boyfriend, Walt Styer, 27; Kandice Oliveri, 26; and Russell D. Eldred, 51.

Mackey, who police say lives in the home with Styer, was arrested on outstanding warrants and issued a criminal citation for nuisance; Styer and Eldred on Department of Correction probation violations; and Oliveri on a felony drug warrant, according to police.

– Meghann M. Cuniff