Daughter follows dad’s hoofprints

It’s an equine sport that combines the speed and agility of barrel racing with the precision of target shooting. It’s called cowboy mounted shooting, and an Athol family is climbing the sport’s ranks.

Shanda Masterson, 21, and her father, Bat Masterson, 60, brought home titles from the Sundowner Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association World Championships this past November in Amarillo, Texas.

Each won world championships in their respective divisions – she in the Ladies No. 5 division, her first world title, he in the Senior Men No. 3 division. Both also placed in the top 35 in the overall ranking. Shanda Masterson finished 17th, while her father placed 32nd. That’s out of 375 competitors. Shanda’s longtime beau, Charlie Little, did even better, placing first overall.

His daughter’s success comes as no surprise to the elder Masterson.

“I was tickled to death,” he said. “It was even better because I already knew I’d won my (title). … It was great to see.”

In cowboy mounted shooting, riders – dressed in either contemporary or traditional Western garb – guide their horses through a gate and around a series of barrels, all while shooting black powder blank cartridges from .45-caliber pistols at balloon targets. The fastest time wins. A missed balloon, however, costs a rider five seconds. So does a hit barrel. Miss going through the gate properly, and that’s a 10-second deduction.

Additionally, the barrels can be set up in 50 patterns. The pattern isn’t announced until just before a shoot, so there’s no opportunity to practice running it.

Finding a gun that is easy to handle while riding a horse is a big part of having success at cowboy mounted shooting. The other key? Finding the right horse.

“You can have a really broke horse that really hates the noise,” she said.

That quest for a perfect “shooting” horse is what introduced the Mastersons to the sport about nine years ago. Bat Masterson, who has trained horses since the 1960s, had a client who brought him a new horse. He wanted to train the horse to be a shooting horse. After Masterson worked with the horse for a while, the client brought out his guns and let Masterson have a shot.

“I was hooked,” he said. “Now almost all the horses I train are shooting horses.”

Over the years, the Mastersons have seen the sport grow in popularity, especially since it started getting exposure on television.

“When I started, my (membership) number was in the 2,000s,” Bat Masterson said. “Now they have 11,000. They claim it’s the fastest-growing equestrian sport there is.”

“It’s addicting as hell,” he added.

Carolyn Lamberson

College money’s worth

When Josh Allen started a list of possible college picks during his high school senior year, the economy’s downward spiral had yet to fully materialize. By the time graduation came and went last spring, the picture had become bleak.

“When the stock market fell so hard, that had a big impact on where I decided to go to school,” said the 19-year-old Sandpoint native, who hopes to become an anthropologist.

After considering the tuition costs at some Northwest universities, such as Montana State University in Bozeman and the University of Idaho, it didn’t take long for another option to jump to the top of Allen’s list: a two-year community college even closer to home.

Now in his second semester at North Idaho College, with possibly one more before heading off to pursue his bachelor’s degree, Allen said the decision to start small has paid off.

“This is just a good place to start out. It’s not as big as other schools, it’s cheaper, and you still get a good education compared to four-year schools,” he said. “I definitely got my money out of it.”

Across the country, community colleges are seeing an enrollment boom, even as the economy continues to experience a financial pounding. In the face of global competition in the workplace and layoffs in once-strong industries such as construction and real estate, more people are relying on higher education to land a more secure job.

“Students have been hit hard in the last few years,” said Erna Rhinehart, NIC’s communications and marketing director.

With Kootenai County residents looking at a tuition fee of $1,133 for more than eight credits per semester, Rhinehart added, “This is one of the reasons we’re so popular: Our tuition rates are extremely affordable compared to four-year colleges.”

The enrollment trend at community colleges is reflected at Coeur d’Alene’s lakeside campus. Since 1998, total enrollment at NIC increased by more than 1,400 people to a record of about 5,000 current full- and part-time students. Meanwhile, applications have increased by 22 percent since last spring and overall enrollment rose roughly 3 percent, though those numbers are unofficial at the start of the new semester, Rhinehart said. Full-time student enrollment also has increased.

“From the number of apps we get, people are considering us as their first choice more often,” she explained.

Jacob Livingston

Clash over courts?

Court service may be the next saber to clash in Spokane Valley’s contract disputes with Spokane County.

The City Council agreed Tuesday to vote Jan. 27 on whether to give the county a cancellation notice on the city’s contract for Spokane County District Court services.

It’s all part of the council’s reaction to Spokane County commissioners’ surprise announcement last month that they will cancel the city’s contract for county snowplowing service next winter.

Council members said they needed more time to set up their own plowing operation and vowed to study alternatives to all 17 of their contracts with the county so they wouldn’t be caught again with their pants down.

The council’s informal step Tuesday came hours after members Dick Denenny and Bill Gothmann visited Spokane County commissioners in an effort to repair the frayed relationship between the two governments.

Mayor Rich Munson said Denenny and Gothmann were sent because they had been less outspoken than he. He said the mission seemed fruitful, and Chairman Todd Mielke assured him county commissioners understand city officials aren’t dissatisfied with District Court services.

However, Munson suggested the proposed study consider what he’s heard is the possibility District Court may close its Spokane Valley branch to save money.

State law places city officials in the awkward position of having to give a contract cancellation notice by Feb. 1 to preserve their right to set up a court in less than six years.

Otherwise, the city couldn’t break its District Court contract until Dec. 31, 2014.

State law requires notice at least one year before Feb. 1 of a year in which District Court judges are elected. The next District Court election will be in 2010, and there won’t be another until 2014.

If the council decides at its Jan. 27 meeting to give notice by Feb. 1, the city could launch its own municipal court in January 2011.

Spokane Valley could operate the court itself or pay the city of Spokane to operate it – just as Spokane has, until this month, hired Spokane County District Court to operate its municipal court.

John Craig