George: Lighten Up On St. Maries

Honest George: Today the population in the City (of St. Maries) is as diverse as anywhere else in Idaho and eastern Washington. However, there is a small core of people that dislike dealing with the Tribe. This dislike is so strong that I personally lost a friend of 20 years because I refused to sign his petition condemning the Tribe over some cigarette-tobacco issue. This is a small group — draw a three mile radius circle around the town and most of them would live outside the circle. (Including Digger’s folks.) So, please lighten up on St. Maries - they are good people. Full comment below.

Question: Obviously a few bad apples can ruin the perception of an area (see: Aryan Nations, Kootenai County). Do you think this is the case in St. Maries and eastern Benewah County?

Years ago I ran across a reference about St. Maries describing it as a “biological isolate” which I took to mean that it was a place that had a dominating history of intermarriage or at least a meager stock of different genetic backgrounds. That was probably a fair desciption as regarding the early Swiss settlers and maybe even up to about 40 years ago. Cliquish, clannish, original settlers, big property owners rooted around the Omega Church - then St. Maries might have earned the desciption as being ‘another world’.

Today the population in the City is as diverse as anywhere else in Idaho and eastern Washington. However, there is a small core of people that dislike dealing with the Tribe. This dislike is so strong that I personnaly lost a friend of 20 years because I refused to sign his petition condeming the Tribe over some cigarette-tobacco issue. This is a small group - draw a three mile radius circle around the town and most of them would live outside the circle. (Including Digger’s folks.) So, please lighten up on St. Maries - they are good people.