Kootenai County’s prosecutor wins local civil rights award

Tue., April 12, 2011

From Staff Reports

Kootenai County’s prosecutor and two newspaper executives from Oregon were among the recipients of human rights awards Monday night at the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations 14th annual banquet.

Arun Gandhi, grandson of the late Mohandas Gandhi, delivered the keynote address at the banquet, which sold out for only the second time in its history. Some 483 people attended the event at the Best Western Coeur d’Alene Inn.

A Civil Rights Award was given to county Prosecutor Barry McHugh for his “courageous and determined efforts” in successfully prosecuting hate crimes, a task force news release said.

A second award was given to Marissa Williams, publisher of the Blue Mountain Eagle in John Day, Ore., and Scotta Callister, the paper’s editor, for organizing rallies that prevented a neo-Nazi’s attempt to establish a compound in Grant County, Ore.

The 2010 Bill Wassmuth Memorial Volunteer-of-the-Year Award was given to Doug Cresswell, a task force board member since 1985 who served as president from 1997 to 2001. Cresswell was praised for his leadership during an era that included a trial that bankrupted the Aryan Nations.

The Human Rights Education Institute and the North Idaho College Foundation introduced four recipients of the Sen. Mary Lou Reed and Gov. Phil Batt NIC Minority Scholarship: Tim Clark and Katherine Sailto from the Native American community, Rose Childs from the Asian-American community and Igor Sivov from Russia.

The task force also presented a check to Gonzaga University Institute for Hate Studies to establish a permanent scholarship in the memory of Eva Lassman, a Holocaust survivor who recently died at age 91. For many years, Lassman lectured about the horrors of the Holocaust and urged people to work for human rights.

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