In Brief: Itron’s Smarty Pants team takes Spokane trivia title

The Itron team won the Spokane Trivia Championship Thursday night, edging out two other finalists in the tiebreaker phase.

Members of Itron’s Smart Grid Smarty Pants team were Dean Bethmann, Erin Haight and Grant Shipley. The event was a fundraiser for the Spokane Public Library Foundation. Twenty-one teams competed in the two-hour program at the Bing Crosby Theater.

The Itron team won the competition in response to this challenge: Four species of camelid are native to South America; name as many as you can. The answers were llamas, alpacas, vicunas and guanacos.

CdA officials to seek help with ‘suspicious’ fire on Tubbs Hill

Coeur d’Alene officials are asking for the public’s help to find who might have started a fire deemed “suspicious” on Tubbs Hill.

Police officers responded to a report of smoke on top of the hill at 11:50 a.m. Thursday and used fire extinguishers to fight the blaze. Firefighters soon arrived and also doused the 30-by-60-foot fire.

Anyone who was on Tubbs Hill at the time or who has information about the fire is asked to call (208) 769-2320.

Repair work on Keller Ferry now set for Saturday, Sunday

Repair work on a small crack in the hull of the year-old Keller Ferry is now scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

State officials previously said the ferry would be taken out of service at 7 p.m. today. The current plan calls for continuing today’s regular service until midnight.

Regular crossings will resume at 6 a.m. Monday if work goes as planned.

The MV Sanpoil developed a hairline crack below the water line last month. The boat builder will be undertaking the work of lifting the ferry end with the damage out of the water using air bags. That will allow workers to remove a piece of metal with the crack and weld a new piece in its place.

The ferry links Lincoln County to Ferry County on state Highway 21 across Lake Roosevelt.