Voices

It’s a rocky ride to start. A 19-mile bike ride – most of that on logging roads around the backside of Rathdrum Mountain – then a 4.5-mile kayak from upper Twin Lake to Lower Twin, followed by a 4.5-mile run back to Rathdrum.

For the first time in his life, 25-year-old Jeff Towner is getting around town without help from his grandmother. The legally blind North Idaho College student now has a set of wheels: Three wheels to be exact.

ATHOL – Lightning flashed and thunder’s bass drums played a symphony across the sky. Torrential rain and hail pounded the ground just two hours before the Athol Daze Parade kicked off. Undaunted by nature’s fury, the residents and guests of Athol soldiered on, glancing nervously at the sky. By parade time, the sun was back out, the skies had cleared and the show went on.

The first home Wilbur Fisk Bassett built for his family in 1872 near Four Lakes burned down during a large grass fire two years later. He built his second cabin on the same spot in 1874 – and it remains today the oldest still-standing home in the county. Historians are quick to point out that there is a structure at Fort Spokane, at the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia rivers, that is older. True, but that building was used for other purposes and was never an inhabited home – which leaves the Bassett home recognized as the oldest in the county.

Bella is in foster care. She is an active, fun-loving girl that never met a boy dog or human child that she didn’t like but she’s a little particular about the girl dogs she wants to live with. Bella is currently living in a multiple dog home and also lives with two cats and a bird. Bella knows sit, and lay down, and she is house trained and crate trained. If you would like to meet Bella, call Tammy at 326-2427. To meet other dogs please visit SCRAPS at 2521 N. Flora Road, or call 477-2532. Or, visit our Web site at www.spokanecounty.org/ animals. Most available pets can also be seen posted on petfinder.com. Adoption includes license, neuter, vaccination, microchip and a trip to the vet. Free training classes are offered to all who adopt here.

Amid the nightly swarm of foot traffic to Cheney’s three most active bars sits a little yellow building, its windows gleaming in the glow of green and red traffic lights as a younger crowd cheers or stumbles or just walks by. The Cornerstone Christian Bookstore has witnessed more than 20 years of college malarkey from its corner location. Its newest owner, Tom Stradling and his family, bought the store last year to reach out to college students. The Stradlings haven’t made a dime since, but they never intended to.