Voices

The Able Learner program for gifted students in the Central Valley School District has been trimmed in the current round of budget cuts, which has some parents and teachers hopping mad. The Ables program, as it is known, gathers students in grades 2 through 5 from all over the district to Opportunity Elementary School one day a week for advanced work and projects. There are three classrooms with two full-time teachers and one part-time teacher. Next year there will only be two full-time teachers in two classrooms. The number of incoming second-graders will be reduced and fifth-graders will have their time in the program cut in half, coming for only two eight-week blocks during the school year.

A new way to pamper your pets is available now in Spokane Valley thanks to longtime veterinarian assistant Margaret Ferrell. She opened Bark'R Boutique – The Cat's Meow on May 1 and offers full-service dog and cat grooming as well as self-service washing facilities for pet owners who prefer to do the scrubbing themselves.

Seventeen-year-old Matt LaShaw is on his way to college, and he has no questions about how he will afford the tuition. A senior at Freeman High School, LaShaw recently won a full tuition scholarship to Wyoming Technical College where he will study diesel mechanics. His award was earned after placing first in the regional and state levels at the Skills USA Auto Service State competition. This summer he will go on to compete in the National Skills USA competition in Kansas City.

My spies around town tell me many of you are forgoing the road trip this summer and staying home to plant a vegetable garden. That's good news. Growing a vegetable garden is a great family activity, especially when you can eat the results of your hard work. There isn't anything like watching the face of a child when he or she realizes they just ate a carrot they grew. And you know how it goes, too. One tomato plant is great but six are even better. When they all ripen, you have far more than you could ever eat. No problem. Donate the extra tomatoes and any other produce and fruit you can't use to local food banks through the Plant a Row for the Hungry program. In the past five years, Spokane gardeners have donated more than 300,000 pounds of garden fresh produce in the effort. That's 1.2 million servings of fresh produce. We could certainly do 100,000 pounds this year.

Carol Muzik calls Lucy's May 2004 appearance a gift. Muzik was inside her Rockford Bay home overlooking Lake Coeur d'Alene when she heard husband, Nick, calling from outside.

A group of Horizon Middle School eighth-graders can now claim production of a winning television spot. They were awarded for their antidrug television announcement in a regional contest.

Pottery handmade by students at the school, a "sweet little puppy," more than 100 bottles of wine and weekend vacation packages are among the items up for bid at Sorensen's second annual Auction and Soiree. Money raised at the Friday event will support programs at Sorensen Magnet School of the Arts and the Humanities. The Coeur d'Alene public school is the only magnet school for arts and humanities in the region.

Sally Madsen came to honor her great-grandfather, Officer Robert J. Rusk, a member of the Spokane Police Department who died when two men he had arrested escaped from jail. Rusk was going on a vacation to do some mining up north, and everyone in town knew he was leaving. The two men found Rusk's campsite and shot him to death on April 22, 1886. The two suspects later died in prison.