Washington Voices

This year’s Hillyard Chalk Art Walk fell on the one blustery day of the week, but that didn’t deter the artists. More than 130 people crouched and kneeled on the Market Street sidewalks Saturday, drawing everything from puppies to solar systems to ninja turtles and skateboarders. “We are just hoping the rain won’t get here,” said Desi Bucknell, treasurer of the Hillyard Festival Association, one of the many neighborhood volunteers who helped put the event together. “It was tough finding a theme for this year, but we picked Hillyard’s Future.”

As the school year inches toward closure, some students at University Elementary were rushing to beat a different deadline last week: the day when stories were due for their second and final edition of the Unicorn Press newspaper. After school on Tuesday the students were writing and editing their work. “If it’s not here by Friday, it’s not going to make it,” said fourth-grade teacher and newspaper adviser Larry Beck, who heads up the program with academic support teacher Vickie Dawson.

When you meet Carmen Murray, she might ask you to hold your arm up, pointed toward the sky at about a 50-degree angle. She’ll put her hand near the top of your wrist and push down while telling you to resist. You’ll think ‘easy enough’ but she will win the first round. She will then give you a breathing exercise and ask you to do the arm thing again. You are much stronger the second time around. “You need to breathe,” she explained. Murray has a lot of tricks up her sleeve; she learned shaman teachings from her father and grandmother when she was a child growing up in Edinburg, Texas. Her ethnicity includes Spanish, Mayan, and Apache traditions. Her spirituality led her to art. She painted her first piece on a brand-new canvas cotton-picking bag. “It was of the Virgin of Guadalupe and it was pretty good,” she said, “I didn’t know that I didn’t know how to paint. My dad always said ‘everything is possible.’”

“Grandma Gene” Gorley may have set an endurance record with her 43 years on the playgrounds of several Central Valley elementary schools, but she’s certainly going out with style. On a recent day at McDonald Elementary the 83-year-old widow sashayed into the office to begin her lunchtime shift with the verve and spunk of someone several decades younger. A snappy dresser, she seems determined to do everything with a touch of class – and attitude.

The advantage of our cool spring was that the bulb and lilac displays seemed to go on and on. The yellows, reds, pinks, blues and purples of the daffodils, tulips and hyacinths and the sweet scent of the lilacs was a welcome relief after the long winter. Now that they are finishing up their show, what can and should you do with them?

Lack of progress on the $1.3 million Argonne Road construction project raised concerns at the regular Millwood City Council meeting Monday night. “As of Friday there were 18 working days, and the contractor did not work eight of those days,” Matt Gills, project manager, said. “From the city’s standpoint, that is unacceptable.”

Emilee Deishl makes a habit of surpassing goals. “I’m really big on making goals for myself,” the Central Valley senior said. “I try to make sure they’re reasonable and attainable, but that’s how I motivate myself.”

High water and limited skills are more to blame for closure of the Spokane River between the Harvard Road and Barker Road bridges than confusion about signs, public officials say. A Post Falls man and woman complained about confusing signs Sunday when the woman’s raft got stuck against a pier of the Barker bridge, which is being rebuilt. But the signs were clear enough, according to Deputy Wade Nelson, the Spokane County sheriff’s search and rescue coordinator.