A sense of humor goes with success

There are some incredibly interesting people who make their homes right here and Brent Regan is one of those folks.

Brent's most recent invention is VoxVerus (http://voxverus.com), a social networking system designed to promote communication between the voters and their elected officials. Fascinating stuff, as is his background. Brent co-developed the Liquid Robotics "Wave Glider," which won the 2010 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award. He was the co-founder and president of Regan Stent (coronary vascular stents) and inventor of the Electronic Flight Bag (a self contained tablet computer for commercial aviation navigation). He's also in the 99.9 percentile of his fellow Mensa members.In addition, Brent has a great sense of humor ... at a recent speaking engagement he said his last name is pronounced REEgan and he used to get really annoyed when people mispronounce it as RAYgun. Until he met Senator Mike Crapo, that is. :)

***Aubrey Feusier turned 8 years old on Dec. 2, but she'll celebrate a special occasion with her family tomorrow ... her "gotcha day." In 2002, two-week old Aubrey was the best gift of all for her adoptive mommy and daddy. Also wishing Aubrey's birth mother, who made such a courageous and unselfish decision, peace and joy.

***The Heidi Rogers-coordinated monthly Laundry Night gathering took place for December at Beverly's. It's always fun and festive to catch up with women friends and Ellen Jaeger makes it particularly so each December. Beverly's does up a special appetizer and drink menu with laundry-inspired names such as Missing Sock (Dungeness Crab Cakes) and Oxi Clean (pomegranate martini). A little dry ice in the "Oxi Clean" martini brought lots of ooohs and aaaahs.

***If the tabloid reports are true there's no small amount of irony that local radio icon, Bob Hough's granddaughter, Julianne said "yes" to a romantic Paris proposal. Bob's new grandson-in-law-to-be is Ryan Seacrest. Ryan just signed a three-year contract with Clear Channel Communications worth $60 million!

***Facebook Status of the Week ... Dustin Ainsworth: "Need to wrap up the Christmas shopping. Anyone know what time the Internet closes tonight?"

***Happy Birthday today to Kerri Wilfong, Dick Stauffer, Brenda Young, Austin Wuest and Susan Schneidmiller. Tomorrow Marie Pollos, Kobe Cottier and Jolene Sigmond mark their special day. On Friday Cheyenne Peugh, Holly Kincaid and Pat Wheeler will celebrate another year and Saturday birthdays belong to Randy Shaver and Jared Gonzalez. Terry Cooper and Carol Prosser were born on Dec. 19. Teen Will Kennedy shares a birthday with Darlene Prosser, who's turning a beautiful 80 years young on Monday. Lily Ann Carpenter and Matt Prather will blow out their birthday candles on Dec. 21. ***

THERE'S MORE ... at More Main Street see photos of people and places. Access More Main Street under the columns tab at www.cdapress.com. If you aren't in the Main Street Birthday Club, enter your birthdate on the link provided on More Main Street. Listen to Main Street Monday on KVNI AM1080.***

Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press. More Main Street blog is at http://moremainstreet.blogspot.com. Kerri can be reached at mainstreet@cdapress.com