Idaho Briefs December 29, 2011

Humanities Council awards 31 grants

The Idaho Humanities Council awarded $92,404 in grants to organizations and individuals at its recent board meeting in Boise.

Local recipients were:

* The Human Rights Education Institute, Coeur d'Alene, was awarded two grants, one for $2,000 for a project titled Peace Lives Here: A Challenge for the 21st Century, which will explore Mahatma Gandhi's "eight social sins" and how they relate to life today.

The second grant for $2,600 will support a spring 2012 presentation by "Living Voices," an educational company of performers based in Seattle that provides a way for K-12 students to learn about history and human rights. Their multi-media presentations will explore the Holocaust, the Civil Rights Movement, Japanese internment, and other historical issues. Heather Keen is the project director.

* KWIS FM/Voice of the Coeur d'Alenes, Plummer, received $5,000 for their Language Preservation Project. The pilot project will develop printed materials and online streaming and interactive web activities to accompany broadcast of Coeur d'Alene language lessons. The project director is Sarah Freeburg.

Man caught

vandalizing Pocatello church

POCATELLO (AP) - A 22-year-old man caught vandalizing an LDS church in southeastern Idaho was taken to the hospital for a mental evaluation.

Police say officials with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declined to press charges against the man. He was found vandalizing the building in Pocatello last Friday after a church member drove by at about 6:30 a.m. and noticed the lights were on inside.

The suspect told police he was a maintenance worker, though officers later determined he had no connection to the church.

Police say did not identify the man, who was brought to a local hospital to be evaluated after his family was contacted.