Mayor serves her city well
Looking for a local hero? Look no further than Athol Mayor Darla Kuhman.
For months, the news stories have been about the small town's clerk and the embezzlement of more than $400,000 of city funds. In Friday's Coeur d'Alene Press, reporter Jeff Selle told the rest of the story and what an inspiring story it is.
Against incredible odds and resistance from most of the city council and the city attorney to investigate irregularities in the financial reports, it wasn't until Kuhman became mayor that she made inroads to discover that what she'd long suspected was true. The former city clerk has pleaded guilty to the crime and will be sentenced in May.
Mayor Kuhman is a true public servant whose courage and tenacity has served the citizens of Athol well. Kudos.
In sunny Arizona, Lake Pleasant is a major water sports recreation center for the Phoenix metro area. A recent addition to the lake is The Phoenix tour boat. It would look very familiar to those of us here who enjoy the Lake Coeur d'Alene Cruises fleet. The Phoenix was built in Coeur d'Alene at Finney Boat Works by Fred Finney. The Finneys are operating the tour boat in the Arizona sunshine during the off-season, aka winter in North Idaho. Sounds like a great plan!
Don Klotz passed away Jan. 23 and in reading his obituary in The Press, I learned that he was a Purple Heart recipient from the Korean War. A pharmacist, in the mid-1960s Don opened Klotz Drugs in the then-new Coeur d'Alene Mall on Appleway. The mall was a quite the big deal and at that time on the northern edge of town.
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A decade later Don owned Economart Drug on the northwest corner of Spokane Street and Seltice in Post Falls. I remember him as a nice man and the epitome of a small-town business owner. Rest in peace, Mr. Klotz.
When Post Falls Police Chief Scot Haug received the prestigious Citizen of the Year award last week, he was quite surprised by the honor. He's also the first recipient ever to accept the award while wearing a uniform, badge, gun and bullet-proof vest. Congratulations, Chief!
The national news has carried the story this week of a retired Georgia couple who went missing and were later found dead after arranging to meet the seller of a car via Craigslist. It's a tragic cautionary tale in this day and age. So many people are using the site to buy and sell all size and shape of items. Be sensible and cautious when meeting strangers for such transactions and arrange the meeting to take place in your local police department parking lot or in similarly public places.
Our daughter Sarah's flight crew overnighted in Spokane so we were able to join her for a quick visit. She's lived in Hollywood for the past few years so I asked if she had attended any of the recent awards shows this season that lead up to the Oscars ... the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild (SAG), etc.
She and her husband were enjoying a casual dinner at a Sunset Boulevard eatery on the night of the Golden Globes, Sarah describing the restaurant as a California version of our local Capone's. All of the TVs in the place were tuned to the Golden Globes, with the patrons paying rapt attention. Sarah said it looked like a North Idaho sports bar when Gonzaga or the Seahawks are playing, except people were watching red carpet arrivals and swarms of paparazzi.
When Mother Nature graces our neck of the woods with sunshine and temps nearing 60 degrees in late January, it's cause for collective celebration. It looked like springtime in the parks and along the Centennial Trail as people took to the outdoors to bask in the glow sans coats and scarves. Some brave and eager people even took their motorcycles for a spin on Sunday and Monday. But we know this is but a brief respite and winter will return for another round.
Happy birthday today to Jenni Grimmett, Valerie Wilcox, Lauren Adair, John Andres and Chad Oakland. Tomorrow, Rachel Riggs, Cindy Peugh, Allen Hildebrant, Don Waddell and David Gerzina, Sr. will celebrate. Shannon Damiano, Mel Palmer, Sierra Graham, Brylee Dresser and Helen Sargent mark their birthdays on Friday.
On the last day of January, the incredible Ida Hawkins celebrates her 93rd birthday, sharing a birthdate with Jennifer Alexander, Robert Brown, Cassidy Peacock, Sandy Scarlett, Erik Salvador, Linda Wolff, Mary Bell and Bernadette Myers.
On the first day of February, Colleen Provost, Leslie Tibbs, Tonya Myers, Kristi Rietze, Laura Little, Susan Cook, Deedie Beard, James Ownbey, Jesse Anglen and Jamie Benner will have Super Bowl birthdays.
On Monday, Donna Wemple, Randy Medlock, Chad VanBrunt and Seth Yost take another trip around the sun. Jackie Jameson, Leslie Damiano, Cindy Spence, Denise Lundy, Dawn Magness, Kay Burke, Howard Martinson and Donna Armbruster were born on Feb. 3.
Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. She's been voted Best Local Writer by the readers of the North Idaho Business Journal multiple times. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @kerrithoreson.
Kerri Thoreson
Main Street