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Farewell to a world-class storyteller

| March 28, 2018 1:00 AM

A couple of years ago Ric Clarke called and invited me to coffee. He wanted to “pick my brain” to make a list of local long timers to feature in the profile series he’d be writing for the Press. Our coffee visit at Calypso’s lasted a couple of hours. Our friendship lasted nearly four decades.

I first met Ric at the Coeur d’Alene Press in the 1980s. We were on opposite sides of the newspaper business in a figurative sense, he in the newsroom and me in the advertising department. There was a bit of a rivalry between those who gathered and reported the news and those who generated the revenue to buy the newsprint and ink. When I went over to the other side a few years later as the publisher/editor of the weekly Post Falls Tribune, Ric was one who cheered me on.

He was wickedly funny in a subtle way. He lived and breathed professionalism and a joie de vivre in the telling of stories. Ric Clarke was a newspaperman in all of the best definitions of the word.

On Thursday morning another long ago colleague from the Press, Susan Cuff, sent out a group message on Facebook telling us that Ric had passed away a few hours before. It was one of those messages that takes your breath away. Throughout that day and the coming days the people responding were like a newspaper reunion of the past four decades. Many shared their personal stories of Ric, some touching and some irreverent.

At one point Clyde Bentley, former Press editor, said that he imagined Ric would take special pleasure in having brought so many former friends together. I’m sure that’s true.

So thank you Susan, Clyde, David Bond, Erna Rhinehart, David Keyes, Leslie Tidball, Jeff Selle, Keith Erickson, Charlotte Rogers Brown, Darrell Bechner, Gordon Crow, David Townsend, Betsy Hawkins, Dave Oliveria, Kate Bertin, Keri Alexander, Cynthia Taggart, Gretchen Berning, Denise Durflinger for the many walks down memory lane with a symbolic Laker’s toast to our friend Ric Clarke, the richest man in town!

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Over the weekend I visited my daughter in West Hollywood. On Saturday evening I was wowed when a late model Bentley passed by on Sunset Boulevard. Not that Bentleys are an uncommon sight so close to the 90201 zip code but this one was chrome. As in shiny silver chrome ... picture a giant chrome toaster with wheels. Sarah said she’s seen a few luxury cars with the chrome wrap in the the neighborhood in recent months.

Intrigued, I called CW Wraps in Post Falls to see if they had ever done a chrome wrap and what the price tag might be for transforming a car. Sam Carlino, owner of CW Wraps, laughed and said that if you can afford a Bentley, you can afford to wrap it in chrome.

His company is the only one in the Northwest who can do the chrome wrap but that there’s not a lot of call for it here. Due to the price of the specialized chrome product needed for a sedan-sized vehicle it would be in the $10,000 range. That’s compared to about $2,000 for a color vehicle wrap. Sam’s company just completed a satin charcoal metallic wrap on an Audi for $2,300 and it only took two days. Wrapping a full-size pick-up truck would run $3-4,000.

I’d always thought of vehicle wraps for commercial mobile advertisements but it seems that they’re used to change the color of your car without painting and with the added benefit of protecting the car’s original paint.

If you see a 1976 Dodge van with a chrome wrap in our area one of these days, it just might be me after winning the lottery and livin’ the dream with my beloved vintage remnant of living in Portland in the ’70s. Or maybe I’ll just chrome wrap my new Bentley.

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Things to Do: Saturday, March 31, 1-3 p.m. at Q’emlin Park for the Post Falls Park and Rec Easter Egg Hunt. Bring a bag or basket to gather eggs. Also on Saturday, the Rathdrum Park and Rec Department and American Legion Post 154 host a community Easter Egg Hunt from 11 a.m. to noon at Majestic Park.

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Happy birthday today to Cindy Sweeney, Brandon Clearwaters, James Heilman, Barb Forgacs, Robert Durflinger, Richard Wegner, Chris Camarata and Page Hibbs; and tomorrow to Bob Koep, Mary Hawkins and Bo Gerzina. Friday Sue Sausser, Gloria Weidner, Tabetha Brisbin, Linda Schmidt, Bren Grace and Kathleen Perez put on their party hats. On Saturday Priscilla Baker, Rick Vernon, Annika Baltzell, Chris Jones, Joey Nowoj, Patrick Reagan, Shirley Christie, Crystal LaFountain, David Holloway and Chris Clayton will have their cake and eat it, too. Taking another trip around the sun on Easter Sunday / April Fools Day are Ed Frazey, Keri Schwenke, Martha Goose, Kim Haddock, Candi Applegate, Chris Thompson and Payton Peugh (13!). On Monday Jonathan Owens, Judi Jackson, Dallan Pope, Taylor Huber, Kathy Willy, Beth Barclay, Nell Gordon and Lee Periman are blowing out the birthday candles. Liz Montgomery, Doreen Porter, Cameron Dominquez and Cindy Jordan celebrate on Tuesday.

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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 and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email mainstreet@cdapress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kerrithoreson.