What you can do for life

Lee Caires was born to be a mother.

Lee was born to love and protect children, hers and others’.

Lee wasn’t meant to die at age 49 with a piece of chalk in one hand and an eraser in the other, a victim of an early mass school shooting.

On Feb. 28, 1987, the Coeur d’Alene Press featured Lee in a short profile that listed, among other things, her vocation — “homemaker, chauffeur and math tutor” — community involvement, hobbies and goals.

When asked about a favorite saying, she quoted a personalized version of a John F. Kennedy line: “Ask not what life can do for you, but what you can do for life.”

Lee modeled those words.

She was heavily involved in the old YMCA, organizing an annual Casino Night shortly before the profile article. She volunteered in an ecumenical food kitchen in Coeur d’Alene. She helped start the Kootenai County Substance Abuse Council.

Also, she tutored children in math at Lakes Middle School and Coeur d’Alene High. Meanwhile, her husband, Steve, taught industrial arts in both schools.

“She saved me from bad grades,” recalls Christa Hazel of Coeur d’Alene, “I learned algebra in her kitchen at least once a week out in Cougar Gulch. She was kind and very patient. She was a great educator.”

On Feb. 2, 1996, after taking a job in Moses Lake, Wash., Lee was at her chalkboard at Frontier Junior High when a 14-year-old armed with three guns burst into her math room and began shooting. Lee and two children were slain. A third student was wounded. Husband Steve, then the school’s assistant principal, raced to the scene, only to learn the awful news about his wife and the others.

Friend Judith Bower said at the time: “She truly is a hero, and in Christian terminology, she’s a martyr.”

Lee deserves to be remembered.

In the Beginning

Another woman who should be recalled is Mae Hanley, who with her husband, Larry, started Christmas for All.

The Gift That Keeps Giving to our community began humbly. In 1979, the Hanleys visited the local welfare office to register a neighbor for free Christmas toys, only to learn no one was gathering toys that yuletide. So they volunteered themselves, ultimately collecting and delivering toys for 87 Coeur d’Alene families.

In 1980, the Hanleys spearheaded the first official Christmas for All, serving 200 families. By 1982, the program had expanded to almost 500 families. In 2021, the 36th annual Press Christmas for All raised $238,361.

Mae Hanley died 25 years ago this month at age 71. She was paying it forward long before doing so became a thing.

Mailbag

Jim Faucher of Coeur d’Alene was saddened by news of former Hecla CEO Art Brown’s passing Feb. 9. It was a pleasure, Jim said, to work with Art and his co-chair, Jack Riggs, in raising funds for the Kroc Center capital campaign.

And Jim points out one more thing: “in 1972, (Art) was with Hecla at the Lucky Friday Mine in Mullan when the Sunshine Mine disaster occurred. … Gregg Olsen's excellent book "The Deep Dark" mentions Art as one of those who went into the Sunshine Mine after the deadly fire to try to rescue the miners to no avail — (although) two were rescued much later — and later helped recover the miners' bodies; 91 died.” Jim concludes: “Art was quite a person.”

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: If gasoline/keeps going up,/I’ll have to buy it/by the cup — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“One Grand of Regular Please”).

• You might not be as cool as you think … if you see that “80085” vanity plate on a white Honda Civic in town and wonder why others snicker. Seems it’s a slang for “BOOBS.” And Bruce Twitchell of Coeur d’Alene (who photographed the plate at Government Way and Honeysuckle) wonders how it got through Idaho’s government censors.

• Susan Cuff, of Missoula, Mont., a former Coeur d’Alene Press staffer, can proudly add three more 2s to the Twosday phenomenon this week — you know, the 22022022 palindrome. Susan’s late husband, Gary, who died last July 1 at age 70, worked for 32 years for the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department, including 13 as undersheriff. His KCSO radio number was 222.

• Trish Gannon, editor of Sandpoint Magazine, arose at 5 Saturday morning and didn’t find out she’d had a dryer sheet stuck to her pants leg until 10 that night. Embarrassed? Nah. But now she knows why she smelled nice and fresh all day.

Parting Shot

Laura Wenstrom of Hayden didn’t realize how attached her sons were to “Star Wars” until a recent home-school lesson. Micah, 6, paused while reading a story to ask what “clunk” meant. Laura tried to explain. “It’s the sound that something might make when it hits something else,” she said. Blank stare.

Then, brother Sam, 10, piped up, “It is the sound when Chewbacca’s gun hit the storm trooper on the helmet.” Micah understood immediately, amazing Laura. Looks like Wookiees, Jedi, Sith and the Force will be with us for another generation, especially with Disney now in control of that galaxy far, far away.

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D.F. “Dave” Oliveria can be contacted at dfo@cdapress.com.