Decades of leadership, service and friendship

When I first moved to Post Falls in 1985, then with a population of about 5,000, Jim Hammond was serving his first term on the Post Falls City Council. When I took over as the publisher/editor of the Post Falls Tribune in 1990, we became acquainted. One of my favorite front page photos in the Tribune was one I captured at Post Falls City Hall on election night 1991. A jubilant Jim, who had just learned he’d won the race for mayor, dipped his wife, Cyndie, then planted a kiss on his bride.

The '90s were an exciting, heady and pivotal time for Post Falls. Business, industry and families had discovered our corner of the state, making us the fastest growing Idaho city for the next several years. Mayor Hammond was exactly the right person at the right time to set the course for all that was to come in the next decades.

We’d become friends and spent time bundled up together in the bleachers rooting for the Post Falls Trojan football team, when their son played and our daughter was on the cheer squad. Another fond '90s memory is Sunday Sundaes with Jim and Cyndie, Dick and Jan Harris, Skip and Jody Hissong, Cliff and Jeanne Hayes and me and Bert taking turns hosting casual sundae parties while we solved all the problems of the world. It was at one of these gatherings that I tasted ammonia cookies for the first time. Cyndie made the treats from her grandmother’s recipe and they were delicious.

Time passed, Jim went on to serve in the Idaho State Senate, and after a stint as Coeur d’Alene city administrator, he threw his hat in the ring for Coeur d’Alene mayor. I wasn’t there to capture a photo on election night 2021 when he won, but I’m sure there was a kiss involved.

In the history of our county, Jim became the first person to hold the office of mayor for both cities of Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene.

In recent years Jim’s faced health challenges, but still served the public. Last month, he announced that he was stepping down as mayor so he and Cyndie could move to Colorado to spend time with grandchildren. His resignation is effective Aug. 31.

It’s the end of an era in both Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene. Jim has, without fail, been a class act, a gentleman even in contentious times. The Hammonds will always occupy a place in my yesteryear good memories of this community. Godspeed.

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Happy Birthday today to Bill Kinder, Cindi Wimmer, Greg Delavan, Bob Nonini, Billie Collins and Dan Dahl. Aug. 8 birthdays will be celebrated by Sara Meyer, Jodi Anderson, Eli Yates, Jeff Humphrey, Ken McMeans, Virginia Griggs, Jim Hollingsworth, Jennifer Bokma, Heidi Phillips-Allen and Patty Collins. On Friday, Anne Anderson, Terry Morris, Jack Havens, Kyle Patterson and Christian Strailman blow out the candles. Jeff Grundon, Caryl Johnston, Sydney Sales, Jeremy Morris, Chelsea Cordova, Bonita Koontz, Tim Symons and John Hammon mark the anniversary of their birth Saturday. Jennifer Jaeger-Darakjy, Ann Seddon, Phyllis Berry, Erin Valente, Lisa Bell and Edith Uhl pop the cork to celebrate Sunday. Joe Paisley, Stacey Berger, Jennifer Pitts, Ed Collins, Claudia Hurt, Deena Krobath, Roger Saterfiel, Ronda Nash, Mariah Silva, Julie Hunt, Jennifer James and Nevaeh Witherspoon take another trip around the sun Monday. George Gee, Mike Laverdure, Tery Garras, Michelle Coppess, Donna Flom and Bryan DeKeles are putting on their party hats Aug. 13.

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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 rkthor52@aol.com.