EDITORIAL: Tuesday's biggest local winner? North Idaho College

Like a bad dream that lasts years, North Idaho College’s nightmare is over.

Sure, there are challenges ahead. The forces that nearly succeeded in bringing down our community’s college won’t give up despite staggering losses in Tuesday’s elections. 

And some horrible decisions by the three-person trustee majority, like the absurd $6 million ongoing commitment to athletics, are messes left for others to clean up.

But rejoice. 

After nearly capsizing in turbulent waters throughout the last several years, North Idaho College is headed back to terra firma. 

Victories by longtime leading local citizens Eve Knudtsen, Mary Havercroft and Rick Durbin, who will join outstanding trustees Tarie Zimmerman and Brad Corkill for at least the next two years, assure a far brighter future for NIC.

The list of those to thank for this dramatic and institution-saving turn of fortune is lengthy, but here’s a start.

Some serious thanks must go to the trustees who created the narrowly averted disaster. Their egregious mismanagement of the college and betrayal of the public trust have increased appreciation for this invaluable educational asset. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s (almost) gone.

Their dereliction of duty also confirmed the belief that their political manipulators within the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee should never be trusted. Thanks go to the new KCRCC precinct committeemen who publicly split with the organization’s endorsement of the three candidates who lost on Tuesday.

Deep thanks go to Corkill and Zimmerman, who for the past two years have withstood malice and disrespect from their alleged peers. Either of them would make an outstanding board chair moving forward.

Thanks and abiding appreciation are extended to President Nick Swayne, his administration, the faculty, the staff and the students who have weathered the seemingly countless storms generated by the board majority. 

It is because of you all — not the board majority — that NIC has remained afloat and is now swelling enrollment beautifully. Your courage under constant fire, your staunch repudiation of bad governance through numerous votes of no confidence, are nothing short of inspirational.

Thanks to Knudtsen, Durbin and Havercroft for their willingness to step up for their community and its college. None of these three is remotely political, yet all heeded the call to enter the fray in unpaid, under-appreciated positions under glaring spotlights with the college’s survival hanging in the balance.

Finally but foremost, thanks to the Kootenai County voters who paid attention to what was happening at NIC and decided it must continue no longer. The people of Kootenai County won on Tuesday, and chaos was the big loser.