New year of shining a light on community

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks.” Preface to the first volume of The Story of Civilization by Will Durant.

I’ve long loved this quote and use it for a philosophical template of what I hope to achieve each week in this column ... focus on the people on the banks. Sincere thanks to everyone who’s allowed me to share their interesting, funny, heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking moments of life in this column the past year.

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I’m often asked how to have a name appear in Main Street birthdays. What started as an occasional birthday shout-out a couple of decades ago has grown to include nearly 2,000 best wishes annually to the newly-arrived, centenarians and everyone of every age in-between.

I’ve collected birthdays through the years that people send to me or tell me about and the sheer volume is sometimes staggering, even with the help of an electronic birthday reminder program and the addition of Facebook. These birthdays are those of readers in every corner of our communities and it’s still amazing and gratifying to me how meaningful it is for people to see their name in the local newspaper.

Something that wouldn’t occur to readers is that I also routinely look through obituaries to see if someone who’s been included in the Main Street birthdays has passed away. Sometimes, a family member will contact me, but more often than not, it’s caught in the perusal of the newspaper’s published obituaries. Most may not realize it, but not every death (or birth) in Kootenai County receives a published notice, as was once the case.

There’s no foolproof method to updating my list of a few thousand local names, which means a few times a year, I wish a happy birthday to someone who’s no longer living.

If you’d like to add birthdays to this column for 2026, the best way is via email, [email protected]. Similarly, if you’d like to remove a birthday, same method.

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Gen Xers and Millennials: Today will be your generation’s good old days. How will you be remembered in your good old days? Making history, making a difference?

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Happy Birthday today to Katie Marmon, Dale Kreager and Sydne Watson. Tomorrow, Jerry Sparling, Donna Trueblood, Sandy Wendell, Fondra McGee, Marc Kroetch and Rebecca Mort turn a page on the birthday calendar. Carrie Miller, Dan Ryan, Pat Mitchell, Jim Magnuson, Avery Hunt, Jennifer King, Esther Webb, Robert Coles and Cathy Evjen blow out the candles Friday. On Saturday, Mary Jane Hahn (90!), Nathan Johnson, Katrina Jaeger, Jan Harris, Tom Iverson, Paul Matthews and Ronan Kennedy have a piece of birthday cake. Kathy Kress White, Chris Hansen, Luke Gonzales, Tim Elder, Cora Cole, Amy Morfitt, Ivan Bosanko and Nathan Johnson will be celebrating Sunday. On Monday, Vivienne Mitchell, Mike Baker, Deborah Shaw, Pat Russell, Wendy Wallin, Debbie Oliver and Ryan Wichman will put on their party hats. Celebrating Tuesday the 13th birthdays are Andy Irgens, Len Benes, JJ Dion, Joni Clevenger, Janice Myers, Mike Jorgenson, Karen Gage, Judy Manley, Tory Lee, Karen Holt, Teddi Johnson and Tasha Holmes.

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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 [email protected].