A perfect day

Every once in a while, you have one of those days that reminds you why you love where you live — and why the people and experiences that shape our lives matter so much.

Friday, Sept. 18, was one of those days for me.

It started early at The Highlands Golf Course for our Leadership Classic Golf Tournament. As the sun came up over the prairie, the sky was absolutely beautiful. Our Chamber staff and volunteers were putting the finishing touches on months of work, sponsors were setting up and golfers were beginning to fill the course.

Standing there watching it all come together, I felt incredibly grateful. Everywhere I looked, people were showing up for something they cared about.

The Leadership Classic began with an idea from five Leadership Coeur d’Alene graduates — Naomi Boutz, Ryan Johnson, Michael Armon, Vanessa Moos and Jessica Long — who wanted to create something that would continue giving back long after their class ended. Today, the tournament supports Leadership Coeur d’Alene and other Chamber programs, while also benefiting a local nonprofit. This year, $5,000 went to Safe Start.

My dad and brothers play in the tournament every year, too. There is something pretty special about looking across the course and seeing the men in my family participating in work that means so much to me. It makes my Chamber world and my family world feel a little closer together.

In the middle of the tournament, those worlds crossed again when I slipped away to pick up Martina, the Rotary exchange student from Argentina who is living with me this year and attending Coeur d’Alene High School.

I never had children of my own, so I never expected that one of the sweetest parts of my day would someday be asking a teenager, “How was school?” We grabbed lunch, talked about her day, and then I dropped her at home before heading back to the golf course.

By that evening, I was beginning to realize there was a thread running through the entire day.

I was blessed to be Tony Stewart’s guest at the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations banquet, where I had the privilege of sitting beside Dr. Lauren A. Bairnsfather, CEO of the Anne Frank Center USA. She spoke about Anne Frank and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and how their legacies continue to shape our world.

Her words felt especially meaningful after visiting the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam this May with my niece and sister-in-law. But they also took me much further back — to my junior year at Coeur d’Alene High School.

I remember our cheerleading squad performing at a human rights rally in City Park organized in response to an Aryan Nations gathering. More than 1,000 people came together that day to make clear what our community stood for.

Decades later, that history still matters. The racial harassment reported by members of the University of Utah women’s basketball team in 2024, followed weeks later by an incident involving Coeur d’Alene Tribal School students at McEuen Park, were painful reminders that progress does not mean the work is finished.

Today, I am part of a group of concerned business and community leaders working together to better prevent and respond to incidents like these. We have spent time listening, researching and bringing people together to think about what comes next. For me, part of that work is making sure isolated acts of hate do not define our community. Our story should also be about what happens next — how we respond, how we stand together and how we continue building a community where everyone knows they belong.

Perhaps that is why the recognition of Ernie Stensgar that evening, felt like such a fitting ending to the perfect day.

Mr. Stensgar served 45 years on the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Council, including nearly two decades as chairman, and has championed human rights in our region for decades. As I watched him surrounded by his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I found myself thinking again about legacy — what we inherit, what we build and what we leave for those who come after us.

Maybe that is why Friday felt so perfect to me. In one day, I saw my family, my work, a young person who has unexpectedly become part of my life, memories from my own childhood and people who have spent decades shaping the community I call home.

From sunrise over the prairie to that final gathering celebrating an incredible human being Friday night, I was reminded that communities don’t simply become special places to live.

People make them that way.

They show up. They care. They give back. And generation after generation, they decide what kind of community they want to leave behind.

I feel incredibly fortunate that this is mine.

• • •

Linda Coppess is CEO and president of the Coeur d'Alene Regional Chamber.

      

    Lindsay Morgan, Tony Stewart and Linda Coppess at the Kootenai County Human Rights Task Force banquet.
  

    CDA Councilwoman, Christie Wood, Ernie Stensgar, Pam Pratt and Tony Stewart at the Kootenai County Human Rights Task Force banquet.
  

    Coppess brothers: brothers Bruce Coppess, Bret Coppess, Dr. Lee Coppess (dad) and John Wilkey (brother-in-law) at The Leadership Classic Golf Tournament.
  

    Linda Coppess and Wanda Quinn at the Kootenai County Human Rights Task Force banquet.