MY TURN: North Idaho College is proof voting works

A few years ago, this community came close to losing North Idaho College. That it didn’t is worth remembering this election season — not because of who’s on the ballot, but because of what it proves: when people pay attention and show up, a community can fix even a problem this big.

For a few years, NIC was in real trouble — a fight that split this community. Leadership churned, lawsuits dragged on, millions of dollars were wasted, and even the college’s insurance carrier walked away. Worst of all, its accreditation — the stamp that makes a degree worth something — slipped to within a single step of being lost. That was no abstraction. It was whether a welder, a nurse, a high schooler earning early credit, or a veteran coming home would still have a real college to attend.

So people did something about it, the plainest way there is: they voted. In 2022 they began changing the board, electing Brad Corkill and Tarie Zimmerman; in 2024 they finished the job by electing Rick Durbin, Eve Knudtsen, and Mary Havercroft. No savior rode in, and no single bombshell fixed it — just ordinary people choosing steadier leaders, then letting them do the unglamorous work of governing well.

The lawsuits and the ugly headlines are gone; the board spends its time on students, not lawyers.

NIC graduates now add more than $270 million to the local economy and support close to 4,000 jobs. It isn’t a rescue story anymore. It’s a comeback.

That’s the part worth carrying into November. Some believe that our votes don’t change things much. North Idaho College is the standing rebuttal — proof that engaged citizens can take a broken institution and set it right at the ballot box.

The work isn't finished, because this kind of work never is. State dollars are tightening, and steady leadership lasts only as long as people keep paying attention. There will always be a need to safeguard the gemstone of our community.

So, if you like what you see at North Idaho College, be sure to vote. Corkill and Zimmerman are on the ballot again this fall, running unopposed — but even a race no one is contesting is worth your time.

In Kootenai County, voting is safe, reliable and easy. You can request an absentee ballot at VoteIdaho.gov, or vote early (in-person) at the Elections Office on Third Street in Coeur d’Alene starting Oct. 19, or show up on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3. A quiet year is no reason to stay home. It’s the best reason to show up.

North Idaho College was born in hard times — the Depression years, when money was short and the future looked grim — and a community that scraped it together then has defended it through every rough season since. The Coeur d'Alene Press in 1933 put it plainly: the college would survive "if we all put our shoulders to the wheel." It has — because each generation puts its shoulder back in. This year, that's us. All that is asked is to go vote.

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Christa Hazel is a graduate of North Idaho College, a former ASNIC president, co-founder of Save NIC, and a Coeur d’Alene resident.