A Clearwater County Economy By Tom Loucks In the early 1980s, when I served as pastor of St. Catherine’s Parish in Kamiah, I met two retired men who had operated businesses in Kooskia and who also had something else in … Continue reading
More Than Just a Dance Hall By Nicole Sharp Photos courtesy of the J.D. Smith Family Do you remember? The good old days when we danced all night at Ruby Creek, Horseshoe Bend, Mayfield, etc., to music with [a] lift. … Continue reading
The Store as Polestar By Nancy Max Photos Courtesy of Nancy Max In late 1945, when my dad accepted a job checking groceries in the Eden store, our family moved there from Twin Falls. We lived in a small apartment … Continue reading
And the Remarkable Life of Cyrus Jacobs By Jay Karamales In late summer last year, our volunteer-operated Dry Creek Historical Society in the community of Hidden Springs, a few miles north of Boise, came into possession of an artifact important … Continue reading
A Down-Home Mom Goes to Town By Jessi Roberts with Bret Witter In her new book Backroads Boss Lady, New Plymouth resident and mother of four, Jessi Roberts, describes how economic adversity prompted her to start a clothing and accessories … Continue reading
A Mine, Memories, and Electric Cars By Russell Steele Last August, my wife Ellen and I joined our longtime Salmon friends, Bob and Alberta Wiederrick, for a rock-hunting expedition that would be capped with a view of the total solar … Continue reading
A Salesman’s Story By Bob Bailey In the 1990s, I worked for a police supply store, selling weapons to law enforcement agencies in Idaho, which meant I got to demonstrate the guns. Once, when I had some new AR-15s … Continue reading
It started out innocently enough. I enjoyed day trips in my youth with friends on the Payette River in rented rafts and our kayaks. Then came the South Fork of the Payette River. Then the Salmon River. When I was about eighteen and got a permit for the Middle Fork of the Salmon, the sirens’ song of whitewater began to engulf me. Continue reading
Growing Organically and Cultivating Fame in Rural Moscow (Idaho, Of Course) By Carol Price Spurling Nestled at the base of Paradise Ridge, in the rolling Palouse hills eight miles south of Moscow, lies a small organic farm, a place owned … Continue reading
A few months shy of the first anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, an event that affected the central Washington town where I lived, I persuaded a friend to accompany me on a road trip to northern Idaho, where I’d been invited for a job interview.
It was the spring of 1981, and news of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan filled the interior of my small car as we pulled up in front of the Sandpoint Bee’s office. Inside, reporters scrambled for a local angle on the news.
At that point, my only experience in journalism was an internship on a paper in Moses Lake, Washington. I was a late bloomer—thirty-eight, and the mother of three teenaged kids. After two hours with editor Bruce Botka, he offered me the job, but added, “By the way, would you mind driving another twenty miles northeast to visit the Priest River Times’ office?” Continue reading
