Calling All Superheroes

by Liv Stecker

Admit it. You’ve always wanted to step into a phone booth (for all you millennials, they’re small, glass boxes that people used to have to stand in to make phone calls if they weren’t at home) and emerge as a totally different person, endowed with superpowers, rippling biceps and of course, a cape. Or if red-briefed heroics aren’t your style, you’ve at least had fantasies of mind-control abilities that could trigger a small earthquake to avoid mundane responsibilities.

Don’t be ashamed, we’ve all wished at some point that we could do something that we just aren’t able to - even if it’s only opening a jar of pickles. But we’ve also all got our weak spots (like non-rippling biceps that require pickle-jar opening assistance) and thankfully, most of us have superheroes in our lives that help us get through things that would otherwise be hard, or impossible for us.

I became an EMT in 2004. My fourth daughter had been born a few months before, and as the oldest daughter from a large, homeschooled family, by the time I had four kids of my own I had established the strong statistical probability of being the “most responsible” person on the scene of any minor (or even major) emergency at home. When I was a teenager, taking care of younger siblings, I had a book from the 1970s that my mom had left for us called “A Sigh of Relief.” I consulted the worn paperback on more than one occasion, like when my sister sliced her knee open using a box knife to build a fort out of old appliance boxes. Or the time my brother slammed his fist through a glass door in hot pursuit of a villainous cousin. It was useful, and I stopped the bleeding, sort of, long before I knew what cell phones were or how much an ambulance bill cost.

I never really liked blood & guts, and to this day, seeing people in real, honest-to-gosh pain, makes my stomach turn in weird knots, but I realized that when I was faced with an emergency, knowing how to do something is a heckuva lot better than standing by, waiting for somebody who does. So I signed up for the EMT class up at Mount Carmel Hospital, never anticipating how much it would change my life.

I worked for Stevens County Sheriff’s Ambulance for nearly five years. Never once during that time did I regret my decision to become an EMT. Instead, I made lifelong friends with both my co-workers and patients, bonding over experiences that can’t be replicated artificially. I have held the hands, listened to the stories, and shared in the grief of strangers. Being an EMT, especially in the small community where I grew up, and my children have grown, has taught me things far beyond how to stop the bleeding and splint the break. It has taught me compassion, humility and patience.

I never would have imagined that being an EMT would lead me to the places that it has. It has opened doors for me to travel to places all over the country and even beyond, in both volunteer and paid capacities. It’s a training that will serve you over and over and over again. Every employer loves to have EMTs on staff for workplace emergencies or when something happens to a customer. When things go wrong at home with your family and friends, instead of digging for an old paperback and listening to your renegade cousin for first aid ideas, you’ll know what to do. You may not have a cape, but you’ll have something in your pocket whenever the need arises, and that ain’t nothing. Living in the small communities that we do here in Stevens County, trained EMTs are vital to the survival of patients in remote, rural areas.

Stevens County Sheriff’s Ambulance (SCSA) wants to help you realize your superhero dreams, just like they did for me. They are offering an EMT basic class that kicks off in January. They will have an informational meeting on November 26th at 6:30 PM. Class Schedule starting in January will be Monday and Wednesday nights from 5:00-9:00 (17:00-21:00) and Saturday 07:30-5:00 (07:30-17:00). The EMT class is about 3 months long. For any questions or to sign up please call 509-684-8261.

SCSA is a unique emergency medical response agency in that it is operated under the jurisdiction of the county sheriff. Most EMS agencies are facilitated through fire departments or private companies, many operated on tax-based funding or as profitable private undertakings. SCSA a fee-for-service company that does not receive any tax based monies. All operating expenses, supplies, payroll, vehicles and the new building have been paid for by company revenues. As one of the least expensive BLS transport agencies in the state, SCSA maintains operations without the help of EMS levies, state, county or city funds, and accepts almost all insurance plans. SCSA is driven by the community spirit of volunteers who have answered the call of the EMT's creed “To conserve life, alleviate suffering, promote health, do no harm, and encourage the quality and equal availability of emergency medical care…” Sign up. Step into the phone booth. We’ve got your cape waiting.

Who Doesn't Want to Eat Pasta For A Good Cause?

Northport Dollars for Scholars is holding its second annual fundraising dinner on Friday, Mar. 9, 2018, at Rivertown Grill in Northport. It will be an Italian Dinner with a choice of Sausage Penne, Chicken Fettuccini, or Vegetarian Pasta. Tickets are $15 each and must be purchased in advance. Doors open at 5:30 pm with no host cocktails.

Dinner will be served at 6 pm followed by an auction featuring donated items and services from local businesses, as well as some from the students themselves. Jewelry, fine art items and collectibles are among some of the hand crafted and donated auction items. All proceeds benefit Northport High School Graduates. Gary and Donna Godes, the owners of Rivertown Grill will donate as much of the cost of the food as possible, making the overall benefit to the students even greater. All proceeds will go to scholarships for Northport High School graduates from the class of 2018. To purchase tickets, please contact Darelynn Brunette at 675-2156.

Small Store, Big Heart- A peek into the life of an Onion Creek General Store owner

By Kristinna Hechinger

The small neighborhood of Onion Creek, Washington doesn't include much. It is a beautiful place with a lovely community, but beyond the Onion Creek School and a scattered collection of houses, the Onion Creek General Store is really the only thing around.

Terri Charbonneau, co-owner of the Onion Creek General Store, has been there for 21 years. The original store was a log structure built in 1978, which contained washers, dryers, showers, and more. However, this store burned down in 1987 and the new one was constructed. Some short years later, Terri and her husband Mark purchased the store.




Terri and Mark lived in Spokane, Washington previously. Terri was a business manager for radio stations there, and Mark owned a Bait & Tackle shop. “Mark kept saying he wanted to move further north,” Terri recalls, “I always thought he meant the northside of Spokane.” However, Mark had a place a little farther north in his mind. Mark’s father used to own the Rainbow Beach Resort in Twin Lakes, near Inchelium, WA. Because of this, Mark has visited the area previous to moving there, doing “product testing” for his shop. This, Terri laughs, was “just another name for fishing.”

Mark found their future business on one of these trips. He was up in Onion Creek and happened to see that the local store was for sale. That day, he called Terri and told her he had found their new home.

When they moved up here, they were both ready for a change. A year previously their son had died at age 14. This was the turning point in their lives. Terri explained that he was a very loving and smart kid, with planned to go to Gonzaga and become an architect. Their loss was devastating, and when they moved they were both in search of a new view of life. 

So, the two of them purchased and moved to the Onion Creek General Store, which is connected to their house by a wall and has a park right next to it. Terri recognized that the store had a lot of work to be done. Her goal was to make it more family-oriented, which she accomplished by banning smoking in the store, managing the partying that had previously been going on in the park, and cleaning the place out. Also, she had a dream to turn it into an old country store, and that's what she did. Being her own boss, she has been able to decorate the store to her pleasing and given it the old country look she wanted it to have.

After the move, Terri was just settling in when she noticed the need for some community action. Terri has a soft spot for kids- teenagers especially, she explained, because she remembers what it was like to be that age. So she decided to do a Tree of Sharing during Christmas time, which she did for 3 years. However, Terri observed that not all of the families who needed the presents were taking some. So she came up with a better idea. She and another Onion Creek local came up with the idea of making stockings for all of the kids in the area. At the time, there was about 60 kids in the local school, but Terri estimated they would need to make 100 stockings to insure every kid in the area got one. So they did. She called this the 100 Stocking Project, and she has continued this ever since, for the last 17 years. With increasingly more and more help from the community, the project has grown during this time.

This is not the only way Terri and the General Store have benefited the community. The store is the only place for local residents to pick up the essentials without driving around 20 miles to the next town. The store sells groceries, hardware, sport and fishing supplies, gift items, and more. There is also a gas pump out front, a wonderful park complete with community-built swings and basketball court, and a little library in the side of the store. The library, part of the Libraries of Stevens County, has a local librarian who brings books, audiobooks, and movies to be checked out every Wednesday. Also, people are able to request books and have them brought to the store on that day. This mini-library was once featured in the New York Times and considered to be the smallest in the nation. It is a blessing for Onion Creek residents who love to read but do not get into town much. The park was built mainly by two locals, Peter Quinn and Dennis Egger. They came to Terri and requested to build a basketball court, and she told them what she really wanted was a swing set. So, members of the community pitched in for funding, and with some hard work, both the basketball court and swing set were created. There is also a slide, firemans pole, tetherball and covered benches. Inside, there are computers available for use, and free wifi. Also, May through September, Onion Creek Store offers delicious hot food cooked by Mark himself.

One local resident says the store is “integral to the community, it's kind of the social hub of Onion Creek.” She says that Terri and Mark are not just store owners, but friends to her. “I treasure them. They are kind, community-oriented, and I look forward to talking to them when I go to the store,” she says with a smile.

Terri has a big heart. The hardest part of owning the store, she explains, is seeing families in poverty and not being able to do much to help. However, she does as much as she can and is glad to help the community in any way she is able to. The community is very lucky to have her and Mark, who feel lucky to be here as well.

Terri loves where owning the store has taken them. When asked what the best part of her job is, she explained that there is lots of parts she enjoys. Owning the store with her husband means they get to be their own bosses, which is a great thing, and they get to work together and spend time with each other. She remarks that they share ongoing humor with each other every day, which keeps the job fun. Furthermore, Terri loves getting to see the local kids grow up, and make a little difference in their lives through the 100 Stocking Project. Since the community is a small one, the store allows her to get to know all of the locals, and she has become very good friends with many of them. Finally, she loves the area they are in. “Getting to look outside and see trees, have deer in our yard, look up at the stars- it's amazing,” Terri explains.

The Onion Creek General Store is open 7 days a week, with varying hours. Week days are 7am-6pm, Saturday is 9am-6pm, and Sunday is 10am-4pm. Swing by for a visit!

DYNAMITE, THE FARMER’S FRIEND

 

by Barry McCombs

It might surprise some readers to know that dynamite used to be about as common an article on farms and ranches in the area as bailing twine is now. I remember as a young kid in the 1950s seeing boxes of it lying around in barns and sheds on both of my grandparents’ farms. While its main purpose was for assisting in the difficult work of removing stumps to clear fields, it was also put to some pretty creative uses as people became rather casual in handling it.

My mother tells how my grandfather would wake them up on the 4th of July by throwing a quarter stick of dynamite up on the tin roof above the attic where she and her siblings slept. That was sure to get them out of bed with a bang. Quarter sticks of dynamite were also employed by her extended family while hunting to drive deer out of particularly brushy areas. Fish not biting? A little dynamite could bring them to the surface.

My father got his start as a lineman by digging holes for power poles that extended electrical service to rural areas. Part of his reputation for completing more holes than anyone else on the crew was due to the fact that he carried sticks of dynamite in his back pocket to help out in rocky places.

Dynamite was also handy for those who might have more malicious intents. Recently, Lora Rose of the local genealogical society sent me a copy of a petition signed by a number of residents including my great grand uncle that was sent to the county officials in 1891. Someone had used dynamite twice to blow up a dam that was located near Addy for the purpose of operating a grist mill for local farmers. The petition was a request to fund the rebuilding of the dam and to bring the perpetrator to justice.

An event in 1892 demonstrates just how effective dynamite could be in an emergency. Nearly the entire population of Colville had gathered to watch a play put on by the Ladies Aide Society in the Meyers Opera House. At 7:30 p.m. a fire broke out at the Dominion Hotel. A bucket brigade was quickly formed but in spite of heroic efforts the fire spread quickly and as recounted below threatened to do away with a major section of the town:

“. . .All glass on the south side of the William Block cracked and fell to the ground. It now looked as though the Rickey store building, Charette’s saloon and the Hofstetter barn and a place called the “Ark” would be destroyed. It was also plain that unless immediate and effective action could be taken, the saloon of James Durkin, Habein’s stable, the post office and possibly Perras and Lenery’s store would soon burst into flames.

At this critical juncture was heard the cry of ‘dynamite and giant powder’ rising above the tumult of the crowd and the roar of devouring flames rapidly eating up the hotel. Almost simultaneously a man was observed running toward the Rickey building with a box of giant powder on his shoulder. At once an order rang out for everyone to fall back and watch for flying timbers. The crowd required no urging to act upon such a sensible suggestion and a deafening explosion immediately followed; the Rickey building could be seen in the air flying in all directions; it was plainly evident that the courageous parties who handled the powder were experts in the business. This was heroic treatment but effective, although other buildings in the vicinity did not escape damage consequent upon the face of the explosion. All of the glass in Durkin’s saloon and Habein’s stable was broken as were several windows in the post office and a large plate glass in the Hotel Colville besides several smaller ones in various parts of the building. William Hofstetter sustained quite severe bruises caused by a portion of the roof of the Rickey building falling upon him.”

Our modern fire departments would no doubt shun this method of controlling a fire although the results might be not any more destructive than current standard protocol. If you happen to have some dynamite lying around and are thinking about using it in case you have a house fire, you should probably check with your insurance agent first.

Stix & Spokes goes Stationary!

By Liv Stecker

Wes and Ali Porter are taking their movable bike, ski and snowboard repair business off the road and into a cozy storefront on Chewelah’s main drag, just at the bottom of the hill from 49 Degrees North, where Porter has previously staged his Stix & Spokes repair trailer. Running for 2 years as a mobile business, the brick and mortar store opened on November 24th.They offer a full-service shop for all repairs, tunes, adjustments, binding work, wax, base grinding, as well as ski rentals from Head and all of your retail needs.

In addition to a great selection of top brand skis, snowboards, skateboards and bicycles for sale, they have all the accessories needed for the sports. Porter is a one man equipment repair service, with his shop full of tools and equipment, he is ready to tackle long ignored maintenance issues and troubleshoot performance quirks and malfunctions. Porter has more than a decade of experience in not only repairing gear, but also as an athlete in many outdoor pursuits.

In the summer of 2017, Porter organized and ran the first and über successful Kettle Walls Skate Park Competition, consecutive with Town and Country Days. Skaters from all over showed up to show off with bikes, boards, blades and scooters at Kettle Falls skate park.

To get your skis, snowboard or bicycles tuned up, swing by their new location at 519 Park Avenue in Chewelah - they’re waiting eagerly to meet you! Or contact Wes at 509-690-2772. You can also check out their Stix and Spokes page on Facebook or their website, stixandspokes.com.

End of an era: why newspapers are a dying breed

By Liv Stecker


We live in a Brave New World where you can have everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, delivered right to your door. It’s counterintuitive with the rising cost of gas and postage, but for rural dwellers who face a 40+ mile drive for groceries, having them delivered for free by Amazon or some other service is nothing short of miraculous. From laundry detergent and coconut oil to light bulbs and dog food, it can all arrive on your doorstep two days later. Anything you want. Anything, that is, except a newspaper.

A letter from the Spokesman Review in December of 2017 announced to rural subscribers in Northport, Metaline Falls, Ione and other small towns on the fringe of nowhere, that the paper would discontinue delivery service as of January 1, 2018. The coverage area change was determined by subscription density in rural areas, where a newspaper carrier might have to go well off the beaten path to deliver a handful of papers. Ultimately, the manpower and cost involved for the distribution of a few lingering subscriptions just isn’t worth it.

“Some of our carriers have to travel a mile or two between delivery stops,” says an employee at the circulation office of the Spokesman Review. He adds that Kettle Falls and most of the areas outlying Colville will also be removed from circulation, although Colville will remain on the route.

While it’s true that with the advent of the digital age, many households have their news delivered via social media, online news sources and of course, television, many of the off-grid holdouts have only ever known the printed medium as a source for current events. Many rural retiree households don’t own a computer, much less an internet subscription or a smartphone with the Associated Press app installed. These are the ones who feel the pain of this cut the deepest. A newspaper delivery has been their only connection to the outside world. Debbie Becker owns the Mustang Grill in Northport, which is arguably the Breakfast Mecca of the “postage stamp” northeast in Washington state.

“This will seriously cut out the world for a lot of my customers who do not have satellite TV or internet,” Becker says. And it’s not just convenience, it’s culture and nostalgia that readers are losing as well. “I sat with my grandparents and read the newspaper. I have customers who come in just to read the paper,” she shares. Becker refuses to believe that this is the only answer.

The Mustang Grill has a small battalion of local regulars who spend their mornings over coffee and the news. Now Becker is torn with how to meet this need. Internet coverage is spotty at best in many rural places, and for her to provide wifi and/or devices for people to access the digital subscription that the Spokesman Review is offering in substitution, is a costly and cumbersome solution. And this is just one small representation of the piece of our communities that will be feeling the loss.

The Spokesman Review says that areas of North Idaho and Whitman County will also be cut from circulation. It’s a problem with no easy solution. Sporadic delivery routes are inefficient at best, and expensive for the paper at worst. Boosting subscriptions in rural areas could help, but is the era of printed material really drawing to an end or is there a new generation of real-paper readers that will emerge from the digital age?

In a 2016 survey by the Pew Research Center, two out of ten Americans said they still read a printed newspaper. Four of these same ten claim to get all of their news online, and more than half of them named television as their main source for news. This statistic becomes more dramatic when broken into age groups: while nearly half of readers over the age of 65 say they still read the paper, only 5% of news-seekers from the ages of 18-29 ever look at printed material - most of them get their news online. If only half of our retirees are reading the paper, and the numbers plummet from there, it’s hard to fault forward-thinking newspapers from adjusting their practice. Projecting forward, it’s easy to speculate that in another 20 years the art of printing will be more of a quaint throwback to nostalgia than a profitable enterprise.

The University of Missouri conducted a survey in 2013 that demonstrated the difference between newspaper readership in rural areas vs. urban ones, and four years later, it’s a safe bet that the disparity has grown even more since then. At that time, two-thirds of rural Americans still read their local paper.

While the Spokesman Review and other large papers that have historically served a large geographic area seem to be shrinking their physical circulation, local weekly papers seem to be holding their own. A study by Stanford University says this is due to a solid relationship of trust between the paper and local residents, and the attention to local detail. What most local weeklies lack, however, is the big picture news clips from across the county lines. National and global news are where rural subscribers are taking the hit, subscribers who often make up some of the most consistent voting base and seems to have swayed the historic presidential vote of 2016. If they’re not getting the news from large circulation newspapers, then where? It’s a quandary that has no universally happy answer.

Box To Bench: precision with a purpose

Mecomber sights in a rifle

By Liv Stecker

Joe Mecomber likes to hunt. The thing about hunting, especially for one on a serious quest, is it requires precision accuracy at long range to be effective. Mecomber’s search for success in the field led to some serious geek-out sessions at the workbench, custom loading ammunition with the exact number of powder grains to gain maximum consistency in long range shooting. It’s a hard-core science that he found himself calculating and calibrating on targets made with torn up Amazon boxes and Sharpies.

Mecomber’s real life background in law enforcement requires a certain attention to detail that the brawny Michigan native has carried over into his recreational endeavors. An avid hunter, Mecomber and his hunting partner were more interested in an efficient route to maximum accuracy with an out-of-the-box hunting rifle than they were in the parts and pieces of building a gun from scratch, which many distance shooters spend thousands of dollars to accomplish.

Box To Bench Precision was born when Mecomber realized, as a fairly new shooter, that a load developing target was something every distance shooter needed, but few had developed as a field usable tool. He set to work honing his cardboard and Sharpie model to meet the exact needs of load adjustment shooting, adding features for site measurement and scope adjustment and printing the whole thing on special weather resistant, rip-proof paper.

The Box to Bench target

Tired of patching pieces of soggy cardboard together to gather his loading calculations, Mecomber came up with a target that can be taken down and tacked back up without shredding to pieces. It’s a 100 yard long range load development target, one of the few on the market today, with details that many custom loaders overlook but can benefit from greatly.

The first batch of 5000 targets began to sell like Tickle Me Elmo in the early 90s. The novel concept captivated shooters as Mecomber found outlets for his new product and reviews and articles about the revolutionary target started to surface in the shooting world. The initial success took Mecomber by surprise.

Working full time jobs in addition to the new Box To Bench responsibilities, Mecomber and his partner could barely keep up with demand in the first few weeks that his target came out. He set up a store front of sorts in the big shop on his property where he not only did his ammunition loading, but handled the shipping and sales of his new company with some help from his wife and other friends.

As word of the innovative target spread among precision shooters across the internet, reviews started trickling back in, including a feature in Long Range Hunting Online Magazine and a shout out in one of Rex Reviews popular long range shooting Q&A videos. Box To Bench continues to grow a national following as long range shooters from around the country hear about the product and the unique niche that it fills.

According to their website, the goal behind Box To Bench is to help the long range shooter get results without the costly investment of a customized rifle.

tools of the trade, long range optics

“B2B is able to provide a reliable and accurate rifle without the high cost of a custom firearm. We have put in the time, money, and dedication to provide shooters with a realistic approach to long range hunting and shooting.” The innovative target meets the shooter at the bench with a cost effective means of gaining precision results. “This is for the development of a long range precision rifle from start to finish all on one target. the entire data collection process can all be logged on this target during its development. The target is tear resistant and waterproof. It has been designed to last.”

Box To Bench targets are available for purchase online and they recently became an authorized dealer for GRS products including rifle stocks and more. To find out more about Box To Bench visit their website www.boxtobenchprecision.com, or find them on Facebook.