The Murrow News Service

In Tekoa, an old theatre keeps rolling

By Tom Creighton
Murrow News Service

TEKOA, WASH. _ The seats are torn up, the floorboards creak, and the welcome lights in the lobby are fading, but that hasn’t stopped The Empire Theatre from entertaining people more than 70 years after it first opened.

“We feel so fortunate that we have something that we can preserve and that is a part of our history here in Tekoa," said Cheryl Morgan, who heads a group of community members that manages the Empire. “It’s home.”

On Saturday, the theatre will host its first performance of 2012, when the Moscow Community Theatre opens its version of the 1950’s play “Bus Stop,” at 7 p.m. Coincidentally, the film version of “Bus Stop,” starring Marilyn Monroe, played at the Empire in the 1950s, Morgan said.

Built in 1939 and opened in 1940, the 280-seat theatre operated until 1958. It didn’t re-open until 2000, when Cheryl and Monte Morgan led a push to save the theatre. Each year, local donors contribute between $11,000 and $12,000 to keep the theatre operating, the Morgans said.

After Leach hire, WSU Sees Jump in Giving

By Ryan Burnett
Murrow News Service

Since the hiring of new football coach Mike Leach, more than $1 million in annual giving has been pledged to the athletic fund at Washington State University, putting it on pace for a record year.

“As of Jan. 30^th, we have seen $1.1 million donated,” said Christopher Walker, associate director of Cougar Athletic Fund.

Much of that has been attributed to Leach, who was hired on Dec. 6. Since Leach’s hire, more than 700 new members have made donations, and the number of total donors is approaching 5,000, Walker said.

Bill Moos, the university’s athletic director, said he hopes to see a continued increase in annual giving, which funds athletic scholarships.

“Our goal is to have our annual giving totals equal to our scholarship costs, which is right around $7 million,” Moos said.

On top of increased annual donations, the athletic department has already sold more season tickets than it has in the past four years, and has already sold seats that haven’t been put in place yet.

In Kies' collection, a trove of historic documents

Paul Kies, a Washington State University professor who died in 1971, collected hundreds of letters, autographs, and other materials from leading figures from the 19th and 20th century. Photo courtesy of Washington State University.

By Andrea Castillo
Murrow News Service

Some might consider the late Paul Kies a hoarder of history.

But the former Washington State University English professor, who died in 1971, knew every detail of his extensive collections of books, photographs, letters and autographs.

Now Kies’ collection - with signatures from Helen Keller to Adolf Hitler - is on display at the university's library.

“When you see a piece of correspondence, you can really sort of understand these people as three-dimensional beings,” said Greg Matthews, exhibit co-curator and metadata librarian at the university’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) library. “It adds texture to your appreciation for who they were and the fact that they moved through space, the fact that they did things like ate and drank and fell in love and had broken hearts.”

The exhibit highlights 29 autographs from Kies’ collection of more than 400 pieces of historic memorabilia from some of the 19^th and 20^th centuries’ most prominent figures. The full collection includes items from Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain, among others.

More students struggle to pay off college debt

By Anna Marum

Murrow News Service 

LONGVIEW, WASH. _ As Cowlitz County’s blue-collar industry struggled in recent years, students poured into the local community college in record numbers.

Now, those former students are defaulting on their loans at surprisingly high rates, sometimes within nine months of graduating.

“People came back to school because they didn’t know what else to do,” said Lisa Matye Edwards, vice president of student success at Lower Columbia College (LCC).

Nearly one in five LCC students defaulted on federal loan payments in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available. That rate is among the highest in Washington state, but other colleges and universities are seeing dramatic jumps in default rates as debt-laden students encounter a struggling state economy.

At the University of Washington and Washington State University, default rates remain relatively low, but they have increased more than 25 percent at both universities since 2007, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education.

World Vets leads animal rescues around the globe

Founded in 2006, World Vets has treated animals in 36 countries around the world, from flood-ravaged Thailand to remote Mongolia to low-income neighborhoods in Central America. The nonprofit, founded by Dr. Cathy King, has had more than 3,500 volunteers treat and rescue animals. Photos courtesy of World Vets.

 

By Kelleen Curtiss
Murrow News Service 

Dr. Cathy King started World Vets with a donation jar at her office in Deer Park, Wash., in 2006.

Today, the nonprofit’s volunteer veterinarians have treated animals in 36 countries around the world, from flood-ravaged Thailand to low-income neighborhoods in Central America.

“It’s really a concrete thing that we have changed so it’s so rewarding,” said King, whose nonprofit is now headquartered in Fargo, N.D. “We are providing veterinary care in developing countries and disaster relief worldwide.”

King founded World Vets after she witnessed the Mexican government killing off stray dogs by lacing meat with poison and stringing the bait throughout city streets.

“I thought, gosh, there are probably other veterinarians who would care and volunteer to help with this,” King said.

In places like Ecuador and Romania, World Vets has established agreements with local governments to end the killing of stray animals. In return, the nonprofit will help prevent the overpopulation through free spay-and-neuter missions.

That international outreach has been a founding principle of the nonprofit, which estimates it will receive $2 million in donations this year, about half of which are in-kind donations such as veterinary medicine and equipment. The donations have helped fund about 20 international rescue trips each year, and more than 3,500 people have volunteered for the nonprofit.

King, a graduate of Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, has also maintained close contacts with the university’s faculty and graduates.

WSU apple research branches out

Dr. John K. Fellman, professor of postharvest physiology at Washington State University, holds the new WA-5 apple. The apple, which was released to growers this year through a partnership with the state’s Tree Fruit Research Commission, was designed to maintain its juice and firmness even after months in storage. Fellman is standing next to a fruit respiration device that helps determine whether the apples are good candidates for long-term storage. Maegan Murray, Murrow News Service

 

By Kelleen Curtiss

Murrow News Service

PULLMAN _ John K. Fellman held out a firm, bright, ruby-red apple: the WA-5 apple.

“Yeah! Go ahead, take a bite. Tell me what you think,” said Fellman, professor of postharvest physiology at Washington State University.

Now, fruit growers are being asked to test the university’s newest apple breed, which was released to growers this year through a partnership with the state’s Tree Fruit Research Commission.

The apple, which was designed to maintain its juice and firm texture even through months of storage, is now in the orchards of eight different farmers across the state, according to Tom Auvil, a research horticulturalist at the commission.

“We’re learning together - WSU, the growers and the commission - how to make it work,” Auvil said.

In rural Northwest, the high cost of war

Charlene Baldwin, the mother of Sgt. Jacob H. Demand, said the small town of Palouse, Wash., continues to remember her son. Demand was killed in Mosul, Iraq, in September 2004. Photo by Maegan Murray, Murrow News Service

By Hannah Van Ree and Justin Runquist
Murrow News Service

PALOUSE, WASH. – Sgt. Jacob H. Demand died a world away from his small hometown in eastern Washington, gunned down in Mosul, Iraq, two weeks before his tour ended in September 2004.

But here in Palouse, population 998, the memory of Demand lives on.

“You know how usually someone only has one best friend? There are at least 15 people from Palouse that still call Jake their best friend,” said his mother, Charlene Baldwin.

About half of all enlisted recruits come from smaller towns, according to data from the U.S. Department of Defense. Recruitment rates in non-metropolitan counties are 20 percent higher than in metropolitan counties, according to the National Priorities Project, a left-leaning think tank that analyzes federal data.

Those higher rates of recruitment have led to a disproportionate loss of life in rural communities, according to a national study by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. The 2006 study found a death rate of 24 per million among rural men and women, compared to a death rate of 15 per million in urban areas.

The authors say that a weak economy in rural areas of the country has led more young men and women to enlist.

“Unemployment is, by far, the most dominant economic consideration linked to the propensity to enlist in the military,’ said Bill Bishop, coauthor of the 2006 Carsey study.

After a night of partying, a terrifying fall

By Stephanie Schendel
Murrow News Service
 
PULLMAN _ At the bottom of a 23-foot retaining wall, a young man lay in a pool of blood. The fall had broken every bone in his face. His teeth were chipped. He was barely conscious.
 
A police officer called out to him, asking him his name. The body groaned, and slurred something that sounded like “Shawn.”
 
His name wasn’t Shawn.
 
It was just minutes after midnight on Saturday, Sept. 10, and several officers who had responded to the fall feared it would end with a body bag. In the hours that followed, as medical staff worked to save the young man, an officer called the Whitman County coroner.

The officer warned they might need an autopsy.

In WSU Residence Halls, Campus Police No Longer Patrol

By Stephanie Schendel
Murrow News Service

PULLMAN _ While thousands of people – students, staff and guests – come and go through Washington State University’s residence halls each day, campus police do not.

At least not without an invitation, a search warrant or an emergency call.

Universities Struggle with Federal Crime Reporting

By Scott Shigeoka and Rachel Webber
Murrow News Service

PULLMAN, Wash. _ For the past three years, Washington State University’s campus in Tri-Cities reported no campus crimes in its annual security reports to federal officials.

But records obtained from local police show 14 reported crimes on the campus, including assault, burglary and harassment. The campus, which was provided the reports obtained by the Murrow News Service, said it will amend its report under the federal Clery Act to reflect only one of those crimes – a robbery from last October.

“We will be correcting this retroactively when we submit our annual report this year,” Lori Selby, WSU Tri-Cities campus safety coordinator, said in an e-mail.

But Selby said the other crimes are not reportable under the Clery Act, a complex federal act designed to alert college students of campus crimes. The act requires universities that receive federal financial aid to report campus crime annually.