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Wednesday, August 17, 2016
RODEO ROMANCE Record-holding bull rider Lee Akin finds love after tragedy
County jail dumped food waste into sewer for years County facilities manager met with city to make new plan By OLIVIA WEITZ oweitz@idahopress.com
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Lee Akin will be honored at the Caldwell Night Rodeo on Thursday night. Akin still holds the record score from 2002 in bull riding.
Caldwell Night Rodeo record holder recovering after bull fractured his skull
CALDWELL NIGHT RODEO The Caldwell Night Rodeo continues through Saturday night at the Caldwell Night Rodeo grounds, 2301 Blaine St. Caldwell. Gates open at 5 p.m. each night, with junior rodeo at 6:30 and the rodeo at 8 p.m.
By TERRY LIDRAL For the Idaho Press-Tribune
CALDWELL — Lee Akin holds the record for the highest score in Caldwell Night Rodeo bull riding history. His connection to Caldwell began back in 1999 when he first met Melissa Parsons, who is a native of Caldwell, through a fellow bull rider. From 1999 to 2016, it has been a long and difficult journey for Akin, one with a lot of twists and turns that have brought him back to where he and Parsons started out. When Akin and Parsons first met, Akin was riding in the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association, and Parsons was designing and maintaining websites for professional athletes. “I ended up designing a website
Tickets: Tuesday through Thursday: $15 for adults, 12 years and older; $12 for seniors 60 and over; $8 for children under 12. Friday-Saturday: $22 for adults, 12 years and over; $8 for children under 12. $79 for a five-day adult pass. Now in its 82nd year, Caldwell Night Rodeo is one of the largest and longestrunning annual events in Canyon County, drawing rodeo fans in excess of 40,000 over five nights. Caldwell Night Rodeo is listed among the Top 30 professional rodeos and Top 6 outdoor rodeos in the country.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Melissa and Lee Akin on their honeymoon in Maui in May of this year.
for Lee that fall,” Parsons said. “He was sidelined from competition for the National Finals Rodeo as he was recovering from a leg fracture.” Akin wanted to meet Parsons, so when he found out she was going to be at the National Finals, he took a job from a friend who owned a western store and worked at a booth in Las Vegas during the finals. “When Lee and I first laid eyes on each other, Lee was selling shoes from the Old West Mercantile
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booth,” Parsons said. “We dated for several years and then split up and went our separate ways.” With both of them being in college and Akin traveling on the professional bull riding tours, the long-distance relationship wasn’t something they wanted to continue. But they never forgot each other. More RODEO | A14
Two more complaints filed alleging abuse at IDJC Two juvenile inmates claim they were sexually assaulted at detention center By RUTH BROWN rbrown@idahopress.com
NAMPA — Two more John Does have filed a lawsuit against the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections, claiming they were sexually abused while incarcerated as juveniles. The two boys are among at least eight inmates to file either a tort claim or a lawsuit against the department, alleging the abuse occurred at the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections Center in Nampa. A slew of allegations have been made against IDJC
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Valerie Lieteau, with her attorney Jon Cox, left, appears in court Tuesday morning after District Judge Christopher Nye rejected Lieteau’s plea agreement. She will go to trial in October on her initial sex crime charge.
staffers, and two female staff members have been criminally charged for accusations of having sex with male inmates. Department administrators have also faced accusations of negligence and misconduct. Eight separate tort claims have been filed on behalf of alleged victims. Three sepa-
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rate lawsuit complaints have been filed, according Nampa defense attorney Bruce Skaug, of Skaug Law Office. The first lawsuit, filed by John Doe I, settled his case last year for $450,000. The second lawsuit filed was on behalf of five alleged IDJC victims, and the third, most recent, lawsuit filed was on
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CALDWELL — For the past 10 years, grease and food waste from nearly 1,300 meals per day has gone down the kitchen sink at the county’s jail. The kitchen at the Dale Haile Detention Center provides three meals a day for around 400 inmates and roughly 30 juveniles. The waste has gone straight into the city’s sewer main line, rather than through a grease trap system, as recommended by city code. County facilities staff found out that drains in the Dale Haile Detention Center kitchen were not connected to the grease trap after a July plumbing incident. Grease build-up in the main sewer line led to sewer leakage and the evacuation of seven inmates from a sewage-filled cell. The Master Rooter Plumbing Company came to the county to fix sewage leakages. When it put cameras down the sewer lines, it found grease, which had built up over the past decade. Between May 18 and the July 27, the time frame in which sewer main line issues were happening, the county paid $3,300 to clean out the main line and inspect it with a video. Additional invoices may have been received after that date.
behalf of two more alleged victims. All in all, seven plaintiffs still await trial. Skaug represents all juveniles in the cases and said the complaints will eventually be combined for one trial. Other inmates have made allegations but selected not to file tort claims or lawsuits. The plaintiffs are being referred to as “John Doe” because they were juveniles and alleged victims of sexual assault. The claims have been made against a former detention center nurse, a former medical intern, other staff and IDJC administration. THE LATEST COMPLAINT The latest complaint was filed in Ada County on behalf of John Doe XI and John Doe XII on June 16 and names former IDJC nurse Valerie Lieteau.
CWI budget, bond discussed at meeting Trustees to determine details of $180 million bond Sept. 6 By ALX GEORGE ageorge@idahopress.com
NAMPA — Was the College of Western Idaho’s 3 percent total budget increase really necessary? That’s one question resident Bob Van Arnem asked at Tuesday’s Board of Trustees meeting. The board approved a total budget of almost $59.3 million for 2017-18 at its July 19 meeting. With the possibility of a $180 million bond being on the Nov. 9 ballot — which the trustees discussed later in the meeting — Van Arnem asked board members why they approved the increase without doing a more careful evaluation themselves of last year’s budget, such as considering line items to either reduce or eliminate. Three percent was the maximum increase the board could approve for the college’s new budget. Van Arnem asked: why take the maximum?
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