Seventh grade press

M iner Community Newspapers 421 S. Spokane Ave • Newport, Washington 99156

• Newport Miner • Gem State Miner • Miner Extra • Voice • Printing Services

Dear Better Newspaper Contest Judges, The Newport Miner Newspaper teamed up with a local seventh grade teacher, Irene Ewing, to bring our readers the Seventh Grade Press.

Ms. Ewing taught more than 80 seventh graders how to research a topic of local historical significance, conduct interviews, gather photos, and write news stories. Each piece went through a lengthy editing process before being submitted to The Miner for publication.

Our sales staff sold sponsorship ads to support the project. In total, more than 80 students saw their by line in print, which hopefully inspired some future journalists.

Our readers went crazy for the project, which lasted 14 weeks, culminating in a large spread about the Kalispel Tribe of Indians on the final week.

As per BNC guidelines, I’ve only uploaded two weeks’ worth of Seventh Grade Press, but we ran two pages each week for 14 weeks.

We’re hoping to partner with Ms. Ewing again in the future.

Sincerely,

Michelle C. Nedved Publisher The Newport Miner Newspaper

509-447-2433 • Fax: 509-447-9222 • E-mail: minernews@povn.com • www.pendoreillerivervalley.com

ThE mineR

Seventh Grade Press

Volume 1, Number 1

Students say the smartest things

By Irene Ewing Seventh Grade Teacher Sadie Halstead Middle School

I have found that students say the smartest things when I just stop and listen. I love how much I learn by listening to a seventh grader tell me about their interests and expertise. It occurred to me that you might enjoy it too; I mean to learn from a seventh grader’s point of view.

Since we need to do a lot of reading and writing in seventh grade, we should make it authentic. I knew I was going to need motivation this school year, to encourage my students to write to their potential, and we needed something to talk about.

Then it occurred to me, the history in Pend Oreille County is rich with detail. I called Michelle Nedved, the publisher of The Miner Newspapers, and asked her if she would want to partner with me on

what might be a lunatic idea. She listened to my hopes of having 90 students write essays on 90 different topics and have them published in the paper.

She didn’t say no!

We talked about a lot of positive options and she was in; she wanted to help. I couldn’t have been more impressed.

I contacted Faith McClenny at the Pend Oreille County Historical Museum. I thought I would just run the students through the museum for inspiration. The very sweet Mrs. McClenny gently explained to me that space would be an issue, and by the way, hadn’t the students all been through the museum in other grades? It turns out, yes they had.

No tours needed I realized, but how could I inspire them to each write on so many different topics about places they hadn’t seen and people they didn’t know?

Seeing the good in hobo spiders

By Sunflower Sego

Hobo Spiders are creepy to most people, but I think they are pretty. I see them everywhere, it seems to be a common place to find them in old buildings, wood stacks, and in damp spots. It’s kind of interesting that I see them often because they are private and don’t like to have people see them. They are huge brown spiders, with surprisingly big teeth. I once saw a close up of one of their legs, it had a lot of little hairs that have a feather­like appearance. They kind of stand straight out but also kinda curve upwards.

They like to hide and that’s mostly the reason they make their funnel­shaped webs; so they can hide at the bottom and not be seen. The spider waits in the mouth of the funnel for their prey to fall onto the horizontal surface and then rushes out, grabs the prey and takes it back into its web to consume.

The species was first described in 1802 by a naturalist named Charles Athanase Walckenaer, and were only accidentally introduced to the United States in the 1980s; that wasn’t that long ago. They are primarily found in Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Montana and other parts of the Pacific Northwest.

Hobo spiders usually defend themselves only when they feel provoked or threatened. They are extremely protective of their egg sacs, and will bite if they perceive a threat to their young. An initial study of the hobo spider venom reported that their venom could be a medical threat that would produce necrotic lesions.

Subsequent research has proven that the hobo spider is no longer considered a medically threatening spider.

May 18, 2016 |

7A

Fire dispatchers rely on technology

By Ryan Stelow

McClenny knew how. She volunteered, volunteered to come speak to a classroom of 30 seventh graders about history, on three occasions. I can’t say enough good things about McClenny’s support for our project. Each class period she arrived in a period costume, long skirt and hat, with pictures, artifacts, and stories of at least 50 different topics the 30 students in that class could research. Each class received totally different lessons and topics.

The students were spellbound, and inspired. Most students selected topics presented by McClenny, and some selected topics from their family, friends, or their own personal interest. Professor Kristen Benzo from the History Department at Spokane Community Colleges came

A contract fire dispatcher, like my dad, gets to send other people all over the Inland Northwest to staff different Dispatch Centers. They have a desk console area with three monitored computers, where each monitor has a different program on the screen. They

have a radio that they can use to communicate with the firefighters and airplanes to get help and the supplies and necessary reinforcements.

People at the Dispatch Center take phone calls and radio calls from the See fire, 8A

Proud of our history Proud of our community Making decisions with tomorrow in mind

See note, 8A

Pend Oreille River flows north

By Justice Self

The Pend Oreille River is a tributary of the Columbia River, about 130 miles long. In its passage through British Columbia its name is spelled Pend d’Oreille River. The river drains into a scenic area of the rocky mountains along the US Canada border on the east side of the Columbia.

It drains an area of 66,800 sq. km., mostly through the Clark Fork Valley. The area of the Pend Oreille basin is just 10 percent of the entire 258,000 square miles.

The Pend Oreille River is one of the few rivers in the world that flows north. It begins at Lake Pend Oreille in Bonner County, Idaho, in the Idaho Panhandle draining the Pend Oreille Lake from its western edge near Sandpoint.

Part of the river flows

west, receiving the Priest River at a confluence, or wedding, of the waters on the edge of the town of Priest River.

Then the river flows into southern Pend Oreille County in northeastern Washington at Newport, Wash.

The Pend Oreille River covers 70 miles.

It begins at Pend Oreille Lake near Sandpoint, then flows all the way up through Boundary Dam, which is just one mile shy of southeastern British Columbia, Canada.

The river then flows past the border into Canada for 12 miles, looping west back into the U.S. and drops into the Columbia River, eventually draining into the Pacific Ocean near Portland, Ore. Next, the Pend Oreille See River, 8A

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Football in Pend Oreille County

By Dakota Truax

The rules of this sport are quite simple. Points are given when a player crosses a goal line by either kicking the ball, running with it across the goal line, or throwing it across the line to another player.

The other team’s objective is simply to stop the opponent from crossing the touchdown line.

There are playoffs and championships. The playoffs are when you win all your games and you go to the playoff game.

If you win that, you go to the championship. If you win that game, you are the champions of the football teams that year.

Every year they have new championships.

Over the years things changed. The first Pend Oreille football teams used leather helmets and leather pads along with leather shoes. Now they are required to have better uniforms that are tested for safety.

Today, almost every

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team has lots of training camps. Kids work out and lift weights. In the early days most players just used football practice as the workout.

TV has also changed a lot for football fans.

Before, people couldn’t watch game broadcasts on TV and now some people watch football all the time. The way fans used to keep up is they could listen to the game on the radio or check the story in the paper the next day.

Now you can watch it anywhere with technology or record it to watch it later. The fun about football is that your team is like your family. You can play with them and that makes you a better player.

It’s fun, but you can’t play with all the same rules. The rules have gradually changed over the years, but it seems that the defensive rules and passing rules have changed the most in the last few years. Some kids

have been seriously hurt.

Now we focus on safety and health. They are trying to figure out where all the concussions are coming from.

I’ve heard that back in the 60’s you could spear people. If you don’t know what that is, it’s where you ram the person ahead of you with your helmet. They did that sometimes to take people out of the game. But now, in 2016 you can’t do that because it can really hurt someone.

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| May 18, 2016

Gray wolves recover in Pend Oreille County

By Tessa Pierce

The gray wolf, or Canis lupus, was thought to be completely extinct in Washington before the 1930s. In 1973 it was classified as an endangered species and received protection from the ESA (Endangered Species Act).

Since then, the wolves have recovered, and there are now at least 90 wolves in the state of Washington. Thirtythree of these wolves live in our county. As of 2015, Pend Oreille County had six packs, known as the Salmo, Goodman Meadows, Skookum, Smackout, Dirty Shirt and Carpenter Ridge packs. At one point, there was a seventh, called the Diamond pack, but it is no longer considered as such.

The Salmo Pack, in the northern part of the county, consists of at least three animals. To regulate harvest and set conservation goals, the animals are counted using howl surveys, remote camera surveys, track surveys, and aerial or terrestrial observation. These counts are the minimum amount of animals in a pack or a certain area.

Individual wolves are monitored by means of radio collars. The wolves are first caught by one of two ways, either darted

by helicopter or caught in a leg-hold trap (and then tranquilized).

The wolves are then blindfolded to help them calm down. The collar is fitted and the wolf is more or less dumped in the woods until it wakes up. According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, “The Goodman Meadows wolf pack was confirmed as a pack in 2014.” At the end of that year, the pack was known to have six wolves if not more.

In December 2015, it had at least seven. This pack lives in the center/eastern part of the county. The Skookum pack, in the southeastern corner of the county, has a population of at least five wolves includ-

ing a known breeding pair, according to the Washington Gray Wolf Conservation and Management 2015 Annual Report released by the WDFW. The Smackout pack is located along the western edge of the county, farther north than the Skookum, Dirty Shirt, Carpenter Ridge, and Goodman Meadows packs. This pack numbers at least eight, with a successful breeding pair. This pack was verified in 2011 and only about half of its territory is in Pend Oreille County.

The Dirty Shirt pack, with a minimum of eight wolves, does have a breeding pair.

Dirty Shirt wolves live about half way along the western edge of the

county, half in, half out. They became an official pack in 2013.

The Carpenter Ridge wolves – there are only two, not a breeding pair – live in the southwestern corner of the county. Their territory is circular and most of it is in this county.

Pend Oreille County is part of the Eastern Washington recovery region. In this part of the state, the gray wolf has been delisted, and is no longer endangered. Washington has 90 wolves and 18 packs, 33 of these wolves and six packs have all or a portion of their ranges in Pend Oreille County.

No wolves have been brought in, nor are there plans to do so.

RIVER: Fur trappers among first non-natives From Page 7A

River and valley are located in northeastern Washington. In the

early 1800s French Canadian fur trappers were among the first non-native people to visit Pend Oreille River Valley.

Settlers mined gold, lead, and zinc in the mid to late 1800s with logging emerging as the area’s major industry. Steam-

boats and railroads played an important role in the economic development of the Pend Oreille River Valley.

note: Each student will have their own ‘by line’ From Page 7A

to each class and taught a brilliant lesson on how to research like a detective. Students learned to diagnose photos, objects, and original documents. She shared historical websites, some views on interesting local history, taught students how to cite their resources, and take notes as they read.

Tony Bamonte graciously accepted my request to speak to each class as an author of books on Pend Oreille County history. He told stories, answered questions, and so motivated the classes that the students went right to work.

His visit was a completely memorable event. He grew up in the county, knew so many details, and became the sheriff. Great stuff for youngsters!

Into the computer labs we went, reading original documents from the Big Smoke Journals, that our librarian Leslie Sherman located, along with many of the Bamonte books, the website diggings.com that she authored, and other historical reading from many years back. Students helped one another edit, revise, stay encouraged and to keep working.

Then it was time to take our beginnings and attend a school board meeting to make sure we had school board approval to go public. Students explained their project and shared the rough drafts of a few reports. The Board and Superintendent, Dr. Dave Smith, were complimentary and encouraging. The students reported to their classes with new energy all about the meeting.

A fun part for me as a teacher, was this spring as we were preparing for the SBA, State test. I handed out a sample of the practice

test, and the directions read: Read these three samples of original text and write an article. “This is going to be easy,” I heard students say,” … about the big worrisome test.

You’ll be seeing seventh grade reports roll off of the presses each week for the next few months. We hope you will look forward to learn at least some information you didn’t already know, and maybe you’ll revisit some fond memories. All of us in the class have learned a great deal about the community where we live, and we’ve met wonderful people.

Each seventh grader will have their own “by line.” These students will have published writing and hopefully inspire within themselves, a willingness to share their writing in the future. We have so many to thank for the ability to share these articles with you, starting with The Pend Oreille County Historical Museum staff and volunteers. Alice Warner was there on the sideline at every turn. She drove McClenny to our classes, made copies of information students needed, and provided numerous original sources. Thank you to Cindy Klein, a retired seventh grade teacher, who came alongside as an encourager, a planner, and an editor, reading the rough drafts of these articles multiple times, and editing for students to revise, until they were clean.

Thank you to Kenny Perrin, retired high school English and History teacher, as well as local expert and historian, for being our historical fact checker. He too read these articles, giving advice and compliments.

As you read the variety of ar-

ticles you’ll see interviews with local experts who volunteered their time to meet with students at school for interviews that otherwise couldn’t be arranged.

Some interviews were completed over the phone, and two were completed by a student sitting beside me taking notes, telling me what to ask, but just not ready to speak to a stranger.

We have had an immense amount of support as parents spent time explaining history, many grandparents helped with the understanding of things that seem like so long ago to a seventh grader, so as you run across these people who were interviewed, please know they deserve a heartfelt thank you for their time and effort. Their willingness made a big difference and helped the students grow miles in their self confidence.

Teaching students to write, requires teaching them the dedication it takes to do a good job, editing multiple times, which circles around to having a reason to try hard – the motivation to publish.

So I say, thank you, thank you, thank you Michelle Nedved, and to all the participants on The Miner team.

If you find that you have something to add, information we don’t know, interview candidates we should talk to, or documents and artifacts you want registered in the local museum, please contact the Seventh Grade Class, at Sadie Halstead Middle School, in Newport, and we’ll accept the information.

We have agreed to collect and catalog everything that comes in, and deliver it to the museum for archiving.

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History abounds in the Old Courthouse

By Salecia Harris

The Old Courthouse of Pend Oreille County, located at 625 West Fourth Street has been standing there for approximately 100 years. It was donated by Jesse Cass Scott in 1913, as it says on a plaque towards the northwest end of the building.

In 1904 she built a cottage house that consisted of 23 rooms, which is where the building stands today.

During the time that Jesse was utilizing her cottage, the unofficial County of Pend Oreille needed a temporary courthouse and jail. They agreed to use two buildings, now known as the Craig Building located on what was known as Washington Street, but is today’s Main Street.

In 1912 it was announced that Pend Oreille County was an official county, and had a permanent seat as one. Commissioners then started looking for more suitable courthouse and jail locations.

At this point, Mrs. Scott offered one half of a block (approximately 200 by 138 square feet) of her large homestead as a gift to the new county. She had three houses on that land including the 23 room cottage. It had to be torn down for the construction of a new building.

There was a $40,000 bond for the construction of it that failed in November of 1913. This delayed the work that had to be done and the ability for the county to accept Mrs. Scott’s offer.

After some time the county agreed to her proposal and granted a deed, although she did pay for the houses to be torn down herself and was never reimbursed. In early May of 1915, the county planned for a new courthouse and jail to be built for no more than $27,000.

On May 27, it was announced that a firm, Williams & Williams, had won the contract for the design and contractor T.W. Hartness won the construction bid. By late August the brick of the first floor had been laid and was completed with a gray terrazzo corner stone that reads “Pend Oreille County A.D 1915”.

In 1919, on the 20th of August, people gathered and put belongings in a time capsule that was placed behind the cornerstone. They pulled it out in 2011 and found the treasures of the many people back then. I was able to see the case of belongings from the time capsule. It included many original pictures and business cards.

There were many newspaper articles from “The Newport Miner.” Some headlines were, “Theater Heads Deny Violation” and “New County Organized.”

There are many other things I could mention including fair lists, maps, signatures, etc. In 2013 my grandfather, Mike Manus, got to be part of replacing the time capsule with new belongings and placing it back behind the cornerstone, and in another 100 years, the cycle will hopefully repeat.

I was lucky to have had a tour of the courthouse by Pend Oreille County Commissioner, Mike Manus, my grandfather. On the tour I got to see the current layout and compare it to the original layout when the courthouse was also a jail. In 1991 through 1992 it was renovated to meet current standards while keeping historical preservation. This cost approximately $1.6 million.

The Old Courthouse and Jail is now used by the Commissioners, the Auditor’s Office, the Treasurer’s Office, and Assessor’s Office, etc. The original assessor’s office in the southeast corner of the building is now used as the County Commissioners Office. The northeast and southeast of the basement was where the jail cells were located. Now it is used as the office space by the Public Works Department. The windows there originally featured bars and an exterior iron fence at the southeast corner. Although, of course, it was removed during renovations.

The Sheriff’s Office in the basement is now used as a copy and scan area. The jail cells in the annex building, which is another building that was added in 1940 for more jail space, still remains on the top floor. There it remains, the metal bars of windows and cells and original doors on two. Now they utilize the space for documents and confidential papers. Actually, the elevator in the courthouse building was once the restroom for the jail inmates. Another one was also at the east end of the basement but was removed. In the basement the thick walls of the vaults they used to store money still remains. They cut the back off and added to it. The boiler room, utility room, etc., are now located there.

I could write so much more about this building, like how they have a lawn stone in memorial of those who fought for our country that read, “In honor of those from Pend Oreille who served in the World War 19141918” or how it is a registered historic place. I would love to recognize my grandfather, the commissioner of Pend Oreille County, Mike Manus for helping me with this paper.

He took me on a tour of the courthouse and also the Jail. He showed me and told of many interesting things and provided many sources to me. I am honestly grateful I got to write this paper. I believe it was a great learning experience, since I just moved here myself. I found it’s nice to learn about something historical in the town you call home.

FIRE: 16-hour workdays From Page 7A

actual firefighters reporting the fire location to put it on a large map, and a computer map program called Wild Card. People who are working in the Fire Dispatch Center will find out where the fire is

and how big it is, then my Dad sends firefighters to check the fire. A firefighter works about 16 hours a day for about 14 days straight. They use a radio to receive calls, and to call the planes who deliver the reinforcements and coolant for the fire.

ThE mineR

Seventh Grade Press

Volume 1, Number 2

Murder at the creamery

By Kaylee Knight

When our substitute teacher for my English class, Mr. Burrell had started to tell us a story about Pend Oreille County, I was intrigued by the topic and started to look into it a little more and this is what I had found. Mr. Burrell knew Sheriff Tony Bamonte and read the book, Breaking Blue, that was written about him solving the oldest cold case.

Timothy Egan wrote the book where a lot of my information came from, as well as a newspaper article in the New York Times in 1989, “After 54 Years a River’s Quirk Gives up a Clue in a Killing.”

Tony Bamonte came to our class and shared the story first hand, answering all my questions.

In 1935, The Newport City Marshall, George Conniff, was shot and killed while putting three men to a halt while they were robbing the Newport Creamery. A creamery is where the dairy brings all the milk and cream to be made into cheese, butter, and ice cream.

During the wartime and the rationing of some foods, butter was an expensive commodity, and the Creamery burglaries became more

and more common. Tony Bamonte told me the creamery was located across from the old Newport Miner (the loglike building the Hubberts built) and down the oneway street about 200 to 300 feet.

The Spokane Police had started a quick investigation on the murder before shortly passing it on to the Pend Oreille County Police Department. Soon after, Acie Logan, who admitted to some Spokane creamery robberies, was suspected of the murder even though he but denied anything to do with it. Not long after, Sergeant Daniel Mangan arrested Logan and closed the case, making sure no one questioned Logan on the previous crimes.

Although many people suspected that former Spokane detective, Clyde Ralstin, helped with the act, no one. Ralstin hadn’t been arrested due to the code of silence in the Police Department.

The case was inactive until around 1980 when Tony Bamonte, Sheriff of Pend Oreille County, found interest in the case. As Tony Bamonte stepped up to ask the Police Department about the case, they told him there were no employment records for the

officers and the people involved in the case. Soon after former Sergeant Daniel Mangan, 86 years old, reached out to Tony Bamonte, so he could die with a clear conscience. Mangan confirmed the illegal activities Officer Ralstin took part in, including the creamery burglaries. Mangan included that in 1935 he helped dispose of the .32 caliber revolver used in the Pend Oreille County murder, off the Post Street bridge in Spokane.

Tony Bamonte, and the local Treasure Club had gone to the river to retrieve the gun. In 1989 the Spokane River was diverted and they had found the rusted old gun. The condition was rusted but it was the same even though it was in the water for 54 years. The murder weapon is now in a case at Joel E. Ferris Research Room at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture.

Ralstin, 90 years old, was not arrested for murder right then as Sheriff Bamonte decided to wait for more evidence. About six months later, Ralstin was admitted to the Community Medical Center on January 20 and died there January 23, 1990.

May 25, 2016 |

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Ed i t o r ’ s n o t e

T

he Seventh Grade Press is a series of stories written by seventh graders in Ms. Irene Ewing’s class at Sadie Halstead Middle School in Newport. Each student chose a topic of local historical importance, conducted research and interviews and went through a lengthy editing process.

More than 80 students participated and each one will get a ‘by line’ in The Miner Newspapers. This is the second week of the project.

Check back for the next several weeks for more on local history. See more on page 10A.

Proud of our history Proud of our community Making decisions with tomorrow in mind

Mink farm in Pend Oreille County

By Daniel Dumaw

We had a mink farm in Pend Oreille County. The mink farm lasted over 50 years from what I read on the Newporthistorylink. org. The abandoned farm of several long barns can still be seen today on the northeast end of Davis Lake.

Mr. Kenneth Pennell was a rugged trapper in Alaska. I imagine, if I were trudging through the snow in Alaska to lay down traps, I would get pretty tired. He got the idea of raising minks in the backyard. He thought that would sound like a good idea because he wouldn’t have to walk very far, and he could get more furs quickly.

That’s what Mr. Pennell did.

Ken Pennell moved to Pend Oreille County and started a fur farm near Davis Lake. He had a perfect location with lots of water and nice cool fall weather for the animals to grow nice thick fur.

First he was raising beavers, muskrats, raccoons, and he finally decided on

minks. The mink pelts were worth a lot more money than the others.

Mr. Pennell raised the animals in cages. taking very good care of them.

When the minks had babies, they were called kittens and usually there were between one and ten little ones. The kittens were born in the spring and ready for sale in November when their coats were nice and thick.

The diet for the thousands of mink was horse and fish meat, cereal with small amounts of liver, powdered milk, yeast, and cod liver oil. Mr. Pennell hired workers to help feed the minks daily and protect them from skunks and weasels.

Mr. Pennell raised three kinds of mink. He raised a color of mink that became very popular, nearly white with a faint pinkish cast called pearl mink. He raised another color called pastel that have light brown fur.

Another popular color was kuskokwin which was a very dark brown mink color.

Stones, gems found in Pend Oreille County

By Kayla Carvel

I love Pend Oreille County. I have lived here pretty much my whole life. Stones and gems are a really interesting topic if you ask me. I found out that Pend Oreille County has a history of many stones and gems here.

You can find many stones and gems especially red garnets, quartz crystals and pyrites.

I interviewed my grandpa and he told me almost all gold is formed in quarts. When the gold deposit is found in hard rock, still in the mountain, it is called a load.

Then miners dig into the hill.

Placer mining means the gold has eroded out of the original quartz and found its way down to a creek or a riverbed. Gold is 13 times heavier than the average rock and it finds it’s way to the lowest point on the mountain. This is always a creek or river with snow and rain, always running in the low spot, and miners use gold pans and screens.

People have found quartz crystals in LeClerc Creek.

Placer gold can be found near the southeast corner of section 19 township 39N range 43E, in a draw near Schultz’s Cabin. This was the location of The Schultz Placer.

On the east side of the Pend Oreille River, just below the mouth of the Z Canyon gorge, two and a half miles west of Crescent Lake, is the location of the SchierdSee Stones, 10A

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WE Love OUR COMMUNITY Here is what a mink looks like.

The furs had to be sent to a company that made mink coats, eyelashes, hats, scarves, handbags, slippers, and shoes. At the end of 2009 the fur

sold for $69.

One coat was about 60 minks’ fur.

My info was also from Mrs. McClenny.

There was a ferry at Ruby

By Jacob McDermeit

• Convenience • Savings • Variety

Once, in a little town called Ruby, there was a ferry. According to the 1990 BIG SMOKE, the Ruby Ferry was built in 1913 as another way of transportation since the big ferries were being used in the places the little ferries could not go. The ferry was in constant use, except when there was extremely high water. Then it was tied up for a week or two. The Ruby Ferry was used for transportation and carried information about the news in town.

How did the Ruby Ferry run? It was powered by water and drifted along in the currents.

The Ruby ferry was also on a pulley system that you could crank to get the ferry across the river.

When you were on the ferry, you would have five to ten minutes to tell the news to the ferrymen. This was much needed for the poor people who couldn’t afford the newspaper.

During the hunting season, the Ruby ferryman would keep track of how many deer crossed, for the game commission. The first day the game commission opened, they counted seventy deer!

The ferry came to a sad end and was taken out by an ice flow that tipped over the ferry and created a devastating accident. After the accident, a ferry was put in at Blue Slide not far north from Ruby.

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seventh grade press

| May 25, 2016

McClenny a ‘fountain of knowledge’

By Soleil Carter

Mrs. Faith McClenny is a volunteer archivist and researcher for the Pend Oreille County Museum. Mrs. McClenny came to my seventh grade English class and taught us about important Pend Oreille County history facts. She spoke about a hundred and fifty different topics, with pictures and demonstrations so that each of us could choose our own topic. Mrs. McClenny dressed up with an old fashioned dress, a hat and played the part. She volunteered a lot of time to keep the history flowing to the next generations.

I had a cool interview with Mrs. McClenny. I learned a lot. She is a fountain of knowledge. I asked her if she would like to be a kid in today’s world or if she would rather be a kid in her day in age. She said, “There are pros and cons to each time of growing up.”

Mrs. McClenny’s parents ran a sawmill and ranch and her brothers and sisters had lots of chores. Often times she would ride the old work horse out to the woods and help her Dad. He would cut down the trees and the horse would drag the logs to the sawmill.

Everyone helped in the sawmill. Logs would have to washed and then her Dad would saw them into lumber to sell to builders around Newport and Spokane.

Faith was very lucky if she had an opportunity to go into town in the truck because there was barely ever any gas because it was during World War II when gas was rationed.

When the family did go to town they would sell the logs and lumber and cows.

Faith and her sisters sewed their own dresses and helped their Mother with cooking and house work. It was important for a woman to be able to do the “women’s work.”

There was always clothing that needed mending, but Faith and her sisters enjoyed making their own dresses..

It was a treat if they got to order school clothes from the Sears catalog.

Besides sewing, women had multiple jobs to do at their house. Cooking was probably the most important. Her mom would make the best Jello and raised doughnuts. Her family loved the yummy treats.

For a short time Faith McClenny attended the Deer Valley one room school. There were only 12 or 13 kids in her whole school. A Mrs. Nelson was the teacher. It was her first teaching job. Girls wore long skirts to school; never any pants. The teacher had to teach all different grades at once. It is difficult to know that each grade needs to learn from kindergarten through 12th grade. It is also difficult to keep the kids busy when the teacher works with the other grades. There was usually only one blackboard.

Faith was surprised that the school furnished writing pa-

Making butter took a lot of energy in the olden days.

First, after the cows were milked, you would pour the fresh milk in a cool place to let it set. The milk solids would rise to the top after

half a day or so.

The cream was skimmed off and scooped into the butter churn, ready to be cranked by hand for about half an hour.

Eventually, a more modern way to separate

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Pend Oreille County

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McClenny, left, works at the Pend Oreille County Historical Society Museum with Alice Warner.

per, books and pencils. Students wrote on erasable slates like little blackboards.

Sometimes students would tease others, like dunking a girl’s braids in an inkwell. With a stretch of ages sometimes behavior was difficult to manage about one room.

When students got into trouble at school, they got into big trouble and were punished at home.

Faith has had a very full life that she is still living. Faith McClenny graduated from Whitworth University with honors and a degree in Elementary Education. She taught elementary students for 30 years all over the place: in Alaska, Post Falls, Idaho, Seattle, Wash., and more.

She taught both in private and public schools. She stands out in our community in a lot of ways. Faith McClenny is a hard worker, she is active, and interested in the community. She is active in church and at the Newport Museum. Faith McClenny has transcribed Braille and worked with visually handicapped students. She recently published a pictorial history book Pend Oreille County by Arcadia Publishing Company.

Faith is amazing. She has a wealth of experience and she is an exceptionally talented lady. Sharing her time so generously with our seventh grade made this Pend Oreille County history project possible. She came to our class many times, found resources for us to research and she answered a lot of specific questions through phone calls and email. We can’t thank Mrs. McClenny enough.

the cream from the milk was developed to make it faster and having less risk of turning sour. A separator appliance was invented.

The separator spun the milk to make the lightweight cream move to the center and run out while the heavy milk moved to the outside of the large bowl and ran out a spout to a lower bowl.

Another way to separate cream from milk is to pour the raw milk in a large crock, let the cream rise to the top, and then pull the spigot at the bottom. The milk drains out first, and then the cream comes out so you have to be quick to catch it by switching bowls.

Pour the cream into the butter churn, add a pinch of salt and spin, turning the handle until the butter is hard and the buttermilk runs out.

You now have butter AND buttermilk.

All butter sold in the United States must contain at least 80 percent milk fat.

Grades, ranging from the best grade AA to grade B are based on flavor, color, and salt content.

Grade AA butter has a smooth, creamy texture and is easy to spread. Grade AA butter is made from

sweet ream and is available in most supermarkets or grocery stores. U.S. Grade B butter can be used by consumers for table use. It is usually made from sour cream and is coarser in texture.

Butter is 100 percent natural. It has a solid, waxy texture and varies in color from almost white to deep yellow. It is often used from cow’s milk but, water buffalo is used in the Indian subcontinent. Until the late 19th century, butter was made by traditional small-scale methods.

This is the new way some people made butter. Go to the store and buy cream.

Put the buttermilk in a container with a tight lid, and add a pinch of salt.

Shake until you can feel the cream harden. At first it is whipped cream or whipped butter, so you keep going until the lump inside is firm enough to be called butter.

The butter will feel like a ball hitting each end of the jar, as you shake back and forth. The liquid will separate and it is called buttermilk.

Separate the milk that is left over and empty it into a cup. It is called buttermilk.

Now, in the jar you have butter.

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Fun stuff to do in early Pend Oreille County

By Blaze Hamilton

A lot of energy to make butter

By Isabella Sherod

ThE mineR

Process makes both butter and buttermilk.

Living in town in early Pend Oreille County meant you could get a bunch of kids together and play ball in a vacant lot or in the cow’s field. In the summer the kids could play baseball.

I’ve heard that somebody usually had a bat and a ball, you could probably find a stick that might work.

The 1925 Montgomery Ward catalog sold an official hard ball for 98 cents. The amateur ball cost 26 cents.

Baseball mitts looked different in the catalog. They are sort of small and sort of flat. They were not very well shaped. In the catalog you could also buy equipment to play tennis, golf and horseshoes.

But if you didn’t live near town, you probably had to hang out with your siblings. You could sleep outside under the stars. Kids didn’t often use a tent back then.

Sometimes people had a neighbor a mile or two away and they usually had kids you could play with. If their parents weren’t working them too hard you could ride your horse over there or meet at a swimming hole.

Most boys liked to fish, swim, and hunt. Kids could go hunting when they wanted, trapping would be fun.

There are all kinds of traps you could set.

No matter where you lived in Pend Oreille County, you probably did a lot of hunting and fishing because there is a lot of water in this county.

For playing indoors, most of the toys were home made. You could play cards, and in the 1930s playing monopoly was invented. Then came other board games, and for sure kids like to talk to their friends.

All the games were fun, life was full of exercise, and people used their imaginations a lot more than today’s society. Would I rather be a kid then or now? Well, I would definitely miss my electronics and fireworks.

Best to avoid bears

By Harley Hall

The most interesting thing about bears is the physical power they exert. A bear can crush a lot of things with just a sweep of their paw. Black bears put out three hundred pounds of force with one paw and a man’s head can only withstand one hundred pounds of force, meaning that the bear would crush a man’s skull. A bear can outrun a horse for 25 meters, so it’s probably not a winning proposition to run from a bear.

Pend Oreille County has mostly black bears. There are also brown bears, cinnamon bears and occasionally a grizzly bear. These mountain bears are strongly associated with forest cover, but they do occasionally use relatively open country, such as clearcuts and the fringes of other open habitat. The statewide black bear population in Washington likely ranges between 25,000 and 30,000 black bears.

As human populations encroach on bear habitat, people and bears have a higher chance of encountering each other. Black bears usually avoid people, but when they do come into close proximity of each other, the bear’s strength and surprising speed make it potentially dangerous.

Most confrontations with bears are the result of a surprise encounter at close range. All bears should be given plenty of respect and room to retreat without feeling threatened.

Normally you should not look a bear directly in the eye because it is a sign of aggression and it will make the bear want to chase you.

The thing with bears is that If you encounter a bear with cubs you should either fight aggressively, lay on your stomach and play dead, or curl up into a ball to protect your vital organs. Spring is the most dangerous time to come across bears. They wake up cranky from hibernation. Bears that you see in Pend Oreille County won’t be aggressive unless the bear is with its cubs. The best way to avoid the bear, so it won’t attack you, is to keep your distance from it and its cubs. Bears, in the fall, are docile because they are putting on weight for the winter. To make sure a bear doesn’t come around you when you are hiking in the high mountains is to sing or make loud noises because then the bear knows where you are. The bear will avoid you then. Make sure you are out of range of cubs and have fun sight seeing for bears.

STONES: Bears spotted while prospecting From Page 9A

ing Placer. This Placer was worked using a dragline dredge and produced some nuggets of gold.

On Sullivan Creek, near Metaline Falls, is the Sullivan Creek Placer. Nuggets up to 2 ounces have been found here. The Chinese miners worked the Sullivan Creek and northern Pend Oreille River.

In section 22 Township 30N Range 44E, is the Sunrise Mine. It was a lode gold and silver mine.

Pend Oreille County Washington have produced over 2,000,000 ounces of the gold, even though Washington has not been a major gold producer.

Sometimes people run into grizzly bears when they’re prospecting. They use skunk oil or even a dead skunk to keep away the grizzlies because bears can’t stand the smell of skunks. So the skunk keeps grizzlies away from the prospectors.