A new coach at WSU and a final season in limbo; the Eags want to sink their talons into Spokane; NORTHWEST football road trips + more
COLLEGE FOOTBALL PREVIEW | Page 22
t’s almost dark by 8 pm now; summer’s fading fast. While I hate to see it go, there are plenty of things about fall to embrace (besides the cozy aesthetic and pumpkin spice lattes). Another seasonal herald is COLLEGE FOOTBALL season, which kicks off for the region’s four universities this weekend. Facing off down on the Palouse, the sort of conference-less Washington State Cougars (the new Pac-12 reemerges in 2026) take on their neighbors in Moscow, the Idaho Vandals, on Saturday, Aug. 30.
As a WSU alum, I’ll always root for the Cougars, but I also come from a family full of Eastern Washington Eagles. And as the Inlander’s Seth Sommerfeld suggests in this issue, why not make the Eagles Spokane’s official home team? Cheney is a whole lot closer than Pullman, after all. He also makes a convincing case for Whitworth — the Pirates out of North Spokane have a solid winning record, making it to the Division III playoffs back-to-back years. Or, maybe the takeaway of this year’s college football preview is even simpler: You don’t have to pick just one local team to root for. Head to an upcoming home game for each school this season and root for all four.
— CHEY SCOTT, Editor
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WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE VIDEO GAME AND/OR MOVIE SOUNDTRACK?
LEWIE WARREN
Ooh... it’s gonna be [the] Gladiator soundtrack or Star Wars.
What do you like about those two? It’s what I study to when I work on my work. It’s, like, really intense but it’s still calm enough where I can focus on my work.
ANGELIQUE CARL
Probably Dirty Dancing, ’cause I’m old, so I relate to the music.
What do you like about it?
The fact that I can relate to, that it brings back memories from that time, now that I am a middle-aged woman. I can remember all of that time frame.
ESTELLE CARLSON
I mean, the first thing that pops to my mind would be Lord of the Rings, but that’s just too simple an answer.
What do you like about the LOTR soundtrack? I don’t know, I think everything about it, but it just fits so well with the entire storyline of it.
MARK BATES
How about Fifth Element?
What do you like about it? It’s a very well-stylized sci-fi with great music.
ALEXANDRA FETTERS
That’s a good question. As far as movie soundtracks go, the Jurassic Park original soundtrack has to be just the most iconic. Everyone knows it. As far as video games go, Baldur’s Gate 3, they put so much effort into the entire soundtrack and it’s so varied, and that’s just one of my favorite things to listen to.
8/20/25, SOUTH HILL THOMAS HAMMER INTERVIEWS BY ELLIS BENSON
Preview Preview Fall Arts Fall Arts
Choosing to Leave
Learning to write about the world takes an open and curious mind
BY CMARIE FUHRMAN
Letter to you who left the workshop early, who chose not to attend:
It can be difficult to be in the minority. To sit around an oak-hewn table, shoulder to shoulder with writers of color, with a Native human leading, and be given instruction. It might have felt unbalanced. Perhaps you have never been the only one representing your race. Maybe this challenged your idea of place. You were raised with the idea, like so many still are, that Native people and thus their stories are inferior. A people to be administered, to be cared for; that because of your race, your privilege, you should be the one allowing, not the one being granted a place.
Or perhaps other feelings arose: Guilt, perhaps? Or shame or something harder to name. A feeling like regret, but for what, you are still uncertain. To have a Native person as an authority may have felt like a challenge. Your parents, you said, worked the land for generations. Loved the place more than anyone else ever has, knew it, you might say, like the back of their hand and yet, here was this person, long black hair and
dark skin, someone your great-grandfather told your grandmother to fear, standing before you with stories of not three, but hundreds of generations of people on the land. Of knowing place as not the back of their hand, but of their whole body.
The stories that made them are from the land. The language, too. Land was not an inheritance but is a relative. Mine you wrote on the corner of your notebook. No longer taking notes about writing, but trying to relocate yourself, after all, your family holds the deed. That has to mean something, that you are someone. Landowner. Descendent of those who fought to claim the homestead. Winners. You had taken your seat at the head of the table, the place you were taught was yours, yet the other students were staring at what you see as the past.
So you turn to your phone. You type, “I don’t think I belong here,” to a friend who you know will tell you to leave. You compose your face into a mask of sudden, urgent concern. I walk by with my midmorning delivery of treats, and you are so intent on your message, you do not notice me as I offer you nourishment. You type, “I don’t care about the money...” I feel guilty for the stolen glance, but I was confused. Why were you the only one uninterested?
TOM STOVER PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
But you weren’t. Some students had dropped out months before, stating an all-Native faculty was irrelevant to their writing. So many, in fact, that we had to make cuts: one less faculty member, two fewer panels. Had you stayed, you would have heard me mention this during our “Ask Me” circle. You would have heard sighs, gasps, and a non-Native student saying, “But that’s why I am here. I have so much to learn.” You would have heard a Native faculty member, through tears of sadness and anger, ask, “How can we be irrelevant… still?”
“I am trying not to walk away from or avoid difficult conversations..”
Had the others come, had you stayed, you would have heard a student ask the question I am still answering:
“How do I convince people that Native writing and history are essential? How do I help them learn from the past, not just acknowledge it?” You would have felt the palpable silence. Isn’t this the question being asked all over the country, if not the world? Isn’t it the question stuck in our minds like a tag in a new shirt, itching at the neck until we finally address it?
Since you weren’t there, I’ll tell you: I had an answer — not the answer, but an answer — and I didn’t speak it. Let’s call it fear. Surrounded by thinkers I so admire, my imposter syndrome flared. I was raised in an overculture that tells women of color to be seen and not heard. I am of that era. But I’m working on that. Against that. I am trying to worry less about being right, instead trying to be vulnerable enough to put my thinking in the conversation, ready to be corrected or deepened. I am trying not to walk away from or avoid difficult conversations.
Here’s what I wish I’d said: We think of colonization as history, something synonymous with what was inflicted on Native people in the United States. But it is still happening. To you. Me. To everyone in that circle and beyond.
Learning from Native history and literature teaches us to recognize the pattern: how the theft of Native land creates the current model for selling off public lands; how banning Native languages prefigures the erasure of scientific facts; how the mission system’s indoctrination provides the logic for regulating art and speech; how controlling education in boarding schools becomes the justification for defunding systems of equality for all. It teaches us that any power that disguises control as “helpfulness” is not there to care for you, but to take from you.
Learning this now may stop another total and continual colonization.
But I didn’t speak up. And you’d already left.
Now I cannot hear your thoughts on this, and you missed seeing others heal, finding their place in a community learning to value not only Native writers, but all voices that have been silenced.
I want to offer you some of my courage — you who left, who chose not to attend, who find Native writing and writers irrelevant to you. I want to offer you a little of my humility, too. I also want to offer my gratitude. I am genuinely glad that you have the right to leave, to choose not to listen, to reach out to those who believe as you do.
This wasn’t always so. And if we fail to pay attention to history, that right will not always be there. n
CMarie Fuhrman is a poet, nonfiction writer and memoirist whose work is rooted in the Western landscape. Author of Salmon Weather: Writing from the Land of No Return, among others, her writing has been featured in Terrain.org, Emergence Magazine, Alta Magazine, Big Sky Journal and elsewhere. She serves as the associate director for Western Colorado University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing and directs the Elk River Writers Workshop. She lives in the Salmon River mountains, where she spends her summers as a fire lookout.
FRIDAY, AUG. 29 SATURDAY, AUG. 30 MONDAY, SEPT. 1
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A Force for Change
Friends, family remember Spokane health leader Sarah Doxey, finding solace in the legacy she leaves behind
BY COLTON RASANEN
It’s a bright and sunny Saturday, but the people flowing into the First Presbyterian Church of Spokane are mostly wearing black. The wooden pews inside the church quickly fill as screens on either side of the church’s pipe organ cycle through family photos, silly selfies and candid shots, all including Sarah Doxey.
Six weeks after she was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver during a morning run, dozens of those who knew and loved Sarah attended the Aug. 23 memorial in her honor.
“She poured herself out for others, and she did it joyfully. Those who knew her knew that she loved to learn, and she thought of leading as a privilege, not a right,” Sarah’s husband, Erick Doxey, says during her eulogy. “She believed you earned leadership by showing up for people with a hammer and doing the hard things right alongside. She wasn’t afraid to make mistakes and own it, and that made her the kind of leader people trusted.”
CHAS Chief Operating Officer Sarah Doxey, 48, was the kind of person who wore many hats. Yes, she was a community leader who dedicated a quarter century of her life to health care in Spokane. But she was also a beloved mom who always put her kids first. She was a dedicated longdistance runner, who was definitely NOT a jogger. She was a wife. A best friend. A sister. A daughter.
According to the family, friends and colleagues she left behind, Sarah was a force for positive change who will continue to be remembered by the impact she’s had on others. And one of the people she impacted the most was Erick. The two met in high school in Oahu, Hawaii, and he was enamored with her from the start. She was angsty and sarcastic and adorable and even had good taste in music. However, as both were Air Force kids who moved around a lot, Sarah’s family left Hawaii the next year.
But they stayed in contact, and when Erick was living in Hartford, Connecticut, he took a bus to New Jersey to see Sarah graduate from high school. Both ended up marrying and divorcing other people at first, but by 2005 fate brought them together again.
Though they share a world of memories together from their nearly 20 years of marriage, most involving their kids, Clark (14) and Etta (12), Erick says one of his favorite memories of Sarah was from before they were parents.
At the time, the two were traveling to Las Vegas for Sarah’s first marathon. It was a big moment for her, and Erick was there to support her goals. Little did he know, Sarah had sneaked a professional camera into her luggage, and then the day before her race, she gifted it to him.
“I was so intimidated I didn’t even take it out of the box, so I decided I would figure it out when we got home,” he says with a nostalgic smile. “If it wasn’t for her giving me that push, I wouldn’t be the photographer I am today.”
While Erick’s top priority now is to ensure his kids have the support they need, he has occasionally thought about 17-year-old Keegan Forshee, who is accused of crashing his car into Sarah. He hopes Forshee is found guilty — he’s charged as a juvenile with vehicular homicide, vehicular assault, felony hit-and-run and driving without a valid license, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges, according to the Spokesman-Review — and sentenced to the maximum penalty allowed by state law.
However, Erick was once 17 years old and made bad decisions of his own, so he hopes that if Forshee is actually a good person, this experience will motivate him to change his actions for the better.
“My hope is that he gets the maximum — three years — because it’s a long time for somebody that young, and gives
them plenty of time to think about what he’s done,” Erick says. “I just hope he doesn’t walk away without any time, because he deserves to spend some significant jail time for what he did. But I don’t believe his life should be ruined.”
Above the tragic circumstances of her death, Erick hopes people understand and remember how much selfless work Sarah put into leading a community health care organization such as CHAS.
“Whenever she saw an opportunity,” he says, “she always thought about how she can effect change.”
THE LEADER
Carmen Green, the chief operating officer for Providence Medical Group, was supposed to meet with Sarah on the morning that she died. The two were in the early planning stages of a potential collaboration between Providence and CHAS that would amplify both organizations’ ability to assist the region’s underserved populations.
While Green hopes that the organizations can still work together, she says without Sarah’s expertise — she spent almost 10 years as an administrative leader at Providence before moving to CHAS — the collaboration will be delayed.
Though the pair worked at Providence at the same time, Green says she didn’t work directly with Sarah. Still, through their peripheral connection, she witnessed and admired the kind of leader Sarah was.
“Leaders don’t necessarily have big splashy things that make them successful. They often have a collection of really beautiful, small traits that exude a culture of inclusion, of warmth, of excellence and self-growth,” Green says. “All of those are things that she just really exemplified and then instilled in the people around her.”
...continued on page 10
Sarah Doxey’s passion for health care helped many in Spokane.
ERICK DOXEY PHOTO
Green says there were even a few managers who followed Sarah to CHAS when she was hired as the vice president of operations in 2023.
“One of them in particular, said [Sarah] changed the trajectory of their life,” she recalls.
Erick describes Sarah as a force for change. Someone who could set her mind to bettering something and then delivering on those goals. Green says she saw that trait, especially when it came to creating more access to health care.
For example, when she realized that the long wait times and rigid scheduling at specialty care clinics — cardiology, dermatology, psychiatry, etc. — were negatively impacting some patients, Sarah and her team worked to bridge that gap. The solution she championed, which Green says has worked really well, allows patients to show up for their appointment during a certain time window, rather than at a specific time.
“Health care is changing so fast, so having somebody who can be nimble, who can read the space, who can really escalate what is important today and make those changes, and help make the changes as easy for our caregiving teams to navigate as possible, is really important,” Green says.
Though she remembers Sarah’s leadership and dedication, Green says she was also someone who didn’t take her job too seriously. Not only did Sarah know how to have fun at work, she knew how to make the place fun for everyone. Shortly into her tenure at Providence, she began organizing the orthopedics office olympics that would be held at the same time as the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.
Doctors and clinic staff were separated into different countries and would receive gold medals and track their standing after each mini-game. Too bad for most of the participants, Green says, Sarah was fiercely competitive and
would even practice for the events in her spare time.
“That fun, competitive spirit really does make a difference at work,” Green says. “It’s a culture builder, and I think that really epitomizes so much about how she showed up at work.”
At the request of Sarah’s family, CHAS established the Sarah Doxey Memorial Fund to honor her commitment to health care. To donate, visit chas.org/about-chas/chas-foundation/sarah-doxey-memorial-fund/
THE RUNNER
Laura Carey, the co-owner of Versalia Pizza, first met Sarah when Erick introduced her to the Carey family’s signature pizza. Their kids were both born in similar time frames, so at first, the two bonded over motherhood and the accompanying sisterhood of the traveling maternity clothes.
In 2012, it was running that solidified their friendship. Sarah was already a long-distance runner and had finished a marathon, and Carey didn’t even know if she could run for just 20 minutes. However, with encouragement from Sarah, she tried anyway.
Carey downloaded an app to help her train for a 5K, and her love for running blossomed. Soon, Sarah asked if she was ready to run a half-marathon with her. The answer was no, but again, Carey tried it anyway.
In the end, Sarah wasn’t able to compete in that halfmarathon because she had recently given birth, but Carey still ran. It was the first half-marathon she completed, and she cried at the finish line.
“I was just so shocked that I could do it, but [Sarah] just totally believed in me and she was right,” Carey recalls.
Over their years of friendship, the pair logged thousands of miles together and eventually began to bring their families on vacations wherever they were running a marathon. (Carey says they were lucky to realize that their families could just vacation together, without the running.)
“Miles were magical if they were shared with friends,
that was her mantra,” Carey says.
The two shared more than just running. Carey spent years trying to convince her best friend to schedule an appointment at her chiropractor’s office. So it was a surprise when the pair met in passing at that office on Monday, July 14.
“I walk in for my appointment and Sarah walked out of her appointment, and I was like ‘Whoa, Sarah in the wild.’ We never ran into each other randomly, it’s always planned,” Carey says. “I had some personal stuff going on that day and I just hugged her and said, “Oh you’re a ray of sunshine today, I’m thankful I saw you.’”
The pair agreed to meet for dinner on Wednesday, but Sarah was the kind of person who just knew how to make people feel better. So it wasn’t all that surprising to Carey when Sarah showed up at her house Tuesday night with flowers and another hug.
“I was having a rough week, and I just needed that,” she says through tears.
When Carey woke up at 6:30 the next morning to 10 missed calls from Sarah’s running partner, Sara Ambrose, she knew something was wrong. By the time she got to the hospital, a doctor had explained to Sarah’s loved ones that she had a severe brain injury and would not recover.
“That’s the moment that it all hit,” she says. “The whole day just felt surreal, and at one point I just held her hand and I told her that we would take care of everything for her, that she could go.”
Though Sarah wasn’t able to make it to those Wednesday dinner plans, Carey says she’ll always cherish the feeling of those final few hugs. n
EDITOR’S NOTE: Erick Doxey has been a photographer for the Inlander for nearly a decade, winning national awards for his work in our publications along the way. Members of our staff work closely and socialize with Erick outside of work via the local professional press club.
Orchard on Appleway
Affordable housing breaks ground in Spokane Valley. Plus, promise of new course draws regional cross-country race, and mental health campaign asks people to join hands across Spokane
BY INLANDER STAFF
The Spokane Housing Authority believes that safe, healthy and affordable homes are vital for better and more satisfying lives. That’s why on Tuesday, leaders from Spokane Valley — including Spokane Valley Mayor Pam Haley, state Sen. Leonard Christian and state Rep. Rob Chase — attended a groundbreaking for Orchard Vista, a 240-unit affordable housing development on 7 acres of land on East Appleway Boulevard, near WinCo Foods and the Valley Transit Center. Developers in the public-private partnership behind the project also plan to co-locate an early-learning facility on the property.
“This project will create opportunities and reduce barriers, where families can build on the foundation of safe and stable housing and access critical services including affordable child care and transportation, to make progress toward their goals,” the housing authority states. Financing for the development closed in June and the housing authority says the first phase of the project will be available for occupancy next year, with the full project scheduled to be finished in 2027. (COLTON RASANEN)
GETTING CROSS
While basketball-loving Spokane might already brand itself Hooptown, efforts are being made to make the area a cross-country running hotbed as well. (XC City? Cross County? We’ll work on the branding…) While finishing touches are being put on the new $7 million cross-country complex known as The Course Spokane Valley (with construction slated to be complete this fall before opening for events in 2026), one of the sport’s major events will be relocating to our neck of the woods. The prestigious Nike Cross Country Regionals (NXR Northwest) is headed to the Inland Northwest for the next two years. The event, which gathers the best high school cross-country runners in the region, takes place at Spokane Polo Fields in Airway Heights this Nov. 14-15 and the 2026 edition will happen at The Course Spokane Valley. According to a Spokane Sports press release, the events are expected to bring in around 4,000 athletes and 5,000 spectators to watch the kids race across natural terrain. (SETH SOMMERFELD)
HAND IN HAND
Join hands with coworkers, friends, family or whomever in your community for Community-Minded Enterprises’ Hands Across Spokane campaign. Running through September into early October, the citywide social campaign aims to bring awareness to mental health and recovery, calling on people in Spokane to share photos of joined hands using the hashtag #HandsAcrossSpokane to promote the message “you’re seen, you’re supported, and there is a path forward.” The organization hopes that the social media movement will build a visual reminder of support and connection. Then, on Oct. 10 from 11 am to 4:30 pm, there will be a public resource fair on Shannon Avenue outside the North Central Mental Health Development Center, to coincide with World Mental Health Day. The free event will feature local providers and resources alongside food, music and activities. The Hands Across Spokane movement originated with the organization’s Hands Across the Falls in 2017, when people in recovery and community members lined the Monroe Street Bridge to honor those impacted by substance use disorder and show that recovery is possible. Learn more at handsacrossspokane.org. (DORA SCOTT) n
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ROSENTHAL SEPTEMBER 20 7:00PM
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‘A Bold Step’
Mining company Teck works with Kalispel Tribe to conserve hundreds of acres with ‘nature positive’ project
BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL
Roughly two years ago, Teck Washington, the local arm of the Canadian-based mining company, reached out to the Kalispel Tribe for a meeting.
The tribe wasn’t told exactly why, but staff members knew it likely had something to do with the closure of the Pend Oreille Mine, a lead and zinc operation idled for decades by a previous owner until Teck reopened it in 2004 and ran it until 2019. Teck announced it was starting the mine’s closure in 2021, under a process regulated by the state Department of Ecology.
“We knew they probably wanted to talk about the environmental side of the mine closure with the tribe and see where we sat,” explains Ray Entz, the director of wildlife and terrestrial resources for the Kalispel Natural Resources Department. “They introduced us to their nature positive impact program for mitigating mine site impacts, and their desire to work with Indigenous organizations when possible.”
As he pieced together the goals Teck’s team was outlining during the meeting, Entz says he immediately had project ideas and raised his hand.
The larger of those two projects ended up being the perfect fit.
With $3.5 million, Teck helped purchase what’s now called the Cee Cee Ah (Sisiyé in Salish — named for a Kalispel master canoe maker) conservation land, about 752 forested acres next to the Pend Oreille River on the eastern side of the Kalispel Reservation. The land was previously owned by timber companies, which harvested trees there on a decades-long rotation, most recently in the late ’90s and early 2000s, Entz says. The tribe took ownership of the land from Teck earlier this year.
“Our long-term objectives align well,” Entz says of the tribe and Teck’s goals for the conservation land. “Forest management is more than just economic harvesting, but focusing on trying to create a mosaic of habitat types that support a wide variety of animals and plants.”
Ungulates — including deer, elk, moose — are key protein sources for the subsistence harvesting that many tribal members still rely on, Entz says, as are plants, which provide food and medicine. Ideal management on the Cee
Cee Ah land could help both plants and animals, in addition to providing some timber harvest for the tribe.
“Any income we make from that project will go back into the project for additional restoration,” Entz says. “Not every piece of ground in the forest is suitable to be forested. Just because trees grow there now doesn’t mean it’s suitable for that outcome.”
Cutting some trees to allow others to become more mature and fire resilient can also open up some of the understory to allow other plants to thrive, he says.
“It’s a dance, but it’s a dance we do both with the cultural and ecological knowledge passed to us,” Entz says, “as well as the Western scientific understanding of the data we collect from the forest, and blending those together to an outcome best suited to serve the Kalispel people and the community at large.”
Running through the property is Cee Cee Ah creek, the only fishbearing creek on the reservation.
Previously the tribe has worked in the creek to eliminate non-native brook trout and restore native Westslope cutthroat trout, Entz says.
“We’ve invested millions of dollars in that watershed to restore habitat from the headwaters down,” he says.
Teck’s funding for the conservation project also included money for ongoing maintenance, as well as a conservation easement.
To ensure the land will only be used for the type of conservation work Teck’s “nature positive” impact program is intended for, the tribe signed a limited waiver of its sovereign immunity so that the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy can hold a conservation easement on the property in perpetuity.
“What I saw in my involvement through this project was a genuine desire and effort to do good in the world, to thoughtfully consider what sort of conservation impacts could be made with the funding that was available,” says Carol Corbin, director of philanthropy for the land conservancy. “The conversations were very open, very trusting, and were very centered around what could Teck bring to the table and what could Inland Northwest
Land Conservancy bring to the table to support tribal conservation priorities.”
The collaboration with the Kalispel Tribe and the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy will help conserve wildlife in Washington, said Jonathan Price, Teck’s president and CEO, in a news release earlier this month. (Teck did not respond to a request for an interview last week).
“The work to conserve these lands located near Pend Oreille mine supports Teck’s goal to contribute to meaningful biodiversity management efforts,” Price stated.
While the tribe now owns the land, any work done there to improve the environmental conditions will benefit everyone, Entz emphasizes.
“The boundaries of our reservation are artificial and immaterial to the natural world,” Entz says. “Anything we can do to improve the property benefits the broader community up there.”
The Kalispel Tribe’s reservation is fewer than 5,000 acres, but the tribe also owns and manages roughly 6,500 other acres for various conservation projects. This property is closest.
“I feel especially proud on behalf of the tribe and its members that we were able to repatriate a piece of ground that’s close enough to add a lot of opportunity for access to the members. It just means a lot,” Entz says. “A lot of our other lands are not necessarily adjacent and can be miles away, while they still provide that benefit. This one’s in their backyard and provides that opportunity quite easily.”
Having the mining company show a genuine interest in not only getting ahead of the regulatory mandates of mine closure and mitigation, but trying to do more, and better than what’s been done in the past, was good to see, and part of why it made sense to partner, he says.
“It doesn’t absolve them of their reclamation obligations at the mine site itself … They’re still on the hook to do all that. This is just above and beyond the basic minimums of meeting the regulatory obligations,” Entz says. “It’s a bold step for Teck to sort of jump out in front and lead on the environmental side of mine reclamation and cleanup.” n
samanthaw@inlander.com
This forested land next to the Pend Oreille River will offer the Kalispel Tribe more conservation opportunities. NICK JAMES PHOTO/COURTESY INLAND NORTHWEST LAND CONSERVANCY
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Making Cents
Small local credit unions engage in collaborative competition for the good of Spokane’s financial ecosystem
BY MADISON PEARSON
Credit unions were founded on the principle of collaboration — become a member and, therefore, you own part of the financial institution.
For many, credit unions offer the feeling of ownership over their money and, depending on the size of the institution, a more personal banking experience.
There are 10 credit unions in Spokane that are considered “small” in size (meaning they deal with less than $100 million in assets), and female CEOs run eight of them.
“Spokane has a lot of credit unions,” says Deanna Hanley, CEO of Spokane City Credit Union. “It’s a bit of a different ecosystem than most of the country. So, as a community, we’re all pretty big believers in the credit union movement and the ability to help and collaborate together.”
Hanley is coming up on two years in her position at Spokane City Credit Union (and is the first woman to serve as its CEO), but her predecessors were already thinking about the future of Spokane’s credit union ecosystem far before she entered the role.
For nearly three decades, the CEOs of each local, small credit union have met monthly for breakfast, where they share ideas, offer assistance and discuss goings-on in their world. They call it “coopetition” — a blend of the words “cooperation” and “competition,” a business strategy where
competitors work together for mutual benefit.
The credit unions involved include Avista Corp. Credit Union, Canopy Credit Union, Cheney Federal Credit Union, PrimeSource Credit Union, Progressions Credit Union, Responders Emergency Services Credit Union, Safeway Federal Credit Union, Spokane City Credit Union, Spokane Firefighters Credit Union and Spokane Media Federal Credit Union.
Every third Wednesday of the month, the eight female CEOs and their two male counterparts chow down on breakfast and talk finance at the Centennial Hotel. Depending on schedules, sometimes all 10 executives are present — other times, only a handful — but either way, the environment is ripe with knowledgeable tidbits and information.
“It’s a great time to ask questions,” Hanley says. “Like, ‘Have you experienced this? How did you solve it?’ It’s the perfect time to pick each other’s brains about whatever is happening.”
The 10 institutions are small enough to have their finger on the pulse at all times. The CEOs are aware of member issues, finances, staff, community health and other aspects all at once. Hanley says having a group of people who are dealing with the same things is vital to the success of each credit union.
She recalls a situation when someone attempted to defraud one of the credit unions and
because those red flags were presented to the group over breakfast, the credit union in question was able to catch it. The leaders also find it valuable that connections to individuals or organizations within the community can be shared around the table.
“I hate reinventing the wheel,” Hanley says. “So if I can find an example of something that I may be experiencing for the first time, but three other women, over their tenure, have run into before, they can tell me how they dealt with it. That’s one of the biggest takeaways from these breakfasts — it just helps save time.”
Whether it’s in a bar bathroom or around a conference room table, women often lift one another up in the face of adversity, but the group’s two male counterparts offer their full support as well.
“We champion them as much as anyone,” says Chris Jentges, CEO of Avista Corp. Credit Union, by email.
Hanley says she’s unsure why Spokane’s credit union ecosystem has spurred so many women to the top spot at their respective financial institutions, but seeing women in leadership positions is always a good thing.
“I think as a society it’s changing and becoming more normal,” she says. “We’re all doing amazing things in small ways, because as a small credit union, you don’t have the same resources that maybe a larger financial institution does, but you’re still out there working for your members.”
The breakfast tradition that started nearly 30 years ago is going strong, and there’s no stopping it anytime soon, as Hanley says there are clear benefits to the “coopetition” model they’ve adopted.
“At the end of the day, you’re operating in the same space,” Hanley says. “You don’t want to see each other as competition; you want to cooperate with each other for the mutual benefit of the community. We want to be competitive for our members by providing products and services that are beneficial to them. But, you also don’t want to do it at the expense of other credit unions.”
As long as there’s a need for credit unions in Spokane and a place to gather and share ideas, these 10 CEOs plan to continue problem-solving over bacon and eggs.
“You would never see two banks work together to solve a problem or to share policies,” she says. “You do see that with credit unions. It’s a part of our DNA, part of what we do for each other. We collaborate, we cooperate and help each other.” n madisonp@inlander.com
Healthy “coopetition” motivates eight women leading small local credit unions; SCCU’s Deanna Hanley is second from the left. COURTESY PHOTO
Trend-setting Sounds
Starting with the music of Stardew Valley, Spokane is hosting a slate of concerts based on video games and movies
BY COLTON RASANEN
It’s the first day of spring and you’re just settling into the family farm your grandpa left you after he died. There’s a package of parsnip seeds inside the house, your pockets are full of tools, and you step outside into the bright spring sun. An uplifting composition of wind, string and percussion instruments playing overhead welcomes you to the Stardew Valley.
The gameplay in farming simulator Stardew Valley is rather simple, which lets small details that often go unnoticed by players, like the soundtrack, shine brighter. Once you’ve explored your farm and gotten familiar with the game’s mechanics, you’ll find your way to nearby Pelican Town, where a twangy banjo plays somewhere in the distance.
And in a few weeks, when you’ve started seriously diving into the mines beneath your farm and hit some icy levels, the twinkling sounds of a synthesizer and a rhythmic marimba’s high timbre seems like it’s being played on the bones of skeletons your character must fight through. Each holiday and special occasion in Stardew Valley has
its own track, too. It’s pitch black out on the last night of the summer, and a soothing chime-filled melody accompanies glow-in-the-dark moonlight jellies dancing in the sea. As you traverse the spooky maze during the Spirit’s Eve Festival, the sound of a grumbling guitar soon fades into a witchy oboe solo.
Even when you’re a good person and bring the perfect gift to the Feast of the Winter Star for your secret friend, you’ll listen to a sleigh bell-filled tune while gritting your teeth as one of the town’s children, Vincent, gives you a single piece of clay for your gift.
Music is so ingrained in Stardew Valley that you can even befriend the town chef, Gus, and he’ll give you a jukebox that can play any of the game’s 100+ tunes. This soundtrack, created by the game’s sole developer, ConcernedApe, is so popular that a 35-piece orchestra is touring the country with their take on it.
The live concert composed by Thanapol Setabrahmana and produced by SOHO Live, Stardew Valley: Symphony of Seasons, performs at Spokane’s First Interstate Center for
the Arts on Tuesday, Sept. 3. The concert includes Stardew Valley’s top hits, from the start of the game to its ending at the Summit, plus some new takes on the tracks that players love.
“I wanted to preserve the intimacy and atmosphere that make Stardew Valley so beloved, while at times also reimagining it in ways that feel fresh and alive on stage,” Setabrahmana told the Portland Tribune in an email. “What concertgoers will recognize most is the soul of the music. What may surprise them is how expansive and vivid it becomes in an orchestral setting.”
Though the depth of the music in a live setting may surprise some listeners, it’s not very surprising that Stardew Valley is getting the concert treatment, or that it’s coming to the First Interstate theater.
Back in March, the OG magical girl Usagi Tsukino came to Spokane in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: The Super Live. Though not a traditional concert in the way that Symphony of Seasons is, the show set the tone for
Dive into Stardew Valley through its iconic soundtrack, brought to life on stage.
MORE POP CULTURE POTENTIAL
Considering this concert format could be around for a while, we thought it would be fun to pitch some for other pop culture franchises.
SUPER MARIO IN CONCERT
With music-based levels in the 2023 Super Mario Bros. Wonder and the killer soundtrack including vocal stylings from iconic mayoral chanteuse Pauline in the 2017 Super Mario Odyssey, it’s clear that the Super Mario franchise would do well in this format. Don’t believe me? Check out the Super Mario Super Big Band performance from Nintendo Live in 2023.
HANNAH MONTANA: SEE YOU AGAIN
If we’re looking for more to celebrate, Hannah Montana, the show featuring Miley Cyrus and her pop star alter ego, turns 20 in March 2026. This could just be a live viewing of the show’s iconic scenes with a choir singing along to Hannah’s songs. However, if somebody with a bigger budget wants to produce this, one can only hope that Miley Cyrus would reprise her role.
GREY’S ANATOMY IN CONCERT
This world needs someone brave enough to make this one, because while there were some bangers in Grey’s Anatomy, you had to deal with all the trauma of an episode’s storyline to listen to them. “How to Save a Life” by The Fray, “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol, “Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service. I mean, come on — “The Story” by Brandi Carlile! There are so many options to fill a two-hour concert slot.
what’s possible on one of the city’s largest performing arts stages. After the Stardew Valley concert, a collection of four more similar events featuring movie or video game soundtracks are on the First Interstate Center’s calendar.
Twilight In Concert, presented by GEA Live and Lionsgate, shows at the theater on Sept. 12. This event features a screening of Twilight accompanied by a live band. The 12-piece ensemble of rock and orchestral musicians will play along with the movie’s best songs from Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole” and Paramore’s “Decode” to Blue Foundation’s “Eyes on Fire” that went viral in posts satirizing the song’s backing vocals.
On Oct. 18, fans can celebrate the 10th anniversary of the popular dark fantasy role-playing game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and take another journey with monster hunter Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher In Concert. A live orchestra performs the game’s soundtrack as visuals play on screens above. The show also includes a special appearance from Polish folk metal band Percival; its members coproduced the game’s original soundtrack.
One month later get ready for another celebration as Avatar: The Last Airbender In Concert commemorates the 20th anniversary of the popular cartoon. This two-hour concert on Nov. 16 puts award-winning composer Jeremy Zuckerman’s score front and center as important scenes and dialogue from throughout the series play in the background.
Spokanites get a brief break for the holidays, but in February 2025, Playstation: The Concert aims to blow the lid off all these other single-source concerts. It’ll feature music from the console’s top-performing games, such as God of War, The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, Bloodborne and Uncharted. Instead of a full orchestra though, the tracks are played by a group of soloists each trying to embody the soul of these Playstation classics.
While the influx of these concerts could be a passing fad fueled by nostalgia, there’s a very real possibility that events like this become more common in the future. There are tons of memorable soundtracks from video games and movies that would translate wonderfully, and smart producers should do what they can to highlight this often underappreciated artform. n
Stardew Valley: Symphony of Seasons • Wed, Sept. 3 at 8 pm • $50-$150 • First Interstate Center for the Arts • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • firstinterstatecenter.org
BYRD AUG. 29
BILLY BOB THORNTON & THE BOXMASTERS WITH GUEST FRAN MORAN & THE NERVOUS WRECKS
SEPT. 4
38 SPECIAL 50 YEAR LEGACY TOUR SEPT. 5
WFC 178 WORLD FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS SEPT. 6
CINDERELLA’S TOM KEIFERBAND WITH LA GUNS SEPT. 12
DARIUS RUCKER SEPT. 20
Meds Not Working? Still Depressed?
Second Nature
Retired military survival instructor Charlie Bouck shifts focus from enduring extremes to harnessing the healing powers of plants
BY CARRIE SCOZZARO
We are fascinated with stories of survival in extreme situations. Homer’s Odyssey from ancient Greece. Daniel Defoe’s now-classic 1700s novel Robinson Crusoe. Popular television shows, like History Channel’s wilderness-based reality series Alone and National Geographic’s Primal Survivor featuring Spokane’s own Hazen Audel.
But we needn’t find ourselves shipwrecked to appreciate personal preparedness, which is part of a billion-dollar global industry. That market — including food and water procurement, first aid, and multipurpose tools — has grown exponentially since 2020 and may double or triple in the next 10 years, according to several major market research firms.
But for local survival expert Charlie Bouck, gadgetry is not the answer. In a recent Spokane County Library District personal enrichment workshop on wilderness survival, Bouck emphasized having a survival mindset and the adaptability to cover five basic needs: health, personal protection, sustenance, signal/recovery and travel.
Over the course of an hour, Bouck shared personal stories like chasing a grizzly off an animal carcass to eat the meat himself, as well as wilderness survival tidbits like listening for croaking frogs or looking for clusters of bees to find water. Fire is good … for cooking, keeping warm, and signaling, so if you use fire-starting gadgets, practice with them beforehand. Rain and wind? No problem, if you brought surefire kindling like cotton balls soaked in vaseline and stored in an
airtight container. In a pinch, use tree pitch and a piece of cloth.
Since 2021, Bouck has run his business Herbal Expeditions, teaching others how to forage for food and healing plants, including making medicine from those plants. He also does holistic wellness consulting, making custom plant-based solutions for common ailments. And he does survival training addressing wilderness as well as urban settings.
“Everybody is so connected to their devices that they have no situational awareness,” says Bouck, who spent 20 years as an instructor for the U.S. Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program, mostly based out of Fairchild Air Force Base. He was additionally deployed in the Philippines, the Middle East — Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia — Kyrgyzstan and Djibouti, doing training both broad and specific to each situation.
While stationed in Okinawa, Japan, for example, Bouck trained nine air crew squadrons in jungle and open water survival.
“I would take them out in the ocean, show them how to live in a life raft, how to untangle from their parachute in the water” and how to survive sudden separation from their aircraft, Bouck says.
“[In] the military, the U.S. mindset is to take care of their people, so give them the tools they need to ‘return with honor,’” which is SERE’s mission, he adds.
SERE instructor training is formidable.
Survival expert Charlie Bouck (second from right), leads participants on a nature workshop. COURTESY PHOTO
Candidates spend seven-and-a-half weeks in basic military operations, followed by 15 days demonstrating physical and mental fitness, time management, public speaking ability, and more. Next, they spend five-and-a-half months at Fairchild training in adverse environments — forest, desert, coastal, tropical, open ocean — plus wilderness first aid, evacuation and personnel recovery, hand-to-hand combat, parachuting, arctic survival, and other essentials.
Out of thousands of potential SERE candidates the year Bouck applied in 1996, only 30 were accepted to the Fairchild program, he says. Of the 19 graduates, only 15 became certified instructors. Bouck was one of them.
“It was very high attrition, but there was no ‘quit’ in me,” he says.
While he’s been retired from the Air Force since 2016, Bouck’s recent library series came about because of patron interest in the subject, paired with an aptly timed sighting by someone on staff of his vehicle with its distinct white-on-black logo.
The Spokane County Library District has gotten many requests for self-sufficiency programs, community librarian Corinne Wilson says.
“The wonderful thing about what Charlie teaches is that survival skills can be useful when spending time out in nature — as Spokane citizens love to do — when a disaster of any sort happens, or just when you want to take pride in being empowered to take care of yourself.”
Yet while Bouck can teach you snow shelter construction in 50 mph winds and minus-30-degree arctic weather, his focus since retiring from the Air Force in 2016 has been a different kind of survival.
Veterans Affairs diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder, numerous esophageal and digestive issues, and put him on 12 medications. Bouck describes the first few years following his retirement as dangerously low for him.
“I missed the life purpose,” says Bouck, who refused to let his declining health make him a victim.
Instead, he learned to weld, wanting to learn a trade and be able to “clock out” from the job like a normal person.
His health issues persisted, however, so Bouck became a nighttime security guard for Whitworth University, where a coworker nurtured his interest in nature and naturopathy. It resonated with Bouck, whose childhood was spent in the Colorado and South Dakota wilderness.
“Sometimes I would skip school, just go hiking by myself,” he says. “I’m very introverted, so that was like my peace, my relaxation, my recharge. And that kind of planted the seed.”
In 2019, Bouck enrolled in American College of Healthcare Sciences’ accredited online program and earned a bachelor’s degree in integrative health sciences. Similarly rigorous as SERE training, his classes included biology, chemistry, botany, environmental science, integrative physiology as well as quantitative reasoning, psychology, sociology and applied ethics.
While specializing in herbal studies, Bouck had an epiphany.
“About halfway through the schooling I thought, ‘All this evidence-backed research is fascinating. I’ve taken myself off medications. I’m helping people,’” he recalls, adding that it seemed only natural to start a business helping others.
“Western medicine has its place,” adds Bouck, who believes many ailments can be treated naturally through such things as lifestyle changes, a good diet, as well as prayer or meditation.
“I found my joy in life is helping people feel better, be more secure, and just be able to thrive in any environment, any situation.” n
Learn more about Herbal Expeditions at herbalexpeditions.net and visit scld.org for upcoming wilderness and urban survival dates and locations.
Good, Clean Fun
New shop the Plucky Duck offers an educational soapmaking experience at its storefront near Kendall Yards
BY CARRIE SHRIVER
While the delicious scent of brown sugar bundt cake may be tempting, you should really follow the advice of a cute duck painting on the wall and “don’t eat the soap” when you visit The Plucky Duck.
And there are numerous tantalizing scents inviting you in for a closer sniff at the new soap shop on the border of Spokane’s Kendall Yards and West Central neighborhoods, where you can buy premade soap — and a variety of other items — or make your own in a handson workshop.
Before The Plucky Duck opened in May of this year, its home inside the Pelican Building at the corner of College Avenue and Cedar Street was an empty space with great potential — including a kitchen space — in the eyes of shop owner Cristina Aranda.
When she and her family moved to Spokane last August, Aranda decided on a career change. Philanthropy was her first choice, but after learning about the many hurdles to starting a nonprofit, she decided to start her own business with the hope it would also lead to opportunities to give back.
“I wanted to bring something educational and experiential to Spokane,” Aranda says. “After taking two weeks to brainstorm, I came up with the soapmaking workshops.”
The idea bubbled up from Aranda’s years working as a librarian and library program director in Utah. In that role, she learned about the many topics and skills a
library can offer its patrons, including soapmaking.
“Am I a soap-er? No,” she says. “Am I a librarian that knows how to teach soapmaking? Yes.”
The Plucky Duck sells its own line of small-batch soaps, but customers can also spend up to 90 minutes crafting their own customized 4-ounce bar in a hands-on process ($20/person) that includes a surprising amount of choices.
The first challenge is picking a soap mold from among 50 available shapes such as dragonflies, train cars, tulips, paw prints, cubes and little robots.
The next decision is to settle on a scent. Options include blueberry vanilla, dark musk, rosemary, watermelon lemonade and root beer from among 50 aromas. Then choose a color from over 100 mica-based pigments with names like ancient copper, lilac, forest green, red gold, or light sky blue. You can even mix colors to create your own unique hue.
The final choice is add-ins like coffee beans, groundup apricot seeds for exfoliation, eucalyptus leaves, or pretty decorative stones in pink or blue.
Once you’ve mixed everything together and poured your specialized mixture into a mold, the soap sits until it begins gelling, about 10 minutes. Then it goes into a fridge to finish setting for another 10 to 15 minutes. When it’s done, you can add another color with a paintbrush to make the bar’s details pop.
While you’re waiting for your creation to harden,
the Plucky Duck offers a variety of activities to occupy yourself, including shopping. The shop’s retail soaps with a shea butter base come in many different scents and colors and shapes. Aranda also offers a section of hypoallergenic soaps.
There’s also a refill station in the store with products like cleaning vinegar, dish soap and degreaser. During a vacation to Portland, Aranda and her family discovered a similar store dedicated to zero-waste goods that sold every kind of home cleaning product from shampoo to carpet cleaner.
“I was just inspired,” Aranda says. “It goes hand-inhand with soap.”
The plant-based cleaners sold at the store are all hypoallergenic, unscented and without dyes. Customers can add scents, too, to make everything from their kitchen counter to their laundry smell like roses or another favorite fragrance.
Aranda also offers a small thrift section stocking items like tiny duck earrings, stationery, soap dishes, baskets, crockery and vases. She also has a plush animal “adoption center,” and donates the sales proceeds from them toward different charities. If you prefer to do something more creative while waiting, add your artistic touch to a community dollhouse or flex your competitive muscles in a quick game of Uno or Bananagrams
While the shop runs a regular soap-making class schedule, private parties and group reservations are also offered for all ages.
“I see that Spokane has such good people [who] have a good sense of community. I see that families love to do activities together, they like to get their kids together,” Aranda says. “I would like The Plucky Duck to be that third place, a kind of gathering place where book clubs can meet up, where little kids’ soccer team, after a big win they can come celebrate and have a treat. It’s low stakes, but positive bonds can build.” n
The Plucky Duck • 707 N. Cedar St., Suite 4 • Open Wed-Thu 10 am-5 pm; Fri-Sat 10 am-7 pm (times vary for private reservations) • thepluckyduck.net • 385-323-0830
Cristina Aranda opened her soap-making shop and retail space in May. LESLIE DOUGLAS PHOTOS
The Plucky Duck offers regular soap making classes.
THE WICCAN WAY
Through its compelling characters, supernatural TV series Charmed showcases that good will always prevail against evil
BY COLTON RASANEN
The entire first season of Charmed existed before I was even born, and it finished airing as I was learning how to add and subtract. Yet, I’ve still been infatuated with the witchy TV series for as long as I can remember.
For those out of the loop, Charmed is an eightseason supernatural drama that ran from 1998 to 2006, following the lives of the Halliwell sisters, a trio of witches known as the Charmed Ones who are prophesied to be the greatest force of good to ever live. Like similar paranormal shows — Supernatural, Lost Girl, Grimm — the sisters fight a new baddie in each episode, which generally leads to season finale clashes with increasingly powerful forces of evil. Unlike those shows though, Charmed at its core isn’t about fighting the forces of evil, but championing the goodness of love in all of its mundane and magical forms.
As I come off my sixth re-watch of the series, (that’s more than 800 hours), I’ve realized that it’s become a comfort in some of my hardest times. Between its fully fleshed-out characters and interesting villains, seasons consisting of 20 or more hourlong episodes, and behind-the-scenes drama that encapsulates early 2000s pop culture, Charmed is like a long, warm hug to me. Honestly, I think it’s the best TV show ever made. (The 2018 reboot, with all of its innovative and unique additions, doesn’t hold a candle to the original.)
Charmed finds strength as a series in its characters. Rather than a group of one-dimensional witches focused solely on the craft, creator Constance M. Burge gives each of the sisters their own hopes and dreams beyond their duties as the Charmed Ones.
The oldest sister is Prue (Shannen Doherty), who has the power of telekinesis. She’s regarded as the strongest and is rigid in that eldest sibling kind of way (there’s an entire episode where her sisters try to get Prue to say “I love you” to them). When we meet her she’s an arts appraiser at the Buckland Auction House, but as she realizes she wants to create art herself, she
takes a job as a photographer at a magazine.
Then there’s Piper (Holly Marie Combs), the middle sister with the power to freeze time. In the beginning she’s working as a restaurant manager, but right when Season 2 starts, she opens her own nightclub, P3. Though it’s an indication of Piper’s character growth, it’s also a clever way to add killer musical acts such as The Cranberries, Dishwalla, Goo Goo Dolls and Dave Navarro, to name a few, to the show.
Phoebe (Alyssa Milano) is the youngest sister and the most rebellious. She’s often fighting with Prue over the past. However, Phoebe’s power of premonition and later, her skills as an empath, quickly adds a level of maturity to her character. By the final few seasons, Phoebe is the premiere advice columnist in all of San Francisco.
After Prue abruptly and unceremoniously dies in the Season 3 finale — in 2023, Doherty finally confirmed that she left the show due to drama between her and Milano on set — we meet the fourth Halliwell sister, Paige Matthews (Rose McGowan). Paige is their half-sister on their mom’s side, and she inherits Prue’s power of telekinesis. Her addition effectively changes the sisters’ dynamic, which makes the show feel refreshed as it enters its fourth season.
Beyond the main characters, their love interests are often compelling additions to the story. We meet Leo (Brian Krause), the Charmed Ones’ whitelighter, or guardian angel, early on in the series. While posing as the sisters’ handyman, he and Piper begin to fall for each other. Phoebe’s first love interest, Cole Turner (Julian McMahon), turns out to be a half-demon who wants to turn her evil. He sticks around far longer than he should, but he’s just a joy to hate.
And unlike some shows that absolutely fumble at the end (looking at you, Game of Thrones), the show’s final season wraps everything up in this perfect little bow. Piper and Leo grow old together, Phoebe literally falls in love with love (his name is Coop and he’s a cupid), and Paige finds her own destiny somewhere between her calling as a witch and a whitelighter. n
THE BUZZ BIN
ON THE BOOKS
Each year, the Washington Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book, recognizes a cohort of writers who published outstanding works during the prior year. Now in its 59th year, the Washington State Book Awards recently announced its list of 2025 award finalists, with winners in each of seven categories set to be announced on Sept. 16. Among those authors in the running is Spokane’s own Lora Senf. Her 2024 book The Loneliest Place is among six finalists in the Books for Young Readers category. The Loneliest Place is the final installment of Senf’s Blight Harbor trilogy for middle-grade readers, which follows protagonist Evie as she navigates a paranormal world of ghosts, witches and other supernatural beings. Senf was also a finalist last year for The Nighthouse Keeper, the second Blight Harbor book. Learn more at washingtoncenterforthebook.org and watch for Senf’s next book, Pennies, a Blight Harbor prequel coming in late September. (CHEY SCOTT)
CASH FOR CREATIVES
In 2018, the Chewelah Center for the Arts opened, boasting three resident theater companies: StageTime Theatre School, Center Stage Productions and Nothing to Lose Productions. While the center’s space, which is also used by local nonprofits, is usually packed with audiences, the old building’s layout means it often feels overcrowded. That’s why Chewelah Performing and Cultural Arts (PACA) has launched the Next Stage Capital Campaign, which aims to raise $500,000 by June 2026 to fund the theater’s expansion. Plans include a new entrance and lobby with a box office and concessions, an elevated seating area to increase capacity by up to 200 people, and expanded dressing rooms and restroom space for performers. “The Chewelah Center for the Arts has experienced incredible growth and community support since our opening,” PACA Board President Sharon Ludwig says. “This campaign will allow us to dream bigger, serve more, and solidify our role as a cultural cornerstone.” Visit chewelahcenterforthearts.com to give to the center’s capital campaign. (COLTON RASANEN)
THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST
Noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online on Aug. 29.
ZACH TOP, AIN’T IN IT FOR MY HEALTH
Boasting a throwback sound that goes down oh so smooth, the rapidly rising country star from Sunnyside claims the crown as Washington state’s country king with the release of his sophomore LP.
BLOOD ORANGE, ESSEX HONEY
Alternative R&B maestro Dev Hynes delivers another batch of smooth grooves to get blissfully lost in.
SABRINA CARPENTER, MAN’S BEST FRIEND
After finally breaking through to superstardom with 2024’s Short n’ Sweet, the tiny pop queen looks to keep the momentum going with a Jack Antonoff-produced follow-up. (SETH SOMMERFELD)
The Halliwell sisters, from left: Prue, Phoebe and Piper.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Minding the Gap
New coach Jimmy Rogers leads the Washington State Cougars for their final season in conference limbo
BY SETH SOMMERFELD
While we might not always be inclined to admit it, people crave stability. Uncertainty is the pathway to stress-ridden anxiety. Nobody likes constantly feeling like they’re in limbo.
Just ask any Washington State football fan.
In the ever-shifting world of modern college athletics, fans across the country have been up in arms over the past few years, but few have gotten a raw deal quite like WSU. The Cougars (and the Oregon State Beavers) were essentially abandoned by their longtime Pac-12 compatriots, deemed the unworthy black sheep of the “Conference of Champions.” The Cougs had one coach choose political grandstanding about COVID vaccines over his commitment to his players (Nick Rolovich), and his replacement left for a nationally irrelevant ACC school (Jake Dickert). The results on the field haven’t been stellar either, with Wazzu’s last bowl win coming in 2018.
But the winds on the Palouse finally seem to be changing direction. The Cougars started the offseason with the splashy hire of head coach Jimmy Rogers, a proven winner at FCS South
Dakota State who amassed a 27-3 record in his two seasons at the helm, including going undefeated and winning the national title in his first year in charge. The Cougs’ conference future also finally became clear, as the Pac-12 that WSU and OSU reformed added its eighth football-playing school (Texas State), which ensures that the conference can retain its FBS status when it relaunches in the 2026 season. Things are finally starting to feel stable in Pullman once again.
For the first time in a long time, there’s hope on the horizon for Washington State football.
All that said, the 2025 season will undoubtedly be an unusual one for Wazzu. The Cougars have to get through one more year as a football independent before truly embarking on the new era of WSU athletics, and Coach Rogers faces the difficult challenge of completely rebuilding a program and imbuing it with his identity while existing in that nebulous liminal state. But the new man in town knows full well the challenge that he signed up for this gap season.
Jimmy Rogers is taking charge in Pullman. PHOTOS COURTESY WSU
“I’d say it’s unique. But my first year in all of this has been more about building relationships on the team, continuity inside of the locker room, and making sure they understand schematically the direction in which we’re going, and have one belief,” Rogers says. “Who we play — although I know it’s really important — is kind of irrelevant to me. Because I think it’s less about who you play than it is how you do things together as one. Making the process about ourselves and not outside thoughts, opinions and opponents. If you put so much emphasis on the other team, you lose the insight of what it takes to have success internally. And I think that’s where everything is won and created. It is not about what other people do, it’s about what we do together.”
A native of Chandler, Arizona, the 38-yearold Rogers first ended up at South Dakota State as a linebacker, leading the 2009 Jackrabbits to their first FCS playoff appearance as a team captain. He started coaching as a graduate assistant at SDSU in 2010 and, apart from a one-year stint as a GA at Florida Atlantic, his entire pre-WSU coaching career was spent rising up the ranks with the Jackrabbits. But Rogers knew it was time for a change for both him and his family.
“Me and my wife have had many opportunities to go to many higher-level places, and it has always been about the right fit. The community is a big part — where I want to raise my kids. And I felt like this was an overall great fit… Pullman feels like the Midwest on the West Coast,” Rogers says. “Ultimately, I’d spent more years of my life in the state of South Dakota than I had spent where I’m from. It was a great experience, but for me in the professional world, I just wanted a new challenge. I felt like I was ready for that: trying to win a championship at the highest of levels.”
Rogers’ first challenge on the job was simply to put a team together. In the era of the transfer portal and NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) deals, new coaches basically have to recruit a full roster in a couple months after taking over.
“It’s an extreme challenge, obviously. When I accepted this job, I believe there were already 41 players in the portal. And I felt like every time I was calling a current player on the team, I was being told that another player was getting in the
portal prior to me being able to reach them,” Rogers says. “And leaving a championship-caliber football team, we had many [SDSU players] wanting to come with us. And with a whole bunch of people leaving, I’d be nuts not to recruit the players I already recruited when I know that they can do it at this level.”
The former Jackrabbits who transferred to WSU to stay with Coach Rogers will be key to helping him establish his culture in Pullman. Rogers cites standouts like safeties Tucker Large, Cale Reeder and Matt Durrance, running backs Kirby Vorhees, Maxwell Woods and Angel Johnson, and cornerback Colby Humphrey as vital pieces to this new WSU roster, not only because he believes that they can thrive on the field, but because they help teach their fellow new Coug players Rogers’ system since they already know the process and scheme.
It’s not a surprise that the former linebacker builds his squads around defense. Both his years as head coach for the SDSU saw his teams blow the rest of the country out of the water when it came to scoring defense, leading the country in points allowed by a wide margin. The 2024 Jackrabbits allowed just 13.9 points per game (almost 3 less than anyone else), while the title-winning 2023 squad allowed a completely ridiculous 9.4 ppg (the No. 2 team was at 15 ppg, and the team that allowed twice as many ppg at 18.8 was still the No. 12 ranked D). Given this defensive might, Rogers’ system is built around being rock solid in the trenches with strong D-line and O-line depth, while he also favors QBs who manage the game and don’t make mistakes.
As the season opener against Idaho on Aug. 30 nears, Rogers sees some of his stronger units being the defensive line and the wide receiver room led by Oregon State transfer Jeremiah Noga. It will certainly be a growing process as WSU faces a rather mishmash independent schedule, but the oddity of the last pre-Pac-12 reformation year allows the new man in charge to lay the foundation for the Cougs’ future.
The Cougars are ready to head out of the tunnel and get on the gridiron. Only now there’s light at the end of that proverbial tunnel. n
Brock Dieu anchors the offensive line as one of the few returning Cougars.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Building a Nest
Eastern Washington University athletic director Tim Collins strives to make the Eagles Spokane County’s college football team
BY SETH SOMMERFELD
While Spokane itself lacks Division I NCAA football, locals also don’t have to drive all the way to Pullman to catch some gridiron action.
The closest DI team remains the FCS Eastern Washington Eagles over in Cheney, but even EWU athletic director Tim Collins realizes his teams don’t always spring to the mind of Spokanites when they think of their home squads. Since taking over the job in 2023, Collins has strived to make inroads in a Spokane market that’s packed with EWU alumni, including by playing a football scrimmage at ONE Spokane Stadium in mid-August.
As the Eastern Eagles prepare to kick off another season, we caught up with Collins to discuss his goals for making the Eags Spokane County’s team. (For an extended version of our interview, visit Inlander.com.)
INLANDER: With things like the recent EWU football scrimmage at ONE Spokane Stadium and things like the Eagles basketball team playing in the 509 Classic at Spokane Arena [Dec. 17 vs. WSU], is one of the goals for the athletic department to try to connect more with the Spokane community?
COLLINS: You know what we say? People think that Cheney to Spokane is 15 miles, but Spokane to Cheney is 50 miles.
[Laughs] I haven’t heard that one.
So I think part of it is getting fans connected, but it’s a two-way street. So we’ve taken on the responsibility as being Spokane County’s team. And I know that that sounds, maybe a little bit ambitious, but what I talk about is that
with our athletics department, our real responsibility is to bring the community together to celebrate being Eags. That’s our job as an athletics department — give people an excuse to come out, to wear red, to wear the logo.
And so as Spokane County’s team, what does that look like? Well, it goes beyond fandom, and it actually gets to a deeper and a more real relationship that our university has with our region and with our county specifically. We have 50,000 alumni in Spokane County. Eighty percent of our alumni, when they graduate, they stay in the state of Washington. Half the teachers in our region come from Eastern Washington. We just graduated our first nursing cohort.
And we’re the only Division I tailgate in town and in our county, right?
The Eagles’ offense hopest to return to its high-flying ways. PHOTOS COURTESY EWU
Now that you’ve had some time in the athletic director role, what are some of your bigger picture goals for EWU athletics?
Our objectives are measured by service to student athletes, service to campus, service to community, and then driving revenue. It’s just those four things. So I kind of say it was originally like the three buckets of service, and then we really had to strengthen our revenue objectives as a department. In part, because by hitting those revenue objectives helps us three fill up those other three buckets.
So all of our work is shaped out of that, because if we get distracted beyond that, we kind of lose our way in college athletics. Really, holistically, we have been able in our first two years to really stabilize our athletics department finally coming out of COVID.
Obviously, there are a lot of challenges in higher education right now, but we’ve really been able to reaffirm our department as a NCAA Division I football-playing member of the Big Sky. And so the last two years, because of all the work that we’ve done to kind of stabilize that, now we’re really allowed to be aspirational, which is a ton of fun for an athletic director. When you have too much instability, it’s hard to be aspirational, right?
With the NIL era changing the way the NCAA operates, is there a lane for EWU to appeal more to fans who prefer something closer to that old amateur athletics model?
What I like to say is, “We’re the college athletics that everyone fell in love with.” The foundational element at Eastern still starts with a scholarship. I think the one thing where we have a strength in FCS is we have our own identity. If the Alabamas of the world go and do their own thing in football, that doesn’t really change what we do. With all the chaos, at least we know who we are and who we’re not. We’re not trying to chase some other level that keeps leaving us because of our market size or whatever. It kind of allows you to get off the hamster wheel a little bit and make some progress, because we know what we’re chasing.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I think probably the next level of aspiration is we have to start providing amenities at Roos Field that make fans in Spokane want to truck out to Cheney.
I’ll tell you one great excuse is tailgating. People love to tailgate, right? The tailgate’s undefeated, so to speak.
And last year we added the Bud Light Endzone Club, which were like cabana-style suites in the end zone. And those brought out different new fans out to Eastern. So now we’ve got to keep building on some of those fan amenities, so they’re more willing to engage and invest in Eastern Washington. n
Conversation, Camaraderie, Collaboration
Charlie Papazian’s Beer Camp
Where do craft beer die-hards go in the summer? Beer Camp, of course. Charlie Papazian is an unassuming guy who enjoys a deserved reputation as the Father of American Homebrewing. He literally wrote the book on it.
Since 2009, Papazian has been holding a casual, semi-annual summer retreat with a dozen or so handpicked representatives from the world of craft beer. Over the course of about ve days, they sample dozens of beers from across the country, discuss the art of craft brewing and compare notes.
So you might be led to believe that beer is the alpha and omega of the entire event. at’s only part of it.
“My roots go back to when I was in college and started making homebrew for the very rst time. e rst thing I noticed was that the beer quality was good enough that we enjoyed it and we laughed and we made friends,” Papazian says.
“But it wasn’t about the beer. It was about the community of people that felt a reason to come together and share unique, self-made products. It crosses the boundaries of social strata and gender and political views.”
is past July, No-Li Brewhouse’s John and Cindy Bryant joined Papazian and 10 other
SQUATCH SEZ!
After founding the American Homebrewers Association and the Great American Beer Festival along with writing 1984’s The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, Charlie Papazian went on to honor his love of baked goods by establishing National Pie Day. The annual holiday falls on January 23, Papazian’s birthday.
MAIN PUB: Everyday: 12pm-8pm
HALL: Sun-Wed: 12pm-9pm, Thurs - Sat: 12pm-10pm
small-scale brewing a cionados at a remote lighthouse in Maine to take part in the getaway that’s been lovingly and informally dubbed “Beer Camp”
One of the rst activities that Papazian led was a blind taste test of beers from the big-name breweries. e point wasn’t to dismiss them as inferior. It was a learning experience about appreciating them on their own merits.
“I joke that I’m a disciple of Charlie in the beer industry, but he’s also a mentor and a friend,” John Bryant says. ”Being there was a reward for Cindy and me, because Charlie’s been there with us through thick and thin.”
True to the spirit of Beer Camp and the passion it celebrates, Bryant brought beers from Humble Abode Brewing and Whistle Punk Brewing to share with the others. Along with No-Li’s o erings, they were the only craft beers represented from Washington and Idaho.
“It shows that there’s something special here, that Spokane matters on the beer scene,” Bryant adds. “You have to have a community, and then you’ve got to keep building that up. at becomes a movement.”
And after proudly bringing Spokane’s beers to America’s homebrewers, No-Li will bring America’s homebrewers to Spokane. In November, the Bryants will be hosting fellow Beer Camp guests Mollie and Glenn Saxon, who are active in Colorado’s homebrew scene.
Gestures like that, in Papazian’s eyes, embody the ethos of Beer Camp and craft beer in general.
“ e engagement that we have with each other is the essence of craft brewing and craft beer’s success,” Papazian says. “ e thing that all successful craft brewers have realized is that you’re more likely to succeed through collaboration and helping each other out.”
The spirit of craft brewing drives
The godfather of homebrewing Charlie Papazian and the site of his Beer Camp in Maine.
Tim Collins was all smiles at EWU’s Spokane scrimmage.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
WASHINGTON STATE COUGARS
HEAD COACH: Jimmy Rogers
LAST YEAR’S RECORD: 8-5
The Cougars are once again navigating unfamiliar waters this season. Last year’s scheduling agreement with the Mountain West is no more, and the Cougars are a true independent program along with former conference rival Oregon State. Washington State has two games on its slate against Oregon State this season, along with 10 other contests against teams from around the country.
Stability will start to return to the Palouse next season as they transition into the reformed Pac-12, though those within the program will hope to lay a foundation this year. New head coach Jimmy Rogers takes over his first job at the FBS level, having spent the past 12 years at FCS powerhouse South Dakota State. In two years as head coach for the Jackrabbits, Rogers’ teams posted a 27-3 record and won the National Championship in 2023.
Rogers isn’t the only new face in Pullman, either. The roster is loaded with transfers from both the FBS and FCS levels. It will take some time for fans to familiarize themselves with all of the new faces on the team.
COOL STAT: Transfers are ubiquitous in college football these days — there are 45 players on the WSU roster who have played college football elsewhere. On one hand, roster overhaul can lead to instability, but it can also provide an influx of college-seasoned players. The latter should be the case for the Cougars, as 16 players followed Coach Rogers from South Dakota State. The familiarity those players have with their coach should help ease the transition to their new digs. Former Jackrabbits linebackers Anthony Palano and Caleb Francl are expected to play big roles.
SCHEDULE
Aug. 30 vs. Idaho
Sept. 6 vs. San Diego State
Sept. 13 at North Texas
Sept. 20 vs. Washington (Apple Cup)
Sept. 27 at Colorado State
Oct. 11 at Mississippi
Oct. 18 at Virginia
Oct. 25 vs. Toledo
Nov. 1 at Oregon State
Nov. 15 vs. Louisiana Tech
Nov. 22 at James Madison
Nov. 29 vs. Oregon State
Tackling the Teams Taking
EASTERN WASHINGTON EAGLES
HEAD COACH: Aaron Best
LAST YEAR’S RECORD: 4-8 (3-5 Big Sky)
The once mighty Eagles are coming off threestraight losing seasons, but head coach Aaron Best is back for his ninth season in Cheney and hoping to right the ship. Graduate quarterback Jared Taylor (above) will be running the offense after playing in a reserve role last season. A dual-threat quarterback, Taylor has put up serious rushing numbers in his first two seasons as an Eagle and will now be handed the keys to the relatively unproven offense.
The defensive side of the ball is full of question marks as well. After recording just six interceptions last season, focus has been put on forcing turnovers this year. While young, freshman cornerback Landen Kahai has shown the ability to be a ball hawk in fall camp while freshman defensive tackle Clayton McCarrell has a promising future as a disruptor in the backfield.
KEY GAMES: The Big Sky conference is loaded with quality teams this season, with six ranked in the preseason Coaches’ Poll. But even before the Eagles get to take up that gauntlet, they’ll have to navigate a brutal first three weeks of the season. The season begins with Incarnate Word (ranked No. 4 in the FCS Coaches’ Poll), FBS power Boise State (ranked 25th in the AP Poll) and then a trip halfway across the country to Northern Iowa before the Eagles play their first game in Cheney. Sitting 0-3 before their home opener would be a disheartening hole in which to start the season.
SCHEDULE
Aug. 30 at Incarnate Word
Sept. 5 at Boise State
Sept. 13 at Northern Iowa
Sept. 20 vs. Western Illinois
Sept. 27 at Montana State
Oct. 4 vs. Portland State
Oct. 18 vs. Idaho
Oct. 25 at Weber State
Nov. 1 vs. Sacramento State
Nov. 8 at Montana
Nov. 15 vs. Northern Colorado
Nov. 22 at Cal Poly
IDAHO VANDALS
HEAD COACH: Thomas Ford Jr.
LAST YEAR’S RECORD: 10-4 (6-2 Big Sky) Expectations are high again in Moscow, where the Vandals enter the season ranked No. 12 in the FCS Coaches’ Poll. That’s reason for excitement, of course, but looking at the rest of the poll gives reason for some restraint. Six of the 12 teams in the Big Sky are ranked in the Top 20, with both Montana schools in the Top 10.
Head coach Thomas Ford Jr. enters year one in the top job, but he’s familiar with the Vandals after spending 2022 and 2023 on staff as UI’s special teams coordinator and running backs coach. Sixth-year senior guard Nate Azzopardi returns as a leader on the offensive side of the ball, while fellow sixth-year senior defensive tackle Zach Krotzer (above) is back to help anchor the defense.
In the final scrimmage of fall camp, the defense was the standout unit for the team. That might signal a change from the offensive-led high-scoring attack of a season ago. If both units can perform to expectations, another playoff run is on the table.
KEY GAME: The Vandals got lucky with the schedule this season, as powerhouse Montana State is not on the slate — the Bobcats ended Idaho’s season in last year’s playoffs en route to a National Championship Game appearance. The other Montana school however is still on the schedule. Coming into the year ranked seventh in the Coaches’ Poll, the Grizzlies will host the Vandals in front of their rabid fanbase at Washington-Grizzly Stadium on Sept. 27.
SCHEDULE
Aug. 30 at Washington State
Sept. 6 vs. St. Thomas
Sept. 13 vs. Utah Tech
Sept. 20 at San Jose State
Sept. 27 at Montana
Oct. 11 vs. Northern Colorado
Oct. 18 at Eastern Washington
Oct. 25 vs. Portland State
Oct. 31 at Northern Arizona
Nov. 8 vs. UC Davis
Nov. 15 at Sacramento State
Nov. 22 vs. Idaho State
stock of the Inland Northwest’s 2025 college football squads before kickoff
BY WILL MAUPIN
WHITWORTH PIRATES
HEAD COACH: Rod Sandberg
LAST YEAR’S RECORD: 10-2 (6-1 NWC) Head coach Rod Sandberg’s Pirates have been a consistent NCAA DIII power in the Northwest Conference since taking over in 2014. Whitworth has won 10 games in each of the past two seasons and made it into the second round of the playoffs both times.
After a pair of seasons with veteran-laden rosters, younger players will be asked to step up to fill the void this fall on a team with just 16 seniors. Quarterback Logan Lacio won the starting job despite amassing just 47 passing attempts in his first two seasons. While there is a lot to prove on the offensive end, the running back room is an exception. Senior running back Luis Salgado (above) — who rushed for a jaw-dropping 365 yards in a single game last season — leads the ground game and has been named 1st Team All-NWC the past two seasons. Salgado and company will need to maintain their production to take pressure off the aerial attack.
COOL STAT: Whitworth has found success on the gridiron over the years, but the program has never operated at the level it is on now. The past two seasons marked the first consecutive 10-win campaigns in program history as well as the first back-to-back seasons with a playoff appearance.
SCHEDULE
Sept. 6 vs. Gustavus Adolphus
Sept. 13 at Eastern Oregon
Sept. 20 vs. Redlands
Oct. 4 at Pacific (Oregon)
Oct. 11 vs. George Fox
Oct. 18 at Linfield
Oct. 25 at Lewis & Clark
Nov. 1 vs. Pacific Lutheran
Nov. 8 at Willamette
Nov. 15 vs. Puget Sound
WR Joshua Meredith
COLLEGE FOOTBALL Your 2025 Northwest College Football
Roadtrip
UW vs Oregon Nov 29 Seattle
Portland State vs Sac State Nov 8 Portland
Oregon State vs WSU Nov 1 Corvallis
EWU vs Idaho Oct 18 Cheney
Follow this plan to experience some of the best football the region has to offer
Whitworth vs Puget Sound Nov 15 Spokane
While the NFL might rule the sporting landscape, the atmosphere of attending college football games tends to blow it out of the water. With that in mind, we sketched out an itinerary for each week of the season that would allow football fans who love traveling to hit a diverse array of Northwest college football hot spots.
BY SETH SOMMERFELD
Oregon vs Indiana Oct 11 Eugene
AUG. 30
WASHINGTON STATE VS. IDAHO
Two brand new head coaches — WSU’s Jimmy Rogers and UI’s Thomas Ford Jr. — square off in this border war matchup in Pullman where both teams will likely still be working out kinks in their new systems.
WSU vs UW Sept 20 Pullman
WSU vs Idaho Aug 30 Pullman
Idaho vs Portland State Oct 25 Moscow
Montana vs Montana State Nov 22 Missoula
SEPT. 6
Boise St vs App State Sept 27 Boise
MONTANA STATE VS. SOUTH DAKOTA STATE
This gargantuan early season matchup between Bobcats and Jackrabbits (preseason ranked No. 2 and No. 3 respectively) might end up with huge implications when it comes to seeding the FCS Playoffs. Besides, getting to a game in Bozeman before the winter arrives is advisable (unless you’re also a roadtripping ski bum).
Montana State vs SDSU Sept 6 Bozeman
Idaho State vs Montana
Oct 4 Pocatello
SEPT. 20
WASHINGTON STATE VS. WASHINGTON
If I need to explain to you why the Apple Cup is a big deal, then you probably aren’t making these road trips anyway.
SEPT. 27
BOISE STATE VS. APPALACHIAN STATE
While Ashton Jeanty may be gone, the Broncos are still ranked in the preseason polls and any college football die-hard worth their salt needs to make a pilgrimage to see Boise State’s blue field (aka the “Smurf Turf”). Since Boise’s only marquee game of the year is on the road the following week (Oct. 4 at Notre Dame), this tune-up showdown with App State will do.
OCT. 4
IDAHO STATE VS. MONTANA
Only true college football sickos would take the longest drive on this list to get to Pocatello, but Idaho State was picked in the preseason poll to be middle of the pack in the Big Sky this year (as opposed to its usual doormat status). If they could pull off a huge upset against the perennial powerhouse that is UM, there’d be pandemonium in Pocatello.
OCT. 11
OREGON VS. INDIANA
Autzen Stadium continually gets ranked as one of the loudest college football venues in the country, with the noise serving as wind beneath the Ducks wings. After last season saw Indiana make a shocking College Football Playoff appearance, the fans in Eugene are sure to bring the fury in support of their preseason No. 7 UO squad.
OCT. 18
EASTERN WASHINGTON VS. IDAHO
The battle to be the best FCS team in the Inland Northwest takes place on Roos’ blood-red field in Cheney this year. After Vandals claimed supremacy in recent years, Coach Aaron Best hopes to get the Eags soaring once again.
OCT. 25
IDAHO VS. PORTLAND STATE
While it might not have the aura of some of the other stadiums on this list, Idaho’s Kibbie Dome has something that none of the rest can offer — a roof. With the Vandals expected to be FCS playoff contenders once again, you can be part of the echoes of rocking sound in a comfy climate-controlled environment.
NOV. 1
OREGON STATE VS. WASHINGTON STATE
The two schools that have kept the Pac-12 alive actually square off twice this regular season (an extremely rare occurrence in DI). It will be interesting to see how much each team approaches this game in Corvallis considering the rematch comes just three weeks later in Pullman.
NOV. 8
PORTLAND STATE VS. SACRAMENTO STATE
Yes, Portland has a DI college football team! (Seems weird, right?) While the Vikings are almost never in the mix in the Big Sky, even if this game is a dud you could still use the trip as an excuse to chow down at Portland eateries.
NOV. 15
WHITWORTH VS. PUGET SOUND
If you’re looking for a simpler, more relaxed (but still energetic) college football viewing experience (and don’t feel like leaving Spokane), might I recommend catching a game in the cozy confines of Whitworth’s Pine Bowl. If the Pirates play on the elite DIII level that they have the past two seasons, a win in this Senior Day showdown with Puget Sound might be necessary to make the postseason.
NOV. 22
MONTANA VS. MONTANA STATE
With all due respect to the Apple Cup (UW-WSU) and the erstwhile Civil War (UO-OSU), by far the fiercest and most hate-fueled gridiron rivalry in the region is the Brawl of the Wild. If you’ve never seen these perennial FCS contenders square off in person, make it a point to travel to Missoula’s wonderful Washington-Grizzly Stadium to see the Griz and Cats claw it out.
NOV. 29
WASHINGTON VS. OREGON
It’s still bizarre that this is now a Big 10 matchup, but this showdown in Seattle remains appointment viewing for both Husky and Duck fans. Most likely this game will feature UW trying to spoil their southern neighbor’s playoff hopes. n
FESTIVAL
Rollin’ in Flavor
Pig Out in the Park returns to Riverfront Park for its 44th year, with over 65 food booths, free live music and more
BY DORA SCOTT AND ELLIS BENSON
In Pig Out in the Park’s 44 years, organizers estimate the annual five-day food and free music festival at Riverfront Park has drawn more than 3.9 million grumbling stomachs from near and far. This year, the event takes over the park from Thursday, Aug. 28, to Monday, Sept. 1, operating from 11 am to 10 pm daily. There, foodies can have their pick from over 250 menu items from fair food favorites to international dishes that are harder to come by. There are vendors who’ve been rolling up for years and years, but also businesses new to the scene looking to test their mettle during Spokane’s largest food event.
While you munch, mosey on over to the adult beverage gardens or to one of the four stages throughout the park hosting live music. Feast your eyes on the products at 45 public market booths, featuring all sorts of trinkets, goodies and services.
Come hungry, leave some extra notches in your belt buckle… and pig out!
AFRICAN CUISINE
For a taste of authentic Ghanaian cuisine, note African Cuisine for your Pig Out checklist this year. Owner Dorcas Awuah, who’s originally from Ghana but has lived in Spokane for 15 years, started as a chef at Feast World Kitchen, which gives refugee and immigrant chefs a space to learn career skills and host their own pop-up menu.
“Kind of like the pioneers with Feast World Kitchen and then we’ve graduated into hosting our own food booth,” Awuah says. “And then we started with Pig Out last year.”
African Cuisine’s Pig Out menu includes jollof rice ($15), a staple Western African one-pot rice dish cooked in a spicy tomato-based sauce. There’s also waakye ($15), flavorful rice and beans boiled with millet leaves that originated from northern Ghana.
Indulge in Ghanaian street food, too, like the kelewele ($6), a spicy and sweet dish of carmelized fried plantains. For more savory options, get the kyinkyinga
($7.50), spicy meat skewers, or the meat pie ($6). Wash it all down with a glass of AJ ginger drink ($5), a sparkling apple cider mixed with ginger and spices.
“We’re hoping for a similar turnout,” Awuah says about this year’s event. “We want people in Spokane to kind of try our food, too. There are different kinds of flavors around the world, and we want them to have a taste of it.”
(DORA SCOTT)
AZAR’S
Nothing says Pig Out in the Park like Azar’s. While the local restaurant family doesn’t operate their flagship Greek spot anymore, owner Karim Azar has been participating since Pit Out began back in 1981. This year, Azar’s is serving up gyro sandwiches ($14), hummus and falafel ($14), Greek salad ($11/plain; $17/meat), and baklava ($5).
In addition to the original Azar’s booth, there are four other stalls run by his son, Joey Azar. These include Azar’s $5 Fair Food, Azar’s Deep Fried Haven, Azar’s Fresh Pressed and Azar’s Street Thai.
Karim Azar has a great appreciation for Pig Out. He especially loves the event’s free music, food diversity and the fact that Pig Out doesn’t have an entrance fee.
“It’s fun for the whole family,” he says.
(ELLIS BENSON)
Prepare to feast! YOUNG KWAK PHOTO
BIBBY’S ITALIAN SAUSAGE
Years before Sarah Bibby and her husband, Josh, started operating their food booth, they’d come out to Pig Out in the Park each year as patrons.
“We went there every year, and we always got the New York-style Italian sausage,” Bibby says. “We always got exactly what we sell now.”
Inspired by their favorite Pig Out vendor, the couple started Bibby’s Italian Sausage in 2012 and has participated in Pig Out since 2014, dishing out their popular New York-style Italian sausage sandwiches ($15), garlic fries ($9), made with shoestring French fries and topped with a homemade seasoning and freshly minced garlic, chicken strips and fries ($14), plus frozen lemonade ($8) in flavors like huckleberry and strawberry.
“The sausage is definitely our main jam,” Bibby says. “Our logo is ‘Spokane’s Favorite Sausage.’ We go through thousands of pounds of sausage every year.”
The couple worked in the restaurant industry for years before they started Bibby’s Italian Sausage, including setting up and serving food at all sorts of local events.
“We were looking for something else, and we kind of fell into the food vendor community and they just really embraced us,” Bibby says. “It’s a really close knit community. Everybody is friendly and helpful.” (DS)
ELLE’S HUCKLEBERRY
Elle Porter has been slinging huckleberry sweets from her family’s local food booth under Larchwood Farms for as long as she can remember. For the past 11 years, Porter and her husband have carried the torch, rebranding the venture as Elle’s Huckleberry and selling sundaes, shakes and ice cream.
At this year’s Pig Out, look for the purple tents to guide your sweet tooth. Get one of the sundaes ($12), with four signature flavors like the Purple Moose that incorporates huckleberry, vanilla and chocolate ice cream, the Porter’s “huck-medley” sauce, plus chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Or, slurp up a huckleberry shake ($10) that uses huckleberry ice cream and a special huckleberry shake sauce. For something a little more simple, but equally delicious, order a cup of huckleberry ice cream ($8) or the kiddie cup ($4) for smaller appetites.
“I just love the customers down there,” Porter says about Pig Out. “We always feel like they’re the happiest, just easy going, and all the music is amazing.” (DS)
MAKIEL’S LOBSTER ROLLS
To get your seafood fix, head to Makiel’s Lobster Rolls. There, owner Makiel Duncan is serving up lobster and shrimp rolls, plus clam and crab chowder (Prices were unavailable as of press deadline). Duncan has been in the restaurant industry for years, but finally decided to open up his own food truck in April 2024, just in time to experience Pig Out last year.
“I was extremely excited,” he says. “Just being from Spokane, Pig Out is such a big deal. Everybody goes to Pig Out.”
Makiel’s seafood is regionally sourced and generously stuffed into fresh rolls. Duncan suggests the crab chowder, a personal favorite with a spicy kick from the poblano peppers. Wash it down with a cold glass of lemonade.
PIG OUT IN
THE PARK 2025
Thu, Aug. 28-Mon, Sept. 1 from 11 am-10 pm daily Free admission Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. More info: pigoutinthepark.com
In April this year, Duncan opened a brick and mortar spot in downtown Spokane at 115 N. Washington St. under the same name — great news for those who can’t get enough of buttery lobster favorites.
“I like to be a part of the city and what’s going on,” Duncan says. “That’s my most proud moment is just being able to be a part of it and have everybody see that we’re doing something positive.” (DS)
SKEWERS
Although Skewers is a relatively new addition to Pig Out, its menu and prices are more than on par with other longtime vendors. Owner Mirak Kazanjian tries to keep his prices as low as he can, with dishes ranging from $6-$14.
This marks Skewers second year at the event, serving chicken shawarma wraps ($14) and rice bowls ($14), falafel wraps ($14) and samplers ($6) and baklava ($7). Kazanjian says participating in Pig Out is great marketing for Skewers, his restaurant in downtown Spokane. While there’s much to enjoy about being a vendor at the event, Kazanjian enjoys the community it fosters.
“I enjoy the camaraderie among the vendors,” he says. “Some of them I knew from other events and some I met for the first time, but it was really cool to be a part of that community.”
For those interested in trying some of Skewer’s selection, Kazanjian recommends the chicken shawarma wrap. It’s substantially portioned, featuring chicken shawarma, garlic sauce, sesame sauce, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, and Armenian flatbread. “Our shawarma wraps are great — so good,” he says. (EB) n
TASTY TUNES
Along with delicious food, Pig Out also features tons of local musicians across the festival’s four stages in Riverfront Park. Here are some acts you can enjoy while stuffing your face with your favorite Pig Out treat.
AUGUST TO AUGUST
Jayson Orth, performing under the name August to August, is a master of ambience. This one-man band is for the folks looking to exchange rowdiness and loudness for the soothing sounds of synths and chill drum beats. Mon, Sept. 1 at 2:15 pm, Sculpture Garden Stage
JUSTYN PRIEST
When JP is on the bill, you’d better show up. One of Spokane’s best rock guitarists, Priest is often backed by a band of close friends who make his energetic set that much more enjoyable with tangible camaraderie emanating from the stage. Get ready to rock and also roll with Justyn Priest. Sat, Aug. 30 at 6 pm, Lilac Bowl Stage
MASTERCLASS BIG BAND
This group, composed of student musicians and local music professionals, offers a break from Pig Out’s typical rockin’ offerings with its jazzy sound and feel-good vibes. Though there will likely be almost 20 musicians on stage, they mesh so well that it feels like they’re playing as one. Fri, Aug. 29 at 12:15 pm, Clocktower Stage
MICAH CLAY LÜBBEN
One half of Spokane’s beloved hardcore band, Spøøky, Lübben’s solo music couldn’t be further from that of his band’s. With an acoustic guitar in hand, he sends out folky vibes and hard-hitting lyrics each time he takes the stage by himself. Mon, Sept. 1 at 4:15, Sculpture Garden Stage
SNACKS AT MIDNIGHT
The 2025 winner in our Best Of the Inland Northwest Readers Poll for “Best Band, Mostly Originals” Snacks at Midnight is a scene staple full of loud music and energy galore. Any Snacks show is sure to be a good time with lead singer and hypeman Rory Babin running around the crowd making sure everyone is rocking out. Sun, Aug. 31 at 6 pm, Lilac Bowl Stage
NOTHING SHAMEFUL
Coming in at second place in the “Best Band, Mostly Originals,” Nothing Shameful will throw you right back to the Warped Tour days with their nostalgic emo sound. Sat, Aug. 30 at 4 pm, Lilac Bowl Stage
SYDNEY DALE
The Spokane scene needs more female-fronted acts, and Sydney Dale always delivers when she’s on stage. With a powerful voice and the ability to make every song her own, you won’t want to miss her voice swirling in the beautiful late summer air. Fri, Aug. 29 at 4:15 pm, Sculpture Garden Stage
TONE LOC
One of this year’s guest headliners, and known for his 1989 hit single “Wild Thing,” you probably also recognize Tone Loc as police Sgt. Emilio in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Since the peak of his career, Tone Loc has taken up voice acting and other odd jobs to keep him busy, but nothing beats performing to a crowd of people screaming the lyrics of your ’80s anthem back to you. Fri, Aug. 29 at 6 pm and 8 pm, Lilac Bowl Stage
T.S THE SOLUTION
Local hip hop artist and sound engineer Devonte Pearson is a delight on stage. Having just recently released a song with local scene stalwart Blake Braley, Pearson is a master of vibe curation, seemingly able to control a crowd with just a sway of his body. Get on the T.S The Solution train, you won’t be sorry. Fri, Aug. 29 at 7 pm, Lilac Bowl Stage — MADISON PEARSON
Snacks at Midnight. BABIN MEDIA PHOTO
ALSO OPENING
JAWS
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water… the original blockbuster returns to theaters for its 50th anniversary to make new generations afraid of sharks. Rated PG
RUN
A girl’s trip to a remote cabin takes a deadly turn when aliens invade earth and start hunting humans. Not rated
THE TOXIC AVENGER
A reboot of the 1984 Troma black comedy superhero cult classic, the story follows a janitor (Peter Dinklage) who gets mutated by a freak accident and becomes a violent vigilante against corrupt corporations, leading to buckets upon buckets of splatter gore.
CHEAP THRILLS
Darren Aronofsky takes an artistic detour with the fast-paced crime drama Caught Stealing
BY JOSH BELL
Darren Aronofsky is not a filmmaker associated with light entertainment, so it’s a bit surprising to see him behind the throwback caper Caught Stealing. Set in 1998, it resembles the post-Pulp Fiction crime movies of that era, with a cast of oddball characters all caught up in a violent, sometimes confusing scheme. The first half has the zippy, quippy feel of early Guy Ritchie movies, but Aronofsky and screenwriter Charlie Huston (who also wrote the source novel) eventually bring things down, with some serious, deadly consequences that take the air out of the humor.
Still, there’s enough liveliness to keep the momentum going, along with plenty of fun performances, led by Austin Butler as aimless New York City bartender Hank Thompson. Hank’s troubles begin when his English punk rocker neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) enlists Hank to take care of his cat while he’s visiting his sick father. The cat is a biter, but that’s nothing compared to the Russian mobster thugs who show up looking for Russ and settle for brutally beating Hank instead.
Russ is in possession of an all-important MacGuffin at the center of complex dealings involving those volatile Russians, a suave Puerto Rican named Colorado (Bad Bunny), a pair of ruthless, menacing Orthodox Jewish brothers (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio), and a suspiciously helpful police detective named Roman (Regina King), who seems to always show up after Hank encounters danger.
Hank is in over his head from the moment that Russ
leaves him with the cat, and people like his paramedic girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz) and his aging biker boss Paul (Griffin Dunne) can only offer so much assistance. Aronofsky never turns Hank into an action hero, instead making him believably resourceful but just as believably outmatched, and Butler conveys his fear and desperation along with his unwavering determination.
Butler and Kravitz have great chemistry as a couple, and Schreiber and D’Onofrio suggest a whole unseen world to the bickering brothers’ criminal operation and family dynamic, which makes Caught Stealing feel like a lived-in portrait of New York City at a particular time, rather than just a parade of exaggerated goofballs. King is stuck playing things mostly straight, although she gets one great speech explaining Roman’s conflicted motivations. Only Smith fails to bring anything more than sitcom stereotypes to his one-note character, but Russ still serves his overarching purpose.
Caught Stealing
Rated R
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Starring Austin Butler, Regina King
nowhere near as harrowing as acclaimed Aronofsky films like Black Swan or Requiem for a Dream Periodic flashbacks illuminate Hank’s tragic backstory as a one-time hot prospect for the Major League Baseball Draft who endured a career-ending injury and lost a friend in a car accident. His PTSD from that incident informs some of his later decisions, but the character development is fairly rote, and Caught Stealing is so focused on plot mechanics that there isn’t much time to care about Hank’s inner turmoil. It’s a long way from the existential dread of Aronofsky’s polarizing but bracing takes on the meaning of life in Mother! or Noah. When the narrative energy flags, then, Caught Stealing doesn’t have much else to hold onto, but thankfully Aronofsky keeps up the pace for nearly the entire runtime.
One character’s unfortunate exit a little before the halfway point drains a lot of the fun from the story, and Caught Stealing never quite recovers from that misstep. Butler holds things together even as the other characters come and go, though, playing Hank as a fundamentally decent guy who finds himself in increasingly impossible scenarios, where the right thing to do is unclear. That leads him to some pretty dark places, which is where Aronofsky typically thrives, although Caught Stealing is
There’s a bit of jittery anxiety reminiscent of Uncut Gems or Anora, but Caught Stealing is more propulsive than gritty, with a B-movie vibe that recalls unpretentious thrillers like David Koepp’s underrated Premium Rush. Aronofsky isn’t pausing to ponder the meaning of Hank’s predicament, and he isn’t delving deeply into his protagonist’s psyche. He’s just moving confidently from one precarious situation to the next, with little time for the characters or the audience to breathe. In that way, Caught Stealing is entertaining to watch from moment to moment, but it’s also one thing previous Aronofsky films have never been: forgettable. n
Austin Butler does the most with one of Aronofsky’s lighter films.
Every Rose Has Its Thorns
The Roses leaves Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch at the altar of a tragically uninspired remake
BY CHASE HUTCHINSON
If there was one mantra to best sum up far too much of the state of modern movies, it would be this: The remakes will continue until morale improves. That or the world goes up in flames, whichever comes first.
Though it certainly won’t be the last, the latest remake to fail to hold a candle to its predecessor — the tepid The Roses — is one of the most perplexing. A slight, sporadically amusing film that begins fine enough before the spark of its strong leading duo (Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch) gets smothered in a dull, overly broad one-note comedy of errors. It’s more forced than it ever is incisive fun. Where Danny DeVito’s 1989 film The War of the Roses united the darkly delightful pairing of Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas and was shot like a horror film to capture a crumbling marriage for the ages, Bombshell director Jay Roach’s retelling itself crumbles in a visually and emotionally flat rehash that never makes the most of its potential. You wish better for the cast and couple, though they really ought to call it quits.
While it too loosely follows the same broad narrative strokes of Warren Adler’s novel The War of the Roses novel by taking us into the
troubled marriage of Ivy (Colman) and Theo (Cumberbatch), The Roses is profoundly lacking in the confidence to do it justice. In a script by Tony McNamara, who previously wrote the fantastic 2018 Colman film The Favourite, the story is brought into modern day yet loses anything resembling real bite. Following a crisis partly of his own creation, Theo’s career as an architect is now in a precarious position just as Ivy’s initially small restaurant becomes a breakout hit during a storm. Thus, the two switch roles in their relationship, leading to a growing bitterness as Theo becomes jealous of his wife’s success while Ivy resents him for growing closer to her two children as she focuses on work.
As playfully dark jokes the two originally shared become more genuinely hurtful barbs over the years, The Roses soon settles into a repetitive rut that it can’t claw its way out of. For a film about the ways a couple can lose the passion they had for each other, it ironically soon falls into a painfully safe routine of its own making. The two get into disagreements, bicker with each other, attempt to make up, fail to authentically do so, and then carry on. The film pulls its punches when it needs to swing through with conviction.
It ends up playing more like a remake of Mr. Mom than it ever does The War of the Roses, exposing how fully the process of adapting the material cuts away any of the story’s thornier aspects. Where Turner and Douglas managed to bring down the house (literally and figuratively) on a comedic level while still giving compelling dramatic performances, Colman and Cumberbatch are only able to do so much with material that traps them in a cycle of just playing the same notes over and over.
Above all else, the film has no character or visual identity that it can call its own. You’d never know that its cinematographer, Florian Hoffmeister, had done terrific work on films like Tár, as nearly everything here is defined by the same bland lighting and compositions (which only makes some oddly garish visual effects stand out that much more). When The Roses eventually gets to an oddly rushed conclusion that just speeds through what was the heart of the original film, the note it ends on is finally able to offer a glimpse of what could have been. Unfortunately, for both the couple and the film, it comes far too late to save things. n
Cumberbatch and Colman can’t salvage this bumpy ride.
The Roses
Rated R Directed by Jay Roach
Starring Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kate McKinnon, Andy Samberg
Starring Austin Butler & Zoë Kravitz
Made for These Times
On the Beach Boys, Pet Sounds and the enduring earnestness of Brian Wilson
BY NATHAN WEINBENDER
The 1985 documentary The Beach Boys: An American Band gives you a sense of the group’s mainstream cachet at the time.
In the first half of the film, four of the five founding Beach Boys — brothers Carl and Dennis Wilson, their cousin Mike Love and childhood friend Al Jardine — speak directly into the camera in plastic, scripted fashion, from the decks of sailboats and behind the wheels of shiny sports cars.
Brian Wilson, the band’s sonic mastermind, is interviewed in bed. He’s flat on his back, the covers pulled to his chin. At this point in the band’s story, he wasn’t touring, he wasn’t writing much new material, and he was being overprescribed medication by his manager and personal doctor. Meanwhile, the band he founded had become an in-demand touring oldies act without him, singing their biggest hits about surfing and going steady from 20 years prior.
Brian was the troubled genius whose promise had gone mostly unfulfilled, the film seems to be saying. It was Mike, Carl, Dennis and Al who had kept the brand alive.
The arc of history bent, of course, toward Brian. Just look at the eulogies when he died earlier this summer.
The popular narrative now (at least among music geeks) is that Brian was the beating heart of the Beach Boys, and the other guys — Mike Love, in particular — were actually sellouts and phonies.
It’s that sellout phony version of the Beach Boys (fronted by Love) that’s playing Northern Quest Resort and Casino this weekend. I was tempted to frame this piece around Love’s trajectory from Brian Wilson’s primary songwriting partner to one of the foremost villains of rock ’n’ roll, but that particular tune has been overplayed.
Besides, if you go to the Northern Quest show, you’re going to hear a setlist packed with some of the greatest pop songs ever written and performed by a crackerjack band, including longtime Beach Boy Bruce Johnston.
You’ll also hear “Kokomo.”
But I don’t want to talk about Mike Love. I want to talk about Brian Wilson.
The sun-and-surf image most people associate with the Beach Boys belies the turbulence churning beneath those placid waters. Their history is one of loss, addiction, obsession, litigation and cultural resurrection, and it includes an unlikely cameo from the
The Beach Boys blew up in the early ’60s, as teen pop, surf rock, and Frankie and Annette movies were sweeping the nation. The themes of their songs — high school rivalries, fast cars, first crushes, adolescent introspection and, yes, the beach — were hardly out of place on Top 40 radio. But it was their intricate five-part vocal harmonies, arranged by Brian, that made them more musically adventurous than their sweater-around-theshoulders contemporaries.
After a slew of hit songs — the best of which include “California Girls,” “I Get Around,” “Surfer Girl,” and the early masterpieces “In My Room” and “Don’t Worry, Baby” — the introverted Brian wanted to step away from touring. He was infatuated with the Beatles, who had recently retired from the road and were experimenting with recording and editing techniques no one had heard before. He wanted to do that, too.
While the band was on tour, Brian went into the studio for nearly a year. He hired session musicians, including the renowned LA group known as the Wrecking Crew, to bring the sounds bouncing around in his head to life. When he did call his fellow Beach Boys to the studio, he’d make them do take after take after take, correcting for flaws no one else could hear. But he had written all of them the best arrangements of their careers, so crystalline and perfect they make you shiver.
What resulted was the 1966 LP Pet Sounds. It’s the most significant pop album not made by the Beatles; its status in the canon is indisputable, its influence incalculable. At the time, though, it was only a modest success in the States: American listeners who just wanted fun, fun, fun were alienated by its gentle, heartbroken tone and baroque style. The Beach Boys’ catchy, hard-driving pop for screaming teens had given way to unusual structures and time signatures, painfully vulnerable lyrics and quirky sonic flourishes: plucked piano strings, bike horns, empty cans used as percussion and, true to its title, the sounds of dogs barking.
There’s a grown-up sense of dissatisfaction and alienation in the words of Pet Sounds (which Brian primarily wrote with ad jingle whiz Tony Asher), so nakedly emotional it’s like cracking open someone’s diary. Pop songs hadn’t sounded like this before and hadn’t been about these kinds of feelings. Even the album’s centerpiece, the tender ballad “God Only Knows,” opens on a note of bittersweet pessimism: “I may not always love you.” It had only been a few years, but it’s light-years away from “Let’s go surfin’ now / everybody’s learnin’ how.”
The Beach Boys would never have another Pet Sounds Their later albums are filled with weird little doodles and musical vignettes, some of which are truly brilliant and others that are head scratchers (though even those now have their fans). The band’s follow-up to Pet Sounds was to be an intricately orchestrated epic called Smile, which
Manson Family.
Brian Wilson’s musical legacy speaks for itself.
Brian famously described as his “teenage symphony to God.”
But he became increasingly isolated and retreated into a fog of drugs, which made him paranoid and exacerbated auditory hallucinations he’d had since early adulthood. He worked on Smile for months, tinkering and reworking to the chagrin of his bandmates and Capitol Records, until he eventually lost faith in the project. Smile was shelved, and a compromised version, titled Smiley Smile, was greeted with commercial confusion.
The mysteries of Smile consumed Beach Boys fans for years, and it wasn’t long until bootlegs were circulating. When versions of Smile were finally made legally available — as an acclaimed re-recorded album in 2004 called Brian Wilson Presents Smile, and as an exhaustive 2011 box set that included many of the recording sessions — it made sense why Brian had become so enamored of it. It’s weird, funny, ungainly, childlike but sophisticated, and filled with moments of shattering beauty.
Like so much in Brian Wilson’s career, it had been brilliant all along — it just took awhile for everyone else to catch up to it.
By the final scenes of The Beach Boys: An American Band, the band’s gone through enough heartache, disappointment and rebirth to fuel multiple documentaries. Their career had fizzled, then resparked. Dennis had died at 39, drowning in Marina Del Rey. And Brian had finally gotten out of bed, with a closing text scroll telling us he “has regained his health and creativity and has written many new songs for the Beach Boys.”
There was still a lot more ahead of them: the 1988 release of their unexpected chart-topping smash “Kokomo” (written and recorded without Brian), the end of Brian’s conservatorship and his return to solo writing and recording, and Carl’s death in 1998. Then there was the much-publicized reunion tour in 2012, the first to feature Brian, Al and Mike in years.
After the first leg, it was announced that the tour would continue without Brian. Love claimed Brian’s wife had pulled the plug. Brian claimed he was blindsided by the announcement. Other reports claimed Love didn’t like sharing the spotlight. As Beach Boys biographer Jon Stebbins said at the time, “Night after night after night after night, Mike is making less money getting reminded that Brian is more popular than him.”
It’s possible that there’s a bit of truth to all of it. And considering the band’s history, it’s probably more complicated than we’ll ever know.
But it’s more evidence that, since his ’60s heyday, Brian Wilson has become more than a musician. He’s become mythic. Why has his work stood the test of time — or, if anything, gotten better with time? Because it’s so heartbreakingly sincere, so unafraid of sounding weird or goofy, so very much itself.
It’s hard not to think of that legacy while listening to the Pet Sounds gem “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times.” Written when Brian was in his early 20s, it’s a song about feeling like you don’t belong, nobody wants to hang out with you, and the world is passing you by.
“Every time I get the inspiration / to go change things around / No one wants to help me look for places / where new things might be found,” Brian sings, perhaps about his own prickly creative process. “Each time things start to happen again / I think I got something good going for myself / But what goes wrong?”
And then he repeats this refrain: “Sometimes I feel very sad, sometimes I feel very sad, sometimes I feel very sad…”
Perhaps not made for those times, but very much made for now. n
For a list of 10 deep-cut Beach Boys gems, visit Inlander.com.
The Beach Boys • Sat, Aug. 30 at 7:30 pm • $48-$286 • All Ages • Northern Quest Resort & Casino • 100 N. Hayford Road, Airway Heights • northernquest.com
KEEP ON A ROCK’N ME, BABY
To be perfectly frank, I never felt a strong pull to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Despite being someone whose job is writing about music, something about the Cleveland institution always rubbed me the wrong way.
Maybe it was the misnomer inherent in its title — it’s really a museum of popular music across genres since rock and roll’s creation (which is fine, just odd). Maybe it was the seemingly arbitrary selection of Hall of Famers — The White Stripes and Dave Matthews Band are already inducted, but insanely influential acts like Iron Maiden, Pixies, Devo, Black Flag, and Diana Ross aren’t? Maybe it’s that it always carried an air of dusty old boomer nostalgia that celebrated a lot of the things I like least about rock (like celebrating navel-gazing wanker guitar solos over actual songcraft).
Whatever the preponderance of reasons, I never felt compelled to actually give it a visit.
But after taking a trip to Ohio earlier this month with buddies who all caught early flights home on a day when I was departing late, I had a free day alone to kill in Cleveland and figured it was sort of my music editor duty to journey to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It seemed worthwhile to give the HOF a fair shake to see if a pilgrimage to the museum might be worth it for Northwest music lovers a touch less jaded than me.
For those unfamiliar with its architecture, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a pyramid, one where patrons are encouraged to experience the exhibits starting with the ground floor and working their way up.
The bottom level begins with a rotating special exhibit, currently “SNL: Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of Music.” The examination of Saturday Night Live’s musical history was an enjoyable introduction because it focused not only on great musical guests (with relics like pop stars’ flamboyant costumes on display),
Reflections on a journey to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
BY SETH SOMMERFELD
but also on the musical comedy the show has served up (Wayne’s World, “More Cowbell,” The Lonely Island’s digital shorts, etc.). The highlight of this initial exhibit are touch screens that allow patrons to select any SNL musical appearance for viewing, and I could’ve easily spent hours just pulling up clips from everyone from Fear to Elliott Smith.
But the special exhibit is really more of an appetizer for the main course that follows, as museum-goers are then led directly to a deep dive on musical history. This is where HOF truly sings.
The Roots of Rock section presents display cases full of artifacts and detailed information from the genres that led to rock and roll’s rise: blues, gospel, rhythm and blues, country/folk/bluegrass. It lays the groundwork for the rest of the offerings by underscoring the importance of the oft-overlooked musical pioneers.
In a way, the Rock Hall is better at the obscure than the well-known. Diving into these minute details that aren’t widely known has a historical richness, which isn’t felt when viewing more famous acts’ antiquities. Even when Roots of Rock ends and opens to a Pioneers of Rock section highlighting Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Wanda Jackson, looking at Elvis’ personal items leans more on being cool to see as opposed to insightful. That point was driven home by the Cities and Sounds section that followed, which has displays diving deep into scenes ranging from Motown Detroit to the rise of punk in New York, London and Los Angeles in the ’70s to the Seattle grunge boom. Again, these weren’t merely selections of Jackson 5 and Nirvana memorabilia, but the exhibit took the time to give credence to acts as far from the mainstream radar as Seattle punks 7 Year Bitch.
When the bottom floor winds down with tributes to legends (which is also what many of the higher floors focus on), there’s just a certain token aspect to things.
Sure, there are bigger displays dedicated to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones placed side by side, but they almost felt obligatory. While the Asher family piano that Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote iconic tunes on was captivating, most of the lot was ho-hum, perhaps because the group’s choice artifacts are more in demand and thus scattered across the globe. (How much can anyone gain from seeing another vintage tour jacket?)
The featured display on Revolutionary Women in Music packed much more of a punch by giving powerful female artists their own sections and spanning eras quickly. Getting to see small shrines to artists like Liz Phair, The Go-Go’s, Sleater-Kinney and (one-time Inlander writer) Sadie Dupuis in the Rock Hall felt validating for acts that have always had to strive harder to be taken seriously due to gender bias.
The only real thing that felt off about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a whole is how willing it is to display reproductions. Many of the paper artifacts like “hand-written” lyrics were notably copies of the originals, which just seems bizarre. When so much of the narrative of rock is based around the concept of authenticity, putting facsimiles of lyric sheets by Joy Division or — most gallingly — a reproduction of the photo of the Pope that Sinead O’Connor tore up on SNL, and acting like they’re the real thing (unless you closely read the museum labels) feels against the spirit of the whole endeavor. If a major art museum just put the posters they sell in the gift shop of famous works in the actual galleries, it’d be really off-putting.
Despite this hang-up, I came away more impressed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame than I imagined I’d be before my visit. Much like many of the best songs, all the rock star pomp might get the majority of the attention, but things really sing in the intricately assembled finer details. If you find yourself in the Midwest and want a crash course in modern music history, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s ode goes down smooth. n
There’s plenty of history to be learned at the Rock and Roll HOF. SETH SOMMERFELD PHOTOS
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ROCK DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
Dave Matthews may call Seattle home, but his musical home is the Gorge Amphitheatre. The Dave Matthews Band has taken over Washington state’s most stunning music venue every Labor Day weekend for almost 20 years now. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame jam band keeps the die-hards coming back for more with three nights of diverse catalog-spanning set lists that tap into the band’s mega hits like “Crash Into Me” and “Ants Marching,” plus a ton of fan-favorite deep cuts. DMB also doesn’t skimp on openers for their Gorge trips, as evidenced by 2025’s headline-caliber warm-up acts like Kaleo (Friday), Bela Fleck & The Flecktones (Saturday) and Goose (Sunday). Even if you’ve been before, no two Dave Matthews Band sets at the Gorge are ever the same.
— SETH SOMMERFELD
Dave Matthews Band • Fri, Aug. 29-Sun, Aug. 31 at 5 pm • $67-$660 • All ages • Gorge Amphitheatre • 754 Silica Road NW, George • gorgeamphitheatre.com
SINGER-SONGWRITER SEDONA ROSE AND THE THORNS
Thursday, 8/28
ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Craig Catlett and Bucket List
J BRICK WEST BREWING CO., Buffalo Jones
J THE CHAMELEON, Artists In Action: Allen Stone, The Bed Heads, Vika & The Velvets
GREEN CITY SALOON, DJ KJ
J KNITTING FACTORY, Matisyahu, Blvk H3ro
J NORTHERN QUEST CASINO, Goo Goo Dolls, Dashboard Confessional PJ’S PUB, The Dirty Champions
J QQ SUSHI & KITCHEN, Just Plain Darin
RED DRAGON (THIRD AVENUE), Thursday Night Jam
RED ROOM LOUNGE, Thurrsdays EDM Night
STELLA’S ON THE HILL, Pastiche
J TRUE LEGENDS GRILL, Pamela Benton
J WATERFRONT PARK, Linger at the Lake: Justyn Priest
ZOLA, Frances Browne, Pancho
Friday, 8/29
AK ASIAN RESTAURANT, Hannah Jo Lally
J THE BIG DIPPER, Crowd Control, Mad Choice, Bodyshot, Bent Outta Shape
THE CHAMELEON, BRADEN ALL CAPS, Milk Krayt, Millergold, Cosmic Ranger EATS ON SPOKANE STREET, Shawnna Nicholson
J FARMJAM, FarmJam Festival
J J GORGE AMPHITHEATER, Dave Matthews Band
J THE GRAIN SHED, Haywire
GREEN CITY SALOON, DJ KJ
J KNITTING FACTORY, Tribal Seeds, The Movement, KBong, Johnny Cosmic NIGHT OWL, Four On The Floor Fridays
J PARK BENCH CAFE, Under the Trees Concerts: Scott Linklater RED DRAGON (THIRD AVENUE), Eternal Jones
RED ROOM LOUNGE, Rave Reactor, RJ VANXETTEN, Menges, STVN BLKBRD, Galactic Stardrip SILVER MOUNTAIN RESORT, Son of Brad J SPOKANE TRIBE CASINO, Tracy Byrd
STELLA’S ON THE HILL, 32 Flavors
J BEARDED GINGER BAR & GRILL, Hannah Jo Lally
J THE FOX THEATER, Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening THE GOODY BAR AND GRILL, Midnight Open Mic
J TRUE LEGENDS GRILL, Nate Stratte TRVST,
The ‘80s/’90s Joint with Kosmos the Afronaut ZOLA, Jason Perry Band
Saturday, 8/30
ALBERTINI’S GEM BAR, Son of Brad J AVISTA STADIUM, Into the Drift Duo
J THE BIG DIPPER, Penis Envy, Absent Cardinal, Deepslate, Viscerectomy
J BRICK WEST BREWING CO., Stares of Vega, Denver Rhiannon
Spokane native and Ferris High School alumni
Sedona Rose is making waves as an up-and-comer in the Seattle music scene. With her band, Sedona Rose and the Thorns, the mid-20s singer-songwriter performs an inviting blend of reggae-tinged pop and indie folk (she also finds some musical joy playing in the Taylor Swift cover band 13 Til Midnight). Rose additionally boasts a notable mentor in the form of Train lead singer Pat Monahan, who’s brought Rose on-stage to perform with the hit-making band and booked her as an artist on three of Train’s Sail Across the Sun rock cruises. Spokanites have a chance to welcome her home when Sedona Rose and the Thorns play their first gig at The Chameleon.
— SETH SOMMERFELD
Sedona Rose and The Thorns, Tomboy, Pancho • Sat, Aug. 30 at 8 pm • $15-$20 • All ages • Jaguar Room at The Chameleon • 1801 W. Sunset Blvd. • chameleonspokane.com
THE CHAMELEON, Super Bass: The Baddest 2010s Dance Party
TRVST • 120 N. Wall St. ZOLA • 22 W. Main Ave. • 509-624-2416
SPORTS OUT WITH A BANG
Can you believe it’s already time to say goodbye to baseball for the year? As we welcome in football season, the city’s own Spokane Indians are closing out their season with six home games against the Tri-City Dust Devils, and they’re going out in style. Not only will you get to experience the joy that is a Spokane Indians baseball game, but, you’ll also get to see an incredible fireworks display during the last three games thanks to the longstanding Fireworks Night tradition at Avista Stadium. Sit back and peer up at the sky as fireworks explode over Spokane’s favorite baseball stadium. Bid farewell to ballpark hot dogs, beer bats, Ribby the Redband Trout and the amazing 2025 Spokane Indians Team — until next season!
— MADISON PEARSON
Spokane Indians vs. Tri-City Dust Devils • Aug. 29-31, daily at 6:35 pm • $11-$29 • Avista Stadium • 602 N. Havana St., Spokane Valley • spokaneindians.com
THEATER T-MINUS 24 HOURS
Kicking off the new semester, the Gonzaga Theatre Council welcomes both new and returning theatre students for a 24-hour event. Once the clock hits 7 pm on Friday, Aug. 29, students are tasked with writing, casting, memorizing scripts and rehearsing for a 60-minute performance the following evening, Saturday, Aug. 30, at 7 pm. The time-crunch performance was started in 2018 by Courtney Smith, then-assistant professor of theatre and dance. For students without a lot of extra time on their hands for bigger, longterm productions, the 24-Hour Theatre Festival allows them to test their skills under a day’s pressure, but still show their hard work to an audience, including members of the local community.
— DORA SCOTT
24-Hour Theatre Festival • Sat, Aug. 30 at 7 pm • Free • Ages 12+ recommended • Gonzaga University, Magnuson Theatre • 502 E. Boone Ave. • gonzaga.edu/theatre
FILM YOU GOTTA (VIG)GO
When Aragorn isn’t saving Middle Earth, he can usually be found chilling in North Idaho. Viggo Mortensen, the Academy Awardnominated actor (Green Book, Eastern Promises, Captain Fantastic) who played The Lord of the Rings hero, has been a part-time Sandpoint resident for over 25 years, and he’s no stranger to helping out the local artistic community, including occasionally doing DJ stints on 88.5 KRFY Panhandle Community Radio. As a fundraiser for the Panida Theater and KRFY, Viggo heads to the single-screen movie theater to screen Falling, the 2020 film he wrote, directed and starred in. The drama finds Mortensen playing a gay man trying to relocate his elderly, conservative father who is struggling mightily with the early stages of dementia. After the screening, Mortensen hosts a Q&A.
— SETH SOMMERFELD
Falling: An Evening with Viggo Mortensen • Fri, Aug. 29 at 7 pm • $33 • The Panida Theater • 300 N. First., Sandpoint • panida.org
ERICK DOXEY PHOTO
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OUTDOORS SEE YA, SUMMER
Savor those last drops of summer and head up to the mountain for one last hurrah. Schweitzer’s annual Fall Fest, now in its 32nd year, takes over the ski resort for four full days of fun and activities, offering visitors the last chance this season to enjoy its summer amenities. One of the biggest draws is the beer and wine fest ($22-$60), hosting more than 80 choices in beer, wine, cider and seltzer from regional purveyors. For kids and anyone not drinking alcohol, there’s a custom soda station ($25). Whether you plan to sail down the mountain by bike or hop back on the lift, don’t miss the chance to take in spectacular views of Lake Pend Oreille and the surrounding mountains up at the Sky House. Other activities in the Village include a climbing wall, zip line and the bungee trampoline, plus shopping, dining, live music and more. Find all the details on this bittersweet summer send-off at the link below.
What’s better than live music? Free live music! As part of its annual Labor Day weekend tradition, the Spokane Symphony hosts its annual Lud Kramer Memorial Concert in Liberty Lake, and another show two nights later in Comstock Park on Spokane’s South Hill. All ages can come and enjoy the Symphony’s masterful rendition of both classics and crowd favorites; with hits from Hollywood and Broadway, both shows offer something for everyone. The Liberty Lake event honors Lud Kramer, who served as Washington’s 11th secretary of state from 1965-75. In 1995, Kramer and his wife moved to Liberty Lake and helped develop parks and a library for the city. Both concerts feature opening performances by Jason Garrett Evans and Ruth Engeda at 4:45 pm. The Comstock show includes a Fall Arts Preview Booth with information on Symphony’s 2025-26 season, which opens at 4:30 pm.
—
ELLIS
BENSON
Lud Kramer Memorial Concert • Sat, Aug. 30 at 6 pm • Free • Liberty Lake Pavillion Park • 727 N Molter Road •
Labor Day Concert at Comstock Park • Mon, Sept. 1 at 6 pm • Free • Comstock Park • 601 W. 29th Ave. • spokanesymphony.org
Jundt Art Museum
Through Kiln & Press: Works by Freuen & Farrell
Arcade Gallery, September 13 to December 20, 2025
JundtArtMuseum.org
Gonzaga University Performance Highlights
Gonzaga Theatre
Urinetown: the Musical November 6-9, 2025
Gonzaga Music
Candlelight Christmas Concert December 6-7, 2025
Gonzaga Symphony Orchestra Presents: Gil Shaham
February 10, 2026
Gonzaga Dance
Thumbelina
January 23 - 25, 2026
Shown Above: Gina Freuen, Landscape Water Vessel with Sparrow and Stick Trivet, n.d., porcelain and stoneware, stains and glazes, soda fired, with silver luster paint,
artist.
I SAW YOU
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY I saw her beside me watching TV: Lost, Fear Factor, The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Breaking Bad... I saw her beside me riding shotgun to explore Zion, White Sands, Yellowstone... I saw her sharing a tent, then a life, then a family. I saw her our entire time together, but I never saw it coming - She saw a better life for Herself. I hope the grass is truly greener. Happy Anniversary.
I DIDN’T GET EVERYTHING You either work at the Bowdish store or own the store because you’re always there. You recognize me despite me not wearing my scrubs and you always compliment something I am wearing. I compliment the repairs and the new layout every time, but really I want to compliment you. You showed me your beautiful Arabic bracelet the last time I came in and I showed you my necklace. You ask me every time if I am certain I have all that I need, well I do keep forgetting one thing, your number.
I SAW YOU AT WORK Which means you moved back to Spokane. We broke up so long ago. Thought you have lived in the midwest since I moved back. I never stopped loving you. You were the love of my life. I hate we only broke up because of my screw ups. But I’ve grown since then and I believe im the person you wanted me to be back then. Now that I know you are here im gonna find a way to prove that statement true and prove we are meant to be together. We are gonna dance to kate bush and this must be the place. I love you boppi<3
TALL BEARDED COWBOY You were at District Bar for the JVC show on 8/18, buying merch and recording the show for your kids, who were big fans but were under 21. You were being a gentleman but I should have gotten your number anyway because I can’t stop thinking about our missed connection. If you think this is about you, or you know who I’m talking about, email me at o.cabot87@gmail.com.
RE: YOUR SMILE MADE MY DAY I assume this response is related to our short conversation in a small fast food restaurant. I handed you the Inlander to read. Perhaps you did or didn’t read it, but I assume you made it far enough to read this section which happens to be my favorite. To answer your question, the Inlander is a locally focused newspaper that features events happening in the greater Spokane area. If you’re interested, let’s have a pina colada moment, cut through all this red tape, & meet up to plan an escape. Preferably to an organized event featured in the Inlander. I’m nobody’s poet but I thought this didn’t turn out half bad.
BEAUTIFUL SMILE AT CANDLELIGHT
90’S QUARTET Your red hair, smile and confidence got me through the warmth and uncomfortable conditions at the concert. You were surrounded by all your friends, and I was on a meaningless date. We locked eyes from a distance a few times, coffee without the distractions? I’ll bring the AC
YOU SAW ME
HEY ATMOSPHERE GIRL Hey Atmosphere Girl I’m sorry I’m terrible with names but I do remember you. Please come back and shoot your shot cause I’ll shoot one back lol sincerely the Cap’n ps I thought you were Gorgeous
CHEERS
RE: BREASTFEEDING MOMS I would also like to Thank You for breastfeeding your babies — breastfeeding truly is one of nature’s most incredible gifts. The way it delivers antibodies and immune support to the baby is just amazing. It’s like a builtin defense system, tailored to whatever mom and baby are exposed to. For moms, the benefits are just as powerful, helping the uterus contract faster,
reducing postpartum bleeding, and even supporting weight loss and emotional bonding. It’s such a beautiful and efficient design. I’ve also been thinking a lot about milk in general, and it’s wild how different raw and pasteurized milk can be. While pasteurization helps with safety, it also strips away some of the natural enzymes, probiotics, and immune-supporting
in love and marriage. We’ve outlasted all three of those businesses that brought us together. As I sit back, reflecting on the past 8,899 days, knowing the entire second half of my life so far has been with us together, it’s amazing I survived the first 24 years and 139 days without you. My love, here’s to the next 17,798 days enjoying life together.
in every five drivers or so actually stops. Did you know that’s against state law and it’s a ticketable offense? Since none of you will follow the law of your own volition, I will be recording cars that pass me by from now on and taking down license plates, hopefully your $100+ tickets will be more inspiring! <3 And be thankful that I respond legally, you wouldn’t like it if I
compounds that raw milk retains. It’s a bit ironic that we go to such lengths to preserve the benefits of breast milk, but then often rely on processed dairy that’s lost so much of its original goodness. Thanks again for sharing — it’s always refreshing to hear from someone who’s passionate about giving babies the best start possible!
AWESOME SPOKANE INDIANS FAN!
Serving you at the concession stand you heard me whining to another employee that I hadn’t had the sense to buy a batting helmet during the Indians’ “Garage Sale” and that the helmets would all be sold by the time I was off shift. Minutes later, you returned to my line, called my name, handed me a batting helmet, and just walked off into the crowd. You’re great! In fact, pretty much all the fans who come to Avista Stadium are great. But, you know, you in particular!
TO PASTOR JOHN Cheers to Pastor John, the street corner preacher to foster kids and vets who gave me happy tears and a big hug in the Costco parking lot a few weeks ago. The world needs more people like you. I hope you take your late wife, in your heart, on that trip for your 50th anniversary. You both deserve it.
1/2 MY LIFE You stole my heart on April 10th, 2001, so many years ago. Celebrating your best friends’ 21st birthday with dinner at Cyrus O’Learys followed by a wild night of pudding wrestling at Thirsty’s, the real show was getting to know you as we talked the night away in the corner. A first date a few days later at Starbucks on 29th solidified our future into an everelongating braid of our lives intertwined
LOOK UP, NOT DOWN When the state of the world gets me down the thing that helps most is not sending in a Jeers about it, but finding something to be grateful for and sending a Cheers. Maybe it brightens someone else’s day but mostly it reminds me to find something, even if it’s small, to be grateful for. In case the Cheers to the Cheerser was for me, you are what I am most grateful for today. Wouldn’t it be great if one week the Inlander only had Cheers to post!
TO ALL YOU BEAUTIFUL SPOKANE
PEOPLE I think its pretty wonderful so many of you agree that OUR COMMUNITY and HOW “WE” TREAT EACH OTHER is more important than anything that ever happens in Washington, D.C., or in the halls of power where you and I don’t live. Bravo for understanding that when the lights go out it’s just you and me. Spokane people are the BEST. THANK YOU
FED TAX WITHHOLDING Are you tired of the way the Feds are spending your money? If you have monthly deposits coming in from some source and have automatic deduction for federal income taxes, simply stop the deductions. Put that money into an interest bearing account and save it until at least April 2026. Personally, I would just love the option of sending it to Washington state instead.
JEERS
CROSSWALKS Spokane drivers, maybe it’s time to head back to driving school? I cross a neighborhood street at the crosswalk every morning, and only one
just did illegal things whenever I wanted and started throwing rocks when you pass would you?
WASHINGTON LAWMAKERS What do automobiles, guns, and home-schooling all have in common that makes the liberals hate them? All these things reduce individual dependence on the government and on the grandiose schemes for other people’s lives created by liberals and imposed by the government.
SPOKANE FALLS BLVD It is time to close this street to car traffic. It is ridiculous that it was built right up against a massive public park and shopping district. Cars kill cities, people, and businesses. We have people complaining about car tabs and parking when they could just WALK TO THE PARK. Closing Spokane Falls between Bernard and the Monroe Bridge would significantly improve walkability, increase business, and lower construction costs and duration. On a similar note, they chose to rebuild Stevens with four lanes. What a waste. n
NOTE: I Saw You/Cheers & Jeers is for adults 18 or older. The Inlander
EVENTS | CALENDAR
COMEDY
JORDAN JENSEN Jordan Jensen is a stand-up comedian who hosts the podcast RIP Jordan Jensen and co-hosts the Bein’ Ian with Jordan podcast. Aug. 29-30, 7 & 9:45 pm. $27-$37. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com (509-318-9998)
EXPEDITION A family-friendly improv show featuring the Blue Door Theatre players playing a variety of improv games with audience suggestions. Every Saturday at 7:30 pm. 7:30 pm. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. bluedoortheatre.org (509-747-7045)
FUNNY FUNNY FUNNY JOKE JOKE
JOKE Funny Funny Funny Joke Joke Joke is a unique comedy experience that takes full advantage of the Garland Theater’s projector system hosted by Josiah Carlson. This month’s special guest is Derek Sheen, a cult favorite comedian. Sep. 4, 7:30-9 pm. $15. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.org
GENRE ROULETTE An improv show based on an audience member’s occupation that gets turning into an epic tale by spinning the genre week to determine what happens. Sept. 5-26, Fri from 7:308:35 pm.$9. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. bluedoortheatre.org
LATE LAUGHS Each show features a rotating lineup of performers from independent troupes to new voices performing 20-minute sets that push boundaries, test new formats and take creative risks. Every First Friday of the month at 9:30 pm. $6. Blue Door Theatre, 319 S. Cedar St. bluedoortheatre.org (509-747-7045)
COMMUNITY
SUMMERFEST A monthlong festival featuring food trucks, a car show, youth seminars, raffles, games, giveaways and more. See website for full schedule. Daily from 6:30-9 pm through Sep. 27. Free. Old Trolley Barn, 3038 E. Trent Ave. oldtrolleybarn.com (888-771-3038)
SINGLES MIXER A fun, casual mixer focused on sparking new connections, enjoying craft beer and meeting people your age. Purchase of ticket includes one free drink. Ages 23-35. Aug. 28, 6-7:30 pm. $20. Iron Goat Brewing Co., 1302 W. Second Ave. irongoatbrewing.com
THE WALL THAT HEALS A 3/4 scale traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. An opening ceremony will be held on Aug. 28 at 9:30 am with Taps playing daily at sunset and a closing ceremony on Aug. 31 at 1:45 pm. Tours available daily. Aug. 28-31, daily. Free. Dwight Merkel Sports Complex, 5701 N. Assembly. thewallthathealsspokane.com
PAUL BUNYAN DAYS 2025 A four-day festival celebrating the logging history of Saint Maries, Idaho featuring food and craft vendors, live music, a demo derby and free entertainment all festival long. Aug. 30, 12-10 pm. Free. St. Maries City Park, 1230 Main Ave. saintmariespaulbunyandays.com (509-714-5107)
FALL ARTS PREVIEW Over 25 nonprofit arts organizations and businesses offer free activities and resources emphasizing different art forms including theater, dance and visual arts. Sep. 1, 4:30-7:30 pm. Free. Comstock Park, 29th Ave. and Howard St. foxtheaterspokane.org
SOUND BATH Dacia, a yoga instructor with a sound healing certification leads a sound bath using crystal bowls, chimes, drums, gongs and tuning forms. Ages 18+. Sep. 3, 4-5 pm. Free. South Hill Library, 3324 S. Perry. spokanelibrary.org
COMMUNITY BLOCK PARTY A celebration of local culture, creativity and connection with specials from neighboring businesses, kid friendly activities, visual art, live painters, vendors, food trucks, scavenger hunts, fashion shows and more. Sep. 5, 4-11 pm. Free. Symons Block Hotel, 7 S. Howard St. symonsblockhotel. com (509-552-9693)
MEGA GARAGE SALE A two-day garage sale featuring items and bargain prices. Sept. 5-6, daily from 8 am-2 pm. Free. Southside Community Center, 3151 E. 27th Ave. spokanesouthside.org
PALOUSE PRIDE 2025 A three-day pride celebration featuring drag bingo, pride in the park, a drag show, brunch, local vendors and more. Sept. 5-7, daily. Free. Moscow, Idaho. inlandoasis.org
SPOKANE COUNTY INTERSTATE FAIR
A traditional fair with carnival rides, an agriculture and animals section as well as concerts throughout the week. Sept. 5-14, times vary. See website for schedule. Spokane County Fair & Expo Center, 404 N. Havana St. thespokanefair.com
DISEASES OUR ANCESTORS FACED AND HOW THOSE ILLNESSES
CHANGED OUR WORLD Dr. Gardner, a physician and educator, explores several of the major diseases that struck fear in past generations. Drawing from death records, historical documents, and modern research, this talk will illuminate how
our ancestors’ experiences with disease influenced the world we live in today. Sep. 6, 12:30 pm. Free. The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague Ave. spokanelibrary.org
VINTAGE HARVEST Experience harvest as it was done in the 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. This is a family friendly event featuring food, vendors, music, a kids play area and rides on a combine. Proceeds support the Lincoln County Historical Society. Sep. 6-7, 9:30 am-5 pm. Free. The Big Red Barn, 40801 US-2. facebook. com/vintageharvestlincolncounty
FILM
FALLING: AN EVENING WITH VIGGO MORTENSEN Viggo Mortensen, bestknown for his role as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, presents his 2020 film, Falling, with a Q&A session to follow. Aug. 29, 7 pm. $33. Panida Theater, 300 N. First Ave. panida.org (208-263-9191)
THE NAKED GUN Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr becomes a police officer like his legendary father and must save the police department from shutting down by solving a case. Aug. 29, 7 pm, Aug. 31, 4 pm and Sep. 1, 7 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org
NE ZHA II After a great catastrophe, the souls of Nezha and Aobing are saved, but their bodies face ruin. To give them new life, Taiyi Zhenren turns to the mystical seven-colored lotus in a daring bid to rebuild them and change their fate. Aug. 30, 3:30 pm, Aug. 31, 7 pm and Sep. 1, 3:30 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-882-4127)
WEAPONS When all but one child from
the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance. Sep. 5, 7 pm, Sep. 6, 4 & 7 pm and Sep. 7, 7 pm. $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org (208-882-4127)
FOOD & DRINK
PIG OUT IN THE PARK A food and music festival with over 60 food booths, 35 public market booths and 130 free concerts. Aug. 28-Sept. 1, daily from 11 am-10 pm. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. pigoutinthepark.com (509-625-6600)
STEAK 101 Al Baston runs this entertainment style class where you’ll learn the three Ss of steak: season, sear and slice. Aug. 28, 5:45-7:45 pm. $100. The Kitchen Engine, 621 W. Mallon Ave. thekitchenengine.com (509-328-3335)
FALL FEST 2025 Try more than 80 beers, ciders and seltzers from regional breweries and shop from local artisans and food trucks. Aug. 29-Sept. 1. Schweitzer, 10,000 Schweitzer Mountain Road. schweitzer.com (208-263-9555)
SNOUTS & STOUTS PANDEMONIUM BEER RELEASE PARTY A party celebrating the release of Bombastic’s Pandemonium Peanut Butter and Marshmallow stout featuring dogs visiting from Companions Animal Center. Bring your own lawn chair. Aug. 30, noon. Free. Bombastic Brewing Pilot Facility, 11100 N. Airport Road. bombasticbrewing.com
SOULFOOD & SIPS Inspired by Spokane’s popular Tacos & Tequila festival, this event showcases a variety of flavors from Spokane’s vibrant Black community, including African and Caribbean cuisines. Located at the Wall Street corridor. Aug. 30, 12-7 pm. Free. Downtown Spokane. downtownspokane.org
MUSIC & CONCERTS
CAMPFIRE CONFESSIONS SONGWRIT-
ER SHOWCASE Experience an evening of all original music from four local singersongwriters: Austin Davis, Mel Dalton, Pamela Jean and Rusty Jackson. Aug. 29, 6-10 pm. Free. The Social Spokane, 6413 E. Trent Ave. instagram.com/thesocialbarspokane (509-703-7565)
DAVID LARSEN David Larsen performs jazz selections. Aug. 29, 7 pm. The Jacklin Arts & Cultural Center, 405 N. William St. thejacklincenter.org (208-457-8950)
LUD KRAMER MEMORIAL CONCERT The Spokane Symphony plays classics and crowd favorites by the lake on Labor Day. Aug. 30, 6 pm. Free. Pavillion Park, 727 N. Molter Road. foxtheaterspokane.org
LABOR DAY CONCERT AT COMSTOCK
PARK The Spokane Symphony performs popular classics as well as favorites from Hollywood and Broadway. Sep. 1, 6 pm. Free. Comstock Park, 29th Ave. and Howard St. foxtheaterspokane.org
STARDEW VALLEY: SYMPHONY OF SEASONS Curated by ConcernedApe, Symphony of Seasons features a 35-piece orchestra performing the most
memorable music from the game, and a screen above the stage playing gameplay footage plus original content. Sep. 3, 8 pm. $50-$150. First Interstate Center for the Arts, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. firstinterstatecenter.org (509-279-7000)
SPORTS & OUTDOORS
PILATES & PROSECCO Unwind with a one-hour mat pilates session led by Kenzie from The Pilates Ritual. After your workout, mingle and relax during an all-inclusive cocktail hour featuring a curated selection of wellness drinks, handcrafted cocktails and prosecco. Aug. 28, 7-8:30 pm. $40. House of Brunch, 818 W. Riverside Ave. thehouseofbrunch.com
SPOKANE INDIANS VS. TRI-CITY DUST
DEVILS A series of games against the Tri-City Dust Devils to close out the 2025 season. Promotional schedule includes Dollars in Your Dogs Night (Aug. 28) and Fireworks Night (Aug. 29-31). Aug. 28-31, 6:35 pm. $11-$29. Avista Stadium, 602 N. Havana St. spokaneindians.com
SPOKANE FRIENDLY FLOWERS Learn tips on when and how to plant fall bulbs and journey through gorgeous flower varieties suitable for your Spokane-area garden. Sep. 3, 5:30-7 pm. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. garden4you.org (509-953-7932)
TREE IDENTIFICATION WALK: APPLEWAY TRAIL Educators from The Lands Council introduce the fundamentals of tree identification during this interactive walk. Become familiar with common trees in our area and learn which features
are most helpful in determining a tree’s species. Meets at the Appleway Trail. Sep. 5, 8-10 am. Free. Spokane Valley Library, 22 N. Herald Road. scld.org
THEATER & DANCE
24-HOUR THEATRE FESTIVAL Old and new Gonzaga theater students write, cast, memorize, rehearse and perform plays within 24-hours. Aug. 30, 7 pm. Free. Gonzaga University Magnuson Theatre, 502 E. Boone Ave. gonzaga.edu/ theatre (509-313-6553)
LINE DANCE A weekly exercise class designed for all ages and fitness levels, offering a fun and welcoming atmosphere. Presented by the Filipino American Association of the Inland Empire. 10:30-11:30 am. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org
SPOKANE FOLKLORE SOCIETY CONTRA DANCE A community dance starting with a beginner workshop 15 minutes before each dance. No partner needed. Every Wednesday at 7:15 pm. 7:15 pm. $7-$10. Woman’s Club of Spokane, 1428 W. Ninth. spokanefolklore.org
VISUAL ARTS
EMILY SOMOSKEY: CONSTANTS Drawing inspiration from physics diagrams and elements of everyday life, the works in this exhibition transform abstract equations and scientific notations into layered narratives, bridging the empirical with the intuitive. Thu-Sat from 4-7 pm through Aug. 30. Free. Terrain Gallery,
628 N. Monroe. terrainspokane.com
TRACKSIDE ANNUAL STUDIO SALE
Everything in Trackside Studio is marked down 10% with many featured items marked down as much as 50%. Wed-Fri from 11 am-5 pm through Aug. 30. Trackside Studio, 115 S. Adams St. tracksidestudio.net (509-863-9904)
ARTISTS’ STUDIO TOUR Visit the working studios of painters, sculptors, photographers, jewelers, potters, glass artists and more on this self-guided tour. Aug. 30-Sept. 1; see website for full schedule. Sandpoint, Idaho. artinsandpoint.org
YASUKO MAYHEW Ceramic artist Yasuko Mayhew showcases sculptures of animals. Sept. 1-30, daily from 10 am-7 pm. Free. Pottery Place Plus, 203 N. Washington St. potteryplaceplus.com
DOT TO DASH A group invitational exhibit of mid to low range ceramics featuring rendered surfaces in abstract to representational. Sept. 6-27, Wed-Fri from 11 am-5 pm. Free. Trackside Studio, 115 S. Adams St. tracksidestudio.net
FIRST FRIDAY Art galleries and businesses across downtown Spokane and beyond host monthly receptions to showcase new displays of art. First Friday of each month from 5-8 pm Free. Downtown Spokane. firstfridayspokane.org
JOSH HOBSON: VANISHING POINTS
Vanishing Points brings together three distinct bodies of work into intimate dialog, all investigating the intricate relationship between humanity and the natural world. Sept. 5-27, Thu-Sat from 4-7 pm. Free. Terrain Gallery, 628 N. Monroe St. terrainspokane.com
WORDS
INSPIRATION IN THE ARCHIVES In this two-part workshop, find inspiration for creative writing in a personal artifact or a treasure from the library archive. Aug. 28, 6-8 pm. Free. The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague Ave. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)
WRITE TOGETHER: A COMMUNITY WRITING SESSION Bring your current writing project and your favorite writing tools and prepare to hunker down and write. Local novelist and Writing Education Specialist Sharma Shields will write alongside of you and provide prompts and advice if needed. Aug. 29, 10 amnoon. Free. Hillyard Library, 4110 N. Cook St. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)
AUNTIE’S BOOK CLUB: SCIENCE & NATURE Discuss Brave the Wild River by Melissa L. Sevigny at the September meeting. Sep. 2, 6-7 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com (509-838-0206)
MITCH FRIEDMAN: CONSERVATION CONFIDENTIAL Join author and conservationist Mitch Friedman to celebrate the release of his new memoir and guide on strategy alongside columnist and author, Ammi Midstokke. Sep. 3, 6-7 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com (509-838-0206)
3 MINUTE MIC Auntie’s Bookstore’s long-running first Friday poetry open mic featuring Brandon Sullivan, who will read from his new collection, “Some of Your Own Poets.” Readers may share up to three minutes worth of poetry. Sep. 5, 7-8:30 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com n
Getting Schooled
A cannabis educator gives advice for people considering cannabis certificate courses, including those offered at Gonzaga
BY WILL MAUPIN
Earlier this month, Amanda Reiman, director of student experience at Green Flower, the cannabis education company Gonzaga partners with for the university’s cannabis certificate programs, hosted a Q&A on all things relating to cannabis education and the industry.
Reiman has seen the industry from all angles since getting started with the social justice side as an undergraduate in 1998. Her experience includes research, politics, business and education as a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley before landing in her current role at Green Flower.
Answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity. What’s the biggest mistake applicants make when applying to jobs in the industry?
REIMAN: Probably the biggest mistake that people make is they focus on their personal consumption and their personal love of the brand that they’re applying for. Employers say, “We don’t really care about that. I mean, yeah, we’re glad you like our product, but we’re not marketing to you. We would rather hear you come in and talk about our business.”
So do research before you go into the interview. Look on LinkedIn for the executives that are there at the business and learn who they are. Go to their Instagram page,
NOTE TO READERS
Be aware of the differences in the law between Idaho and Washington. It is illegal to possess, sell or transport cannabis in the State of Idaho. Possessing up to an ounce is a misdemeanor and can get you a year in jail and up to a $1,000 fine; more than three ounces is a felony that can carry a five-year sentence and fine of up to $10,000. Transporting marijuana across state lines, like from Washington into Idaho, is a felony under federal law.
learn what the vibe is of that brand. Go in ready to talk about the brand, the business itself, what you’ve noticed, and what you like rather than relying on being a fan.
Where do you think the biggest career growth will happen over the next few years?
Manufactured products are becoming more and more popular. When cannabis was first starting to be legal, most people smoked. We’re seeing more consumers move towards manufactured products, especially newer consumers. They don’t want to smoke. So I do think the manufacturing sector is probably most stable and stands to have the most growth because we are seeing more interest in that.
What keeps you excited about the future of cannabis?
What keeps me excited about it is that we are in a unique time in history. It’s hard to see it when you’re in it, but 100 years from now, 200 years from now, kids in school are going to be learning about the end of cannabis prohibition. They’re going to be learning about when cannabis went from being an illegal, dangerous narcotic to a medicine, to an herbal supplement, to all of the things it’s going to become from here. n
GREEN ZONE
BE AWARE: Marijuana is legal for adults 21 and older under Washington State law (e.g., RCW 69.50, RCW 69.51A, HB0001 Initiative 502 and Senate Bill 5052). State law does not preempt federal law; possessing, using, distributing and selling marijuana remains illegal under federal law. In Washington state, consuming marijuana in public, driving while under the influence of marijuana and transporting marijuana across state lines are all illegal. Marijuana has intoxicating effects; there may be health risks associated with its consumption, and it may be habit-forming. It can also impair concentration, coordination and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. Keep out of reach of children. For more information, consult the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board at www.liq.wa.gov.
Marijuana use increases the risk of lower grades and dropping out of school. Talk with your kids.
