SeventhGradePress 5-18

ThE mineR

Seventh Grade Press

Volume 1, Number 1

Students say the smartest things

By Irene Ewing Seventh Grade Teacher Sadie Halstead Middle School

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

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

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

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

She didn’t say no!

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

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

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

Seeing the good in hobo spiders

By Sunflower Sego

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

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

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

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

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

May 18, 2016 |

7A

Fire dispatchers rely on technology

By Ryan Stelow

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

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

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

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

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

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

See note, 8A

Pend Oreille River flows north

By Justice Self

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

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

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

Part of the river flows

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

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

The Pend Oreille River covers 70 miles.

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

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

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Football in Pend Oreille County

By Dakota Truax

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

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

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

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

Every year they have new championships.

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

Today, almost every

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

TV has also changed a lot for football fans.

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

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

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

have been seriously hurt.

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

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

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| May 18, 2016

Gray wolves recover in Pend Oreille County

By Tessa Pierce

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

River and valley are located in northeastern Washington. In the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As you read the variety of ar-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ThE mineR

History abounds in the Old Courthouse

By Salecia Harris

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FIRE: 16-hour workdays From Page 7A

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

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