2021 One year ago
After years of planning, Pullman received its first construction bids for an indoor event center at Lawson Gardens. The proposed Garden House is a 3,815-square-foot space intended for weddings, meetings and special events. It is part of the 20-year $10.5 million bond voters passed in 2018. It will also be partially funded by a $700,000 grant from the Pullman Lodging Tax Advisory Committee. Eight contractors submitted bids. However all of them totaled more than $2 million, which is higher than the city’s estimated construction budget of $1.4 million. ... A branch of the U.S. Postal Service housed on the eastern edge of the University of Idaho campus is looking for a new location before the end of June as the university has declined to renew its lease on a space behind the university bookstore. UI spokeswoman Jodi Walker said the university has not identified a use for the space yet, but the school administration is always looking for additional room to grow school services and ending the lease with the post office frees up valuable space.
2017 Five years ago
Kendrick Public Works Director Jake Lustig does not have to worry about monitoring his staff because Lustig — at 19 years old — makes up Kendrick’s entire Public Works Department. “It gives you a chance to really prove yourself,” whether it be through working 16-hour days or logging some 100 hours of overtime the past two months to deal with the fallout from heavy snowfall and a construction project at the city’s sewer lagoons, Lustig said. When he is not working for the city, Lustig cuts meat, stocks shelves and completes other tasks at Phil’s Family Foods, where he typically puts in about 10 to 15 hours a week. ... The University of Idaho Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival celebrates 50 years of bringing jazz to the Palouse this year. The first University of Idaho Jazz Festival, held in 1967, was a one-day event featuring one guest artist and a dozen local student groups.
2012 10 years ago
Randy Suess has lived in Colfax his entire life, but the third generation farmer has spent plenty of time exploring the world. In the past seven years, Suess, 58, has visited 22 countries through his work with the Washington Grain Commission and U.S. Wheat Associates. As the current chair of U.S. Wheat Associates, Suess was in the Philippines this month to speak at an International Association of Operative Millers conference for flour millers in Africa and the Middle East. He also celebrated the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Wheat office in Manila, along with hundreds of area flour millers and bakers. ... An enthusiastic and primarily young adult crowd greeted Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul at the University of Idaho, where the Student Union Building Ballroom rapidly filled to capacity. A waiting line of hundreds spilled out onto the street. Paul’s speech, lasted about 40 minutes and covered a wide range of the Texas congressman’s talking points.
