2023 One year ago
A Pullman business owner opened her nonprofit as a way to spread awareness of addiction, but didn’t anticipate the “productive healing process” that would come with it. Ruthanna Willey is too humble to call herself a successful businesswoman, but hinted at her successes as a small-town entrepreneur. Owner of two businesses and counting, Willey is the founder of Monroe Men, now known as Kure & Co., Rockstar Body Bar and a new nonprofit. She recently opened The Wounded Phoenix Foundation with the goal of bringing awareness to overdose prevention in honor of her brother, Christian Kure, who died last year. ... In 2011, Josh Kraut was living in Walla Walla and finishing high school. He was also mentally preparing for the day his kidneys could fail. Now, 11 years after his diagnosis of Alport syndrome, the Pullman resident is recovering from a second kidney transplant in Seattle and is looking forward to going back to college and living his life again.
2019 Five years ago
Described by friends as a man full of life who’s never met a stranger, Gary Simpson strikes up conversation with everyone he meets. And he meets a lot of people. Born and raised on a family farm about 6 miles east of Colton, Simpson is a familiar face on the Palouse and it’s safe to say he knows his way around a tractor. Simpson is retiring as the groundskeeper at Pullman Regional Hospital this month after 14 years. Although his job title was groundskeeper, his responsibilities were endless. He was responsible for everything from mowing and trimming bushes to helping engineers design the hospital’s parking lot. ... The fact that their daughter was born on a holiday is not even the most amazing detail about the birthday of Kathy and Matt Foss’ newborn. The baby girl was welcomed into the world on New Year’s Day, but even more improbably, she is not the only member of her family to be a New Year’s baby. “She actually shares a birthday with my brother,” said Kathy Foss, the girl’s mother. “My brother is a New Year’s baby as well.”
2014 10 years ago
More than a dozen people wanted to begin 2014 by stretching their bodies and their minds. Nourish Yoga in Moscow hosted a workshop for people to think about their goals in the new year and how to best cope with the inevitable stress that accompanies making such life changes. Practicing yoga could aid them in turning their resolutions into eventual life achievements. It helps with relaxation, improves self-awareness and basically assists people to effectively process their prana, or life force, so it affects them in the most constructive possible ways, said Daya Devi, a staff member of the yoga studio who led the workshop. ... When Donna Wommack, a fourth-grade math teacher at Genesee, received an emotional phone call from her co-worker Dec. 20, she immediately thought something was wrong. Wommack was in Spokane picking up her daughter from the airport when she got the call and heard fifth-grade science teacher Tauna Johnson crying on the phone. It didn’t take long, though, to realize those were tears of joy. Johnson had just received an email from the White House congratulating her on winning the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.
