A large smoked sausage made of beef, pork and pork fat seasoned with pepper and garlic. That’s the definition of mortadella, which is the word Navtaj Singh spelled correctly to win the 36th Annual Inland Northwest Regional Spelling Bee. Singh was up against 22 spellers from the region including Lewiston, Asotin, Moscow, Orofino, Culdesac, Genesee, Juliaetta, Cottonwood and Weippe in grades from fourth to eighth. After a total of 17 rounds, the fifth grader from Sunnyside Elementary School in Pullman was named the winner at the Lewis-Clark State College Williams Conference Center. ... Palouse Ice Rink representatives will ask the Moscow City Council to reaffirm its commitment of $1 million from the Hamilton Fund to help pay for the new ice rink facility on South Main Street. The Hamilton Fund comes from the estate of Bobby Hamilton for the purposes of supporting recreational opportunities in Moscow. It has been used for the Hamilton Indoor Recreation Center, Hamilton Lowe Aquatic Center, parks and playgrounds. The city already committed $1 million from that fund to the ice rink in 2017.
Colfax is planning a road and infrastructure improvement project totaling nearly $1.6 million for the summer, city officials say. Colfax Public Works Director Matt Hammer said the project addresses two stretches of road on Cedar and Oak streets that are six-tenths of a mile each. Hammer said the work done to the roadway itself will cost around $960,000, but $913,000 of that will be covered by a grant from the Washington Department of Transportation’s Transportation Improvement Board. ... Moscow High isn’t known as a wrestling powerhouse like some schools across the state, but Britton Needham’s career on the mat shows that it could be. The junior took second at the Idaho Class 4A state tournament and became the first Bear to make a final since Eric Frisbey in 2010. Needham is also the fourth three-time state placer in Moscow history, and he might be the fastest Bear to reach 100 wins, according to his dad, Shane, and Moscow coach Pat Amos. The record is unconfirmed, but because wrestlers used to be limited on the number of matches they could wrestle, he could potentially be the fastest to 100.
Washington State University’s provost and executive vice president announced Thursday he plans to resign the position effective May 31. Warwick Bayly said he wants to resume full-time research in the field of equine exercise science and will remain at the university as a professor. “The research I’ve been wanting to do is right here at WSU,” he said. “That’s why I came here 34 years ago — to get involved in equine exercise research. I don’t know of a better place to do it.” ... The white smoke that puffed out of the Sistine Chapel signaled not only a newly elected pope, but one with a background unlike most of his predecessors - an aspect some in the local Catholic community hope will spark some change within the church. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, was elected as the 266th pope and became the first to select the name Francis. Pope Francis, 76, was said to be the runner-up in 2005 to Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, who announced last month he would retire making him the first pontiff to do so in 600 years.
