Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
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BLUESTEM – Entering the missile site owned by Peter Davenport just north of Bluestem Road between the city of Davenport and Harrington requires unlocking two gates and wandering down old roads largely overgrown by sage brush. To the untrained eye, the site, which is one of six in Lincoln County, appears to be a bizarrely oversized storage site for a farmer or person looking to get off the grid, but the history of the sites goes much deeper than that. Site stores many UFO f...
DEEP CREEK--20 acres and two structures have burned in a fire north of Highway 2 between Wood Road and Brooks Road as of 7:15 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 28, according to staff reports. Level 3 evacuation notices are in place from Christensen Road to the east, Ritchey Road to the west, Highway 2 to the south and Sprague Road to the north. Crews from Spokane County Fire District No. 10, Lincoln County Fire District No. 4, Fire District No. 3, Airway Heights Fire, Department of Natural...
DAVENPORT-Former Lincoln County Sheriff Wade Magers pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of third-degree criminal assistance and was ordered to complete 40 hours of community service by Garfield County District Court Judge Thomas W. Cox Wednesday, Aug. 24, concluding an 18-month saga stemming from a Feb. 2021 incident involving Magers and his son, Colton W. Magers. Wade Magers' official sentence was 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, all of which was suspended by the presid...
DAVENPORT—A second group is blaming Inland Power for damages caused in the Whitney Road Fire in Sept. 2020. David and Kristine Hubbard filed a complaint in Lincoln County Superior Court Aug. 12 accusing the company of negligence in maintaining a downed powerline blamed for the fire’s start. The Hubbards, who operate a cattle breeding and selling business called KD Piedmontese, lost miles of fencing, a barn, outhouses, 33 cows and grass pastures for cattle feeding in the fire. The family had to sell nearly 80% of their cat...
DAVENPORT-Former Lincoln County Sheriff Wade Magers pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of third-degree criminal assistance and was ordered to complete 40 hours of community service by Garfield County District Court Judge Thomas W. Cox Wednesday, Aug. 24, concluding an 18-month saga stemming from a Feb. 2021 incident involving Magers and his son, Colton W. Magers. Wade Magers' official sentence was 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, all of which was suspended by the presid...
DAVENPORT--An inmate has escaped Lincoln County Jail, and authorities are encouraging the public to call 911 if spotted. Cody James Magruder, 37, was booked on July 5 on a failure to comply with a Kittitas County felony warrant and a restricting-contact order violation. As of 9:14 p.m. Monday, the Sheriff's Office believed Magruder could be in the downtown Davenport corridor. Magruder stands 6'5" and was last seen wearing a brown shirt and orange striped pants. Lincoln...
Wheat harvest continued this week. Some farmers have finished already, but many are still working hard, long days to retrieve the 2022 crop. This harvester was cutting wheat Wednesday across from the WSU Extension just east of Davenport off Highway 2....
DAVENPORT—A defendant’s answer, affirmative defenses and counterclaims filed in Lincoln County Superior Court Wednesday, Aug. 10 by the city denied most claims levied against the city and airport in a lawsuit filed in July by Wilbur-based Greg’s Crop-Care Company while launching counterclaims asking the court to order the removal of the company from the city airport. The 21-page filing begins by responding to the accusations brought by the company and its owner, Kevin Leyva. The city denied that the airport ever enter...
DAVENPORT—10 defendants were listed in a suit filed by Jim and Sherri Keyes of Reardan against several county entities and employees Monday, Aug. 8 accusing the Assessor’s Office and Board of Equalization of various malpractices. Named as defendants are assessor J Scott Liebing, appraiser Christine Tareski, Board of Equalization members Anne Filion, Dale Vaughan, Ralph Nachtigal and Jim Knapp, prosecuting attorney Adam Walser, Lincoln County, the Lincoln County Assessor’s Office and the Board of Equalization. The suit alleg...
DAVENPORT-Freshly mowed, albeit slightly bumpy, grass. Getting run formations down pat. 20% of the roster absent because of wheat harvest. It's all a staple of the beginning of football season in Lincoln County as teams held their first practice in the morning heat Wednesday, Aug. 17. Davenport is looking to build off a state playoff appearance in 2021. First practices don't often indicate much, but senior Sam Schneider, traditionally a fullback, took the majority of reps as...
DAVENPORT—Over half of eligible Lincoln County voters turned out for the Aug. 2 primary election and chose six candidates to send to the November general election. Gabe Gants and Brian Telford are running for Sheriff, Emily Lybbert Hansen and Brad Sweet are running for Treasurer and Rob Coffman and Jason Debord are running for County Commissioner. Gants gathered over 50% of the votes in a five-man primary race for Sheriff with 2,259, while Telford had 990 votes. Almost every municipality favored Gants. Davenport gave him 3...
DAVENPORT—School safety has risen to the forefront of many minds in the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas in May. New superintendent Chad Prewitt has wanted some type of safety officer in the district, and the various options the district can take to that end were discussed at a special school board meeting Monday, Aug. 8. The district could hire two types of officers. One is a school safety officer, who would be employed and compensated by the district and have the full-time job of being o...
DAVENPORT—It took a week of vote-counting, but Brian Telford will be Gabe Gants’ opponent in the race for Lincoln County Sheriff in the November general election. Telford, a retired lawman who was most recently Chief Criminal Deputy in Lincoln County, secured his spot by slightly extending his slim second-place lead over Reardan Police Chief Andy Manke in each of the three counts that occurred in the past 10 days. As of the last major count on Tuesday, Aug. 9, Telford led Manke 990 votes to 849 votes with less than 50 bal...
DAVENPORT—Sports schedules are still a work in progress, but the calendar for football, volleyball and girl’s soccer in Davenport, Odessa and Reardan is starting to shape up. Tentative schedules show that Davenport will host Reardan in Week 1 of the football season. The Gorillas will be trying to build off last season’s playoff berth, while the Screaming Eagles will look for a rivalry win in Matt Clouse’s head coaching debut. If the tentative schedule holds, Davenport football will have home games against Liberty Sept. 3...
DAVENPORT—The city and airport can’t tear down, demolish or remove the hangar belonging to Kevin Leyva and Greg’s Crop-Care Company during the proceedings for a civil suit filed by the latter against the city, presiding judge Jeffrey S. Barkdull said in a ruling filed Tuesday, Aug. 2. The order granting the preliminary injunction was made after the court heard the original petition for declaratory judgment, the company’s subsequent motion for a preliminary injunction, the city’s response and a declaration by city administr...
REARDAN-The school district has a laundry list of capital improvements it hopes to complete in the next five years, most of which surround the athletic facilities slipping in quality behind many other area schools. Those improvements cost money, so the school board approved a motion to run a capital levy in this year's November general election at the board's July 27 meeting. The five-year levy, which comes on top of a three-year levy passed by voters in Feb. 2021, would...
DAVENPORT—Two locals were indicted by a federal grand jury for COVID-19 fraud as part of the Eastern Washington COVID-19 Strike Force, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Thursday, July 28. Stephen Murphy, 42, and Stephanie Murphy, 36, both of Davenport, were charged with nine counts of fraud for “fraudulently obtaining three PPP loans for fictitious landscaping and wood products manufacturing businesses in 2021,” according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Murphy and Murphy weren’t the only Eastern Washington...
DAVENPORT—The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office is facing critical staffing levels within its jail/dispatch staff, interim Sheriff Gabe Gants told the Lincoln County Commissioners Monday, Aug. 1. Deputy Matt Chalmers resigned his post, which wasn’t a shock to the office, but does leave the already short-staffed group even more spread thin. “We haven’t even had any applicants,” Gants told the commissioners. Gants said the office has been running status quo otherwise since former Sheriff Wade Magers retired, minus an undersherif...
DAVENPORT—The city’s financial standing for the second fiscal quarter of 2022, including its spending habits and money taken in, was presented to the finance committee prior to council’s regular meeting Wednesday, July 29. Just 60% of the city’s budgeted revenue came in for the second quarter, with $1,848,339 received out of $3,089,080 budgeted. The city received 61% of its expected revenue for property tax ($165,294), 73% of its expected sales and use tax ($220,054,) 50% of its expected motor vehicle fuel tax ($15,42...
DAVENPORT-New redistricting documents discussed at the school board's meeting Wednesday, July 27 will attract more candidates to fill District 1's vacant seat, the district hopes. The position, which was vacated after Heather Panke resigned at the end of 2021, has yet to be filled. The school district has three positional spots and two at-large positions. District 2 is filled by chair Deanna Fitzpatrick, District 3 is filled by Tami Odenrider and Garrett Husky and Janie Schrec...
YAKIMA-The Reardan softball team's ace pitcher of the last two years is most comfortable in the outfield. And that's what Alyssa Sosky will be playing for the Yakima Valley College Yaks this school year after signing Wednesday, July 27. Sosky chose the school due to its relative proximity to home, a local connection with a good friend and a budding relationship that began growing with Yaks head coach Renae Koppenhafer last summer. "She's one of those people that's very active...
DAVENPORT—It’s budget season in local school districts, and the school board here approved the budget for the 2022-23 school year at the regular meeting Wednesday, July 27. The board accepted the budget presented by first-year business manager Dana Telecky, who completed her first budget for the district. The school district is budgeting for 540 students this year, a 10-year increase from the two previous years. The district anticipates more students than that as enrollment rose to 562.94 last year, but the plus-10 inc...
Thursdays in the summer are often a slower day in the office. The paper has already printed, local folks are getting ready for a long weekend in the sun at Lake Roosevelt and there’s still a week to consider what the newspaper will look like in seven days. Last Thursday, that led to me finally undertaking a long overdue task not done since I’ve been here, at least: organizing the newspaper archives found in our 12th and Morgan Street office. Sometimes, interested local his...
DAVENPORT-One of the longest tenured incumbents running for county office has only been in the poisition for 3.5 years, and he can be found in the assessor's office. J Scott Liebing is running to retain the position he was appointed to in 2018 and re-elected to for the 2019-2022 term. Liebing is running unopposed on this year's ballot. "The alternative would be that I have to change careers altogether," Liebing said. "The first term went by really fast, and I'm now looking...
DAVENPORT—Surging temperatures and dry conditions finally reflecting a true Eastern Washington summer have led local authorities to enact burn bans around the county. Open fires were banned in Fire District No. 5, which includes Davenport, Deer Meadows and the surrounding areas, and Fire District No. 4, which includes Reardan, Edwall, Long Lake and the surrounding areas, effective Monday, July 25. Fire District No. 6, which includes Harrington and the surrounding areas, has had a burn ban in place since July 13. Fires are a...
