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A male inmate in the Spokane County Jail attempted suicide last Saturday and was pronounced dead at the hospital Monday, according to a news release from the Spokane County Sheriff's Office.

This is the third suicide of a person who was housed in the jail in the past 12 months. A fourth inmate died in March of this year while in custody at the jail due to a medical issue. That death is still under investigation, Sheriff's Office spokesman Deputy Mark Gregory says. Investigators are waiting on laboratory test results.

Sheriff's detectives are investigating the most recent suicide. The man's name, age and charge have not yet been released.

A jail officer found the man unresponsive in his cell just before 2 pm Saturday and called for assistance, the Sheriff's Office news release says. The man was the only person in his cell, and he was not on suicide watch.

Medical staff and jail officers attempted to revive the man before he was transferred to the hospital. The man was released from jail custody due to the "seriousness of his life-threatening condition," the news release says, and into the custody of his next of kin. He was pronounced dead Monday.

This story is developing and will be updated.

ON INLANDER.COM

ART: Using “visual poetry,” Spokane filmmaker documented local poet Ellen Welcker to compete in the Seattle International Film Festival Fly Filmmaking Challenge. Her documentary will premier in Seattle on Monday, May 28.

NEWS: Four North Idaho schools received grant money from the Kootenai County Environmental Alliance to help them learn about their environment.

IN OTHER NEWS

Fox, eagle, rabbit battle royale
A fox and an eagle battled over a rabbit during the weekend in San Juan Island. The battle was caught on camera by Northwest photographers and shared widely across social media. The victor? The eagle. Duh. (Seattle Times)

Fox kit 1. Eagle 0 #sanjuan #eagles #fox #foxkit #summer2018 #viral

A post shared by Zachary Hartje (@zachary_hartje) on May 20, 2018 at 11:34pm PDT

Spokane deputies arrest man for animal cruelty
Deputies arrested Clinton Burrill on Monday on charges of animal cruelty after discovering a dead and mutilated horse at his residence. Deputies said he killed and likely tortured the animal because his ex-girlfriend didn’t want to be with him anymore. (Spokesman-Review)

Oh, the possibilities
The New York Times suggests some potential outcomes for the Mueller investigation, now seemingly in its last days. (New York Times)

Kilauea’s wrath
The Hawaii County Civil Defense agency announced that lava from the Kilauea Volcano had begun to encroach on a significant source of the island’s power, the Puna Geothermal Venture.

"There's a steam release, there's many chemicals, but primarily the critical factor would be hydrogen sulfide, a very deadly gas," said Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency chief, Tom Travis, in reference to what would happen if the lava reached the plant.

Consider this one of the many reasons I’m happy to live here in the Northwest. (NPR)

Usually when offered a job, it’s one we’ve applied for.

Not in the case of Spokane filmmaker Kendra Ann Sherrill. Unbeknownst to her, Sherrill was nominated and accepted into this year’s Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF)’s Fly Filmmaking Challenge.

“I was very puzzlingly surprised,” Sherrill says. "I've always wanted to be involved in SIFF in some capacity, and getting this opportunity to do this year was super exciting. So yeah, completely random, but a very happy surprise.”

Sherrill was one of six filmmakers across Washington state selected to participate in the Fly Filmmaking Challenge. The task: make a 5-7-minute documentary on a budget of $500 in 10 weeks. The goal: Highlight an artist and their creative process in your community.

The festival provided a list of different arts disciplines the filmmakers could choose to feature a subject in. From that list, Sherrill, who's also the Spokane International Film Festival's assistant director, settled on literature. Then the search for a subject began. After asking around, she soon she came across Spokane poet Ellen Welcker.

Welcker was in the midst of planning a collaborative performance poetry project called The Pink Tablet. More than a dozen local artists came together to create the staged production back in February. The "feral opera” combined dance, song, spoken word, music and visual stage effects.

After meeting the filmmaker, Welcker says Sherrill left quite the impression on her.

“As soon as we met, I could see why she was selected," Welcker says.

Unlike a traditional documentary with mostly footage of the artist and the performance, Sherrill went for a different approach. With clips of swirling paint and a dollar jerked around on a string, the filmmaker describes her work as a “visual poem.”

“Poetry — it’s not the most tangible of art forms — so I thought it’d be really interesting if the entire film, we just heard Ellen’s words and her voice, because her words are her art,” Sherrill says. “I just wanted to do her justice.”

Sherrill's intent was to illustrate the meaning of the performance, rather than simply document it. One of her fears with this approach was how the viewers at SIFF will respond to it.

“[I] 100 percent took a risk because I did not do it the way I think they wanted me to,” Sherrill says, referring to the challenge's judges. “I think they’re gonna be fine with it, but I definitely took a risk.”

One of the major lessons Sherrill took away from working with Welcker was the two artist's contrasting creative processes. Sherrill is a planner, with her work structured and international. Welcker is the opposite. The poet loves to be thrown into the unknown and work by natural instinct, a mindset Sherrill had to adopt for this project.

“When I began to make the film I tried to approach it with my creative process, and I found myself in her creative process of scrambling and trying to use my instincts to figure out things," Sherrill says. "It was just a very interesting trick the universe played on me.”

SIFF was founded in 1976 and is one of the most highly attended film festivals in the country, with more than 140,000 attendees annually. The festival partnered this year with the nonprofit Washington Filmworks to bring back the Fly Filmmaking Challenge after a three-year hiatus. This year marks the first time that challenge was open to anyone in the state.

SIFF runs until June 10, and Sherrill's film, The Pink Tablet, premieres on Monday, May 28, at 3:30 pm at the SIFF Cinema Uptown and will be screened again on June 6. Showtimes for  all the films in the Fly Filmmaking Challenge can be found on SIFF's website.

In an ongoing effort to further improve climate science education in North Idaho, the Kootenai Environmental Alliance has awarded four North Idaho Schools money for field trips and supplies.

The four grants will provide teachers the resources they need to teach kids about their environment through firsthand experience, the Kootenai Environmental Alliance says.

"Schools don't have the funds to do field trips and buy equipment," says Sharon Bosley, with Kootenai Environmental Alliance.

Spread between four different schools, KEA awarded a total of $2,500. Lake City High School's Outdoor Studies program, which has been featured in the Washington Post, will take $1,000 to use on a field trip to the Coeur d'Alene River where students will test the water quality. Timberlake High School, which the Inlander wrote about in March, was awarded $500 for new kits to test water quality in Spirit Lake and Brickel Creek. Greensferry Elementary got $500 for science kits to study ecosystems and New Visions High School got another $500 for probes for the school's greenhouse.

It may sound like a modest amount of money, but for teachers that can be a huge difference, Bosley says. Timberlake High School, for instance, had students test water last year but didn't have enough kits for all the kids who wanted to participate.

Lake City and Timberlake High Schools both participate in "The Confluence Project," an educational model focusing on water-science education that University of Idaho graduates developed years ago. The KEA helps fund the project. It ends in a "Youth Water Summit" in Coeur d'Alene. That summit, where students present their research at a conference-style event, is on Tuesday.

The projects that students will present at the summit all have to do with the local watershed, which can include snowpack levels, water quality or other watershed issues.

"The kids will get to have a real scientific conference," Bosley says.

Through the year-long project, kids are connected with scientists and professionals from the University of Idaho, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and others.

So far, students from seven local schools participate in the project.

"Connecting high school youth to local experts is incredibly powerful, and through this process, we are able to enhance science education and critical thinking skills in participating classrooms," says Laura Laumatia, Coeur d'Alene Tribe Lake Management Plan Coordinator. 

ON INLANDER.COM

NEWS: Tererai Trent, who helps provide education to girls in rural Zimbabwe, will share her inspiring story at a Women Helping Women Fund luncheon.

IN OTHER NEWS

Stabbed man identified
The man stabbed to death last week has been identified as Corey Ward, a cook at Manito Tap House on the South Hill. A suspect in the stabbing has not been arrested yet. (Spokesman-Review)

Meter monitoring
Soon, Avista customers in Washington can track their energy use within a 24-hour period. The so-called "smart meter" system will allow customers to sign up for alerts if their energy use begins to exceed their average consumption. (Spokesman-Review)

Flooded with bad news
The flooding is continuing in the Inland Northwest, northeast of Spokane and into North Idaho. The flooding of Pend Oreille River, which already is seeping into people's homes, is only expected to get worse. (KXLY)

The price you pay
The teen who started the destructive Eagle Creek Fire that swept through the Columbia River Gorge has been ordered to pay back over $36 million in restitution. The payment would go toward the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon Department of Transportation. Oregon state law allows payments to stop after a decade if a juvenile completes probation, doesn't commit new offenses and pays on time. (Oregonian)

Trump trade
The trade talks with China have been muddled by infighting within the Trump Administration. The mixed messages within the administration and broadcast to the country have weakened the U.S. position in the talks, the New York Times reports. (New York Times)

What makes you rise from your bed in the morning?
What excites you?
If you close your eyes, what world do you want to see?

Rather than merely asking girls and women "What do you want to be when you grow up?" these are the kinds of thought-provoking questions Dr. Tererai Trent wants to talk about. Don't just think outside of the box, she says. Toss it out altogether.

"I want to be asked about what I envision my world to be, given what it is today," Trent says. "What do you think your purpose is in this life and why do you think that’s your purpose?"

Trent's journey to become a Ph.D.-educated woman who helps provide educational opportunities to girls in her rural community in Zimbabwe started years ago after a worker from Heifer International asked her a similarly meaningful question: What are your dreams?

Trent will speak at the Women Helping Women Fund's 26th annual luncheon on Tuesday, May 22, at the Spokane Convention Center, and after more than 30 hours of travel from Zimbabwe to Spokane, she was kind enough to sit down with the Inlander Monday morning to talk about her dreams and how she sees the empowerment of women as the key to the future.

Passion and Defining Your Future

Like her mother before her, and her grandmother before that, Trent was married off as a young teen. She had four children by the time she was 18, and she wasn't given the chance to complete her education, though she badly wanted to.

"I always say that sometimes we become passionate about something because once in a while we were broken with that very thing," Trent says.  "And so when we rise, we find our redemption and our healing in righting or in healing that very thing that once was part of our soul wounds."

Trent tries to focus on the positive work she's doing now, rather than anything from the past, as it's important not to let the bad things that have happened define you, she says.

"Sometimes I think we become fascinated by the ugliness of our past and forget the value that we bring," Trent says. "And as women we need to champion and be inspired by what we are doing as women and never to look at having the ugly past define us."

Her passion became earning her own education and then empowering other women and girls to choose the life they want to lead. That starts with education, knowing they don't need to rely on a man for their livelihood, and being able to choose to have as many or few children as they want, Trent says. It continues with work opportunities, mentorship and building a network of support with other women, she says.

Focusing on Dreams

When she was asked what her dreams were all those years ago, Trent's mother told her to write them down and bury them.

"I come from a culture where they believe the infant, when the baby’s umbilical cord is buried deep in the ground — the female elders, the wisdom carriers — they believe wherever this child goes, their umbilical cord will remind them of their birth place," Trent says. "So my mother said, 'These dreams will follow you wherever you go.'"

When she was about to bury her four dreams — to go to America, to get an undergraduate, a master's, and a Ph.D. — Trent's mother told her to write another.

"My mother said, 'Your dreams will have better meaning when they are tied to the betterment of your community,'" Trent says.

So she wrote a fifth: that she'd be able to come back and provide education for other girls so they wouldn't have the same experiences she'd had.

After taking eight years to earn her GED, Trent went on to Oklahoma State University and earned her bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. After the 20-year journey to achieve her first four dreams, it was time to focus on her fifth.

"Today we have more than 62 million girls worldwide that are being denied the right to an education, and we have about 700 million women today who were either married before the age of 18 or had babies before the age of 18, and I am one of them," Trent says. "That makes it a moral obligation for me to work around those issues, because that’s what pained me, that’s what hurt me, those were my soul wounds. So I find redemption in doing that."

Supporting Education

In 2011, Oprah Winfrey had Trent on her show and donated $1.5 million to help Trent build a school in Zimbabwe. (Oprah later revealed that in 25 years of running her show, Trent was her all-time favorite guest.)

Now, Trent helps with 11 public schools in rural Zimbabwe. There are some kids whose families have opted to let them walk as far as 10 or 12 kilometers each way just to go to school, she says.

And it's not just the education that she's supporting.

Trent helped rally support for a canteen to feed the children lunch, because many of them come from extremely poor families and weren't getting meals before their long walk. Now, she's working on an artisan workshop to provide an employment platform for women so they can earn money to send their children on to college.

"The education of girls is tied to the empowerment of their mothers and grandmothers," Trent says. "If they are not educated and empowered themselves, how can we expect these beautiful human beings to find the resources to send their children to school?"

Change through Resources

Through increased educational opportunities, Trent is seeing real change in her community. Old men now bring their young daughters to her and ask if they too can be successful like she has been.

She's found that it's actually a lot less about shifting cultural beliefs than she once thought.

"All along, I used to think that the men did not want their daughters to go to school," Trent says. "But through this process and experience, I’ve realized, 1) it’s ignorance, 2) they never saw a role model of a woman bringing education and empowering communities, so there was no belief of women doing anything."

When she came back from her time in the U.S. and started building up the school, it came down to resources being the necessary ingredient.

"We are shifting and redefining what we used to think is culture. It’s not. It’s abject poverty," she says. "When you provide resources and empower communities, they are more likely to empower the next generation."

Pulling up Other Women

In everything she does, Trent focuses on how women at the top of the ladder can help pull up the women who are down below, due to poverty, lack of opportunities and circumstance.

She writes about her own life and what can be done to improve the lives of women in her book The Awakened Woman, which came out in October last year.

"Can we rally to help pull these women up, so all of us are in a position where we say, 'We rise. We are awakened women,'" Trent says. "Because it is only through our collectiveness that it is going to make our world a better world."

Trent says that's why she loves the work of the Women Helping Women Fund, which focuses on providing grants to nonprofits that help women and children in ways "that remove the social, economic and educational barriers preventing women from reaching their full intellectual and vocational potential."

"I truly believe that it is going to take the collective of women to change this world," she says.

ON INLANDER.COM

NEWS: Berry good news: The Berry-Go-Round ride will be opening in Riverfront Park on Memorial Day.

NEWS: Employees at Spokane's Fire Station 2 have been accused of sexual harassment, bullying and general harassment of probationary firefighters. A human resources  investigation has substantiated some of the claims.

NEWS: Police, prosecutors, judges, victim advocates and survivors gathered for the End the Silence Domestic Violence Town Hall on Thursday to talk about a litany of solutions that could make the criminal justice system better for survivors and help reduce instances of violence.

IN OTHER NEWS

Cougar kills Seattle man in first deadly cougar encounter in nearly 100 years
Two Seattle men were attacked by a cougar while mountain biking near North Bend on Saturday, and while they initially scared it off, the cougar attacked again and killed one of the men in the first deadly cougar attack in 94 years. (Associated Press)

Don't expect a Seattle-style head tax for homelessness in Spokane
Seattle recently passed a controversial tax on businesses with the most employees and profits to address homelessness, but there doesn't seem to be interest in looking at a similar style tax in Spokane, the Spokesman-Review reports after checking in with elected officials. (Spokesman-Review)

Cancer cure could be close in Seattle
The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Magazine reports: In ongoing research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, patients' immune systems are being tweaked to fight some of the trickiest cancers that resist other treatments, and it's working at incredible rates, enough for some researchers to say cures for some cancers could be very close. (Seattle Times)

Mawwaige, mawwaige is what bwings us heah togevuh todayyyy
If you were stuck under a rock this weekend, you might hear people at the office talking about how some royal people tied the knot. (CNN)

A lieutenant in the Spokane Fire Department has accused several officers of bullying, sexual harassment and inappropriate interactions with probationary firefighters working in Station 2 on East North Foothills Drive.

The city released a redacted copy of the investigation into those allegations. Some are sustained, but the human resources investigator was unable to find enough evidence to support others.

Lt. David Bowers named Lt. Patrick Walsh, equipment operator Jeffrey Webb, Battalion Chief Donald Waller and Battalion Chief Darin Neiwert as the sources of the abuse in his complaint to the city's human resources department. Only Webb escaped the investigation with no sustained allegations against him.

A relative of Bowers had at one time worked as a probationary firefighter in Station 2 and, according to witnesses interviewed for the investigation, "struggled with performing consistently and was 'very nervous.'"

Here are the biggest takeaways from the 40-page report:

• Allegations of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment were sustained against some, but not all of the officers.
• Allegations of retaliation and inequitable or unduly harsh evaluations of probationary employees were not sustained.
• Witnesses who worked in Fire Station 2 described the environment as "very hostile," "lots of hazing and disrespect towards the new guys" and "pretty toxic." One witness, who is unnamed in the report, said the officers would instruct probationary employees to do things one way and then scold them for following instructions.
• One witness believed the working environment at Station 2 could improve, but did not experience inappropriate behavior himself. "My perspective is that there is a fine line between pushing someone to be better at their job versus defamation of their character and their basic rights as a human being," he said. "I do have specific examples [of disrespect], but I'm uncomfortable with where this goes. It's a hard thing to swallow. I'm not looking for anybody to be in trouble. I have witnessed certain things, and I feel that others should not be treated in that fashion."
• Another witness told HR that while on duty, Lt. Walsh would point to women walking by and ask "would you f—k her?" When the witness refused to participate, the witness said Walsh questioned his sexual preferences and said "if you don't admit you would screw her, we are going to take you to training and make you throw ladders by yourself."

Walsh flatly denied the description, saying "That did not happen."

The HR investigator ultimately sustained the sexual harassment allegation against Walsh.

• A deputy fire chief repeatedly told officers at Station 2 that they were treating probationary employees unfairly and were training them too much. In response, Battalion Chief Neiwert named his fantasy football team "Probie Killers." The HR investigator concluded that the name "would reasonably be interpreted by a probationary employee as intimidating and undermining a probationary employee's right to respect at work," a violation of the city's anti-bullying policy.
• Multiple witness said Battalion Chief Waller was unfair in his evaluations.
• The HR investigator wrote that Waller "became visibly agitated and defensive when discussing allegations concerning an extrication drill and attempted to normalize a demeaning nickname used toward a probationary employee." The investigator sustained the allegation of bullying and harassment against Waller.
• Several years ago, Battalion Chief Waller said he interviewed two relatives of Lt. Bowers, but did not offer them a job. Bowers then aggressively confronted Waller at a union office and demanded to know "what [his relative] needs to go do get hired." Waller felt that was inappropriate.
• One officer, whose name is redacted in the report, violated the city's bullying policy by repeatedly threatened probationary employees with job loss and referred to them as "numb nuts." In an interview with HR, the officer said: "I will have to admit that I used that term. I call my kids that. It's a term I got from the Marine Corps. From this point on, I will cease using that term."
• Lt. Krouse once instructed a probationary firefighter to retrieve a ladder from a structure without SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus), though such equipment is required.

When asked, Krouse said: "I don't really have any recollection of that. I have never used phrases like [that] toward probationary employees. We may tease each other around the station, but nothing like that."

The HR investigator recommended that the city provide training for bullying and harassment for all Spokane Fire Department employees; the city should hire an independent consultant to lead training and engage in other steps to improve SFD's internal culture; and the city should periodically elicit feedback from probationary firefighters and make appropriate adjustments to training and the work environment.

Today marks exactly one year since Nichole Archer's abuser was first put behind bars.

After she ran terrified out of their home, neighbors who heard her screaming as he beat her called the police. The abuse had gone on for 16 years, she says, but until that day, it had all been behind closed doors.

He was bailed out a week later, and though she had a protection order, on June 14, 2017, he hid with a club in hand behind the garage at their apartment complex and then ambushed her, beating her within inches of her life.

Neighbors who heard the attack rushed to save her, but her arm had already been broken, her skull fractured, and she lay bleeding out on the ground. They stopped the attack and then beat her abuser, who started crying for his own life, Archer says, and police finally arrived and took him away.

"I'm here today because you need to say something," Archer tells attendees at Thursday night's Domestic Violence End the Silence Town Hall, on the Eastern Washington University Riverpoint campus. "I'm here and have my life because of everyone else. Please say something, stand up and stop the silence."

For years Archer says she didn't feel she could do or say anything to stop the violence in her relationship because her abuser isolated her and their sons from everyone else, including family. His threats of what he would do to them if she left were not empty, she says, as the June attack shows.

Archer and several others sat on a panel organized by the YWCA Thursday night, May 17, to confront myths about violent relationships and speak to the realities for domestic violence survivors both in and out of the legal system.


Domestic violence affects more than 3,900 victims in Spokane County each year, according to the Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD), and the actual number of impacted people is likely vastly higher.

"Domestic violence (DV) is a silent epidemic — most cases are invisible to society," an SRHD factsheet handed out at Thursday's meeting states. "There are approximately 3,900 confirmed victims each year, although there are about 13,500 potential victims associated with all DV-related calls to law enforcement."

On the panel, Judge Patti Walker, City Prosecutor Lynden Smithson, Spokane County Sheriff's Office Major Crimes Detective Mike Ricketts and Spokane Police Sgt. Jordan Ferguson spoke to the limitations of the legal system and improvements that have happened over the years for domestic violence cases. Darby Stewart, a community victim liaison in the state Department of Corrections, Morgan Colburn, a victim advocate at the YWCA, and Courtney Pettitt, a victim advocate and pre-trial services officer with Spokane County, joined them to speak to common concerns and talk about how current systems could be improved.


Some improvements have been made, such as training law enforcement in trauma-informed interviewing techniques, teaching kids at a young age about healthy relationships, improving reporting and making sure agencies are working together. But issues remain, panelists said.

Among a list of many potential changes the panel discussed that could help reduce domestic violence or improve enforcement, the panelists suggested:

• Consolidating cases and resources within one court and building, creating a domestic violence court that would handle all levels of DV cases.
  
• Improving communication between agencies. For example, ensuring that the courts or law enforcement agencies can check Department of Licensing files to see if someone has a concealed weapons permit or if they've been ordered to turn over any guns.
  
• Increasing resources for prosecutors, who Smithson says are even more overwhelmed than public defenders as far as case loads go; and for police agencies, who don't often have enough detectives to dedicate the time needed to fully investigate cases or confiscate weapons, Ricketts says.
• Breaking down the silos between child protective services, advocates and the criminal justice system to offer a family justice model, Stewart says.
• Reducing the time it takes to go from arrest to sentencing to strengthen the connection offenders make between the crime and the time they get, Ricketts says.

If you or a loved one are experiencing domestic violence, the YWCA has a 24-hour domestic violence helpline: 509-326-CALL (2255).

The YWCA also offers customized safety planning, legal advocacy, counseling and other services to those trying to get out of domestic violence.

We have some "berry" good news for fans of either amusement park rides or fruit-related wordplay: The classic Riverfront Park "Berry-Go-Round" ride is returning.

It's sitting in the middle of what, in the winter months, is the pond for the Ice Ribbon. While the Riverfront Park will continue to use the rest of the ribbon for roller skating, the parks department is exploring other ways the ribbon can be used in the summer months.

"We’re trying to find multiple uses for the space," Spokane parks department spokeswoman Fianna Dickson says. 

Normally, you have to take years of figure skating training and practice to pull off an effortless camel spin and flying-sit spin on ice skates. But now, all we have to do is wait until summer, pay the $2 ticket fee, sit down in a giant strawberry and let it do the spinning for you. 

The Berry-Go-Round will open on Memorial Day. Depending on how popular the ride is, it could last through the entire summer.

The fate of the Berry-Go-Round, and of other rides, has been up for debate though.

For a long time, the Spokane Park Board had considered simply demolishing the older amusement park rides. At a presentation before the Park Board a year ago, current Riverfront Park Director Jon Moog summarized the challenge for many of the rides.

“They are essentially like having a 1980s car in your front yard. It maybe doesn’t run, but you put a lot of effort into it,” Moog says. “We want to make sure that '80s clunker doesn’t stay around. It doesn’t provide a lot of confidence in its safety. It may be fun still to drive, but it takes a lot of effort to maintain them.”

But some advocates, including former Riverfront Park Director Hal McGlathery, argued passionately for at least keeping some of them.

"A lot of people think the rides are tacky, they're 'carnival' — that they're not classy enough for the park or for the Pavilion," McGlathery told the Inlander in 2016. But he argued that, properly maintained, they could make money. He urged moving the rides to the North Bank instead of trashing them.

Ultimately, Dickson says, the Park Board was persuaded to try to keep some additional low-cost options for families.

"The Park Board felt that the rides were an important piece to offer," Dickson says. "We know they’re not going to be a major revenue source for the park, but it’s important to offer affordable family entertainment."

Ultimately, the Park Board voted to keep up to three rides. Two made the cut: the Berry-Go-Round and the Spider, one of those octopus-like rides with the big arms on the end. (The city doesn't have a set plans for how to use the spider yet.)

Most of the other rides were sold off.

As for the Spokane's beloved "rusted" Ferris wheel (star of that Guardian article on Spokane)? It was in terrible condition — missing paint, lights and hydraulic rams. It was a lost cause. To deconstruct the Ferris wheel to sell it would require special equipment.  The time and rental costs of that equipment would have been more expensive than the resale value of the wheel. So it was demolished.

Goodnight, sweet prince, and may flights of hand-holding junior high kids sing thee to thy rest.