(Brandon is the managing editor of the Chewelah Independent. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University and lives in Chewelah. You can reach him at brandon@chewelahindependent.com)

The cable channel HBO is known more for its sword and shield series “Game of Thrones” which I can’t get into because you need a guide book to keep track of all the political alliances, but its foray into Soviet history is one of the best things I’ve seen in cable format in a long time.

Chernobyl is a mini-series based on the 1986 nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the Ukrainian city of Pripyat in the Soviet Union. The TV series takes almost a horror movie approach to the insidious nature of radiation and how it affects people.

The series does a few things that I really appreciate, first it shows the Soviet people as just that, people like you or me thrust into a less-than-favorable situation by necessity, and a government that is operating on propaganda and party lies.
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(BRANDON HANSEN/Managing Editor of the Chewelah Independent)

With the City of Chewelah now working on a comprehensive plan for the future, there is a call for community members to come give their input on July 9 at city hall. The comprehensive plan covers a wide variety of topics, and it appears members of the city and the vision committee have open ears to any suggestions or ideas you might have. The last time this plan was updated was in 2008, which is before Facebook became the main way of communicating in Stevens County.

Since I’ll probably be laying out the newspaper on Tuesday, I figured what better way to give my suggestions than put them in a column for you to read before you use the newspaper as firestarter for your campfire. More

(DON C BRUNELL/Don C. Brunell is a business analyst, writer and columnist. He retired as president of the Association of Washington Business, the state’s oldest and largest business organization, and now lives in Vancouver. He can be contacted at theBrunells@msn.com.)

When my parents graduated from high school in 1936, a college education was too expensive for the son of a copper miner and the daughter of a plumber.

Eighty years ago, our country was in the middle of the Great Depression, and teens took odd jobs to help put food on the table and pay the family bills. In those days, no bank would lend money to college students.

Following World War II, there was new hope for veterans; the GI bill paid for veterans to complete their college or trade school education. My father, for example, graduated from trade schools in Seattle and Chicago and became a journeyman electrician thanks to Uncle Sam.

In the 1960s, the federal government introduced the work-study program allowing students from middle and low-income families to work their way through college. I found jobs and fortunately didn’t have to borrow money to complete my degree.

Today, it is a much different story. Student loans are the norm rather than the exception. As a result, the student loan debt has shot past $1.56 trillion spread out among 45 million borrowers. In 2018, nearly 70 percent of college graduates took out student loans and face their careers with an average of $30,000 in debt.

Growing student loan debt is a concern among Americans. “Spurring the free-college movement is the anxiety over the cost of tuition, which has risen at more than double the inflation rate since 1990, while student debt has tripled since 2006,” The Wall Street Journal recently reported.

Free college for all would cost a minimum of $75 billion each year if tuition was $4,400 per year, Quillette, an online think tank, estimated last September. “That doesn’t pay the bills even for in-state students at many public flagships. The University of Michigan, for example, costs over $15,000 per year for Michigan residents, and about $50,000 for out-of-state students.”

There are a variety of other approaches which can make higher education more affordable.

For example, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, wealthy anonymous donors pooled their money and started a free college tuition program. It is one of more than 300 cities and states around the country offering a variety of tuition assistance programs.

WSJ reports that since 2006, the donors contributed $124 million in tuition subsidies for nearly 5,400 students. The Upjohn Institute, which has been tracking Kalamazoo Promise, found that tuition assistance needs to be augmented with additional student career counseling in the K-12 system and other living costs for students.

Many small business owners in Washington State offer college scholarships and combined them with work and other benefits. Hopefully, the up-front funding offsets the need for loans and make it possible for students to complete their college education or technical skill training.

For example, in Seattle, Dick’s Drive-Ins offers employees who work 20 hours a week for at least six months and continue to work at least 20 hours a week while going to school to have access to a $25,000 scholarship over 4 years. In addition Dick’s pays higher than minimum wage, provides an employer paid health plan, and pays up to $9,000 in child-care expenses.

Other donors are stepping forward. Billionaire Robert Smith, founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, surprised Morehouse College’s 400 graduating seniors announcing his family is paying off their student loans. The estimated value of the gift was $40 million. He also challenged other donors to do the same.

Making higher education affordable is a national priority. The focus needs to be on approaches which are affordable and effective for students and their families. The issue is large than just having the federal government provide free-tuition for all.

Editor,
I can think of three things that very definitely do not exist here, or any place on this planet: 500 pound oranges, ghosts, and Sasquatch.

Respectfully submitted,
John May
Chewelah City Council

(BRANDON HANSEN/Managing Editor of the Chewelah Independent)

The greatest thing about the “sports industry” as opposed to other areas of work is when someone gets into their sweet spot, they very rarely leave. When you talk about sports writers, you’re usually talking about guys who have been in the same position for years, talking with the same coaches and same players for years and years on end.

Rick Reilly was at Sports Illustrated for so many years that the back page of the magazine basically became the Reilly page. Bob Robertson has been the voice of the WSU Cougars for so many years, it’s really hard to listen to a radio broadcast these days without his familiar gravely-yet-friendly tone where he describes Martin Stadium and the Cougars better than anyone else. Bob started calling for the Cougs back in 1964. More

This Letter to the Editor ran on June 20, 2019 in the Chewelah Independent…

Letter to the Editor:
After reading your article “Thanks to all those logging dads in Chewelah,” which I enjoyed, I wanted to thank all the loggers for toilet paper.
I am an elderly 90+ year old logger and when I was a younger feller, the only thing we had were outhouses and all of them had Sears and Roebuck catalogs. We should thank Sears and Roebuck for their “toilet paper” back then.
In the catalog, there were dark common pages that were for the children’s and men’s departments while the women’s department had pretty colored pages that were slick. While sitting there you would leaf through the catalog and tear out the dark common pages to finish your job because the slick colored pages just wouldn’t cut the mustard.
So thank you, loggers. We really don’t know how lucky we have it these days.

Sincerely,
Grandpa Hansen
Chewelah

Here is a letter to the Editor for June 20, 2019…

I read the article dated May 30, 2019 in regards to the two inmates who sued the City of Chewelah over e-mails and other public records violations.

The City of Chewelah has been violating the Public Records Act for a while and silently withholding documents. During the period that myself and Mr. Perry had to “ferret out” documents on our own, we learned that the officer of the City of Chewelah is still withholding e-mail communications that are not listed as “exempt” on an Exemption Log, when he was communicating via e-mail with officers of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department and Stevens County Prosecuting Attorney. When a conviction is based on fraud and you seek to ferret out the fraud, and hit a brick wall of secrecy, it makes you push further and harder to discover what the agency is hiding. More

(By Mike Bucy, Fire Chief Stevens County Fire Protection District #1)

A large portion of keeping wildland fires in check continues to be ignored on the state level. Initial attack/response can and does have a huge effect on the outcome of many wildland fires. While pouring money into state agencies may seem like a benefit, ignoring the local fire districts that respond to the 9-1-1 calls is a grave mistake and one reason wildland fires get an initial foothold.

To keep wildland fires that do break out to a minimum, we need to regionalize responses from local fire districts and departments. There are over 500 districts/departments in the State of Washington. Only a small percentage respond on a regular basis (only 67 were utilized by DNR in 2018, according to their 2018 report). Incentivizing and being more inclusive to all districts in the response plan would greatly enhance the efficiency and response to wildland fires. The resources are there; the State is not using them. More

(BRANDON HANSEN/Managing Editor of the Chewelah Independent)

While everyone talks about the Stevens County economy like it’s some magical Rubik’s Cube that could be solved if we just sent Jay Inslee on vacation, I keep thinking “what if one cottage industry we could establish is a vibrant film community?” Other places have done it by making it easy to get permits and giving companies a nice tax break in turn for bringing in temporary jobs and a good shot of money to the area from the cast and crew.

Think about it; here are the films that COULD have been filmed in Stevens County. More