Stories from Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Initial registration numbers show a decline in student enrollment again this year for the Mountain Home School District. Drops in enrollment have a major impact on state funding, which represents almost 90 percent of the district's revenue. Schools Supt. Tim McMurtrey has seen enrollment generally decline during the last six years...

Air Force Appreciation Day Chairman Randy Valley has been named the grand marshal for this year's AFAD parade. He earned his selection in recognition of his years of service helping plan and run the annual appreciation day festivities, said Diane Ferrell, a former grand marshal who made the formal announcement at this week's Chamber of Commerce noon meeting...

Following two successful shows, the third annual Great Basin Blues Festival will take place at Optimist Park on Saturday, Aug. 22. Over the years the festival has highlighted blues talent from all over the world, including Lara Price, Sirah Storm, Cedric Burnside and Lightning Malcolm...

Barbara Jean Morgan Freeman passed away on Monday, Aug 17, 2009 in Boise, Idaho following a battle with cancer. She was the youngest of seven children born to Hazel and Main Morgan on April 3, 1930 in Glenns Ferry, Idaho. After graduating from Glenns Ferry High School, she moved to Columbus, Ohio to live with her brother Lloyd and wife Helen. ...

Greg and Vicki Keller of Cascade and Walt and Amy Grows of Saint Anthony have announced the engagement of their daughter, Sarah Allison Keller of Coeur d'Alene, to Joshua W.R. Hoston of Coeur d'Alene son of Douglas and Cynthia Hoston of Mountain Home...

Having observed the YMCA in action as it works with the Community Leadership Development Committee we have to admit we're impressed. They have a clearly defined process for identifying community needs that should go a long way toward helping shape the future of this community...

by Steven A. Millard, president, Idaho Hospital Association, and Greg Maurer, administrator, Elmore Medical Center Whether America's health care system is in need of reform isn't the debate. There is no doubt that the time for reform has to be now. The more elemental question is what constitutes reform?...

Dear editor: I would like to know if anyone from the Chamber of Commerce has ever turned their hand at volunteering at the visitors center. To see what goes on--learn where anything is, what the volunteers do. Before, they put their high and mighty plans into action, see what the one who has to order things does, and try to keep enough saleable things on hand...

Dear editor: Our daughter and her new husband have spent their summer-long honeymoon riding across the country on a tandem bicycle. They are riding "unsupported," pulling a small trailer bedecked with a "Just Married" flag. Their trip started in New Jersey on June 15. ...

Olive Elizabeth Fuhriman, 86, of Boise, Idaho, died Wednesday, August 12, 2009 in Boise of natural causes. Funeral services were held at 10:00 a.m., Friday, August 21, 2009 at the S. Cole LDS Church, 1211 S. Cole Rd., Boise. Burial followed in Dry Creek Cemetery...

Mike Parkinson (14) traveled to Ellicotville, New York last week to compete in the International Bowhunting Organization World Championship. On the first day of the competetion Parkinson found himself in 7th place among 50 plus top shooters from around the country in his class...

Sixty-four years ago this month Duane Silva, 89, of Mountain Home, became a free man. After being a prisoner of war for nearly four years since the fall of Corregidor in the early months of WWII, Silva knew the war was over when the Japanese prison guards at the POW camp in Osaka shouldered their rifles and marched out of camp. Shortly afterwards, B-29 bombers began dropping drums of food supplies into the camp...