HUCKLEBERRIES: A writer on the trail of three missing women

For nearly 40 years, we have been haunted by a black-and-white photo of Deborah Jean Swanson, a Sorensen Elementary School teacher who disappeared from the Tubbs Hill area.

Perhaps taken by surprise, the curly blond instructor with green eyes stares at the camera, his mouth slightly open, as if surprised and uncomfortable at being the object of all the attention.

The media regularly published the photo over the years, as the anniversary of Debbie's disappearance came and went: March 29, 1986. And after all these decades? Nothing.

Debbie is still missing. The same goes for Sally Stone (Reis), an exotic dancer at State Line's former Kon Tiki bar, who disappears seven weeks later. The same goes for Julie Weflen, a Bonneville Power Administration operator, who disappeared from a substation northwest of Spokane on September 16, 1987.

Some believe the cases are related. There were suspects. Some have written about these women, including true crime author Ann Rule, who devoted a chapter to Debbie Swanson in her book “Kiss Me, Kill Me.” Others, including retired detectives and BPA officials, kept cold cases alive.

Now it's Doug Eastwood's turn.

“People don’t disappear without a trace,” the former Coeur d’Alene parks director said. “Someone saw or knows what happened. I want to refresh some memories.

Doug has written two books: A History of the North Idaho Centennial Trail, which he helped build, and one about the March 1964 murders of his aunt and cousin in Las Vegas, “Closure Can Be a Lie.”

After finishing the second book, Doug was asked by his publishing company, Bitterroot Mountain, to write about the mysterious disappearances of the three women from the Inland Northwest in the mid-1980s.

Doug will tell readers who these women were and the efforts made to find them.

Debbie was 31 when her car was found in the old Third Street parking lot with her purse and packages inside. One of 11 children born to a Minnesota couple, she was athletic, musical, a member of her high school cheer squad, gymnastics team, honor society and student council.

“She was always on the move,” Doug said.

His parents were music teachers. And she and her sisters formed an accordion group.

Sally Stone, who disappeared at age 21, was adopted, left home prematurely and was later kidnapped. Doug describes her as a woman who never took a break. She disappeared on May 16, 1986, after undergoing physical therapy for an injury that prevented her from performing.

Julie Weflen's disappearance received national attention because of her husband's desperate search to find her, according to The Spokesman-Review. Her photo appeared on dozens of billboards in four states and hundreds of thousands of posters after the Deer Park woman disappeared at age 28. A $25,000 reward for information from the BPA has not been claimed.

Doug visited the site of Julie's kidnapping and is looking for a possible connection to Debbie's case.

Doug can be contacted at [email protected] or at rd_eastwood via Instagram.

I have his goats

Goats once roamed Tubbs Hill – and that wasn’t too long ago. We're not talking about “GOAT”, as in the best athletes of all time like quarterback Tom Brady. But the kind to bleat.

For three weeks in late spring 2014, 200 goats from the Healing Hooves group in Edwall, Washington, roamed a one-acre portable enclosure on our sacred hillside, “frantically consuming” pine needles, twigs, herbs, bark. and leaves.

The four-legged mowers mulched about an acre per day – and ran for 22 days.

The city wanted to remove fuel at ground level to prevent the fire from reaching the treetops. And the goats proved more economical than human crews. Goats cost $500 per acre chewed; humans between $900 and $1,500.

Katie Kosanke, the city's urban forestry coordinator, said, “We just thought, 'Why not try it?' »

A Press reporter noticed a few goats standing on their hind legs in vain to reach a pair of blue men's boxers hanging from a leafless branch near their enclosure. But owner Craig Madsen wasn’t worried: “They won’t eat the underwear; they could tell.

Even goats have limits.

Quite the number

Mary Lou Reed, the Grande Dame of Kootenai County Democrats, and her Fernan neighbor, Donna Young, were part of the local bicycle craze 50 years ago (May 28, 1974).

The two regularly rode their two-wheelers from their home on the east end of Sherman Avenue into town to run errands and avoid postage increases by delivering their mail in person.

The national craze had become so trendy in Coeur d'Alene that retailers could no longer keep bikes in stock. Dingle-set Carter said he was selling every 10-speed bike he could get his hands on – and older people were buying them too.

Some have said that the bicycle fad of the early 1970s was fueled by the environmental movement. And the aforementioned Mary Lou and her late husband, Scott, were certainly conservationists. But Mary Lou had other reasons to pedal her bike.

She told La Presse: “We think exercise is wonderful for your figure and for staying in shape. Plus, it's more economical than driving a car. Is still.

Blueberries

• Poets' corner: Votes are cast/counting is complete/please remove your signs/now off our street — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Request for Nominations”).

• Restart: The Idaho State Fair for Expo 74 in Spokane was so poorly done that Governor Cecil Andrus ordered designers to renovate it. A press article from May 16, 1974, did not specify why the exhibition failed, but reported that the public response had been “categorically and overwhelmingly negative.” A metal sculpture depicting a Silver Valley underground miner has been removed from the State House rotunda to be displayed prominently in the Idaho Enhanced Exhibit.

• New start: After surviving a recall attempt, former three-term mayor Sandi Bloem had one last laugh when she helped inaugurate the renovated McEuen Park on May 24, 2014.

• Loss leader: The late Larry Anderson of the old Larry's 5 Cent Coffee on Government Way had good reason to serve java at a lower price than it did in the late '70s. Get them in, he thought, and they'd buy some other delicious dishes on its menu. It worked too. Later, he and his wife Pauline ran Franklin Hoagies for 23 years and enjoyed continued success.

• Cruise : Thirty-five years ago (May 21, 1989), construction of the $15.7 million, 1,730-foot-long Bennett Bay Bridge (Memorial Bridge) was underway. six weeks ahead of schedule for a spring 1991 opening – and only $281,000 over budget. Business owners credited good weather for keeping them on track. One said: “It's a bit like hay when the sun is shining. »

Starting shot

The late Rod Jessick, executive chef of the Coeur d'Alene Resort for more than 37 years, began his career by jamming his mother's mixer with a rubber spatula. To pay for the broken appliance, he washed dishes at the old Pagoda Restaurant in Post Falls. And he quickly excels around the stove and feels at home in the kitchen. All this according to a news article about Rod 30 years ago (May 25, 1994). And there's more. He received no formal culinary training (although he urged those considering a career in cooking to pursue an education). Rod told The Press that he learned to cook through hands-on training from some of the world's best cooks, including his mother, who he described as “the best cook I know.” It's not how you start that matters, it's how you finish.

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DF (Dave) Oliveria can be contacted at [email protected].