One of the region’s most well-known television personalities has revived a popular segment of a local news broadcast.
Keith’s Big Fish and Outdoor Trophies is dropping at 3:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday on Facebook, said Keith Havens, a former weather forecaster at KLEW-TV, a Lewiston CBS affiliate.
The show takes its cues from “Keith’s Big Fish,” a feature that aired during the weather segment five days a week before Havens left KLEW in June 2023.
Similar to the KLEW feature that ran 14 years, viewers submit pictures of fish with details about the species, weight and length and perhaps a little about where they caught it, Havens said.
Since he’s been off the air, people have approached him frequently telling him how much they missed that part of the news, Havens said.
The format has expanded. Havens begins with a fishing joke, talks about his sponsors, shares a “Big Fish” picture and then another photograph of an “outdoor trophy,” which are provided by viewers.
The latter includes snapshots of outdoor scenes and wildlife as well as images of game harvested by hunters, huckleberries people gathered or produce individuals raised in their gardens.
Havens wraps up with information about local events and an invitation for people to submit content at keithsbigfish@gmail.com.
All of the sponsors, Havens said, are businesses that sell goods and services he purchases and endorses.
The production is running on a tight budget from a studio at his Lewiston home in a project that Havens said has made him feel “giddy and stressed.”
Havens’ wife, Elisa Havens, operates the camera. The audio works through a lapel microphone plugged into his telephone.
Marlin Jackson, a retired KLEW engineer; Shaye Kingsley, a former KLEW news producer; and Jeff Boyer, an owner of JEDA Media, a marketing firm, helped him put the show together. Kingsley is now the owner of ShayeK Designs.
As the show continues, it will be available on additional platforms with more content, Havens said.
Finding a way to be in front of viewers again is just part of what Havens has been doing after leaving KLEW.
He and his wife have residential rentals in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley and a vacation rental in the Winchester area.
SEL promotes longtime employee to HR post
PULLMAN – A veteran employee of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Jacob Schlosser, has been appointed as the company’s vice president of human resources.
In the position, Schlosser oversees benefits, compensation and hiring as well as environmental health and safety, learning and development, and university relations.
SEL is the region’s largest private employer with a staff of 2,750 in Washington state, most of them at the company’s Pullman headquarters, another 850 in Lewiston, and 100 in Moscow. They invent, design and build digital products that protect power grids around the world.
Schlosser began his career at SEL in 2004 as a human resources intern when he was a student at Washington State University, where he earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in business administration.
For 12 years, he held a number of positions in human resources, each with expanded responsibilities. Then in 2017, he took a leadership position in manufacturing at SEL’s Lewiston site before his most recent role as a senior manufacturing director.
“(Schlosser’s) extensive experience and dedication to SEL have been instrumental in our growth and success,” said Chief Business and Finance Officer Joey Nestegard in a news release. “His leadership in both our human resources and manufacturing divisions has demonstrated his ability to drive innovation and foster a positive and productive work environment.”
Day care center opens at Clarkston location
Employees of a new Clarkston day care send parents pictures and updates about their children throughout the day on a cellphone app.
The information helps parents stay connected with their kids even if they have just a few seconds to glance at their phones, said Jaci Walker, an owner of Enriched Beginnings Learning Center LCV at 2515 20th St.
The center is housed in a former Tender Care location and has room for about 110 children ages 4 weeks to 10 years old. Its hours are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The rates vary depending on children’s ages, how many children in a family are enrolled at the center and how much child care families need, Walker said.
The center has rates based on children being there two, three and five days a week. Buses from Clarkston School District transport older children to and from school each day.
Information about openings is available by calling (509) 780-8362.
The routine at the center is a mix of structured activities and free play with a focus on making sure children are ready to enter kindergarten, Walker said.
The Clarkston day care is an expansion of a Spokane-area business that Walker owns with her parents, Chris and Angie Segroves. Enriched Beginnings has a similar-sized center on the South Hill in Spokane and another near the Spokane Valley Mall.
Prior to opening those centers four years ago, Walker was an owner of Magnolia Learning Center in Cheney, Wash., for two years.
Walker has numerous connections to the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley. She was born in Lewiston and has lived in the Clarkston-Asotin area intermittently including during her junior and senior years of high school when she worked at Snake River Grounds, an espresso business her parents owned in Asotin.
Marketing expert buys her employer
An employee of Advantage Advertising in Lewiston has acquired the marketing firm from Charles Christopher.
Michelle Ralston purchased the business in a transaction that closed Jan. 1. Just prior to becoming the owner of Advantage Advertising, Ralston was its media director, a position she has held since 2002.
Her expertise includes social and digital media, skills she has developed and used for a decade, according to a news release from Advantage Advertising.
Ralston will serve as the agency’s main point of client contact and manage the agency’s accounts. Christopher will continue at the firm, working on client strategy and ideas, designs and narratives to promote clients’ goals.
Advantage Advertising plans, budgets and produces marketing campaigns and does video production and design. The firm also designs, hosts and maintains websites. The firm has clients in the region, throughout the United States and around the world.
Christopher and Frank Bruneel, the founder of Bruneel Tire Factory, opened Advantage Advertising in 1986. Christopher became its owner in 1987.
Ralston joined Advantage after 10 years with Pacific Empire Radio where she was traffic director for nine stations in Idaho and Washington.
