Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part two, with part one having appeared in Saturday’s Tribune.
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OROFINO — “You are the stars and the world is watching you. By your presence, you send a message to every village, every city, every nation. A message of hope. A message of victory.” — Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Special Olympics founder
In 2020 plans were made for Jeff Greene and other Special Olympic competitors to participate in the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Kazan, Russia. Alas, COVID-19 hit and the games were postponed for one year. Following the COVID-19 challenges the war started, causing the games to be permanently canceled in early 2022.
But Jeff is very resilient and he kept right on practicing and preparing. Indeed, he has been participating in Special Olympics sports for more than 30 years including track and field basketball, bowling, Unified Golf and snowshoeing. When disappointments arise, Jeff just keeps practicing and maintaining readiness for the next step in his sports.
His parents, Scott and Nancy Greene, are his proud supporters and encouragers. Scott, in fact, has built him a track in their field to keep up with his preparations for the snowshoeing sport he participates in. Jeff is carefully focused on his diet and has routinely maintained a formal workout program since being notified he was actually going to be a part of the Special Olympics USA 2025 World Winter Games delegation.
Jeff started participating in Special Olympics when he was just 8 years old. However, he had never participated in winter sports. Then in 2019, a volunteer at a bowling event talked to him about giving it a try.
“After his first try at snowshoeing at the Lewiston Special Olympics practice, he was ‘hooked’ and it became a real adventure,” his mother Nancy says. There is no longer an active Special Olympics team in Lewiston, but Jeff is now a member of the Moscow Rebel Tigers team and travels to Moscow for practice.
With very little snow to practice on, research has found that practicing on grass works very well. This enabled Jeff to keep going and not lose out on practice time. He has a pair of special racing snowshoes that are required for the Winter Games. They can be no longer than 20 inches long.
Jeff will be doing the 25- and the 50-meter races at the venue located in Sestiere, Italy, for the World Games competition.
Since 2020, the year Jeff was first nominated for the World Games in Russia, the Greenes have sponsored a charity Golf Tournament to raise funds for Special Olympics Idaho. These funds help support the programs for athletes throughout the state of Idaho. The Greenes feel it is important to provide others with the same opportunities that Jeff has received from the program. Each year, this event has raised $30,000. 2025 will be the fifth year of this event and will be held on Saturday, June 21, at the Orofino Golf & Country Club.
Special Olympics Idaho was notified in December of 2023 that they had received a space for one male snowshoer for the World Winter Games in Italy. Everyone at Special Olympics Idaho, including CEO Kristi Kraft, agreed that Jeff would be their nominee. The Greenes were notified of the nomination and the World Games adventure began.
In April 2024, Jeff went to Salt Lake City for World Games trials to meet with all the other nominees for the World Games and participate in a variety of events and programs. In July 2024, Jeff was formally notified that he was officially selected as a member of the Special Olympics USA team as a snowshoer. He is the only athlete from Idaho going to the 2025 World Games.
Jason Kegel, an Idaho State Police officer from the Boise area, will also be there representing Idaho in Turin. He is a member of the final leg of the Law Enforcement Torch Run as the Special Olympics Flame of Hope is brought to World Games Opening Ceremonies on March 8. The Law Enforcement Torch Run is an initiative of Special Olympics International that is represented by the law enforcement community around the world. It is a real honor to have Jason representing Idaho in this role.
Jeff will have a real cheering section in Italy. Even though he will be exclusively with his USA delegation during the Games, there are many people attending the games from our area.
Cheering Jeff on will be his mom Nancy, sister Nikki Anderson, niece Bryton Turner and her husband Gabe and their baby Luna, as well as family friends and “Jeff Fan Club” members Jeff Matney, Connie Nuxoll and Tom and Jacky Mosman.
Special Olympics Idaho CEO Kristi Kraft and her husband Eric as well as Special Olympics Board Chair Katie Schimmelpfenning and her husband will also be in Italy supporting Jeff’s efforts.
In preparation for events, Jeff meets with his World Games team mates via zoom meetings so they can get better acquainted and make team bonds. World Games Coaches have been assigned one coach per every four to five athletes. Jeff’s coach is John Lair, CEO of Special Olympics Kansas. The focus is for athletes to maximize their experiences with the team and minimize any outside distractions.
To honor the occasion Scott and Nancy were scheduled to host a “Send Off” celebration Saturday at their home. Everyone was invited to take the opportunity to wish Jeff well on his adventure.
“Let’s go Jeff” T-shirts were to be for sale at the event for a reduced price. Everyone is encouraged to be part of “Team Jeff.”
Jeff will be flying out of Boise on March 5, with his Special Olympics Idaho chaperone. They will fly to New York City for a sendoff celebration with the entire Special Olympics USA delegation the evening of March 5.
On March 6, the Special Olympics USA delegation will fly together to Italy.
Opening Ceremonies will be March 8. Jeff will train and compete from March 9-15. Closing ceremonies for the World Games will be held March 15.
Jeff will return with the Special Olympics USA delegation onMarch 16, flying into JFK Airport in New York City. Jeff will then travel to Boise on March 17, with his Special Olympics Idaho chaperone. His dad will pick him up in Boise and he will return home to Peck that day.
When asked how he felt about going, Jeff’s comment was, “I’m excited, very excited. I will go and represent Idaho in Italy!” He is 42 years of age and is truly an inspiration with his cheerful attitude and determination.
The Games in Turin will have eight different sports competitions, but Jeff will only take part in the snowshoeing event. Other sports include alpine skiing, cross country skiing, dance sport, figure skating, floorball, snowboarding and speed skating.
— Lenta Hall, Clearwater Tribune (Orofino), Wednesday
Idaho County Commission: Tech 84 body scanner purchase approved; jail progress updated
GRANGEVILLE — The Idaho County Board of Commissioners met Feb. 11. The meeting was attended by commissioners Skip Brandt, Ted Lindsley and Brad Higgins; county clerk Kathy Ackerman; and deputy prosecuting attorney Matt Jessup.
Mike Cook, airport manager, presented the proposal to retain J.U.B. Engineering as the qualified airport engineering firm for the next five years; it was approved by the commission.
Progress on the county detention facility (as the new jail is officially called) continues, reported Denis Duman. Kenaston Corporation, the construction company, had a difficult time with the mud on the site before the current snow and cold temperatures set in. The quagmire kept the crew from getting their lifts in place to do the sidewall and the front wheel of an 80-ft. boom lift sank in the mud.
“Those guys just found themselves on the ground,” said Duman. “The opposite corner of the lift was clear up in the air. A couple of loads of 3-inch (rock) were put in and smoothed out, and, of course, it’s frozen solid now. Concrete is being poured today.”
Interior divider walls were pinned to the floor by drilling 1,200 holes and epoxying rebar into them. There is brickwork being completed inside before the walls become concrete blocks. Duman anticipates there will be a change of orders to come up for installing different valves for mixing cold and hot water in the cells that were not included in the engineer’s plans.
“Stuff just pops up all the time, but that is currently the only thing that may come up in the change order,” said Duman. “It’s not much, but we can’t keep whittling away at the contingency or it will throw it over budget.”
Two things that need to be addressed are the installation of snow stops on the roof over the sally port and freight delivery areas, and the removal of a bunk installed in the padded cell, which should have come totally bare.
Duman believes while the cold weather continues they can bring out a crane to swing the rooftop things into place. The interior work continues, and it is sealed up and heated.
“You can’t see much outside,” said Duman. “But inside they’re busy as beavers.”
A public hearing was conducted after the jail update to hear any comments about the state Agricultural Protection Area ordinance (Idaho House Bill 608) proposed to allow owners to voluntarily lock land from sale for 20 years.
It is stated it will “protect farms, ranches, and forests from being lost to development by rapid population growth.” (AgPro News Desk, Nov. 7, 2024).
Duman was the only member of the public to speak.
“I understand that ordinance will be law, and we’re required to do it. If approved, it will probably amount to our first land use planning in the county,” he said. “It would infringe on your right to sell your property. There are ways out of it, but it is quite a procedure. The only advantage to a landowner would be to protect it from an eminent domain. Beyond that, I don’t see any need for it in the county.”
Discussion ensued regarding the ordinance allowing landowners to revoke the 20-year protection in cases of “undue hardship,” such as a death that might require a sale in order to pay taxes and other contingencies. The commissioners also discussed notification of landowners about the term coming to an end and finding volunteers for a review board.
The hearing was concluded by tabling the ordinance decision until a deciding factor was reached at a later date.
The purchase of a body scanner was requested by Sheriff Doug Ulmer and Chief Deputy Brian Hewson. The funding would come from the opioid case settlement monies shared by all states “to prevent overdose deaths and other harms.”
Hewson remarked that right now they can hold 11 inmates at the courthouse jail, “but when we move to 52 people (at the new facility), we’re going to have a whole new set of problems.”
Because Nez Perce County has a body scanner now, Sheriff Bryce Scrimsher and Sergeant Joey Bremmling appeared at the meeting to answer the commissioners’ questions and tell how it has prevented deaths and other problems at the new Perce County jail.
Sgt. Bremmling told the board they had been having overdoses at the jail and that fentanyl was coming in easily.
“It’s so small it can kill inmates or kill our employees, and we wanted to do everything we can to prevent deaths,” he said.
“The very first day that it was in, the company came and trained the employees,” Bremmling continued. “We’d had an individual who was out on furlough. They ran the scanner when he came back and found he had hidden two balloons inside him. He had meth, a shortened syringe, heroin; and so, the very first person who went through, we caught what would have otherwise gotten into our facility.”
Sheriff Scrimsher also explained another service it offers that will scan incoming. It identifies the inmate, who then reads it in a kiosk in his or her pod and prevents any physical contact with the mail.
“We were running into issues of the letters and envelopes dipped into fentanyl and drugs and the inmates would chew on the paper,” he said. “We look at it that the liability you save on just one incident would pay for the machine.”
Before Nez Perce County installed the body scanner, they were having two or three overdoses a month and one week they had six. There have been none since the scanner was put in use. (The body scanner’s existence is known now, and inmates have given up trying to smuggle drugs in, the Nez Perce officers stated.) In fact, those arrested know that drugs will not get by it, so officers must search the back seats of their vehicles carefully for drugs stashed in the seats.
The machine is a Tech 84, and the cost for that unit is $180,500. New Perce County has done the purchasing process, acquiring the three bids, and Tech 84 was $30,000 and $68,000 less than the others. Idaho County is able to piggyback to use those bids, as well. The new Idaho County detention facility already has a dedicated spot for the scanner and an electric circuit for it.
The commissioners approved the purchase of the Tech 84 body scanner to be paid for from the settlement fund.
— Lyn Krzeminski, Idaho County Free Press (Grangeville), Wednesday
