Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part one, with part two scheduled to appear in Sunday’s Tribune.

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PALOUSE — The Halloween event that brings hundreds of people to town may return this fall after being postponed last September.

Haunted Palouse will meet periodically this summer to discuss the frightfest in five months.

The nonprofit organization will also be under new leadership this year, as Will Perry, of Palouse, has assumed the newly created director role.

Haunted Palouse will see new changes this year because of last year’s postponement.

Volunteers from Whitman County gathered in Palouse’s Community Center on East Main Street for their first meeting May 16. Many longtime residents and volunteers were in attendance.

The Haunted Palouse planning team was forced to postpone its annual haunted house and zombie trail event last year due to the need for volunteers and to fill leadership roles.

Perry began the meeting by introducing the changes, including electing several different, but necessary, leadership roles to run the event.

The roles included director, stakeholder manager, public relations representative, building manager, trail manager, marketing and content manager, vendor manager and volunteer coordinator.

Longtime Palouse resident and Haunted Palouse volunteer Jennie Gaber will assume the position of stakeholder manager.

“We decided what needs to happen is there needs to be a chain of command in place,” Perry said.

According to Perry, getting enough, or any, volunteers was challenging in previous years. Because of this, Perry plans to increase funding for volunteer groups and create a contract that binds those who volunteer to be there.

“Unfortunately, in our opinion, the age of volunteerism has gone out the window,” he said. “We believe that 75% of the revenue should be given to the volunteer groups. Signing that contract is essentially getting signed to a paycheck since those funds get dispersed to groups.”

The allocation of funds and loans was also adjusted last year. Haunted Palouse has some funding from 2022, but the Palouse Chamber of Commerce has awarded a loan and provided liability insurance. Reports say a budget has yet to be made but is in the works.

Haunted Palouse intends to raise money for the local swimming pool, which needs upgrades and repairs this year.

Another change in the works allows customers and visitors to purchase tickets online and ahead of time.

Perry suggested that express tickets could be sold, which would allow people to bypass the lines.

“It’s 2024,” he said. “We can use an online database to sell tickets ahead of time.”

The notable Palouse museum attraction will not make a comeback this year, disappointing the Future Farmers of America (FFA) students of the Palouse, who relied heavily on that attraction to get volunteer hours.

Because of this, the group will decide whether to open the downtown area to vendors and make it a strict, family-friendly zone.

“This would be a non-ticketed area,” Perry said. “We would need to suss it out, but we might charge vendors $75 for one weekend or do a special for vendors of $50 for both weekends. If they are in the Chamber, $35.”

Themes this year were discussed, and a new plan to implement an approval process and keep themes PG-13 was developed. If the group successfully reserves the downtown Palouse area, it will keep the area PG for young children.

“Last year was last year, and I do not want to dive into that,” Perry said. “The whole intention of themes is to veto them. If something is inappropriate, it will either be approved or unapproved based on its content and actions.

“I do not want teenagers not to be able to attend. We are not going to make it too gory or have a theme that is absurd. We will have a little bit of gore, but not much.”

Perry has also suggested proceeds will be evenly split between the Palouse Chamber of Commerce and the city pool.

But Palouse Paintballers are set to return their zombie-shootout lane, which first appeared in 2022. The lane allows anyone who enters to shoot anything and anyone, including those in their group, with biodegradable glow-in-the-dark paintballs.

The lane is expected to be half the length it was in 2022 but will allow for a shorter wait time.

The new lane would cross the bridge along the Shady Lane trail. Because of this, Perry would like to work with the city to have the bridge inspected.

— Olivia Harnack, Whitman County Gazette (Colfax), Thursday

Orofino awarded grant for revitalization

OROFINO — The city of Orofino has been awarded a $500,000 Idaho Community Development Block Grant for downtown revitalization and it was accepted by the council in a meeting May 14.

The funds are to be used in a phase of downtown revitalization to update the infrastructure on Johnson Avenue.

Clearwater County Economic Development (CCED) Director Susan Jacobson said J-U-B Engineering and the committee that helped put the application together deserve most of the credit.

It was a heavy lift to get it. Clearwater Economic Development Association will be administering the grant.

An Idaho Gem grant for $50,000 has also been awarded to the city for the new Adventure Park that will include a disc golf course and hiking and biking trails on the city’s 72 acres primarily above Riverside Cemetery.

The match for the grant is $10,000, half of which has already been paid through donations, and the remainder will come from the CCED budget, according to Jacobson.

Houck Design Services will develop the design. The park will be built in phases. The grant and a contract with Houck Design were approved by the council.

Jacobson requested a $10,000 sponsorship from the city for CCED, its annual contribution to the organization.

She reported they were able to bring in $600,000 in grants in the last year and she had worked with 18 businesses, including helping Augie’s restaurant to move to a new location.

The remainder of the organization’s budget is with funds from the Idaho Department of Commerce, donations from businesses and support from the county and other communities in the county.

Mayze Daniels requested permission to close off Johnson Avenue from College Avenue to First Street from 6-9 p.m. July 13 for a fundraising community barbecue and activity in partnership with TLC Foundation. It was approved.

Hiring a human resources company to help with recruiting and hiring a new city administrator, as well as assist with other issues, is being discussed. Proposals from several firms were presented, but a decision has not been made.

Hiring a new city attorney was tabled until the next meeting. The current city attorney has given notice that she is focusing her practice on other areas.

Mayor Sean Simmons declared May Building Safety Month.

— Nancy C. Butler, Clearwater Tribune (Orofino), Wednesday