A century ago
A very big event in 1922 Lewiston was the opening of the Lewis-Clark Hotel on Sept. 8.
More than 10,000 people visited the new $450,000 hotel during a two-day celebration.
The five-story building had 150 rooms, three dining rooms and a large lobby.
The Breier Building on Main Street was being built in 1922. When completed in 1923, it gave Lewiston two five-story “skyscrapers.”
The Presbyterian Church on Lewiston’s Normal Hill was built in 1922 and held its first service on March 26.
Two of Lewiston’s former mayors were alive in 1922. Marion Shinn and Ron Jones and Ron’s wife Millie Jones were all born in 1921.
Lewiston High School’s class of 1922 of 87 students included Leo Jesse and Tom Madden, who became longtime local businessmen and are buried at the Normal Hill Cemetery.
Joel Jenifer was the Lewiston school superintendent in 1922.
In 1929, he retired but continued to live in Lewiston until his death at age 96 in 1964.
In 1959, the new Jenifer Junior School was built and he attended the dedication ceremony.
Lewiston had street cars in 1922 that ran 4 miles from 21st and G streets through Lewiston and Clarkston to Highland Avenue.
The railroad was very important in Lewiston.
Lewiston had the Lewiston Morning Tribune.
The Orchards was a farming area not yet in the city limits.
One thing 1922 Lewiston did not have was legal sales of alcoholic beverages. Prohibition was the law of the land and would remain so until 1933.
Dick Riggs
Lewiston
Educational independence
I have expressed my opinion many times on these pages and have taken justifiable positions on subjects as varied as our immigration invasion and the climate change hoax to eliminating daylight saving time or seeking additional county revenue streams.
Many would say that asking to get politics out of education and education off our tax bill is my most radical belief yet.
Another radical suggestion at the time was the Declaration of Independence. To liberate American education from the bondage of a self-serving, expensive and unwieldy federal bureaucracy is, in effect, a declaration of educational independence. Just as our Founding Fathers insisted on a separation of church and state, so we call for a separation of school and state.
I know it is difficult to grasp the concept of free enterprise education, but I ask folks to keep an open mind and seriously consider a common-sense solution to a problem that must be solved now if we want to keep the learner and the taxpayer in mind.
Currently, public education is a monopoly operated with virtually the same efficiency as the Bureau of Land Management, with its $400 billion maintenance backlogs.
Under the free enterprise education system, where schooling becomes another commodity competing in the open marketplace, expenditures are trimmed while a quality product is provided in order to compete successfully.
If students and parents — rather than an entrenched, appointed bureaucrat — can control education, we would quickly see American education march to a more disciplined, quality assured and cost-effective drummer.
Dennis Fuller
Orofino
Who’s tone deaf?
I’m still bristling over a ridiculous perception that I’m tone deaf.
If I’m tone deaf, please explain the people who listen to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who is calling for “extermination” of Democratic “termites.” This is representation?
What about the insurance scam — the “Medicare Advantage?” Joe Namath and Jimmy Walker will repeat anything for a paycheck. The League of Fans says, “Your call is sold to a licensed insurance agent ... about your Medicare Advantage Plans. Prescription, dental and vision benefits are not guaranteed” and are “not available in all states.”
The providers mentioned are unnecessary. Medicare.gov gives the exact same benefits.
What is tone deaf about calling for fairness and truth from Republicans and their supporters, especially, considering Facebook, where Meta Mark Zuckerberg allows extremists to use the site to exploit the gullibility of congressional representatives and constituents duped by misinformation?
Who is tone deaf when so many duped Republicans believe the Jan. 6 traitors are actually “patriots” who were just hanging out at the Capitol on “an average day in January”?
We now know Jan. 6 was not spontaneous, but planned.
Finally, the Arizona group known as Cyber Ninjas, hired and financed by Arizona Republicans, is shutting down. In seeking more votes for former President Donald Trump, they failed miserably. President Joe Biden’s margin of victory was increased. Cyber Ninjas don’t care. They were paid.
Funny, the country has lost a portion of its collective mind and many, especially the Jan 6 traitors, proudly display their ignorance.
Jim Roach
Moscow
