Saturday, August 11, 2012

Athol's 103rd Birthday

Athol Daze, celebrating it's 103rd birthday kicked off with a parade, featuring the little miss Queen and princess, secected from the Athol Elementary 5th and 6th grades through competivie applications.

The winners  represented their generation at the parade during Athol Daze along with other activities throughout the day. In reviewing the various applicant's submissions we found a treasure trove of bright talented young people. It is hard to imagine the difficulty in choosing the final winners from other well deserving applicants.
Two however, stood out. The queen, graduating 6th grader Rachel M. Peterson was crowned queen for the year. It is hard to single out what makes children of this age group special, but we suspect it is a combination of great parenting,and the teaching staff at Athol Elementary. She credits her teacher, Mrs. Anderson for her development. Paraphrasing some of her qualifications were artistic, such as photography, painting, art, math and music. She also lists as her favorites, Duck Tape. We can only surmise that she follows Dad around fixing his errors.

Fifth grade winner was Tehya Russell. Tehya is another young lady graduating from 5th grade. She credits her teacher, Mrs. Boots for inspiring her. It worked. Along with being a straight A student, she is active in target shooting, archery, and of course, her horse. That is just her outdoor side. She declared that she has a sophisticated side as well. She excels in art and is a song writer, poet and apparently is a great speller. She won the inter-school spelling bee this year. She sings and plays guitar,.too.

David Harms was chosen as Athol citizen of the year, well deserved. I knew of the award before the parade but didn't divulge the winner due to the scheduled award at the stage later.

This year marks the 103nd of the city of Athol. Originally, the Main Street was old Highway 95, south of what is now Hwy 54. With the advent of the highway from Spirit Lake to Bayview, it then became the main thoroughfare of the town. Some of the old buildings are still standing The old church across from city park, and of course Lanny Spurlock, mayor of Athol who many claim was mayor back then, too.


Queen Rachel, top Princess Tahya bottom

The parade went off surprisingly well with Queen Rachel Peterson and Princess Tahya Russell leading the way. Following the parade, everyone dashed over to the city park where booths were set up representing arts, crafts, hot dogs, games and many other activitiies. Having survived announcing the parade, Herb greeted defacto Sheriff Elect Ben Wolfinger and the local beat deputy, Brougham, both who are pictured here, along with the Queen and princess.

***Tragic Update: The party was going fine until the locked porta potty that stayed locked for over 20 minutes was breached only to find Eugene Saputski, dead of a massive heart attack. I don't have many details other than he was survived by Wife, Kim and children on both sides. The Saputskis lived in Rathdrum.  He was 45 years old

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