Latest news with #WhitworthUniversity
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Abortion rights organizer Sarah Dixit running for Spokane city council
May 29—Reproductive rights organizer Sarah Dixit is running for Spokane City Council in the seat currently held by Councilman Jonathan Bingle. Bingle is one of two conservatives in the minority of the seven-member council. Fellow conservative Michael Cathcart and Bingle represent council District 1, which covers the northeastern third of the city — east of Division and north of Trent. The district also includes almost all of downtown Spokane. Bingle is running for re-election for the first time after winning his first four-year term in 2021. Last year, he unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination of Spokane's Congressional seat. Cathcart announced Wednesday that he's running for Spokane County Auditor in 2026. In challenging the incumbent, Dixit said she wants to bring a young voice to city council that will uplift marginalized communities and those who may not be civically engaged. "A lot of folks are working jobs," she said. "They have kids at home. They can't follow what's happening at city council. We need to make this whole process more accessible for people, and especially for communities of color, immigrant populations and young people." At 29, Dixit believes she can reach these underserved populations as a young, queer woman of color. Dixit said she does not see that kind of advocacy from her opponent. "I don't see Jonathan in the community. At the events I'm at," she said. "I just haven't heard that type of advocacy from him when it comes to transit, bike safety investment, other issues." A big focus of her nascent campaign will be accessibility to public transit . Dixit wants to increase investments in public transit and have fares on a sliding scale, allowing those with the least resources to get the most access. Though firmly aligned with the council's progressive majority, Dixit said she would not be a "cookie-cutter" version of those already on council. Having grown up in Southern California, Dixit came to Spokane to attend Whitworth University. While in college, the first election of Donald Trump spurred her into activism. She went on to found the Christian college's first pro-choice club. Since graduating in 2018, she has advocated for reproductive and abortion rights full time at Planned Parenthood and as organizing director of Pro-Choice Washington. At Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho, Dixit worked under Paul Dillon, who now serves on Spokane's city council. Dixit called Dillon a "mentor" who encouraged her to run. As a potential representative of downtown Spokane, Dixit said she has pride for the city center. "There's a lot of rhetoric about downtown that I don't necessarily agree with," she said. "I love downtown, and it's a place that makes Spokane really special." When addressing homelessness, the city should have a "multipronged approach" that uses less incarceration and more resources to prevent someone from becoming unhoused in the first place, she said. "A lot of the issues stem from the dehumanization of folks who are unhoused. I really want to make sure that we are working on issues in a way that recognizes these folks are Spokanites too. And their humanity needs to be a part of the conversations we're having," she said. Asked about concerns she might be too young to effectively serve, Dixit said there is no shortage of older voices on council. "I approach the work in a way that comes from all my lived experiences — being the daughter of immigrants, being someone who really loves the culture and the heart of Spokane. That lends itself to me being a different type of council member for Spokane," she said. Her parents emigrated from India. Endorsements for Dixit include Council President Betsy Wilkerson, Dillon, state Rep. Natasha Hill, state Sen. Marcus Riccelli and others.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Whitworth is 'home away from home' for many Hawaiians; generations of Pacific Islanders have earned degrees from Spokane school, return for annual luau
May 15—The Hawaiian tradition is long and strong at Whitworth University. Curt Kekuna founded the Na Pu'uwai O Hawaii (The Heart of Hawaii) at Whitworth in 1970, and the small club hosted its first luau that year. Fifty-five years later, the Aloha spirit remains, as a cohort of students trade the tropical Pacific islands for an Inland Northwest college education while celebrating their culture each spring at the annual luau. The club, now called the Whitworth Polynesian Club, has grown to more than 100 members, according to club president Nalia Newman. "We regularly get nice-sized classes of students that come from Hawaii," said Jason Tobeck, director of admissions. Hundreds of Pacific Islander students, alumni and other students, staff and community members turned out earlier this month for the 53rd annual luau. The May 3 celebration started with a Pacific islands-infused dinner at the campus' Hixson Union Building. The club's largest event, the luau this year featured Hawaiian Kalua pork, teriyaki chicken, Sapasui (Samoan version of chop suey), panipopo (Samoan sweet coconut rolls), Hawaiian butter mochi cake and otai (a Tongan drink with coconut milk and tropical fruit). The night culminated with 12 Hawaiian, Tongan, New Zealand and Samoan dancing performances at the Fieldhouse, where the school's basketball and volleyball teams play. This year's luau theme was "Voices of Our Ancestors," and hosts of the dance performances also sprinkled in stories of Hawaii's history between performances. Whitworth has had a "strong connection" to Hawaiian students over the decades, according to Tobeck. He pointed to the 53-year tradition of luaus, which was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic for a couple years, as proof of that connection. Of the almost 2,200 students enrolled this spring at Whitworth, 27 were Pacific Islanders, according to Trisha Coder, university spokeswoman. Across town at Gonzaga University, 24 of the 7,470 students last fall were Pacific Islander students, said Dan Nailen, spokesman at Gonzaga. Tobeck said the caring, inclusive and family-oriented nature of the Hawaiian people parallels Whitworth's mission. "I think there's a natural common draw for students from the island to consider Whitworth," he said. Tobeck said there's obvious differences, including the weather, between Spokane and Hawaii, but those differences are valuable because they allow students to gain a new life experience while still leaning on fellow Hawaiian students for support during their college journey. Tobeck, a Whitworth graduate, said he visits students at high schools in Hawaii and other western states who are interested in attending college at the private Spokane Christian school. It's common for Hawaiian students to look to the West Coast for their higher education because it's closer to home, he said. Many of the students are familiar with Whitworth because family members or friends attended the school. "We love our students from the islands," Tobeck said. "They're fantastic people. They just bring so much good flavor, and I don't know if it's the Aloha spirit, but (they) just care for not just each other but for the other students." Dale Hammond, director of External Relations and the Whitworth Foundation, went to Whitworth with several of the Hawaiian alumni who attended the luau earlier this month. He also makes trips to Hawaii where he connects with alumni and students' parents as part of his role at the university. He said many Whitworth alumni work at Hawaiian schools and connect with students who are curious about attending the Spokane school. "I think it's just great to have the connection where we can keep bringing them up, and it's also very enriching for the students who come to Whitworth from all other parts of the United States." Newman, a graduating senior from Oahu with a bachelor's degree in political science, said she was looking to attend a school in the West and hadn't heard of Whitworth until her senior year of high school. A Whitworth representative spoke to her and her classmates, and she thought the university sounded cool. She then learned about a full-ride scholarship called the Wai'anae-to-Whitworth 'Auwai, a partnership among Kamehameha Schools in Honolulu, the Hawai'i State Department of Education and Whitworth University that funds academic scholarships for Hawaiian students to attend Whitworth. Newman applied for and received the scholarship, just like her cousin, who enrolled at Whitworth the year before Newman and encouraged her to come to the school. "It was such a surreal feeling, but when I actually came here, it was such a culture shock," Newman said. "It's so different from Hawaii. Just everything, the environment, the people, but it was a good change, if that makes sense." Newman said she wants to return to Hawaii to get her master's degree in public policy or international law and then represent Hawaii in Congress. Cousins Melissa Wennihan and Laulea Smythe graduated from Whitworth in 1997 and returned to their alma mater from Hawaii for the luau. Smythe served as the Polynesian Club treasurer when she was a student at Whitworth, and now her daughter, Reign Palama, serves the same role for the club. Wennihan and Smythe said Whitworth alums in Hawaii and financial aid opportunities catapulted them to the Spokane school in the late 1990s. The cousins, who graduated the same year from Kamehameha High School, said nine students from their senior class attended Whitworth. Wennihan said it helped to have a Hawaiian student contingent at the school, and it was also great to meet students who grew up on the mainland. "We did not do a visit prior to attending here," Wennihan said. "Our parents just came and dropped us off, and four years later they came back to pick us up." Wennihan said she earned her bachelor's degree in elementary education and returned to Hawaii, where she works for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and helps native Hawaiians. She also coaches cheerleading at Kamehameha High School. Smythe got her bachelor's degree in business management and stayed at Whitworth to get her master's degree in teaching the following year, she said. Smythe then went back to Hawaii, where she's a student services coordinator in Kauai. Both have been back to Whitworth a handful of times in the nearly 30 years since graduating. Wennihan cited the Wai'anae-to-Whitworth 'Auwai scholarship and other financial aid opportunities for the Hawaiian student contingent at Whitworth. Visits to Hawaii from Whitworth admissions employees, like Tobeck, and the opportunity for students to leave Hawaii and expand their world view also lures students to the university, according to Wennihan. "I think a lot of Hawaii children would like to experience college opportunities on the continent, and the smaller schools feel a little bit more like home to them rather than the big universities," Wennihan said. Chad Hamasaki, mental health counselor at Whitworth, played defensive end on Whitworth's football team and graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1992. He then got his master's degree in counseling at Whitworth. Hamasaki, who was born and raised in Hawaii, said Whitworth's proximity draws students to Spokane. "The way I look at it and the way a lot of Hawaii folks look at it, it's away from home, but it's not too far away," he said. Still, some Hawaiians don't realize Spokane is on the east side of the state. Hamasaki said he had friends who were dropped off in Seattle by their parents, who then told them to take a taxi to Spokane thinking it was close by. He said a couple of his friends came to Whitworth with him. "That also gave us that safety net of familiarity because it is very, very different culturally in Hawaii than it is almost anywhere in the States," Hamasaki said. The Pacific Islander contingent at Whitworth and the longstanding history of the Polynesian Club shows the university's connection to Hawaii. "I mean, that says how long there's been a Polynesian connection to Whitworth," Hamasaki said. "That's a pretty strong statement." Tiliti Adams, outside linebackers coach for Whitworth's football team, played football at Whitworth and graduated last year with a kinesiology degree. Whitworth recruited the 23-year-old Maui native to the school he had never heard of. Like Hamasaki, Adams said Hawaiian students provided that "home away from home." "It's also unique because at home we separate ourselves sometimes by islands and whatever, but up here, even though we're from different islands, we know we have to stay together," Adams said.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Insurrection, incompetence and 'incandescent' courage: Liz Cheney addresses crowd in Spokane Wednesday
Apr. 23—Inside the Republican cloakroom behind the House chamber, then-Rep. Liz Cheney watched on Jan. 6, 2021, as her colleagues walked between tables signing their names to object, state by state, to the certification of the 2020 presidential vote. It was just before the insurrection began. During a speech Wednesday in Spokane, Cheney recalled watching a Republican congressman pass between the tables, signing his name objecting to elections in multiple states, who finally said, "The things we do for the orange Jesus." Around noon that day, as Cheney prepared her remarks arguing that Congress could not constitutionally object to the electoral vote, her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, called her. He was watching President Donald Trump's speech on the Ellipse to a crowd of supporters, urging them to march on the Capitol. "Well, the president had just said to the crowd on the Ellipse that, 'We need to get rid of the Liz Cheneys of the world,' " Cheney recalled. "And my dad said to me, 'You're in danger, and you need to think about what that means.' " A week after Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol, Cheney was one of only 10 House Republicans — and the highest-ranking among them, as conference chairwoman — to vote to impeach him. Among those 10, only two are still in office today, including Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash. The rest have since either left office or were ousted by voters, as Cheney was in the 2022 primaries. Speaking to a crowd of more than 900 in the Spokane Convention Center on Wednesday at an event hosted by Whitworth University as part of its President's Leadership Forum, Cheney said she had considered the Republican Party her ideological home since she was a child volunteering for President Gerald Ford's unsuccessful 1976 campaign. Her first vote was cast for President Ronald Reagan, and much of her career was spent in the administrations of Republican politicians or as a Republican politician herself. "It is not my home today," Cheney said. "I believe fundamentally in conservative principles ... none of these things, in my view, are being reflected by the Trump administration today." During her 30-minute speech and roughly 45-minute Q&A session with Whitworth President Scott McQuilkin, Cheney spoke of the winding road through politics she has taken, from those early days wetting stamps for the Ford campaign — poorly, she noted, and young Cheney was fired for making the letters too damp — to her opposition in recent years to the Trump administration and the threat she believes it represents to democracy. She spoke also of the fragility of democracy and the necessity for public officials and politicians to adhere to a unifying rule of law. "Without the safeguards of our system, of our Constitution, there is no political dissent," Cheney said. "As Abraham Lincoln warned years before he became president, in those circumstances, our country would face the prospect of rule by mob violence, of tyranny. If the rule of law breaks, it cannot be remade." Cheney has long been an advocate for America's intervention overseas and a critic of Trump's isolationist, America-first foreign policy positions. She argued Wednesday that the White House has deteriorated America's alliances by calling for the annexation of Canada and Greenland and weakened the deterrent the U.S. had with overseas adversaries. "We look at the increase in the threats globally, and you want the very best people in positions, like, for example, at the Defense Department, dealing with these issues and understanding how to effectively defend the United States," Cheney said. "And it isn't a Republican or Democratic view to look at what's happening today at the Defense Department and be extremely troubled by it." She called Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth inexperienced and unqualified, criticizing his involvement in the sharing of information through the messaging app Signal about an attack in Yemen in unclassified conversations, including with his family members. "It is a very significant problem, and that's all happening in a moment where you need our leadership to be very focused on how they can deter and defeat these threats," Cheney said. Cheney also condemned the Trump administration's flouting of judicial orders, such as in March when the White House ignored a judge's order to turn around two flights containing hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members. White House officials have argued that the flights were over international waters when the order came down, and were therefore outside of the court's jurisdiction. Cheney specifically touched on a recent unanimous Supreme Court decision ordering the federal government to "facilitate" the return of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to an infamous maximum-security prison in El Salvador following what the Trump administration has acknowledged was an administrative error. The administration has claimed the Supreme Court decision as a victory, arguing that the government was required to assist in returning Abrego Garcia only if El Salvador permitted it. El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele recently refused to return him in an Oval Office visit. Trump has since floated the possibility of sending Americans — "home-grown criminals" — to the same El Salvador prison. "When a president refused to follow a court order to facilitate the release of a man he admits he wrongly imprisoned in a foreign gulag, then he says he would like to deport you as citizens to the gulag, pay attention," Cheney said in some of her most strongly worded remarks of the morning. "Do not look away because it's not happening to you or to your family. Recognize autocrats need people to obey." Seeming to reflect on the political cost of her own opposition to Trump, Cheney called on the audience to be "incandescent with courage" and to actively participate in politics, whether by voting, running for office or holding elected officials accountable.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Leftwing activist group says it reserved hundreds of seats at Rep. Baumgartner's tumultuous town hall
Mar. 20—Most of the tickets to U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner's tumultuous town hall Monday night at Whitworth University were reportedly claimed by members of the Spokane branch of the leftwing activist group Indivisible. "I don't know for certain, but I would venture to say probably 400 were Indivisible members," said Mary Ellen Gaffney-Brown, an administrator for the Spokane Indivisible Group Facebook page. There were 500 general admission tickets to the event with another 300 reserved for students, staff and other groups, though many of those reportedly went unclaimed. Baumgartner has expressed disappointment with the "unhinged lunatics" in the crowd, as he characterized attendees in a recent interview with conservative talk radio host Jason Rantz. He told The Spokesman-Review he believes they filled the auditorium to inaccurately portray "that Republicans are somehow unpopular and people aren't happy with what's going on." But members of Spokane Indivisible, who have called Baumgartner's comments demeaning and dismissive, said the congressman shouldn't have been surprised they showed up en masse, since they had been in regular communication with his office for a month beforehand. "Our local Spokane Indivisible has been very active with Mike Baumgartner's office asking for a town hall for nearly a month," Gaffney-Brown said. In separate interviews, both Baumgartner and Gaffney-Brown said the two parties had initially been discussing holding a separate event hosted by Spokane Indivisible. "We had actually asked a couple of the leftwing groups, why don't you guys just invite us to something and host something, and as long as it's a safe and respectful venue, we're happy to chat with you," Baumgartner said in a Thursday interview. "I represent everybody, even the folks that don't agree with us." In the end, Gaffney-Brown says the congressman's office stated he would not be available for any of the suggested times before the end of the congressional recess and instead pointed the group to his March 17 town hall at Whitworth. "So we advertised it," Gaffney-Brown said. "We tried to cooperate with his office, and we all advertised it earlier than he did." Spokane Indivisible members were aware that the town hall was planned to be hosted by Whitworth before the university was even ready to advertise the event. The school had wanted to wait until congress passed a continuing resolution to fund the government, and it was certain Baumgartner would be able to make it, said Joe Hughes, associate vice president for marketing and communications. "We were receiving phone calls about the event before we even made anyone aware of it," Hughes said. "So we told people, here's the page on the website that those tickets are going to be available, and we gave the same answer to anyone who called." Baumgartner said he warned university officials against releasing the tickets on a first-come, first-serve basis because it would be "95% far-left protest groups" in attendance. He instead suggested a lottery-based system to randomly select attendees. Hughes said the university didn't have the capability to do that through its sports ticketing system, particularly on short notice, given they were only certain the event would take place days before. Hughes said the university limited people to two tickets and required registration through emails. Isabela Schandlbauer, Baumgartner's press secretary, said she had been informed by Whitworth staff that activists were handing out stacks of tickets to protestors outside the venue. While several people did say they got tickets from people at the door or gave their tickets to friends, Hughes said he had not heard of any large distribution of tickets at the venue, and Gaffney-Brown denied this occurred. "No, there was no organized effort to sell or scalp or ask for huge numbers of tickets to pack the hall," but rather people took it upon themselves to patiently refresh the university website until the tickets were available, Gaffney-Brown said. Both Baumgartner and Hughes expressed disappointment that the crowd was so one-sided — when Baumgartner asked for a show of hands from people who voted for Trump, roughly a dozen went up — and wished the crowd had been more civil. "These people should just be ashamed that are just making these threats and shouting, 'Nazi' and using all this profanity," Baumgartner said. "It's really disappointing and a low form of discourse." Sami Perry, a member of Spokane Indivisible's steering committee, called Baumgartner's characterization of attendees who are "angry or scared" about the federal government's actions "offensive." Their concerns were legitimate, she argued, and she believes it was Baumgartner's "almost taunting" answers that prompted outrage. She added that the disrupted event "could have been handled differently." "But at the same time, we've been quiet for so long that I feel like we needed to speak out and say what we needed to say," Perry said. Baumgartner has noted that the same group has organized protests outside his congressional office and other events, and its members frequently email and call his office. He argued that, while 200 tickets were reserved for students, faculty and staff, relatively few students seemed to show up because of how heated the venue became. If attendance was one-sided, Perry thought the reason was clear. "The people who are concerned are standing in line to get tickets because they need (Baumgartner) to hear from them," she said. "And maybe the Republicans aren't concerned yet, except for the ones who lost their jobs, or are about to lose their Medicaid, or their SNAP programs." Baumgartner has also criticized "support for some of the antisemitism and some of the entities that were in support of Hamas," referring to a question from a Whitworth student that compared pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses to the American civil rights movement.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Protest at Baumtoberfest
Mar. 19—Roughly 100 protesters carrying signs and bullhorns gathered outside of the German-American Society's Deutsches Haus near downtown Spokane on Wednesday evening, where U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner was hosting "Baumtoberfest," a $125-per-plate fundraising dinner organized by his congressional campaign. Lined up on Third Avenue and crowding the alleyway entrance to the venue, protesters railed against Baumgartner, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The congressman has been the subject of repeated protests in recent weeks, including outside his office in Spokane and at a town hall event Tuesday night at Whitworth University. A call to the campaign was not immediately returned Wednesday evening.
