From 1976: A new kind of radio station was proposed for Spokane: “Public Radio.”
John Ross, former manager of a Portland public radio station, had moved to Spokane and was working on a plan “to best achieve a public radio station” in Spokane. He was working for a new organization called the Spokane Public Broadcast Corp. A low-power station had operated out of a Spokane basement in the early 1970s, but was off the air.
If plans for the new station materialized, “city residents will be able to hear all kinds of music,” including classical, jazz, traditional folk and bluegrass.
In addition, it would air “public affairs items” including news and other offerings from the national Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private nonprofit organization. The organizers would need to raise at least $110,000 locally.
It would be four years before KPBX-FM, Spokane Public Radio, would debut.
From 1926: The fate of Phineas Saffron, Spokane jeweler/pawnbroker, was in the hands of the jury, who now had to decide the question: Did he know right from wrong when he shot R. Lewis Rutter on a Riverside Avenue sidewalk?
The judge’s instructions to the jury specified that if he did not know right from wrong, “he must be acquitted of the charge of first degree assault.”
Otherwise, they could find Saffron guilty of first- or second -degree assault. They could also acquit him outright, although nobody in the trial disputed that Saffron fired the gun that seriously injured Rutter.
Saffron claimed on the stand that he had no recollection of the shooting. However, the assistant county physician took the stand for the prosecution and said he interviewed Saffron in jail the day of the shooting.
“He recounted the story of the shooting and the financial trouble that led up to it,” said the physician. “… He was calm and quiet. Said he knew what he was doing. … Said he was waiting for Rutter and shot him.”