90 YEARS AGO • OCTOBER 25, 1933

SCHOOL NEWS

There are 32 students in the dormitory this year: 16 girls and 16 boys. Of these students only six have not been there before.

There are 13 freshmen, 29 sophomores, 17 juniors, 22 seniors and four special students attending the high school this year, making a total of 85 students.

Many boys from the high school worked at various jobs this past summer.

Neil Eplin, Adelbert Alvord, Wylie Garred, Roy Wright, Alvin Cobeen and Frank Puyear worked in different CCC camps this summer.

Adolph Ovnicek was employed picking huckleberries.

Wright Harris worked at his father’s mine.

Roger Barto delivered papers.

William Alvord worked on a ranch in Washington.

John Previs and Arthur Turk worked for the Forest Service as lookout men. Sheridan Hougland is in Alaska working for the Forest Service.

Curtis Adams has worked at a tree nursery in Idaho.

Robert and Donald Saint helped their father at the lumber yard and drove truck.

Bert Macho was employed at the Black Bear Tavern. He also helped his father at the meat market.

40 YEARS AGO • OCTOBER 27, 1983

HOME COMPUTERS

BECOMING COMMON

by Linda Shaffer

Ever wish you could find someone who, with no grumbling, could get your checkbook balanced for you? Or someone who would organize your recipes or save you a few gray hairs at income tax time? Or maybe somebody who would inventory all your household goods and, at the same time, help educate and entertain your children when you need a break?

Relax; the experts tell us help is at hand for all of the above, and more.

Their names are VIC-20, TRS80, Epson, Apple, Atari, and Timex, to name only a few.

Many homes are adding these new members to their families to help “run things, and are finding the company of a computer almost as beneficial to their homes as the larger systems are to the giant corporations.

Doug Shear of Thompson Falls reports his Texas Instruments computer saves his family a lot of time in managing the household budget. And the “Hunt the Wumpus” game, among others, entertains his children. Lindy and Jared also have several computerized early reading programs they are learning from.

Shear says, “We find the home computer a help at income tax time. Instead of going through all the papers, you can pull forward medical expenses, etc. It will balance your checkbook, too, but Janet and I don’t have that program yet. I do keep some of the store inventory on it and we print out labels on it, too.” In addition, he uses it for some of Doug’s Drugs pharmaceutical work regarding insurance forms and Medicaid.

A borrowed Radio Shack model III was used recently by Ernie and Mary Franke to help them decide just where they want to go for their family and business. Ernie would like to put his Town Pump inventory on it for starters, he says. Mainly they are beginning to learn the language of the computer from the instruction book and have been trying some of the games.

Colleen Douglas began to educate herself a few years ago about the usefulness of computers by reading considerable literature, and taking a computer course last fall at the high school. “The course helped me evaluate just what hardware and software I would need for my home, family and business uses.” She settled on the Radio Shack TRS80 a year ago and attended Radio Shack training seminars in Spokane.

My kids use the word processor in place of a typewriter,” Douglas said, “and it saves me a great deal of time in my bookkeeping and business projections for Falls Photo, Ray’s Auto and some commercial properties.”

Colleen says she also uses her word processor for business letter writing and likes being able to put one letter into the machine and have it make 20 more copies for her.

Before purchasing a computer recommended reading is Peter McWilliams, The Personal Computer, an entertaining and informative book.

Other suggested readings are the magazines Popular Computing, Personal Computing, and Compute.

Out on the Blue Slide Road, Ross Duffel gives computer instruction to local children. He purchased computer equipment a couple of years ago, he says, and has done considerable programming.