The High Ground: Voices from Eastern Washington

Sign in Subscribe

Community

The people, protests, joys, and griefs that bind us.

The Day the Airwaves Were Cut: Public Media Just Lost Its Lifeline in Rural Washington

The Day the Airwaves Were Cut: Public Media Just Lost Its Lifeline in Rural Washington

UPDATE – July 17: Today, the U.S. Senate followed the House in voting to slash funding for NPR, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The final blow came despite months of warnings from journalists, educators, and rural broadcasters who know exactly what’s at stake. With this vote, Congress

This Is Our Country Too

This Is Our Country Too

A Fourth of July Reflection from WA‑5 On this day, across hills and valleys, city blocks and gravel roads, the sky above Eastern Washington fills with the sound of memory. Flags wave in Republic and Rosalia, in Pullman and Pomeroy. In Spokane’s Riverfront Park, families gather by the

This Land Is Us: A Rural County Fought Back Against Washington, D.C. and Won

This Land Is Us: A Rural County Fought Back Against Washington, D.C. and Won

Where Neighbors Still Show Up At the Republic Library on a weekday morning, someone is always stopping by. A teacher drops off flyers for the summer reading program. A teenager scrolls through job listings on the public Wi-Fi. Children gather around bins of Legos and puzzles while quiet conversation drifts

The Ground We Tend Together

The Ground We Tend Together

On a soft June morning in Spokane’s Peaceful Valley, the garden is already awake. Dew glints on strawberry leaves. A robin skips between rows of kale. And in a corner of the community plot, not far from the river, two children lift the lid of a cedar box. Steam

The Quiet Liquidation: What the Land-Sale Bill Reveals About America’s Vanishing Stewardship

The Quiet Liquidation: What the Land-Sale Bill Reveals About America’s Vanishing Stewardship

A Premonition in the Pines At the northeastern edge of Washington State lies the Salmo-Priest Wilderness, untouched and elemental. It is one of the last places where the original ecology of the Inland Northwest still breathes: ancient cedars, grizzly bears, the rare echo of woodland caribou. For tribal communities, it

Washington Cities Push Back Against ICE Enforcement

Washington Cities Push Back Against ICE Enforcement

On a warm June evening in Spokane, former City Council President Ben Stuckart stood in front of a Homeland Security van and refused to move. The vehicle carried two young men: César Pérez, a Venezuelan asylum seeker, and another man believed to be a Colombian national, both facing sudden detainment

College Reform Plan Could Collapse Washington State Athletics

College Reform Plan Could Collapse Washington State Athletics

A Small‑School Athlete on the Bubble Rhiannon Davies doesn’t run for national headlines. As a junior psychology major at Eastern Washington University, she competes in cross-country and track, where she recently set a personal best in the 5K at the Lewis-Clark State Invite. Davies, like a few thousand