Living Life:
By Dianne Smith
Reader Columnist
Jeff D. was a 15-year-old who, after being declared emotionally disturbed and mildly mentally disabled, was placed in the custody of the state of Idaho. …
By Dianne Smith
Reader Columnist
Jeff D. was a 15-year-old who, after being declared emotionally disturbed and mildly mentally disabled, was placed in the custody of the state of Idaho. …
By Dianne Smith
Reader Columnist
Why do some children bounce back from what the mental health community calls adverse childhood experiences and others are so affected that it continues to …
By Dianne Smith
Reader Columnist
Last December organizations who work directly with youth met at the school district office with Dr. Joy Jansen, director of special education, and Jeralyn Mires, …
By Dianne Smith
Reader Columnist
“One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals. When …
By Dianne Smith
Reader Columnist
As parents it is always hard to hear our child is struggling. Our heart hurts if our child’s feelings are hurt or someone has been …
By Dianne Smith
Reader Columnist
I am always so impressed by passion of people in the community who want Sandpoint to be a safe place to live, raise children and …
By Dianne Smith
Reader Columnist
When we first realize our elderly parent needs help, we are confronted with our own aging and mortality. We look in the mirror and see …
By Dianne Smith
Reader Columnist
As parents, our job is to raise children who are prepared for the adult world. We all do the best we can to give them …
The Sandpoint Reader is our town's local, independent weekly newspaper. "Independent" means that the Reader is locally owned, in a partnership between Publisher Ben Olson and Keokee Co. Publishing, the media company owned by Chris Bessler that also publishes Sandpoint Magazine and Sandpoint Online. Sandpoint Reader LLC is a completely independent business unit; no big newspaper group or corporate conglomerate or billionaire owner dictates our editorial policy. And we want the news, opinion and lifestyle stories we report to be freely available to all interested readers - so unlike many other newspapers and media websites, we have NO PAYWALL on our website. The Reader relies wholly on the support of our valued advertisers, as well as readers who voluntarily contribute. Want to ensure that local, independent journalism survives in our town? You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.