New owners, same local vibes
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
Anyone who has called Sandpoint home for more than a minute has heard of Misty Mountain Furniture. The boutique furniture shop has handcrafted fine art …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
Anyone who has called Sandpoint home for more than a minute has heard of Misty Mountain Furniture. The boutique furniture shop has handcrafted fine art …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
Sandpoint has churned out an uncanny number of talented snowsports athletes over the years, and it’s always thrilling to watch skiers and snowboarders raised on …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can certainly judge a good bookstore by its owner. Since 1997, Sandpoint has been fortunate …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
One of my favorite classes in college was Logic and Critical Thinking. In that course, I learned how to obtain a larger and more complete …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
After nearly 25 years of keeping Sandpoint’s roads clear, patched and safe, Streets Supervisor Chet Jackman is hanging up his safety vest. Jackman’s leadership and …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began the gradual spring refill of Lake Pend Oreille on April 1 and plan to manage the 2025 summer …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
Sometimes, inspiration comes from unexpected places. When Jess Westbrook had the idea to use fly fishing as a tool to support children in foster care, …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
Publisher’s note: This article contains spoilers.
Perhaps it was Elon Musk’s Hitler salute at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Maybe it’s the endless waves of authoritarian …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
Perhaps, in a decade or two, we’ll look back on this time period and shake our heads softly, saying, “It was a strange time to …
By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff
When I was a cub reporter at the Associated Press, stationed in the bowels of the pre-renovation Idaho Capitol, circa 2003, we had a CRT …
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.