Idaho

When Tim Legore and Roger Arrowood volunteered to go to Idaho, they were hoping to fight the forest fires that have burned thousands of acres in the Boise National Forest.But when the two members of the Winfield Volunteer Fire Department arrived in Idaho with 60 firefighters from Maryland, most of the fires already were contained."We were disappointed," said Mr. Legore, 20. "But our first time out fighting a wildfire, we didn't expect to be in the real fire."Instead, Mr. Legore and Mr. Arrowood, 19, did cleanup work, helping to put out smoking "hot spots" and reconstruct trails that had been cleared as part of the firefighting effort.

Whether they look for a franchise quarterback at the top of the draft or a third-day gem in the weeds, the Ravens will start with the tape and let it direct them. Expectations are that the Ravens will take a late-round flier on a quarterback in next week's NFL draft. If they do, it'll be for a player who has passed all their reference points — just as with any other position. What does Eric DeCosta, the team's director of player personnel, want in a third-day quarterback?

Its license plates may boast about the state's "Famou Potatoes," but Idaho's fortunes are founded on a somewhat classier commodity. "Potatoes are really only big in the southern part of the state," Robert M. Johnston explains. "Idaho's biggest income-producer is the silver mines."Outside of seventh-grade geography classes, few Marylanders probably give much thought to the leading exports of such a distant state. For Mr. Johnston, though, the mines of Idaho have been a major preoccupation this year.

Maryland accepted a bid yesterday to play Nevada, a Western Athletic Conference team with the nation's second-ranked running game, in the Humanitarian Bowl on Dec. 30 in Boise, Idaho. The bid was expected. Officials of the bowl, which has the eighth pick of Atlantic Coast Conference teams, had publicly expressed interest in the Terrapins, who finished 7-5 after losing three of their last four regular-season games. Many Maryland fans had hoped for a game closer to home, and one in a warm-weather climate.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department agreed yesterday to pay $3.1 million to the surviving members of the Randall C. Weaver family for the 1992 Idaho shootout that left Mr. Weaver's wife and son dead at the hands of federal law officers.During the raid on the Weaver compound near Ruby Ridge, Idaho, a deputy U.S. marshal also was shot to death by a friend of Mr. Weaver.Last week, four FBI officials, including Larry A. Potts, who had been elevated to the No. 2 post in the bureau, were suspended while federal prosecutors investigate whether they concealed their approval of the "shoot-on-sight" orders given to the FBI sharpshooters.

BOISE, Idaho -- FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi pleaded not guilty yesterday to a charge of involuntary manslaughter after winning his bid to be tried in federal court on charges that he illegally fired the shot that killed Vicki Weaver in the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge.Horiuchi, the first member of the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team ever to face criminal charges in connection with a bureau operation, had sought to move the case out of state court in rural northern Idaho in order to assert claims he was acting within the scope of his duties as a federal law enforcement officer.

SELWAY-BITTERROOT WILDERNESS, Idaho -- Old-timers never strolled here as people do now, heedless and blithe through head-high huckleberries.Back when this wilderness was truly wild, a prudent traveler passed here like a soldier walking point. A blur of tawny motion, a rustling sound, might be the only warning:Grizzly bear.A quarter-ton of muscle, scythe-shaped claws and racehorse speed. Near-sighted eyes, sharp nose and sharper wits. To stumble on a grizzly in these canyons was to know, with pounding heart, what it meant to be at a stronger creature's mercy.

WASHINGTON -- A Senate subcommittee will begin shining the spotlight today on critical issues flowing from the government's 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.One of the biggest is: Have the judgment and competence of U.S. law enforcement officials been compromised in cases involving people who hold strong anti-government views?The hearings come on the heels of recent House hearings into the 1993 Waco tragedy, the ill-fated Texas standoff that occurred six months after the Ruby Ridge siege. The Senate panel will explore how white separatist Randy Weaver was first confronted by federal agents, what led to efforts to arrest him, and whether mistakes, miscalculations and a lack of professionalism by federal marshals and FBI agents preceded their fatal shooting of Mr. Weaver's wife, Vicki, and 14-year-old son, Sammy, after a U.S. marshal was killed.

WASHINGTON -- A 14-year-old Idaho farm boy won the 1991 National Geography Bee yesterday, correctly naming the land form most commonly associated with orographic precipitation.Mountains. Naturally.David Stillman of Nezperce, Idaho, also identified the capital of Turkey, the flag of China and the South American homeland of the Yanomami to beat nine other boys for the first prize, a $25,000 college scholarship.The 57 fifth- through eighth-graders who competed in the opening round Wednesday included four girls.

Five years ago Jeff Ballard unknowingly put his career in jeopardy while serving on the players association negotiating team trying to resolve a labor dispute. It is a decision he came to regret.This time around, the ex-Oriole left-hander is as far removed from negotiations as his Billings, Mont., home would suggest. He said he thinks a settlement between the owners and players is long overdue -- but isn't overly concerned that his career could be over.These days Ballard is just glad to be alive.

J.R. SIMPLOT, 99 Businessman, philanthropist J.R. Simplot, Idaho's richest man and a state icon, died of pneumonia Sunday at his home. A farmboy who never attended high school, Mr. Simplot built a personal fortune recently estimated at $3.6 billion. He and the company he founded all but reinvented the humble potato, creating the first successful frozen french fries and partnering with McDonald's to sell them worldwide. The private company he began became one of the largest agribusiness conglomerates in the world.

SUN VALLEY, IDAHO -- Pause at the top of Bald Mountain on a brilliant day and it's clear how the Sawtooth Range got its name -- its silver peaks glistening in the sunlight high above the Ketchum Valley that spreads out below. It's just as easy to see why Averill Harriman chose this area for Sun Valley, America's first destination ski resort. In 1935, the Union Pacific chairman had commissioned a young Austrian, Felix Schaff-gotsch, to find a suitable location for a winter resort to draw rail passengers to the West.

BOSTON -- Well, that didn't take long. A mere five days from the Roll Call revelations to the presumed resignation. When Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho got caught in a sex sting in a Minneapolis airport restroom, Republican stalwarts broke the speed record turning him from the distinguished senator into the disgusting senator. Gay rights groups did not rise to the defense of their public enemy. The only politician expressing empathy for Mr. Craig was James E. McGreevey, the "outed" former governor of New Jersey who is now - you cannot make this stuff up - in divinity school.

WASHINGTON -- In 27 years as a congressman and senator representing Idaho, Larry E. Craig built a long legislative record. He played a key role in enacting a law that shields gun makers and sellers from lawsuits over misuse of their weapons. He helped broker a deal that led to legislation aimed at preventing forest fires. And he steered millions of dollars to his state for projects. But just four days, 19 hours and 42 minutes after the first report of his arrest in a sex sting operation was posted on the Internet, his political career came to an end. He faces the prospect of being remembered, not for his legislative record, but for his police record.

WASHINGTON -- As politicians in Washington called for his resignation, Sen. Larry E. Craig, an Idaho Republican, said he has retained a lawyer to examine his case, suggesting that he might attempt to withdraw his guilty plea. That might be possible in some circumstances, legal experts say, but he would risk having more serious charges reinstated and the public exposure of other details of the restroom incident that has imperiled his congressional career. Ordinarily, Minnesota law allows defendants to withdraw plea agreements in limited situations where there has been "manifest injustice."

WASHINGTON -- Seeking to salvage his reputation and quell the media storm stirred by his guilty plea to disorderly conduct charges, Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho yesterday denied making a sexual advance to an undercover officer in a men's room. "I am not gay and never have been," the Republican lawmaker declared at a Boise news conference with his wife, Suzanne, at his side. But even as he denied wrongdoing, Senate GOP leaders called for an ethics investigation. His case sent shock waves through Republican circles here and in his home state.

TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- To be a Democrat in this state, where Bill Clinton barely nudged Ross Perot for second place in the 1992 election with just 29 percent of the vote, is to be intimate with the word underdog.And to be anything other than a white candidate in Idaho, where racial minorities make up only about 7 percent of the population, would seem a challenge to a politician of any party.So it comes as a surprise to many people that Larry EchoHawk, a Pawnee Indian and Democrat who counts President Clinton as a friend, is holding a steady double-digit lead in the polls in the race to become Idaho's next governor.

WASHINGTON -- An unpublished Justice Department report on the FBI's standoff with a white supremacist in Idaho shows that in late 1992 and early 1993 -- the period during which bureau officials are suspected of destroying documents about the incident -- FBI managers were trying to block federal prosecutors from obtaining the bureau's records on the case.Justice Department investigators who uncovered the document destruction in recent weeks have found that a career FBI official stripped the files of official records that would have clearly shown that top FBI officials in Washington were in command of the ill-fated operation.

BOISE, Idaho -- Idaho Water Resources Director David Tuthill issued orders Friday to farmers, food processors, dairies and 13 cities in six counties to shut off their water pumps July 6. The order, if carried out, would dry up 16,600 acres of farmland planted in crops including corn, sugar beets, potatoes and hay. Tuthill issued the curtailment order under the state's first-come, first-served water law to meet the demands of two spring-fed fish producers...

MOSCOW, Idaho -- A gunman went on a shooting rampage in this quiet college town late Saturday night, killing a police officer and wounding a sheriff's deputy and a civilian before taking refuge in a church. Early yesterday, SWAT units stormed the church and found the bodies of the gunman and another man, who was believed to be the church caretaker. Officials had not released the identity of the gunman or the injured civilian as of yesterday night. They said they did not know the gunman's motive.