Welcome to an all new edition of Northwest Profiles, including a new host.

Hi, I'm Tom McArthur.

Beginning this program with appreciation for my KSPS PBS colleagues who are the secret to the success of the longest running program on Spokane television.

You may remember Bill Stanley, who had the idea for this program back in 1986 and was its founding host.

Bill retired in 2009 when Lynn Veltrie became the programs second host.

Lynn retired at the end of last season, and I begin at the season premiere tonight, only the third host in 38 years.

Let's settle in and get ready to watch the newest edition of Northwest Profiles.

For 75 years, the Spokane Youth Symphony has been an integral part in the musical journey for many Spokane based musicians.

Join us now as we learn about those involved, the history and the impact this institution has had over the years in so many lives.

This is not the Spokane Symphony.

This is the sound of the Spokane Youth Symphony.

In 2024, they are celebrating their 75th Anniversary.

Hi, I'm Phil Baldwin.

I'm the director of the Spokane Youth Symphony.

75 years of this youth orchestra, organization is to me, a win.

Spokane Youth Symphony is comprised of four different orchestras.

We have the strings orchestra at the beginning level, Sinfonietta at the next level.

Philharmonic at the next level.

And then I conduct the Youth Symphony.

Okay.

We are at 249.

It's cellos, then seconds, and then firsts.

Three and four...

This organization serves young musicians from all around the area.

We have students coming all the way from Coeur dAlene, from Sandpoint.

We even have one student who travels up from Oregon, even though they've spent an entire day at school and they're exhausted by the time they get there.

Thinking, I don't know if I can make it through this rehearsal, but the music just energizes everybody in the room.

And I think that synergy of of trying your best of sitting next to somebody who may challenge you, doing it for the sheer joy of making music together.

I think that brings an incredible amount of energy into the room.

The Spokane Youth Symphony gives students an opportunity to showcase their love of music and challenge their own abilities.

Gorgeous.

That was it.

Clear?

Wonderful.

So let's talk just about a couple of things here.

But really, it's lovely what you're doing.

And when we are all on the same page in terms of of placing those fourth beats, its magical.

My name is Samuel Miller.

I'm a 10th grader at Gonzaga Prep, and I'm a violinist for the Spokane Youth Symphony.

When I started playing music, I was six years old.

I was inspired, actually, by a Spokane Youth Symphony performance that a family friend of mine participated in.

So a piece that really stood out to me in the orchestra and I thought would be impossible to learn was Mars Bringer of War.

Through the mentorship, through the sectionals, and working with the coaches, I was able to perform it at a high level.

That made me feel proud not only of myself, but of the orchestra as a whole, for being able to put something like that together.

The Spokane Youth Symphony has been helping students grow their talents ever since it first began 75 years ago.

Well, I'm Jennifer O'Bannon.

I'm the executive director of Spokane Youth Symphony.

The Spokane Youth Symphony was actually started in July of 1949.

It was started by the man who at the time had been the conductor of the Spokane Symphony Orchestra, and that was Harold Paul Whelan.

Originally, the organization was called the Spokane Junior Symphony.

They had 30 students, and they had their first concert on May 23rd, 1950.

Whelan worked with the Spokane Junior Symphony until 1962, when they then Spokane Symphony conductor Donald Thulean took the reins.

Thulean helped grow the Junior Symphony.

In 1969, the one orchestra expanded into two.

The Junior Symphony was starting to grow quickly.

By the late 1990s four separate orchestras had been created.

And, in 2011, these orchestras were given their current names: Spokane Youth Strings Spokane Youth Sinfonietta Spokane Youth Philharmonic and Spokane Youth Symphony Ochestra Through the years, performances were done at high school theaters or at the community college.

That's the way it was, all the way until 2007, when the opportunity opened up for us to be at the Fox Theater consistently.

The program grew as a result because that made it even more exciting.

They got great training, great music, and now they had a great place to play it.

So I will re-typeset it for you tomorrow.

Okay.

But just read it up a step for today.

Okay.

So number two, rehearsal two.

I think without the Spokane Youth Symphony, we would lose a lot.

I think young musicians are looking for something to challenge themselves and to really learn what it means to be an orchestral musician.

Well, I began playing the violin in fourth grade in South Dakota.

I was really lucky.

I grew up in a little town called Yankton, and there was a wonderful teacher there.

She actually invited me to be a part of the youth orchestra that was there in Yankton.

I do remember being really excited to go every week and work in this little orchestra.

And then in high school, actually had a chance to live in England.

We were living just outside of Cambridge, England, and I was lucky enough to join the Cambridge Youth Symphony for half a season.

And all of those experiences were what prepared me to go off and study music in universities.

I think those were very formative experiences.

I think they allow me to put myself in the place of our own students here in the Spokane Youth Symphony and try and make their experience as meaningful as possible.

I would say the Spokane Youth Symphony and the conductors have not only fostered a love for music, but really propelled my motivation and skill past what it would be otherwise.

I really love playing music because I feel like it really connects to something inside of me, and helps me bring out the best of what I can be.

My wish for this organization is that it persists.

It continues to bring joy, to the students and to audiences and train musicians in the way that they can either go on to be appreciators of music, or they can become professional musicians.

It was my pleasure to serve on the board of the Spokane Youth Symphony some years ago.

If you would like to hear these talented musicians in person circle November 30th on your calendar and reserve tickets at the Fox Theater for the Spokane Youth Symphony's 75th anniversary concert.

This performance will feature current Spokane Youth Symphony members and alumni.

For our next story, we reveal a gem lying in the heart of British Columbia.

In the town of Nelson, you will find of all things, a Himalayan salt cave.

As locals and visitors alike seek solace from the outside world.

They step into this tranquil sanctuary where the air is infused with the healing properties of salt crystals.

In the heart of Nelson, British Columbia where the rugged mountains cradle the shimmering waters of Kootenay lake, local resident, Laura Benes has built a unique business with I was pretty much her first client.

I came in curious to see what she was doing, and she showed me the cave and everything and then I started coming 2 or 3 times a week for, they say, to come like six weeks in a row.

To make it effective, to feel a difference.

Just to sit in the salt cave.

This is the Himalayan Salt Cve.

I had it built.

A stonemason, made the walls out of giant 100% Himalayan salt boulders, and some of them are 40 pounds.

And then the walls are salt bricks that are just cut into brick shape.

It's all 100% Himalayan salt at the same time that you would eat.

It took a couple months to design and conceptualize and find a landlord that would let you put 12,000 pounds of salt in their building and knock down all their walls.

But the actual build took 14 days.

The company who made it, theyre a family from Poland, they're actually living in Canada now.

There are several hundred salt caves in the States, and Canada is just coming.

But yeah, they're popping up everywhere.

But they've been doing this type of salt therapy in the natural caves for many years.

Salt therapy definitely goes way back.

Especially in Poland, Russia, where they had the natural salt mines, they discovered it in the salt mines because the miners were experiencing health benefits, whereas usually miners have especially respiratory health issues from the stuff that they're mining.

I don't know if you've seen, the giant salt mines in Poland.

So they have these big underground mines that you can go into, and they do all kinds of things in there.

And one of the things they do is salt therapy.

So you can go and rent a room, kind of like, a bed for the night in the cave.

People go for relaxation and they get sent by their doctors on a healing holiday for respiratory conditions or for stress.

I have lung issues.

And I've had them for like 50 years.

And I grew up in Germany, and it started with asthma and it got really bad.

And back then, actually in Germany, they tell you to go to the sea to breathe in salt air, and they even sent me there on a cure to sit by the sea for four weeks just to breathe in the salt air, because it takes down inflammation in the lungs.

A lot of the the known or studied health benefits come from the salt that's ground up into the air.

Yeah, Himalayan salt has 84 different minerals in it.

So you actually wouldn't want to grind that up and breathe it in.

We grind up pharmaceutical grade sodium chloride, which is responsible for all the health benefits.

When we breathe in that salty air.

Now, all the conditions in here have to be specific, like low humidity and a specific temperature for that type of salt therapy to be most effective.

And that's what they call halo therapy or salt therapy, which has all of these studied medical benefits, especially in Europe, not as studied in North America yet.

That's what I was surprised when I was reading that it wasn't proven here, because in Germany every doctor was like, oh, you gotta go to the sea.

I first discovered salt caves in Ottawa in the middle of a shopping mall.

There was a room made of salt, and the owners were from Italy, and they had brought it to Canada because the husband had severe asthma and he was treated with salt therapy in Italy.

I have not seen another one like this anywhere.

There is apparently one in Calgary and somewhere else in the Okanagan.

Maybe, but I haven't seen one like this.

This is pretty, pretty outstanding, I think.

And it feels great in there.

It's like you're feeling like totally safe, like in a womb sort of environment.

12,000 pounds of Himalayan crystal salt in there in the middle of town.

But people come for massages in here.

Body work, energy work, sound healing, so all kinds of different treatments.

People will tell you that from being around the Himalayan salt, they feel relaxed, they feel better.

I mean, just the feeling with your feet in the salt.

It's similar to the feeling of standing on a beach or just being in nature.

Right?

Those negative ions are really good for regulating our nervous system and then the health benefits of the detox from breathing in the salty air.

So a salt cave session is 45 minutes in here.

That's the recommended time, medically, that they use it for.

And our clients will just take one of the zero gravity chairs and lean back.

Some people prefer to lie right in the salt floor or take a yoga mat.

And then there's cushions, blankets, and, sessions.

No talking, no reading, no cell phones.

And we could have up to 12 people in here.

Yeah.

We just play relaxing music, and the salt helps them relax.

The music helps them go deep.

Most people are just drawn to it for different reasons.

They think it's a cool experience.

The the value of of people being able to relax is huge.

A lot of people come just to relax.

The Himalayan salt cave is open year round.

Book your appointment on their website.

In our next story we travel to Deer Lodge, Montana to meet someone who turns a hobby into a business of restoring vintage mechanical machines.

You might call them a different breed of - Montana Bandit.

A game of chance.

A game of chance.

There is nothing more stimulating than placing a coin in a slot, pulling on a lever, and watching rolling wheels with colorful images of fruit bars and bells line up in combinations that can occasionally yield wonderful rewards.

This is called a fish mouth.

One man's fascination of mechanical slot machines sits dead center in Deer Lodge, Montana.

West Haar has been in the business of collecting and restoring gems like these, thanks to both growing up around a father who made a living fixing stuff and inheriting a familial ability to fiddle with and understand mechanical things.

I only go by memory with what my dad and my mom used to tell me, but my dad bought a route and it was slot machines and pool tables and jukeboxes and pinball machines, and it was about 1939 or 40.

And of course, I was born in 48.

When I was 15, I found my dad told me where he left three of them in a bar, and I found those three machines, and I still I bought them for $75 each.

And I still have those three machines.

He was a good repairman.

He could repair.

I didn't know about slot machines because he's not.

People think he taught me how to work on them.

But when I had slot machines, he wasn't around and he never worked on slot machines when I was little because slot machines weren't around when I was little.

Slot machines weren't around because in many states, including Montana, state governments banned gambling slot machines and destroyed them in the process around 1950.

Today, some machines survived and were left for collectors who had a desire to own some history.

The Liberty Bell Original, developed by Charles Fay in 1894, is credited as the first variation of the mechanical slot machines that subsequently made way for the plethora of machines that were to be made, developed and eventually collected.

With parts in short supply, collecting and working on the machines can be a challenge, and with a collector and tinkerer like Wes, challenges are frequently accepted.

And then I look at the slot machine and I check it, see if it needs done.

You know, if I need to do the mechanism and just get it working, or if a cosmetic needs to be done, or if I need to refinish a cabinet I don't like other machines that have been restored by somebody else.

But because you never know if it's got the right parts or anything.

But just if an original machine comes in and it's, you know, 50 years old or whatever, if I need a part, the parts are kind of hard to find.

Sometimes I have to drill out all the screws and I have to bead blast all the rust out, and it might take me a month, but when I'm done, it works.

And I have a couple here that were really, really bad that I don't know if anyone could have fix them, but it just kind of a challenge to see if I can get them working like they did back in the 30s and 40s.

They're not flawless, but they're very commercial and they're built very, very well.

Holes in the side I stop the governor for a minute.

This is the payout holes.

So when these fingers go in the holes, it'll hit fingers down here.

And then the slides will go forward.

And that's how it pays out.

You have five clicks when you head to a machine.

If it's working correct.

12345.

I got three oranges.

See?

There's three oranges that I paid, and the finger is through the holes, and it hits the fingers down here.

This is how it works.

See the bottom one is two.

Thicknesses are two.

So if you get one cherry, you get two.

The next one is a thickness of three.

So if you get two cherries you get five.

And this one is five which I just hit three oranges.

And so I got two plus three plus five and I got ten.

When I started, the value on a machine used to be old in the last probably 2 or 3 years, the machines that are valuable now are ones with lights, ones.

And this is mechanical and all these are mechanical machines.

You can unplug them and play them and they work the same, but with the lights in them.

They for some reason people just love the lights.

I don't know, I like this one.

I like the looks of it.

I like the way that it's shaped.

And it's the only one I have of a Jennings that has four rails.

It's a buckaroo.

It's a Nevada club.

It's a casino machine.

It's just, And it's a Jennings.

A Jennings, to me, is the number one machine.

It works the best.

I think it's flawless, really.

It's just really a nice machine.

If I only had one machine, this would be the one I would want.

One prized machine Wes procured.

Is this 1937 Mills that pays out in something other than money?

And it's an extra ordinary.

And so when you hit a winner on it, you don't win money, you win a golf ball, or you can win three golf balls.

You can win up to 20 golf balls if you hit the jackpot.

And it actually pays out in golf balls.

Think about it.

In 1948, how much was a dollar?

I mean, that was and it's before 48.

My dollar machine is a 48, but it's very difficult.

You know, I see very, very few dollar machines.

And I think it was probably a special order, I don't know, because I wasn't back there.

But for all I've seen so many machines, I have hardly seen any dollars.

If you're going to try to make money, I would suggest doing something different.

But it's fun to do this.

I it just, you know, especially if you come out, I come out into the shop and I see this piece of junk and I think, well, I'm going to make that look like new and I enjoy doing that.

That's a fun part.

Wes says a lot of times when he looks at unrestored machines, many don't look like they could ever work.

Some have damage from water and rodents and such.

But after some TLC, they come back to life looking like new.

That's a great payout.

Our final story, perhaps fitting for All Hallows Eve, brings us a visit with a Spokane entomologist.

People who study insects.

Emily does more than study bugs.

She puts their surprisingly beautiful remains and various boxes of adornment, giving them a new level of elegance.

I would describe my art as an ornate preservation of life and death.

Normally I would just call it ornate entomology art.

Preserved insects in ornate antique frames and domes, vessels.

I've always had a love for just, like, odd, strange things.

And when I first started, I started it just for something to do, something that I enjoyed doing a hobby for myself.

I ordered a few butterflies online and found out that bubble glass frames existed, and it just felt right to put them together.

And as I started doing it more, I think I fell more in love with moths than I did butterflies, which is I never expected.

I started out fully in love with all butterflies.

I know when you think moth, you think like, swarming your light.

[Laughs] Not very cute, but, they come in just as many colors as butterflies.

So I get most of my insects from breeders.

They do it as a hobby.

I have a couple here in Spokane that do it.

A lot of what I use are not local species.

I use a lot of Luna moths.

They're one of the more popular moths.

Everyone loves those ones.

Um, a lot of Polyphemus moths.

Um, Death's-head [hawk] moths.

Those are my favorite.

Um.

I think those are, you know, the big main three.

There's multiple ways to rehydrate them.

A lot of people, um, just wet some paper towel in a Tupperware, leave them in there for a few days until their wings become pliable.

But I prefer, um like, hot water injections.

You take, like, a really, really small syringe and inject their bodies like the upper thorax with hot water.

And it gives kind of like an instant rehydration.

And then as they dry, they're, they're pretty cool.

They don't disintegrate or rot or anything like that.

They kind of self preserve.

I don't typically go into a piece, like, with an idea in my head.

Um, I just, I look at what I have and it just kind of comes as I go.

[Thats really cool.]

[Emily: Yeah, its a honeybee.]

[You put a honeybee on a wasp nest?]

[Emily: Yes, I did.]

[Wow!]

I get asked multiple times, every day, how I source.

I always let them know.

I came about my sourcing, um, just as I went.

It didn't start that way.

Um, I started how most people start, like, buying insects online.

Uh, I joined a bunch of different breeding groups because they're clearly raising them.

So, you know, what do you do with them when they pass?

Because I would love to buy them from you.

There's a big misconception that, you know, we go out and we kill all these animals and that's not the case at all.

Most of them are, you know, natural passing.

And a lot of moths I use are not in the greatest shape.

They are torn.

They are tattered.

But that's part of them getting to live their lives.

I feel like I've grown a lot over the last two and a half years, and I, I plan to keep kind of perfecting my craft and, um, I don't think necessarily death.

I know that's a big one for some people.

Um, they're inspired by, like, the death.

But, for me, it's the bugs the frames and the elegance of, you know, like giving these things, animals, insects, a forever eternal resting place that's beautiful.

You can see more of Emily's vintage inspired entomology art and oddities on many social media platforms.

They really are worth a closer look.

That's Northwest Profiles for October.

Thank you for the gift of your time.

We welcome your story ideas and invite you to be in touch with us here at KSPS PBS.

That's the 38th season premiere of North West Profiles.

We're glad you're here and look forward to the pleasure of your company next month, when there will be more to discover in the great Pacific Northwest.

I'm Tom MacArthur.

Bye for now.