I am guessing Ernie Belwood smiled from his hospital bed in Portland when he received a copy of Tuesday’s Daily Bee with his name in the lead headline accompanied by a photo of 100-plus waving fans.

He is currently undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer. He closed Belwood’s Furniture last year and has been as much of a landmark around here as the Long Bridge.

It’s not like Ernie doesn’t enjoy the spotlight … just not this way.

He was all about community when he ran Belwood’s. I know many people who bought their first couch or washing machine from him. I married one of those customers.

 Many of his ads in the Bee featured him standing next to a wooden cut out cow and almost every ad featured his smiling face.

I still don’t know what a cow had to do with selling furniture and appliances, but I know what Ernie did.

Of course, if he had is druthers, he would rather be the life of the party in front of Belwood’s — with a beverage in hand — watching the Lost in the ’50s parade drive by.

If you want to make Ernie’s day, why not drop him a note at:

Mr. Ernie Belwood (patient)

Care OHSU Hospital

3181 SW Sam Jackson Road.

Portland, Ore.,97239-3011

Get well soon, Ernie.

I was watching CNN last night and I started feeling sorry for the East Coast and Midwest folks with all of their snow woes.

I got over it when I saw my lonely snowblower in the corner of the garage. I have taken it out once and that was just to see if it worked.

I haven’t gotten in the mood to go skiing this year but I hear the snow at Schweitzer has been great.

A perfect world … snow at Schweitzer and a snowblower in the garage. Ahhhhh …

Hat’s off to Keokee Creative for taking the title at the Adult Spelling Bee last Friday for the second time in as many years. After a comment in a previous column that Keokee had stolen the costume contest the year prior, Team Keokee presented last year’s tainted Best Costume bobblehead trophies to the Spellvises of Wells Fargo.

Sportsmanship and an ability to spell — that is what Keokee is all about.

The whole night was fun and it was great to raise money for the Newspapers in Education program.

The news of record section of the Bee has been slow recently. My guess is that cabin fever really hasn’t set in and people are behaving themselves.

I did like yesterday’s photo of the arrest in front of the Panhandle State Bank drivethru of a woman who was accused of shoplifting. Even bank employees were snapping pictures of the Kahlua and beer bottles and cans that were extricated from the party wagon and put on the vehicle’s roof as law enforcement folks were looking for money she said was in the rig … somewhere.

Between a PT Cruiser going through the garage door at Lightning Lube last week and Wednesday’s show and tell around the corner, there has been no lack of interesting, local news.

I was lucky(?) enough to witness the tail end of Coach Mike Randles’ annual “Black Flag” practice at Sandpoint High School last Saturday.

The several-hour wrestling practice involved each athlete executing more than 100 takedowns, 20 stair laps, 40 bleacher runs and many, many windsprints … all of which included carrying a teammate either in or out. They also scrimmaged.

The coach set the tone with his T-shirt that read: “We do things that would make a billygoat puke!”

No billygoats this year but the rigorous practice caught the attention of a gaggle of freshman basketball players who were very grateful they chose roundball.

Don’t forget to catch Sandpoint Olympian Nate Holland on Monday as he goes for gold in boardercross. It’s on NBC.

Good luck, Nate.

Mom, Rebecca, was in the Bee getting ready to head west and is looking forward to a memorable Vancouver trip. The rest of the clan is flying in from Iowa over the weekend.

She was sporting a photo of a 10-year-old Nate in jeans on his first Burton snowboard at Schweitzer.

“I sold it for $5 at the ski swap after he and Pat (brother) grew out of it,” she said. “I wish I had it now.”

Boardercross is part demolition derby, part ski race.

It’s great to see Holland pushing the pinnacle of this sport.

It was also great that he gave a shout out to Sandpoint after he won the X Games last week.

Good luck, Nate!

E-mail of the week: Bad puns — I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

OK, one more … The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

OK, one last one … The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison led the local newspaper to write the headline: Small medium at large.

David Keyes is publisher of the Bonner County Daily Bee.