ENAVILLE - Friends of the longtime owners of the Enaville Resort Snake Pit are raising money to create a memorial for the couple who passed away last year.

Rick Shaffer, Bill Scudder and Sandy Emerson have been organizing a memorial for the couple at Steamboat Pond on the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River.

They were close friends of Joe and Rose Mary Peak before they passed away last year.

"I started with this memorial idea back when Rose Mary passed, and Joe really liked the idea," Emerson said. "That's when he told me the story of how they used to end the day when they were younger."

Emerson said before he passed, Joe told a story of how he and Rose Mary used to enjoy watching the sunsets from an overlook in Wyoming about 40 years ago. They dubbed Joe's favorite spot "Peak's Perch" and "Rose Mary's Roost" was the log she used to sit on.

"So we decided to simplify it and call it the Peak's Perch Project," he said.

Emerson said they have talked with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, as well as the Idaho State Department of Parks and Recreation about where to put the memorial. They chose Steamboat Pond on the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River.

They also got Kootenai Technical Education Campus students to agree to build a custom bench to memorialize the couple. The bench will be made from a Douglas fir log that was cut in the Silver Valley, Emerson said.

"The steel for the legs and frame was donated by Forest Steel," he added. "It all just started coming together."

Now the three are trying to raise enough money to help pay for some of the ancillary costs of the project, and anything left over will go to the KTEC Leadership Scholarship fund, and the Idaho Fish and Wildlife Foundation to be used for projects in North Idaho, Emerson said.

Anyone interested in donating to the fund can send donations to the Peak Memorial Bench Project in care of the Idaho Fish and Wildlife Foundation at P.O. Box 2254, Boise, ID 83701.

For more information contact Emerson at (208) 769-7046.