THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Remembering Helen and Markus, from the Sandpoint days

Helen Newton was never the mayor of Sandpoint, but she might as well have been. 

She was one of the first people I met when I started working at the Daily Bee newspaper in Sandpoint in 1982.  

That was long before the days of emails and texts and faxes and DMs — when you needed to talk to someone, you actually went over and talked to them.

Plus, when I needed to talk to the Sandpoint recreation director — whether it was Tim Daugherty, or Marti Sundvold, or Cheryl Klein, or Kim Woodruff — it gave me an excuse to get out of the office and walk the five minutes to city hall.  

Chatting with them meant also chatting with Helen, who was city clerk at the time, and would be for more than two decades. 

If anything was going on in Sandpoint — sports or otherwise — Helen knew about it.  

She also liked to keep me updated on her younger brother, Cal Method, who raced in the NHRA. 

I got to know her daughters, Pam and Laurie — that was back at the beginning of Sandpoint’s volleyball heyday in the ‘80s. 

I played coed volleyball with Helen’s husband, Skip. 

For the past four decades, I’m pretty sure there wasn’t an important decision being made about Sandpoint without someone asking Helen Newton what she thought about it. 

Helen Newton passed away recently, but not without leaving an impression that will never be forgotten. 

Helen Newton was Sandpoint. 

Sandpoint was Helen Newton. 

WHEN I played rec softball in Sandpoint years ago, one of my teammates in coed and in men’s softball was Markus Ward. 

Markus played outfield, but the biggest thing I would remember is how he would pop into the dugout, before a game or after a tough inning in the field, and get us pumped up by belting out, “Let’s play some BALL!” 

And usually we did. 

I was fortunate to have been invited to join a men’s softball team which included many of the top athletes in town. We won a lot of games and made a lot of memories over those three years, especially in 1996 when we won a tournament in Anaconda, Mont. 

I pitched for that team, and I’m pretty sure they invited me because of my four-pitch repertoire, my Greg Maddux-like fielding skills and my sneaky power with the bat. 

Or, perhaps it was because I was the guy who made sure the results of our games got in the paper, since I was the guy at the paper. 

Either way, my teammates were so good that I felt like, if I kept the ball in the park, one of them would catch it. 

And usually they did. 

A few years ago, when I was covering a Sandpoint-Lakeland softball game in Rathdrum, I bumped into Markus Ward. 

He was there to support his daughter, who was playing for the Bulldogs, and we got to catch up a bit after all those years. 

Funny, you never know when the last time is. 

So, in memory of Markus Ward, who passed away recently ...  

Let’s play some BALL, indeed. 

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.