This day in history: Kardong selected to represent U.S. in first track visit to China. In aftermath of bicycle crash that killed judge, attorneys urged enforcement

From 1975: Two local track stars, Don Kardong and Boyd Gittins, were selected as members of the first United States track team to visit mainland China.

The schedule included major track meets in Shanghai, Canton and Peking.

Kardong, a teacher at Spokane’s Loma Vista Elementary School who would later found Bloomsday, said he would have to arrange a leave of absence from his sixth grade class.

“It should be a tremendous experience, athletically, educationally and otherwise,” said Kardong, a distance runner.

Gittins was a hurdler who was working as an assistant coach for Washington State University’s track team.

This would be the “first American track venture into China.”

From 1925: Attorneys called on Spokane to enforce its law requiring bicyclists to use lights at night. This followed a tragic accident a few days earlier.

A Spokane ordinance had required bicycles to have lights in the front and back “for several years,” but the rule was not enforced, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported.

A messenger boy, James McKiernan, 18, was speeding downhill when he crashed into former judge George W. Belt and his wife, killing Belt.

Another article in the Chronicle, however, suggested a light may not have made a difference.

A judge fined McKiernan $1 and costs for operating his bicycle without lights, but determined that McKiernan could not be held responsible for Belt’s death.

“It is doubtful if a light on the bicycle would have prevented the accident,” the court said.

This wasn’t the only accident caused by hard-to-see bike riders. A former deputy prosecutor noted that several other serious accidents had occurred because of a lack of bicycle lights.

The new, more stringent ordinance would protect not only pedestrians, but the bicyclists themselves.