Lights, Camera, Action! - The rolling hills of the Palouse set the stage for a locally produced film about a feuding family finding peace in the midst of tragedy.

The movie is called "The Merry Graingers" and its been a labor of love for Serena Belsby who wrote the script after a family member died a few years ago. 

According to Belsby, the movie opens with the Grainger family preparing for their father's funeral.  As the film progresses, relationships change and they begin to enjoy each others company.

"We take the ride with them and see a bit of ourselves in them," writes Belsby

"It ends on an upbeat note and we realize they are going to be okay and they are going to start to accept one another warts and all. The film is about hope and acceptance."

With an Independent Film Project sponsorship, Belsby has had enough money to shoot the movie but now she needs help finishing it.

In a tiny north Spokane living room, a married couple looks back on their 71 years of marriage through pages of newspaper clippings and photographs. Their romance started young in Priest River. Willard “Peewee” Little stole a kiss from his future wife, Betty, at the age of 12 under a lit lamp post. She was scared of the way home and he was there for her.

They didn’t start dating until high school. In August of 1941, they started their life together with vows of marriage and soon a baby would be on the way. In 1944, Willard went to war.

Separated by thousands of miles, Willard served the Navy’s Seabees for 18 months in Guam. From 1944 to ‘46, he built huts and survived the speeding bullets of Japanese snipers. Even at a distance, loving correspondences were shared, a letter a day confirming their romance. Betty says she still keeps the letters downstairs in a chest. She hasn’t read them in years, but they’re still there.

“They were censored in those days. You couldn’t write anything about the war or where he was at. Just had to write that you were lonesome and you missed them. That’s what we did,” Betty said.

Betty shared their story while Willard sat close by. He was recently released from the hospital after suffering from severe dehydration and has entered the care of Hospice. He sat nearby quietly taking in the energy from friends and family gathered to hear what the couple had to say about their lives together. In that same living room, two boys grew up in the afterglow of the war.

They call themselves the eyes of police officers. Senior volunteers with Spokane COPS wear the blue and perform patrols, but they’re not officers of the law. Through donated time to the non-profit program, they help how they can by directing traffic during Bloomsday, prevent crime through education and even check on homes while residents are on vacation.

We caught up with two volunteers while they sat on their coffee break at east Spokane’s Donut Parade. They’re right in home with the regulars. Both Hazel Vercruysse, 87, and Dennis Eddy, 71, had wrapped up their house checks for the morning. They only average about five house checks a week, but explained the extra presence out there helps.

“We had one on east 2nd [avenue] today,” Eddy recounted. “We checked out a house and there was a lady inside the house and there wasn’t supposed to be.”

The woman turned out to be a sister of the resident, but in times like that, Eddy explained they have to find out who and why they’re there. Sometimes they have to call in an officer especially when they come across broken doors and windows.