Month: September 2026

AMERICAN FALLS, Idaho (KIFI)- American Falls High School senior Nicolas Tirado is hosting Lighting New Beginnings, a 24-hour cancer awareness walk starting at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept 25 at the William Thomas Middle School track in American Falls. The public event, which runs through 6:30 p.m. Saturday night is organized as part of the Oscar Tirado Molina Legacy Project.

The initiative honors Tirado’s father who died in June, 2024, after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer. In addition to bringing community members together to walk in solidarity, the event seeks to collect donations to establish a college scholarship for first-generation students.

The scholarship initiative stems directly from Tirado’s family experience. His father left school after middle school to begin working and his mother did not complete a college degree, making Tirado and his sister first-generation students.

“And the purpose of it is also to raise funds for a scholarship I’m trying to create for first-generation students because my dad never got the chance to go to high school,” Tirado said.

The event offers free entry and includes food vendors, live music performances and a track walking challenge to tally the community’s total miles walked for cancer awareness. Quiet hours for reflection and remembrance are scheduled between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., centered around a lantern ceremony where participants can write personalized messages to honor lost loved ones or support those currently fighting cancer.

“I feel like 24 hours, I feel like it’s just us giving a day to raising awareness for the many months that people go through these kinds of things and that have to go through the challenges of cancer and everything,” Tirado said.

Organizing the project required widespread community support across American Falls, Pocatello and neighboring areas. Tirado originally expected to handle the senior project on his own before realizing the necessity of family and community backing as the event expanded.

“I think what I learned most is that at first I thought I could take this on by myself and that I wouldn’t really need my family’s help,” Tirado said. “It was a huge project and like, it became bigger at every step we took.”

Beyond fundraising, the walk aims to provide emotional solidarity to cancer patients, caregivers, survivors and grieving families. “There’s always going to be people who know what you’re going through and understand the feeling of either grief, anxiety, pain, happiness,” Tirado said.

Lighting New Beginnings takes place at the William Thomas Middle School track at 355 Bannock Ave. in American Falls, starting at 6:30 p.m. Friday and concluding at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26. Tirado plans to continue holding the walk as an annual event in future years.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – College of Eastern Idaho (CEI) honored Park Price Thursday for nine years of service as the first Chairman of its Board of Trustees.

Under Price’s guidance, the campus expanded significantly with a brand-new 88,000-square-foot Battelle Energy Alliance Future Tech Building in Partnership with Frontier Credit Union.

“It’s been a fabulous journey. It’s one of those journeys that proved to me that if you’re persistent and have a good idea, you can win in the long run,” Price told Local News 8.

The $52 million project opened in August with 12 state-of-the-art laboratories and 10 classrooms.

Price led a distinguished business career, serving as President and CEO of the Bank of Idaho from 2003 to 2015, according to his biography from Idaho State University.

He also served as a Director at the Salt Lake Branch of Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2015 to 2020.

But most of all, Price’s influence can be measured in his impact on the students who walk through CEI’s doors.

“[College of Eastern Idaho] gave people the opportunity to live close to home, find a job close to home,” he said. “That was very appealing to the citizens of Bonneville County.”

From a small technical college to a burgeoning community college, CEI owes a deep debt of gratitude to the man at the helm of its Board of Trustees for nearly a decade, from its beginnings in 2017.

“Thank you for believing in CEI, and thank you for helping turn a long-held hope into a college that will serve this community for generations,” Price said.

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) – On Thursday, September 17, the Pocatello City Council voted to affirm the hearing examiner’s decision from May 19, 2026, in which she denied Lex Developments a conditional use permit for an AI data center project on land in Pocatello. However, their motion included the exemption of a 12-month waiting period before the applicant can reapply. Plus, when the decision is made official on October 1, the applicant will have 28 days to file a petition for judicial review, placing the City of Pocatello in a potential lawsuit.

The agenda item regarding the data center took about 30 minutes of Thursday’s meeting. City Planning and Zoning Assistant Director Jennifer Flynn took the stand first to read the reconsideration document submitted by Lex Developments. As with the last Council vote on this issue, the City was presented with the options to affirm, modify or reverse the decision made by the hearing examiner back in May.

“The applicant’s two filings raise a number of asserted deficiences in the council’s decision,” Flynn said. She added the applicant asked the Council to correct the planning director’s interpretation of the code, seeking an automatic approval without a conditional use permit for the land at 1800 River Park Way. The other option presented by Lex Developments was to reverse the hearing examiner’s decision and approve the company a permit so the project could proceed.

Flynn’s presentation of Lex Development’s reconsideration request further argued the AI data center project “aligned with the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan of the city” and that to be approved for a CUP, the project must be “conditionally permitted within the subject land use district.”

“[The project] would not adversely affect the environment to a greater degree than had a use permitted outright by the ordinance been established,” Flynn read.

The request for reconsideration discussion from the City Council ended with two proposed motions, both from Councilmember Bates. Following several comments from council members, Bates moved to reverse the hearing examiner’s decision, allowing Lex Developments to obtain a conditional use permit.

That motion was seconded by Councilmember Stacy Satterfield, but failed in a 3-2 vote.

“I don’t think, as an extention of the public here, that I can approve that because we don’t know what we’re getting into,” said Councilmember Ann Swanson, explaining she felt there weren’t enough details in the applicant’s documents to explain the effects of a data center on the Pocatello community and resources.

The second motion from Bates was an effort to affirm the hearing examiner’s decision, a repeat from July’s vote. However, the motion forgoes the traditional 12-month waiting period for the developer to reapply.

Swanson voted against, as did Councilmember Paulsen, but the motion passed 3-2. With the decision set to become official on October 1, Lex Developments is welcome to reapply immediately. Also effective at the beginning of next month is the 28-day window Lex Developments has to file a petition for judicial review.

Councilmember Bates argued during the July City Council vote that it’s possible the city could find themselves in a lawsuit if they denied the Conditional Use Permit again. In his comments at last week’s meeting, Bates said he agreed with the applicant that a CUP was never required.

“This project should never have been required to go through a conditional use permit process in the first place. The director’s interpretation treated proposed data center as an unlisted use and compared it to light-industrial-type uses,” Bates said. “But this property is not zoned light industrial. It is zoned industrial– our most permissive zoning district.”

Councilmember Swanson went on to say she appreciates her colleagues efforts and analysis in this issue before voting ‘no’ on the motion.

The next steps, should Lex Developments continue the fight for the land where the Hoku polysilicon plant once stood, would be to file a lawsuit with Bannock County’s 6th Judicial District Court.

Local News 8 will continue to follow this developing story and release details as they become available.