Virtual mourning • Idahoans hanging up their car keys • Driver accidentally breaks up pioneer re-enactment • Idaho's top trucker • In search of invasive weeds high in the wilderness • Holy dance moves, Batman

Virtual mourning

A Pocatello funeral home is starting to record funerals and memorial services and broadcast them live on the internet for family members and friends that can't make the services.

The Downard Funeral Home started looking into webcasting after owner Lance Peck missed his daughter's play.

"I thought, wouldn't it be nice for a parent or a grandparent who couldn't go to the school and watch their child’s play could still see that," Peck told TV station KIDK.

Peck plans to expand from funeral services to other community events such as sporting events and birthday parties.

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Idahoans hanging up their car keys

The national average price for unleaded gasoline hit $4 a gallon for the first time on June 8. It peaked in mid-July at $4.11 and was down to $3.78 on Wednesday, according to AAA.

Americans drove 12.2 billion fewer miles in June than a year earlier, the biggest monthly decrease in a downward trend that began in November.

Idaho appears to have had one of the largest declines in driving in June — down 7.7 percent compared with a year ago.

The same thing happened in other Western states with more wide open spaces. Driving was down 6.9 percent in Utah and 6.8 percent in Washington.

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Driver accidentally breaks up pioneer re-enactment

An Idaho driver had no warning he was quickly nearing a group of pioneer re-enactors pulling handcarts up a roadside in Fairview Canyon, Utah, on Tuesday.

Authorities are trying to decide whether or not to charge the driver in accident that left two dead, injured two others, shattered the group's old-fashioned handcart and sent horses running.

"If someone is going to be blocking the entire roadway, holding up traffic, making a delay or causing a hazard to motorists, they need to notify us and make sure they give proper advanced warning for traffic," Utah Highway Patrol spokesman Cameron Roden said.

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Idaho's top trucker

Joshua J. Jetton, of Wilder, was named the best professional truck driver in Idaho after receiving the highest overall score at the 2008 Idaho Truck Driving Championships.

Wilder now qualifies to compete in the American Trucking Associations' National Truck Driving Championships later this month in Houston. The event is known as the "Super Bowl of Safety."

Nearly 400 drivers from all 50 states will compete in Houston for four days, "challenging their driving skills, and knowledge of safety, equipment and the industry."

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In search of invasive weeds high in the wilderness

For the past four years, the Wilderness Institute has been helping the Forest Service map invasive weeds in designated Wilderness areas as part of the 10-Year Wilderness Stewardship Challenge.

New West profiles this year's trip to the Gospel Hump Wilderness in Idaho where volunteers mapped patches of St. Johns wort, bull thistle and Canada thistle in the northwest corner of the wilderness.

The high-elevation Gospel Hump is not heavily used for recreation, which keeps the weed count low.

"There's a direct correlation between the amount of use and the kind of use and the amount of weeds. The farther back you go, there’s fewer weeds," Singley said.

The trips have taken more than 100 volunteers to parts of the Cabinet Mountains, Anaconda-Pintler, Gates of the Mountains, Selway-Bitterroot, and Rattlesnake Wilderness areas.

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Holy dance moves, Batman

Idahoan Adam West who played Batman on the 1960s television series will be trying to win out on the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars.

West, who is almost 80, works out an hour a day and "walks with his big dog" on his farm in Sun Valley.

Actor Tom Selleck, singer Toni Braxton and former 'N Sync star Lance Bass are also rumored to be taking part in the show's seventh season.