SPOKANE, Wash. - What happens in Spokane stays in Spokane. Unless it gets into a police report.

That's what state Rep. Richard Curtis discovered this fall after an epic weekend of debauchery in the Lilac City that led to his resignation, and a new image for Spokane as a hub for casual sex with men carrying canes.

The sex tour of Spokane by Curtis, a Republican from suburban Vancouver, topped the Lowlights of 2007, an annual roundup of the misdeeds, missteps and misguided actions of Evergreen Staters. While there can be no list of all human stupidity between Aberdeen and Anatone, this is a start:

The honorable gentleman from Vancouver

In a nutshell, Curtis went to Spokane in late October for a legislative conference. He went to an adult bookstore, picked up a hustler named Cody Castagna, and brought him to his hotel room for sex.

Castagna, 26, demanded $1,000, Curtis refused to pay, so Castagna and his associates tried to blackmail him with public disclosure of the married lawmaker's sexual proclivities.

Curtis called a friend in the State Patrol, who referred the case to Spokane police.

The police report on the case, which is a public document, provided some of the year's most riveting reading, and led to Curtis' resignation.

Lowlights included witnesses telling police that Curtis was a regular patron of the adult bookstore, liked to dress up there in women's lingerie, and was observed having sex in an upstairs room with a man with a cane.

Many of the report's details are not fit for family newspapers.

Curtis at first made the usual denials that he is gay, but he quickly resigned from the Legislature.

The one piece of good news for Curtis: Police are pursuing extortion charges against the men accused to trying to shake him down, but no charges are expected against the former lawmaker.

Castagna's attorney is outraged by the charges, saying his client may be a prostitute, but is no extortionist.

Studly nerds

Looking to recruit more women, the largest computer club at Washington State University teamed up with some sororities to held a "nerd auction." The idea was to trade their computer skills to sorority girls in exchange for a makeover that would make them more popular with the ladies. "You can buy a nerd and he'll fix your computer, help you with stats homework, or if you're really adventurous, take you to dinner!" Ben Ford, president of the Linux Users Group, said.

Love finds a way

In November, a bank robber in Tacoma managed to marry a former jail guard who lost her job after being accused of having sex with him. Authorities had tried to block the wedding of Jimi James Hamilton, 28, and Sara Camarillo, 29. Somehow, the required marriage form bearing the couple's signatures was sent to the county auditor's office. Washington state law, it turns out, requires that the bride and groom declare their willingness to marry, but does not specify they must be together when they do so. "I didn't know you could do that if you weren't in the same room at the same time," Deputy Prosecutor Phillip K. Sorenson said.

Dog gone it

In May, a Pierce County jury acquitted a man accused of having sex with the family pit bull. Michael Patrick McPhail, 26, of Spanaway, was found innocent of animal cruelty. He believes his wife made up the story because she wanted to end their marriage. The prosecution was one of the first under a new state law prompted by a case in which a Seattle man died after having sex with a horse.

Waiting for the SLUT

A new street car serving a portion of Seattle is called by locals the South Lake Union Trolley - SLUT for short. At Kapow! Coffee, 100 T-shirts bearing the words "Ride the SLUT" sold out in days. "We're welcoming the SLUT into the neighborhood," said Jerry Johnson, a barista. Local officials prefer the more formal South Lake Union Streetcar.

Jesus sets him free

In September, an inmate escaped from Geiger Corrections Center outside Spokane after going outside to get some fresh air during his Bible study. Roger H. Nordling, 54, climbed to the roof of the building, leaped over a barbed-wire fence and got into a car in an apparently prearranged getaway.

Bad, bad Leroy Carr

Federal agents for months had been keeping an eye on Leroy Carr, suspecting he was smuggling drugs from Canada. But they had nothing until he called them in August to report that 68 pounds of cocaine he had stashed near the Canadian border was missing. Carr, of Federal Way, asked federal agents to put out a press release saying they had seized the drugs, so the people he was working for would believe that he had not stolen the cocaine. A Boy Scout ranger found the cocaine, and Carr was arrested for drug possession.

The Fido vote

A Federal Way woman who registered her dog to vote accepted a one-year deferred prosecution. Jane Balogh, 66, registered her Australian shepherd-terrier mix, Duncan M. McDonald, to vote by putting her telephone in the dog's name and using that as identification when she mailed the form to election officials. She did it to protest a change in the law that she believed made it too easy for noncitizens to vote.

Santa is down! Santa is down!

A Spokane firefighter volunteering as Santa Claus was knocked unconscious when he was struck in the head by a thrown object. Kevin Smith, 29, was riding alone in the back of a flatbed truck decked out as a sleigh, and never saw what hit him. He was participating in a program in which firefighters dress up as Santa and ride through neighborhoods, giving candy to children. Other volunteers realized something was wrong after they hadn't heard from Smith for a few minutes. They found him lying unconscious. "They thought I'd spilled my hot chocolate, but then they realized it was blood," Smith said. No arrests have been made.

I am lug nug

In November, a Southworth man trying to loosen a stubborn lug nut blasted the wheel with a 12-gauge shotgun, injuring himself in both legs. The 66-year-old man had gotten all but one of the nuts off the wheel before getting frustrated. From about arm's length the man fired the shotgun at the wheel and was "peppered" with buckshot and other debris. The injuries were not life-threatening.

With this ring

Finally, a heartwarming story of public servants who endured a lot of crap to do some good. In May, the Olympia Public Works Department got a letter from Alma F. Coate-Wilson, 98, who wrote she had accidentally flushed her wedding ring down the toilet in the middle of the night. Maintenance workers flushed the sewer line, blocking solids using pea gravel. Then they went through the solids with a garden hose and found the ring. "I was the happiest girl in the world," Coate-Wilson said.