News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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The biggest local festival of the year drew thousands to Grand Coulee Dam to celebrate Independence Day with fireworks, live music and even the original laser show on the dam. What they couldn't see were the unusual challenges that started the week for Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce officials. With the festival looming on Friday, Krystal and Jillian Fillis, executive directors in training, knew they had a lot of organizational boxes to tick off by Thursday. But Monday morning they...
Firefighters kept at least two smaller blazes from turning into bigger ones this week as wildland fuels turned tinder dry. One blaze took off quickly about 11 p.m. July 5, right after a loud bang at the south edge of the town of Coulee Dam, setting the hillside near the Visitor Center ablaze. Several agencies responded quickly, including the Bureau of Reclamation whose land was burning near the Columbia River Inn. Coulee Dam Volunteer Fire Department requested mutual aid, bringing in Grand...
by Scott Hunter Festival organizers getting everything ready for the chamber of commerce's big Festival of America below the dam Friday discovered a key asset had gone missing Monday morning - the beer tent. Apparently, a thief had backed up to the trailer holding the chamber's assortment of festival tents, tables and chairs, and temporary fencing, hitched it up, and drove off. The big tent has been used for several years at festivals where libations are served as a fund raiser. It was also...
GCD School District policies around managing students, athletics and money shifted Monday, as board directors voted approval of changes in the junior/senior high handbook, athletics policies on participation in sports, paying to enter events and in some instances park, and even on the kind of bag you can bring into school events — clear only. Some changes address safety issues and society’s changing ways of handling them. “You can’t go into any major sporting event without a clear bag,” Director Shannon Nicholson told Director Rich Black aft...
The Bureau of Reclamation will put on a special showing of the original Laser Light Show on Grand Coulee Dam on this Independence Day. The original light show was commissioned to launch in 1989 in celebration of the centennial anniversary of Washington's statehood. At that time, a laser show was relatively unusual and a sophisticated technology for this rural community, even though the guts of the original show's computer was basically an Atari video game board. That show ran nightly through sum...
Rep. Dan Newhouse announced Sunday that he’d secured over $3 million in federal funds to build “safe, dependable living space for health professionals working at … Coulee Medical Center,” a goal hospital officials have been pursuing for a couple years. CMC relies on traveling professionals to staff various positions, and housing them is a challenge locally. The hospital actually owns several houses for this reason, which also makes the local housing market even tighter. But the professionals, who, hospital leaders point out, pass several other...
A non-profit organization that is all about getting kids involved in active recreation pitched Grand Coulee's city council June 17 on a vision for a "community center" on city land with a great view. Nic Alexander, president of Reel Rec, is a local builder and developer who looks at the city's vacant land overlooking Crescent Bay Lake and Lake Roosevelt as a great place for a center with a view. The vision is still a little vague. Would it include a pool, batting cage, archery range, golf simula...
A group working to inject the skills and abilities of thoughtful leadership into communities is offering training to do that in Grant County, and north county residents can even get some pay to offset mileage. The Leadership Institute of NCW is all about "Educating and Empowering Community Members for Civic Leadership in NCW." It was a hit in Chelan County last year; this year it's concentrating on Grant County, with plans to do it again in Okanogan County in the next year or so. Nancy Boord is...
The next town council members in Coulee Dam will get paid on a different scale than council currently does, following a vote of the council earlier this month. Council members are currently paid $50 a month. The new scale changes that to $50 per regular council meeting attended. Two council meetings are normally scheduled per month, but the town often cancels one for lack of agenda items, which is the case this week. Tonight’s regular council meeting was canceled. Council could have changed the pay to add in compensation for extra meetings s...
Every time Larry Hernandez runs into a new obstacle, he seems to find a way around it. That's how it's been ever since he started working on reviving the Village Cinema in Coulee Dam, a place that has been largely vacant for a generation of movie-goers who missed out. Recently, it was something as mundane as a sewer plugged up. He got that fixed with the same plumber who showed up and did a lot of work for no charge just to help in the effort. That community effort is what makes it all worth it...
Coulee Dam is mulling an inquiry as to whether the city would allow a Level 3 electric vehicle charging station on its electric grid. Such a 180-kilowatt station would be capable of adding 100-250 miles of range in 30-45 minutes. That capability could be an added attraction for customers of the 12 Tribes Casino. Mayor Bob Poch told the city council last month that the Colville Tribes had approached the city on the question. The city owns its own electric utility, but Poch wants to be careful to not add something that would jeopardize a...
The use of fire is restricted in 20 Eastern Washington counties by one federal agency, and along Lake Roosevelt by the National Park Service, even after two local counties started their annual fire restrictions earlier than normal. Federal Bureau of Land Management officials have restricted activities on public lands to reduce the risk of human-caused wildfires in Adams, Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Columbia, Douglas, Ferry, Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Kittitas, Klickitat, Lincoln, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens, Walla Walla, Whitman, and...
Our local hot summers provide plenty of lessons we might also keep in mind for our politics. Most people who don’t fight fires on a regular basis may not appreciate the delicate relationship between fuel and energy, but it’s key to understanding ignition, the point at which flame erupts. The hotter the air is, the closer the energy level of everything is to its ignition point. The drier the fuel, likewise. So, when the wind blows in the heat, when “relative humidity” — that is the amount of moisture in the air — is low, a spark can light a fir...
Nearly four dozen young adults walked across the stage and out the door Saturday after graduating from Lake Roosevelt High School having already seen some hard reality and ready to take life on. "We are proof that hard times create strong people," is the official motto of the class of 2025. They started high school in 2021 in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic with all its health and cultural complications, steeped in a time that would teach them about the fragility of human life. In the middle...
Two people trekked across the country last week to understand a piece of their Kentucky company's history, with a major claim to fame being the Grand Coulee Dam. Now called Mason & Hanger, theirs was the lead company in the consortium of companies that built the original dam. They're the M in MWAK, the initials for Mason-Walsh-Atkinson-Kier. On Wednesday, Ben Lilly, the president of Mason & Hanger, and Holly Holt, its vice president in charge of marketing, came to town to fill in the blanks in...
by Scott Hunter It's been 69 years since Nespelem High School graduated a class of students, but that longed-for possibility finally became a reality last week. A class of nine students graduated May 29, 2025, in a commencement ceremony before a gym full of relatives and community members. Nespelem School Board Chair Jolene Marchand, in a commencement address, related the story of the dream now come true. In 1956 the state said it was consolidating schools. Nespelem's high school was closed,...
Matt Ponusky is no stranger to the city of Grand Coulee. He served it as a police officer for about seven years, then transferred to Coulee Dam's police department at the end of 2023. Now, he's back - as the chief of police. Hiring him ends a long slog for the city, which started looking for a new chief before longtime chief John Tufts retired in March, 2024. The post has been filled either by an interim chief or not at all since then. Turns out finding a chief of police is not too easy....
Parents will be able to track their kids as if they were being delivered by UPS. That’s because school bus drivers in the Grand Coulee Dam School District will log on and off each child who rides their bus, with new devices and software to help keep track of the students. And, of course, there’s an app for that. Parents can follow their kids’ buses on their phones and know what time the child will be dropped off, said Superintendent Rod Broadnax at his last “Coffee with the Superintendent” May 27 at Voltage Coffee House. “We’ve had a couple of...
Lake Roosevelt track and field athletes did themselves proud last week, setting personal records at the state meet and earning one big mention from the governing body of Washington state high school athletics. That would be for senior John Cooley, whom the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) named athlete of the week May 28, noting his achievements the week before: "John Cooley qualified for Districts in four events: 110m hurdles, 300m hurdles, long jump, and triple jump....
After a threat against the school was reported, Lake Roosevelt Schools canceled Tuesday classes Monday night before reconvening after the holiday weekend. The school posted a notice on its Facebook page about 9:45 Monday night. A Snapchat between students had been reported in which one student had made threats against the school, officials said. Superintendent Rod Broadnax said Tuesday morning the Snapchat had occurred with up to 30 students on it. He said the chat text had not been recovered yet, so police had not been able to get a warrant...
Nespelem School District directors Tuesday voted to reject a proposal for a combined sports program with the Grand Coulee Dam School District. Directors said it was too restrictive and unfair and reacted to it taking obvious offense. I clause outlining “participation restrictions” sparked resentment. Board Chair Jolene Marchand read it out loud: “Nespelem School District may not initiate, offer or support any independent high school sports program for the duration of this agreement. Should Nespelem launch or sanction any such program, the f...
Three local women with a history of getting things done spoke with Grand Coulee's city council May 20 to advocate a new approach to tackling an old problem that the city was just beginning to explore again. Earlier this year, Councilmember Tom Poplawski proposed a possible ordinance to encourage owners of vacant buildings to either actively use them or sell them so someone else can. The council set up a "Town Hall" meeting to discuss that possibility and encouraged business owners to attend it,...
Those wanting to clean up the mess we tend to get used to harken back to a time when this community had set its sights on self-improvement. That’s a good sign. Some people say such efforts didn’t make any difference. They misremember. Many improvements did come out of the discussions and initiatives to spruce up the place, even if some of it was cosmetic, like the awnings on buildings that were an inexpensive fix for flawed architecture. Even that helped. That was Project REV back in the 1990s. The new discussion goes deeper, though, and see...
The Raider track and field team at last week’s 2B District 5 meet qualified 11 athletes to continue on to the state championship in Yakima May 29-31. The boys’ team placed fourth out of 17 teams at the Central Washington University Recreational Sports Complex in Ellensburg Thursday, where the top six competitors qualified for state. “It’s been a number of years since we have qualified so many student athletes for state competition,” said Head Coach Lori Adkins. “Many of our athletes went into the district meet having already met steep state...
The Lady Raiders took their postseason softball play as far as they could Friday, ending their season after two games at the state tournament in Yakima. It's always a tough go for the team seeded 16th to go up against the number-one team in the state right off the bus. Lake Roosevelt lost to Freeman May 23 in the opening rounds of the 2025 2B State Fastpitch Softball Tournament at the Gateway Sports Complex, 11-0. The Raider girls gave the next team a good game, leading 1-0 for the better part...