News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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In the 1930s, the coulee walls behind Electric City and Delano were being prospected for gold and silver. These deposits occurred near the base of the Coulee Wall, in granite, overlain by basalt. The land was owned by James O. Black of Electric City and Joseph Rosauer of Opportunity Washington. Rosauer was a Spokane grocer whose family would form the beginnings of the Rosauer's Supermarket chain in 1934. These men would form a mining company and develop a mine called the "Black-Rosauers Mine,...
Rotary club members Paul Turner, left, and James Heuvel help out at the Grant County Household Hazardous Waste Collection event Friday at the Delano Transfer Station. - Scott Hunter photo...
He put a ring on her finger the night she graduated from high school seven decades ago, and the love was still palpable between them Saturday as Don and Gerry McClure celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. Friends and family came from as far away as Florida to the McClure Ranch north of Nespelem, where the two have made their home on the acreage homesteaded by Don's father and grandfather in 1918. "Lightning stuck," Gerry McClure said about Don's proposal that came just three days after...
A new jail to house addicts will surely make those Heathens turn clean! No. Stop with the ignorant way of thinking. If you believe that putting addicts in jail will suddenly make them non-addicts, then you must also believe that unicorns are real. Addiction is a plague that infects communities; it’s a cancer running through the bodies of those it affects. How many smokers have thought, “Man, if I could just put this cigarette down and never light another one,” only to strike up the next one a short time later? Or how about the alcoholic sitti...
In North Central Washington, the Columbia River is the cornerstone of life. But even more important is the infrastructure that makes up the Columbia Basin Project. Grand Coulee dam provides electricity, flood control, and recreation and the ditches and canals deliver water to fields — all critical to the economic vitality of our communities. In the 1930s, President Roosevelt had the vision. The Columbia Basin Project would bring families to settle the land, make it productive, and supply the country with food. At the same time our country n...
A couple who just moved to town from nearly 5,000 miles away will serve as lay pastors of the Church of the Nazarene, and for her it's a homecoming. Philip and Juliene Munts officially took their new post Sunday, having just moved from Malmö, Sweden. The two operated three "ministries" there, the said - two art galleries and a café called Fill My Cup. Always affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene, the couple recently got a call to lead the local congregation. Juliene was thrilled; it m...
Well, I think Grant County needs to take a trip to Clark County (Vancouver, WA) and spend a couple days there and get as much information as they can from what they have been and currently are doing to lower the recidivism rate — the programs they have in place to help addicts overcome their addictions to become a productive member of the community. I do not see this in our county or anywhere near us. Michael Dennis...
Art Show from The Star on Vimeo....
There has been a loud nationwide conversation about clean and carbon-free energy sources, and I am proud to represent Central Washington, where we are leading in renewable energy production. If you drive through our congressional district, you’re bound to see the rolling hills topped with windmills, whose turbines generate about 3,076 megawatts of renewable energy each year throughout the state. If you keep driving, you may end up in Adams County, where Washington’s largest solar farm opened north of Lind late last year. The facility is 25 tim...
A group of people have been working this summer to start a new booster club to help with equipment and other needs for Raider athletic teams. The LR Athletic Booster Club has a board of directors and all the legal paperwork completed, including having achieved non-profit legal status. Now they’re in fundraising and membership-expansion mode. President Kevin Portch says he’s been pleasantly surprised by the high level of enthusiasm he’s seen from many, “especially alumni.” The group has already enlisted about 30 members so far, but gained about...
The Coulee Dam Town Council voted Aug. 14 to accept one grant and apply for another from the state’s Transportation Improvement Board totalling nearly $900,000 for street and sidewalk repairs. The agency granted $120,000 for new sidewalks on Ferry Avenue, rather than a slightly lesser amount sought by the town, and required no matching funds. The application included a letter bearing the signatures of 74 citizens contacted by Councilmember Fred Netzel. Across town, the “worst street in town” could get a remake at a cost of $734,670, none of it...
Watching even the “cultural” reintroduction of salmon to local waters denied to them for eight decades can inspire wonder, grief, admiration, joy, hope, questions, and anticipation. Over the last couple weeks, as the Colville Tribes and a coalition of other tribes and state and federal agencies have held ceremonial plantings of hatchery Chinook salmon above the dams that keep them from spawning in the upper Columbia River, the meaning to the tribes of the return of the fish echos like an eternal drum off a canyon wall, deeply felt and acu...
A story out of Ritzville recently gained national attention: Larry Yockey is a fourth-generation wheat farmer, and for nearly fifty years, he hasn’t missed a harvest. Sadly, Larry was recently diagnosed with stage four cancer, allowing him to only spend a short amount of time in the fields. He was worried that his streak would come to an end, but his neighbors wouldn’t allow that to happen. Larry’s friends, neighbors, and community members surprised the Yockey family by storming in on 18 semis, 17 combines, and 11 bankouts. The harvest that...
After decades of absence, the "chief of all of the rest of the fish" returned to the upper Columbia River Friday when a tribal elder slipped an adult salmon into the water of Lake Rufus Woods, followed by 29 more that had begun their journey years ago after coming into existence at a hatchery downriver. A ceremonial song to reintroduce the chinook echoed back from the Douglas County side of the river Friday morning at the Colville Tribes' campgrounds near commercial fish-raising pens along Lake...
I’m Mikayla Higgins, and I have lived in Electric City since I was 2. Two years ago, I left for the first time when I began college in Seattle at the University of Washington. When I got the opportunity for the internship at the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce, I was excited to spend a few more months in the town I grew up in, and to reconnect with people I have known my entire life. I have been reflecting on how much the area has shaped the young adult I have become. When I first moved to Seattle, I was moving to a large city to a...
Jill Fraser has been passionate about dogs her whole life, grooming her first one at age 10 when she decided her aunt's cocker spaniel could use an upgrade. Since then, she's pursued a career around dogs, showing breeds at 16 after leaving Spokane for California on her own, then getting into the grooming business in Portland, Oregon that year when she worked for a veterinarian as the boarding and grooming manager, she says. "I know what dogs are supposed to look like, regardless if it's a show c...
In this week’s Star, we offer a short feature on a person relatively new to the area under the heading One of Us. We’d like to do more of this kind of story, those that help bring a new face to the community, or just tell us something many might not have known about someone who may be more familiar. If you know of someone who might make a good subject for One of Us, give us a call at 509-633-1350, or email star@grandcoulee.com with the details. Stories that tell us about each other can help bring us together as a community. We hope tha...
Congress is responsible for funding our country, and we have some difficult decisions to make. I came to Washington D.C. to advocate for the priorities of my constituents, and I have heard loud and clear that the people of Central Washington want to ensure we aren’t further saddling our future generations with crippling debt. The Budget Control Act (BCA) set spending caps for Congress to abide by. Under this law, if the spending caps are exceeded, a government-wide sequester of both mandatory and discretionary funding would occur. This would me...
A paraglider comes down from the sky into a field on Strahl Canyon Road just north of SR-174 in Douglas County, after taking off from Chelan Butte July 13, the final day of the US Open of Paragliding. - Chelan 2019. The seven-day event tested the skills of about 170 participants. Seventy of them made their goals on this Saturday. Other tasks on earlier days included flights from Chelan to Omak, Wilbur, Brewster and elsewhere. "Really good day, a lot of happy people," said Matt Senior, organizer... Full story
In this issue we welcome back the latest iteration of Them Dam Writers, a group that has sought to provide local history to local people for decades. The column in the lower right corner of this page will, several times a month, present you with a photograph along with text explaining its significance. These days, the group is more far-flung than in its most recent past, with a couple of its members writing from Coulee City or another state. Nevertheless, they share an enthusiasm for local history. We hope our readers benefit from their...
Every two years, the Washington State Legislature’s House Healthcare and Wellness Committee takes a tour of facilities in rural areas, but they’ve never been to Grand Coulee. That will change Sept. 23, when the committee led by Rep. Eileen Cody ends a tour here with a “robust” meeting at the end of the day. Cody’s staff asked if Coulee Medical Center would be willing to participate, Chief Executive Officer Ramona Hicks told the commissioners of Hospital District 6 Monday. “They’re bringing 20 people in a bus,” Hicks said. In other business at t...
A wildfire in the Hellgate Game Preserve on the Colville Reservation has burned about 2,500 acres, pitting firefighters against steep, rocky terrain, and rattlesnakes. About 45 firefighters are working on the Williams Flats fire some 7 miles southeast of Keller. A press release from the Colville Tribes Dept. of Natural Resources Friday afternoon said one evacuation had been ordered and that one home was threatened in the remote area north of Lake Roosevelt. Tribal officials are asking boaters...
A house in Delano was raided July 16 as part of a larger drug bust in Eastern Washington involving hundreds of officers of multiple law enforcement agencies that served 19 search warrants in three counties. A federal search warrant was issued and executed on a house on Lake View Boulevard on the morning of July 16, confirmed Jodie Underwood, a public information officer at the Drug Enforcement Administration in Seattle. Underwood was unable to say if anyone was arrested at the Delano residence. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and...
Last week, the House of Representatives voted on the Raise the Wage Act, which would increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, despite warnings from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that this would result in the loss of nearly 4 million American jobs. In Washington state, we have already seen how mandating a higher minimum wage is negatively affecting our economy. With a state-wide minimum wage of $12 per hour, Washington mandates one of the highest rates in the country, and it will increase by another $1.50 in Janua...
The city of Coulee Dam may get a big loan and grant package to pay for added improvements to the sewage handling system, including paying for two new “lift stations” to pump the material to the new wastewater filtration plant. The city council Wednesday authorized the mayor to sign an application for “wastewater subsequent funding” from the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development office. The funding package would provide a $304,000 loan and a $909,000 grant to pay for lift stations on both the west and east sides of town. The curre...