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 United States Postal Service is on the brink of a self-induced collapse. The failed policies of the Delivering for America Plan have driven away customers through a combination of sky-high rate increases and degraded service. David Steiner, who will take over as Postmaster General on July 14, 2025, has a tough job to do and little time to do it, with some estimates indicating the USPS could be insolvent as soon as 2028. Congress has a key role to play in helping him right the ship but must get off the sidelines and act. A useful step...
In regard to the most pathetic car show in history, last weekend (June 14). Seriously? What happened to the big North Dam car shows from the past or a car show lining both sides of Main Street? There was no advertising, no word of mouth, no one knew anything. Six cars attended, ha ha, that has to be the world record. How embarrassing. Why did someone decide that it would be a good idea to combine a kid’s fest and 40 sign protesters together with a non-advertised car show? Why not go back to days of a stand-alone advertised car show with v...
I somehow became friends with two Seattle disc jockeys, Frosty Fowler and Emperor (Lee) Smith. I met Frosty at a French pastry restaurant on Capitol Hill in Seattle. The place was Marcel’s, owned by a fellow Bothell resident. I often drove there for lunch and Marcel introduced us. We apparently hit it off because it became a lasting friendship. He told me what he did and was amazed that I hardly even knew his name. I explained that I seldom listened to the radio and wouldn’t be interested in the type of music he played. Frosty had an ego and...
With high school and college commencements wrapping up, employers now worry about the graduates’ preparedness to enter the work world. This year, 3.9 million students graduated from our high schools, marking the largest class on record. An additional 4.6 million scholars earned college degrees. Their expertise was graded from A to F. Grades are supposed to indicate accurate achievement, competence, and knowledge when applied without being inflated. “Grade inflation” refers to a rise in grades without a matching increase in learning outco...
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...
Our family over the years had a strong relationship with Potlatch Forests Inc., who had mills in Potlatch and Lewiston. I only found out recently that my father also had ties with PFI. A distant cousin whose grandfather headed the Lucas logging operation had some documents that showed that. The Lucas brothers Ralph, John (my dad) and Omer had a logging operation near Bovill, Idaho. They were cutting virgin timber, and the logs were huge, some so big that you could only get three on a logging truck. The family had a pretty large block of land,...
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...
The strength of the United States’ economy is rooted in the power of our workforce. As Congress works to deliver policies that bring jobs back to our shores, the need for a strong, reliable workforce has never been greater. Nearly 20,000 young Americans utilize the U.S. Job Corps program, a proven initiative that helps equip our nation’s young, disadvantaged adults with the skills they need to succeed. Amidst the Trump administration’s plans to pause Job Corps operations at the end of June, I joined 200 of my colleagues in sending a lette...
It was June 4th of 2024 when a sharp, excruciating pain under my right ribs introduced itself — because clearly, my body thought I needed a dramatic plot twist. After a night that made every nightmare I’d ever had look like a Disney short, we dragged ourselves to the doctor’s office. One of the doctors casually suggested maybe my gallbladder was just hoarding stones. Makes sense. I was a geologist in a past life, so maybe my organs got the memo and decided to start a rock collection. Before we could even find a place to scan this inter...
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...
I moved from the Idaho Free Press in Nampa to the Idaho Statesman in Boise. It was only a 20-mile move in distance, but a mile in experience. While it nearly doubled my salary, the move was a dangerous one for me. It was in the spring, and baseball season was just starting. My early major assignment was to cover Boise’s team and the Pioneer League. The Pioneer League was a Class C League and Boise was a Milwaukee minor league team. The Pioneer League at the time was made up of Boise, Twin Falls, Pocatello, Billings, Missoula and Great Falls. I...
Although President Donald Trump and Harvard’s recent spats make headlines, key issues in question affect all higher education. Harvard, our nation’s first college (1636), is a center of current civil disruption and antisemitic behavior. The timing is bad because high school graduates are finalizing their college choices or deciding to forego college altogether. The news comes after graduates see existing student loans payments reinstated after a four-year pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Morgan Stanley economists estimate there are 5.6 mil...
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....
JUNE 1, 2025 8:33 AM This article was first published by TVW. The ink is hardly dry on Washington’s new budget and already legislative leaders are anticipating more fiscal uncertainty. Democrats are focused on threats to health care access if Congress slashes Medicaid funding, while Republicans are warning of renewed legal jeopardy in education funding. In post-session interviews on TVW’s Inside Olympia, House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, D-West Seattle, warned that a U.S. House-passed budget legislation — if enacted — could force Washing... Full story
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...
I indeed wish the best for new Pope Leo XIV. Many commentators have said that he has potential for many years ahead. Quite true, as far as actuarial tables go. However, I am mindful that when I was a teenager in 1978, Pope John Paul I was elected pope. He served for a fateful 33 days. He was only 65 years old (younger than Leo is now). He was known as “the smiling pope” (only eclipsed by the late Pope Francis in smiling). Probably my favorite pope was Pope Pius IX. Not many people know that as a young priest, he also served in Peru and Chi...