News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Coulee Dam tripled its budget for street projects Monday, accepting contracts with the state Transportation Improvement Board for funds to chip seal most streets in town this summer and upgrading sidewalk ramps for compliance with federal rules on access for wheelchair users next year. The city council amended the 2024 Street Fund budget from $531,526 to $1,595,526. The chip seal work, in which crushed gravel is layered smoothly on a prepared street, then oiled and rolled, will happen this summer, City Clerk Stefani Bowden said. The work on...
Two stories in The Star this week revolve around a problem central to not only the Grand Coulee Dam area, but to the nation as a whole: housing shortages. More than any other problem, a lack of good housing is the biggest impediment the local area faces to economic development. Two proposals — Coulee Medical Center’s tiny homes project and the Center Senior Living initiative — would address different aspects of this similar problem. All the largest employers in the area deal with a lack of housing when recruiting workers to come here. The B...
A member of the Grand Coulee Dam school board has resigned in the wake of a contentious stand the board took last week to not allow four graduates to "walk" at graduation. Deidre Ellsworth explained her decision to step down in a letter to "students offended by my action after the board meeting," which she asked The Star to publish. It's on page 2. The affected students allegedly had arranged to buy alcohol on the senior trip to Disneyland. The board backed the decision of the administration to...
To the students offended by my actions after the board meeting regarding their classmates not allowed to walk in the LR graduation: As you can imagine this was very hard on all of us and coming to this decision had me heartbroken for all the families of the students not allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony. In the meeting I spoke on how it’s unfair to be placed in this position at all and how the blame fell on our shoulders in their eyes. When the meeting was over I approached a scene where another board member was being c...
Four seniors at Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High School lost an appeal to the school board Tuesday night, after asking the board to let them walk across the stage at graduation with their peers. The seniors had reportedly bought alcohol on the senior trip to Disneyland the prior weekend, which they had promised not to do. The board had heard the appeals of four students in a meeting last Thursday and decided not to counter the administration's decision. The appeals of their classmates played out in...
Bureau of Reclamation officials opened the doors of the new fire station in Grand Coulee Tuesday during public tours of the nearly complete new facility they said would be open within a few weeks. With terrazzo floors embedded with LED lighting strips to guide engine drivers in, a computer room overlooking the engine bay, a huge kitchen with lockers for individual crew members, windows that adjust the incoming sunlight to the needs dictated by the HVAC system, and much more, the bright facility...
It’s not always clear who is going to learn what or when as consequences come down after rules are broken. But one possibility this week is that the community is learning to draw a meaningful line. Four students, by all accounts good ones, will suffer the consequences of breaking rules against alcohol at school functions and contrary to their own pledges: They won’t be allowed to walk at graduation this Saturday. Following two executive sessions, appeals from each of the four, and more appeals from some 30 or so of their supporters Tuesday nig...
We recently celebrated Memorial Day, a time of remembrance of those brave Americans who gave their lives to promote and protect the right of men everywhere to live free and responsibly in peace. My own Dad served in the army in Hawaii after the bombing of Pearl Harbor which began the Pacific campaign of WWII. We became a nation defending two fronts, one in the Pacific and the other in Europe where we joined forces with Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union against a truly deranged despot named Adolph Hitler. Had the Allies lost that war, o...
Celeste LaPlace chooses challenges, an evident mindset that has put her at the front of her class at Lake Roosevelt High School, which she hasn't really seen much of for a couple years. LaPlace is a Running Start student who will graduate from LR with both her high school diploma and a two-year college degree from Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake. "I've been able to do two years of college for free," she noted when asked about the good and bad aspects of pursuing that tougher path. She...
At the end of her high school education, Raeley Portch looks back on a community of people she says have influenced what she would become. "Everyone's been here for me," said the class co-salutatorian, "... everyone's shaped me into the person I've become." Portch, with a 3.98 GPA, reflected on "all the support our community has," whether it comes from teachers helping to make sure an event goes smoothly, or businesses, organizations, or individuals chipping in to help. "There's always someone...
Every year on Memorial Day, a few citizens go to great effort to put on a tremendous display of patriotism to honor and remember those veterans who have passed on, dedicating new flags to those whose families wish to have them remembered with one. More than 600 American flags were flapping gently in the breeze Monday as speakers shared their thoughts on the day, and also during a moment of silence, which was a beautiful moment. It also meant volunteers put up and took down 600-plus flags, no easy task. But it is one that yields the kind of...
I’ve always been a simple person who needs very little to be happy. My first date with my partner was over 50 years ago. We talk about how if we had nothing but our family, would we be alright? We realize without a doubt we’d be just fine. We are all about quality relationships and being passionate about life and what we enjoy. With these thoughts in mind, we were very excited to be in Yakima this past weekend to cheer on our Raider teams’ athletes and coaches. Last spring after state softball was over, I told the head coach, Jaci Gross, to ke...
Four Lake Roosevelt athletes competed at the WIAA 1B, 2B, 1A State Championship Meet at Yakima's Zaepfel Stadium at Eisenhower High School May 23-25. John Cooley placed sixth at the state track meet in the 110-meter hurdles in 16.94 seconds. Cooley came in ninth in the 300-meter hurdles in 43.10. He came in 12th in the triple jump with a personal record of 38 feet, 2.5 inches. Carly Neddo placed eighth in the javelin at the state tournament with a throw of 109 feet, 11 inches, and ninth in the...
The Lady Raiders notched their first-ever win at the state tournament last week before losing two more games to knock them out of the competition. The Lady Raiders ended their season ranked eighth among the state's 48 teams in the 2B classification, with a 19-7 overall win-loss record. Head Coach Jaci Gross said the team has been to the WIAA state tournament in Yakima four times, but hadn't won a game there until they beat the Liberty (Spangle) Lancers in their first game on May 24 in the...
As many of you know, Central Washington is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. From Sunnyside to Okanogan, our hardworking producers provide the food for our nation, and the world. Central Washington is currently the top producer of many agricultural products, including potatoes, tree fruit, berries, wheat, and various types of livestock and poultry. This success resulted in over $7.29 billion in sales in Washington’s 4th Congressional District alone in 2022. This is due to the over 7,890 farms across Central W...
Five Raiders will compete at the 2024 WIAA 1B - 2B - 1A Track & Field Championships in Yakima May 23-25 after their team won the North Central 2B League Championship May 7, then qualified for state at the District 6 Championships in Brewster last Thursday. Lake Roosevelt junior John Cooley took first in Brewster in the 300-meter hurdles in 43.69 seconds. Cooley also took second in the 110m hurdles in 16.09, third in the triple jump at 37 feet, 5.575 inches, and sixth in javelin with a 116-foot t...
When Presley Steffens was in sixth grade, her future coach, Jaci Gross, gave her a shot at batting against standout Lady Raider pitcher Emma Marchand, just to try it out, see how it feels. Marchand got one past her. The next one went over the fence. Friday night, Steffens, now a sophomore, demonstrated her skills at both pitching and batting, slugging one over the fence in the fourth inning to bring in Taylor Thomas Vargas and herself, bumping the score to its final 15-4, then taking the mound f...
Leaders of two school districts Tuesday night, agreed to a “tuition” plan that’s been in dispute for months, which threatened to cost them over half a million dollars that would otherwise go to educating their students. Everyone was relieved at a joint meeting of the boards of directors of the Nespelem and Grand Coulee Dam School districts. “Thank you so much for working hard to make that agreement successful,” GCDSD Board President Rich Black said. “I know it wasn’t exactly what you had in mind. It wasn’t exactly what we had in mind.” At is...
The Lady Raiders took a loss after a win this week in their quest to make it to the state Fastpitch Softball Championships at Yakima's Gateway Sports Complex May 24-25. In District 6 playoffs, Lake Roosevelt bested Tonasket 8-7 in Grand Coulee May 10, as league pitcher of the year Presley Steffens struck out 13 batters. Last night, however, LR lost to the Lady Bulldogs, 5-2, in Okanogan. LR (17-5) will now play Brewster on the Raider's home diamond in Grand Coulee Friday at 4:30 p.m. in a...
It will start at 11 a.m., just as it has for decades, but for a few hours, chamber leaders thought the upcoming annual Colorama Parade on Saturday would have to be canceled. In fact, it was called off on Monday afternoon. Until about 5 a.m. Tuesday. That's when the executive director of the chamber got an email from the Grant County Sheriff's Office, saying they would, after all, be able to send three deputies in cars to help with traffic control. Closing two intersecting state highways for an h...
Two students at Lake Roosevelt Jr./Sr. High School were expelled on an emergency basis Thursday after an investigation of their emails revealed threats to kill five students at the school. During an authorized investigation into one student’s emails, school personnel came across a “hit list” of five students to kill, naming two of them. The responding student asked who they were and wrote that he or she would help. The two students doing the emailing were not in school on Thursday and now won’t be, following the emergency expulsion. The school...
Jericho Desautel was crowned queen of the prom Friday night, with Damon Landeros crowned king. Alice "Wheatie" Desautel said Jericho's classmates had been "nothing but amazing," supporting the girl who has a rare chromosomal disorder that causes developmental delay. "As her family, the people that love her, we find comfort that since day one, her classmates have loved her, cared for her, watch out for her, acknowledge her as their peer, and treat her like she's a part of THEM," Desautel wrote...
One minute, they were heading to another party. The next was chaos, blood and death. That was the scene outside the Nespelem Community Center April 18 as unveiled in an elaborate enactment involving vehicles full of Lake Roosevelt High School students. Most of the student body stood on the other side of the black plastic curtain and a taped off border. Beyond it, many of their classmates lay in a bloody scene depicting the kind of instant carnage that can happen when fragile flesh is forced...
Update: Two students have been arrested by police and taken to jail or juvenile detention, Superintendent Rod Broadnax said about 7:45 Thursday night. The two students at Lake Roosevelt Jr./Sr. High School were expelled on an emergency basis earlier Thursday after an investigation of their emails revealed threats to kill five students at the school. During an authorized investigation into one student's emails, school personnel came across a "hit list" of five students to kill, naming two of them... Full story
Some deep thinking has been going on, and its helping. Last week, many local professionals in law enforcement, emergency medicine, and other first responders, — the folks who have to live with the possible trauma of a car crash to which they only responded to help — took time to show every local high school student just what happens in a crash. Many of them worked for weeks or months in preparation and planning. Teenagers as a group are far more likely to be involved in car crashes, and this area has too often seen the worst side of those sta...