News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Connor Shillam can play just about every musical instrument in the band room at Lake Roosevelt Schools, where he’s just finishing up his second and last year in the school district. Shillam has lost his job to the current cutbacks at the district. He offered to give his perspective on the situation in an interview. We spoke over Zoom. Obviously, he thinks music education has value to students, so what does it offer, I asked him during our conversation. His answer didn’t have anything to do with quarter notes, but everything to do with eve...
It’s hard enough to understand the difficulties the local school district finds itself in without making an argument that resorts to deliberately cherry-picking facts to color the origins of the problems in much darker hues than a clear picture would provide. For example, citing a chart that peaked with an anomalous high enrollment of 311 students higher than the current count gives a distinctly worse impression than a more accurate average of the seven prior years, which would tell you the district is down about 130-150 students from that aver...
Seven Lake Roosevelt athletes qualified to compete at this Thursday’s District 5 Championship Track and Field Meet to be held at Central Washington University in Ellensburg — six boys and one girl. They qualified last week at the Central Washington 2B League Championships at Liberty Bell May 14, where Terrell Bush ran his best 100 of the season “due to an amazing start,” said Raider Head Coach Lori Adkins. From the girls’ team, Madelynn Carman came on strong in the field events, qualifying in the shot and discus, and in the long jump. “I...
John Duresky stopped in Grand Coulee Friday on a trip to talk with people in the far north end of the Washington's Fourth Congressional District, which he'd like to represent in the other Washington. The longtime Democrat lists 37 years of government service to his credit, 10 of those working at Hanford after a career in the US Airforce where he attained the rank of major. Retired from all of that, when Duresky learned Dan Newhouse, the Republican currently representing the Fourth District, had...
Aaron Derr told the school board Monday that cuts to personnel were going drastically in the wrong direction to satisfy budget tightening needs in response to lowering enrollment. Derr, a teacher at Lake Roosevelt, said he'd used data from the state website for the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the lead K-12 education agency in the state, or OSPI. The Grand Coulee Dam School District has lost 120 students in the last three years, he said, and OSPI recommends about the...
(These were to be made at the meeting, but I was not told the date changed) For nearly a week now, I have felt as if I was living in a parallel universe. That feeling, like you cannot believe what is happening around you! Like you woke up to a changed world. The two words that best describe my feelings last weekend are shock and hurt. Now I stand so humbled before you. I realize that what I was feeling last weekend is only a small sampling of what many of the staff, inside these walls, have felt. I am sorry it took my own pain, to begin to see...
When I led the Bureau of Land Management under President Biden, the hardest part of my job was reassembling the agency after the first Trump administration had scattered its headquarters from our nation’s capital. The move crippled the agency — as intended. That experience led me to understand that the current Trump administration’s unpopular plan to move the U.S. Forest Service headquarters will be every bit as destructive. It will hurt forests, wildlife and communities that rely upon our public lands and waters. In 2020, almost 90% of the B...
The great contradiction in Donald Trump’s two terms — at least as far as covering and understanding the man are concerned — is that he is, on the one hand, the most media-accessible president in history, yet he has proved to be the most difficult for journalists to interview. This was demonstrated again the other evening as Trump toured his renovation project at the Washington Mall. ABC’s Rachel Scott asked a perfectly reasonable question: “Mr. President, you are here against the backdrop of the war in Iran. Why focus on all these projects as w...
PATEROS, Wash. - The Lake Roosevelt Raiders boys golf team successfully defended its league title Wednesday at the CWB League Golf Championships held at Alta Lake Golf Course. Lake Roosevelt's Sylas Johnson also claimed the individual boys' championship. Lake Roosevelt clinched the team title with a score of 363, finishing ahead of Okanogan (372) and Manson (393). Johnson won the individual crown by shooting an 84. He was followed by teammate Collin Christman, who finished second with an 86. Four boys from Lake Roosevelt will advance to the...
An early peek at a survey done by the Grand Coulee Dam School District to gauge feelings about the transition to a four-day school week for students indicates most parents are more pleased than not with the change, Superintendent Rod Broadnax says. Broadnax presented the school board the results so far at the last school board meeting April 27 and discussed it at an informal meeting with constituents at Voltage Coffee House the next morning during his bimonthly "Coffee with the Superintendent"...
by Scott Hunter As the Colorama Rodeo comes barreling at them, volunteers on Monday were fixing up the rodeo grounds to get ready, from minor to major improvements or repairs. John and Cheryl Pryor were concentrating on the stock chute gates, apparently fixing some small detail. Mike Clanahan and Randy Willette were placing huge concrete blocks inside a newly excavated flat space to hold more bleachers east of the Rattlesnake Saloon. Wayne Fowler, who got elected president after George Kohout di...
The Lake Roosevelt Raiders' baseball week took an unusual turn Tuesday night in Okanogan, where a 10-0 loss to Brewster in the Central Washington 2B league tournament became a forfeit win after the Bears were found to have used an ineligible pitcher, according to LR Coach Billy Nicholson. The ruling kept the Raiders alive long enough to face Okanogan later that night. The Bulldogs won that game 22-2, but Lake Roosevelt will continue its postseason Friday at Tonasket, where the Raiders will play...
Lake Roosevelt's softball team kept its late-season roll going this week, sweeping Almira-Coulee-Hartline and Inchelium to stretch its winning streak to nine games, counting two forfeits from Bridgeport. The Lady Raiders opened the week April 30 with two wins over Almira-Coulee-Hartline, taking the first game 7-2 and the second 7-3. In the opener, LR collected 11 hits. Juel Swager went 3 for 3 with two runs and a double, while Shae Crollard and Paisley Fury-Smith each had two hits. Crollard...
My second-grade teacher, Sister Mary, would be shocked that I turned out to be a writer. Please allow me to explain. In recent years, many schools within the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have barred teachers from marking student papers in red. Their thinking is that correcting young students with red pens is too confrontational and upsetting for the children. Many teachers prefer to grade in more soothing colors, such as green, blue, pink and yellow. Red ink surely wasn’t banned at St. Germaine Catholic School in the ...
The Nespelem Junior Rodeo drew kid contestants for the two day event last weekend eager to compete in events ranging from a "chicken scramble" to a bull ride and more types of events than you knew existed. Here are a few photos.... Full story
The Grand Coulee Dam School District's reduced education program is colliding headon with the people who run classrooms every day. Over the last two board meetings, staff and community members have spoken up to plead for preschool, career and technical education (CTE), athletics, and key administrative positions they say are holding the system together - even as district leaders stress that the math simply no longer works. "We're shrinking, we're going away" At the March 24 meeting, CTE...
The forces shaping decisions about the Grand Coulee Dam School District are stubbornly calling for what one might reasonably conclude are exactly the wrong decisions. Last fall, when the process of laying out a “modified education plan” — the term in education for layoffs — members of the public were calling for the district to stem its financial losses by increasing the amount of money coming in, rather than cutting expenses. In public education, that means bringing in more students — through increased offerings, not fewer. The district... Full story
By any honest measure, veterans have long been unintended pioneers in the advancement of medicine. The unique realities of war and military service have forced innovation that later benefits civilians for generations. Modern triage systems emerged from battlefields where medical personnel had to decide, in seconds, who could be saved. Medevac transportation by helicopter increased survival rates in conflicts like Vietnam and later became a staple of civilian emergency medicine. Advances in trauma surgery, prosthetics, rehabilitation medicine...
Survivalism and self-sufficiency are exploding across America. According to TruePrepper, a preparedness research group, nearly 23 million Americans now call themselves preppers — many fleeing big-city metros for rural areas where they can be self-reliant if calamity strikes. I offer some insight into this trend. A decade ago, I left the Washington, D.C., metro area and returned to my small ranch on the edge of the countryside just outside Pittsburgh — a place I’ll call Maybury. The people in metro Washington sure are different from the good...
At Lake Roosevelt Elementary, students start many mornings not by quietly filing into classrooms, but by moving, reading and thinking all at once in a program staff say is helping focus and literacy: LitFit. Principal Lisa Lakin said the key to LitFit's success is that the school has committed real time to it, treating it as an essential part of the day rather than an add‑on. "We put dedicated time into our schedule for it, and it's like, non‑negotiable - we do it every day that we can," Lak...
It’s no secret that this managing editor turned Army girl has found herself in a bit of an unexpected chapter – boots on the ground in Washington, D.C. And let me tell you, this concrete jungle is a far cry from the rolling wheat fields of Eastern Washington, let alone the dusty, wide-open cowboy country I call home. I like to joke that I told people I was heading to Washington and somehow boarded the wrong plane. Next thing I knew, I was living out a real-life “Home Alone 2” moment, full Kevin McCallister energy, just with less room service...
Farmers across rural America are facing an affordability crisis. As a third-generation farmer in the Yakima Valley, I know firsthand the challenges facing farm country and the importance of passing the Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2026, otherwise known as the farm bill. This legislation is an investment in our producers, our families and the rural economy across Washington’s Fourth District. This Congress, I have worked as a member of both the House Agriculture Committee and the Agriculture Subcommittee on Appropriations to help ensu...
A lease was approved by the city council in Coulee Dam last week so that a couple who moved to town again last August can re-imagine what was the Village Cinema into something new. Ben and Naomi Dupris were set to sign the lease Wednesday. The couple envision an art-centered community space for all ages, one that will honor Ben's memory of, and hope for, the community he grew up in, meet the needs of its people today, and embody a business model emerging for such spaces. Ben is a 1992 graduate...
The Funday Friday that starts the Triple Fish Challenge is set for noon to 6 p.m. at Coulee Playland Resort and will feature more than a dozen different stations of free kids’ activities. “Outdoor fun for all ages,” as the poster promotes for Reel Recreation’s annual fishing derby on Banks Lake. This year, an animal processing demonstration will take place at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. The Triple Fish Challenge is a “family-friendly fishing tournament like no other!” Reel Rec’s website says. “Anglers will compete to catch three different speci...
Washington's Department of Ecology announced a statewide drought emergency April 8, marking the fourth consecutive year that part or all of the state has been in a drought. "We declare drought when water supply drops below 75% of normal," said Casey Sixkiller, director of Ecology. "This year, every watershed in our state has met that threshold." Snowpack in the mountains is at about half of normal. The emergency declaration follows an above average wet winter where precipitation levels were...