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 Chinese New Year kicked off Saturday, Jan. 25. It’s the year of the rat, which I could suggest was named for a number of people I could name! The lunar year is divided into 13 categories, all named for an animal. While traveling to the Far East once, I was caught up in the Chinese New Year by chance. I had landed in Taipei, Taiwan from Osaka, Japan, on my way to Saigon. I had a booking at the Grand Hotel, referred by Mary Yang Meeds, wife of Rep. Lloyd Meeds at the time. Lloyd represented Washington’s 2nd District. The Grand Hotel was owned...
My earliest and most vivid memories take me back to when I was 6 years old. That was the year I started the first grade, and also when I started to get store-bought haircuts. My father, who could do most anything, cut my hair until he took construction jobs away from home. It was about midway through the Great Depression, and jobs were opening up. I went to Ray Sheets’ barber shop on Main Street in Palouse. Sheets was a favorite of all the kids because he always had treats for us. And he had some other things going for him. His teeth were cappe...
We live in a day when the caliber of our elected officials is in question. And for good reason as it becomes apparent that they continually lie to us, often when the truth would serve them better. I like a bumper sticker I saw recently that states, “The truth is out there.” There is one politician that stands apart from others: former President Jimmy Carter. While he didn’t have a distinguished one-term presidency, he is a distinguished person and continues to be so to this present day. There were a couple of things that marred his presi...
There are a lot of reasons why people seek public office. Probably the best reason is when people feel the community has been good to them and they want to give something back. It usually, but not always, comes after families are raised, and there’s more time for public service. This reason probably produces the most effective elected officials. Another reason is that someone encourages someone to run because if they get a friend in office then they can work the system. This seems to be the standard reason today. You see it being played out e...
Every once in awhile a person should visit his or her roots. I did so a couple of weeks ago, returning to Palouse, Idaho, where I was born and raised. It was the annual Palouse Days celebration, which occurs on the second weekend of September. It provides an opportunity to see old friends, and to visit familiar surroundings. What is it with Palouse you ask? Well, I still consider it home. It doesn’t provide me the opportunity to see old classmates. Most of them are gone now. We graduated a class of 24 back in 1948. I only know of three, i...
Try taking a three-week vacation to Houston with four of your children in your car. Actually, I can’t say enough what a positive experience it was. I had determined where we would be each night and made reservations so the overnight stay wouldn’t be a problem. I made sure that there was something to do at the end of each day’s trip and made sure that every motel had a swimming pool. A variety of tourist attractions included, in part, the Morman Temple in Salt Lake City; Bryce National Park; the Grand Canyon; Tombstone, Arizona; Carlsbad Caver...
Where would anyone be without the support staff? My wife and I spent two summers as part of the support staff for firefighters. We worked for Okay Cascade, a firm out of Bothell, that supplied food, laundry and shower services for firefighters. We worked mainly in Washington, but had a 20-day stint on a fire in eastern Oregon. We spent most of our work time in food services and prepared food for sometimes hundreds of firefighters and their support staffs. Probably the largest number was in the Oregon fire where we fed some 1,500 fire fighters...
Sometimes new friends can result in strange gifts. I was in Vietnam just after the Tet offensive in 1968, partially to pry about the war and to visit parents of students I had met at the University of Washington. I had visited one set of parents two days earlier, only to have them come to the hotel I was staying in to ask me to come to their house that evening. They said they had someone they wanted me to meet. I went to their house and met a medical doctor who had been held captive by the Viet Cong for four years. He was finally able to...
The next time you tee up your ball at Banks Lake Golf Course, take a second and say a word of thanks to the three Port District commissioners who made it possible. The three, Jim Keene, Gary Haag and Leonard Sanders, deserve some kind of award for how they see the Port District’s obligation to serve the public. Commission President Jim Keene said it nicely when he stated: “The golf course is an important part of our community.” The commissioners have run the course for the past several years, the last two profitably. The Port District poure...
My maternal ancestors go back to a farm near Lillehammer, Norway, where the 1994 Winter Olympics were held. Most of my mother’s family immigrated to the United States and to, you guessed it, Minnesota. My grandmother left Norway right after graduating from high school to join several older brothers and sisters who had already made their way here. That would have been 1884. So my mother rightfully claimed being a Norwegian, and I have followed that. My mother was an only child, born to a middle-class family in Minneapolis in 1898. She left to c...
It was probably my last whitewater rafting trip, maybe! A few years ago my wife, Dorothy, and I talked about taking a whitewater rafting trip, so I went to Leonard Taylor out in Electric City to ask him if he knew anyone who was still taking people on raft trips. Leonard knows the rivers in Idaho real well and at one time had his own boat. Leonard referred me to Bemer Rafts, which at the time was featuring a two-day run, starting on the Salmon River the first day and ending on the Snake River the second. There were about 25 of us that had...
This is a tale about Idaho’s famous “Bigfoot,” who was responsible for a number of stagecoach and wagon train robberies and killings. He roamed the desolate hills of Owyhee County and met his demise there. The name “Bigfoot” came from Shoshoni words “Namp,” meaning foot, and “puh,” meaning big. He was not the Sasquatch-type of Bigfoot, but an actual desperado who came out of Idaho folklore. His foot measured 17.5 inches long, so he’d received his name honestly. He was born into the Cherokee nation and was named Starr Wilkerson, son of a white m...
This is about two politicians, both in their 90s, one who passed away last week and the other still going strong. Former U.S. Senator Birch Bayh, 91, passed away last Thursday. He served Indiana and the nation well during his time in the Senate, and is perhaps best known for shepherding Title IX to its success; anyway, that’s what he has said was his greatest achievement. I first met Sen. Bayh at the annual Democratic dinner in Seattle. Senators Henry Jackson and Warren Magnuson had sent me tickets to the dinner, and a host of Democrats from a...
This news thing that I have been doing started for me back in 1958. I had a number of successful journalism classes behind me, and my professor, Helen Wilson, had talked Idaho Free Press managing editor Jack Scudder into interviewing me for an open position on the Nampa, Idaho five-day daily. I arrived at the appointed time and found Scudder to have a soft and pleasant voice, a kind of man that you might be encouraged to buy a bridge or small island from, if it was offered. We got along well, and he asked all about me, and I gave him honest...
When living in Bothell, we belonged to FIUTS (Foundation for International Understanding Through Students), a program through the University of Washington where you could sponsor foreign students. Through the program we sponsored students from Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand. You were expected to share time and your home with them, and they, along with others we met, spread a lot of good cheer to us and our family. We also belonged to a group that raised money to provide supplies for Dr. Pat Smith, a Seattle doctor who had opened a hospital in...
Fasten your belts; you're in for a ride. This year's Colorama Festival kicks off Thursday, May 10, and extends well into Sunday. There are wild rides featured in Rainier Amusements carnival alley at North Dam Park. And wild rides at the Ridge Rider's Pro-West Rodeo. And if that isn't enough, fasten your seatbelt tight for the helicopter rides, staged from the lower ball fields. And there's a host of other exciting events, such as the Colorama Parade, starting at 11 a.m. from near Les Schwabs... Full story
The Colorama Festival Button for this year’s celebration is now on sale. Buy a button for $3, help support Colorama, and you’re in the mix to win one of the many prizes attached to the buttons. All the buttons are numbered and the drawing for the prizes will be held at 1 p.m. at North Dam Park, after the Colorama parade. Buttons are available for sale at a host of locations throughout the Grand Coulee area. Another popular feature of this year’s celebration will be the helicopter rides. White Rabbit Heli Tours, out of Spokane, will provi...
The Colorama Festival Button for this year's celebration goes on sale this week. Buy a button for $3, help support Colorama, and you're in the mix to win one of the many prizes attached to the buttons. All the buttons are numbered and the drawing for the prizes will be held at 1 p.m. at North Dam Park, after the Colorama parade. Buttons are available for sale at a host of locations throughout the Grand Coulee area. Another popular feature of this year's celebration will be the helicopter rides....
A week-long school security training session at the FEMA Emergency Management Institute “will make a huge difference in how we do things here,” Superintendent Paul Turner said Tuesday. People from the Grand Coulee Dam School District and other agencies nearby traveled to Emmitsburg, Maryland, last week on a grant, with meetings designed to get people in responding agencies who might be involved in some kind of security issues talking and planning together. School security was only part of the training, Turner explained. “We went into detai...
The City of Grand Coulee has put off a decision to proceed on a "dangerous" building declaration until at least the end of January. The building once held the museum of Constantinos Vlachos, an inventor and colorful character that was best known for developing the Tri-Phibian automobile, which was powered by a "thermo-hydraulic" motor. Vlachos nearly lost his life when the vehicle caught fire during a Washington D.C. demonstration in 1935. The building in question has been declared "dangerous"...
Several complaints have recently been levied against the Lake Roosevelt school lunch program. Complaints include that the program is frequently running out of hot lunches, evidence of outdated milk and students finding hair in their food. The person complaining stated that kitchen workers are not wearing hair nets. The issue was brought to the attention of Superintendent Paul Turner, who has been monitoring the lunch program. Last week he reported that a check is made each day for the hot lunch entrée. “Everyone doesn’t get the hot lunch entr...
A study on Elmer City’s options for sewage treatment suggests the town may save over the long run by building a new treatment plant of its own, instead of extending its decades-long contract with Coulee Dam. Elmer City has received its wastewater treatment plant alternative study developed by Indian Health Services, and the report will get its first airing at the town council’s meeting, Oct. 12. The report provides several alternative routes for the town to develop its own sewage treatment system, or do nothing at all and remain with Cou...
Want a place to have a refreshment and possibly watch a little football during the upcoming Harvest Festival, Sept. 15-17? The Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce is providing such a place in its “Beer Garden” at North Dam Park. The tent will be open Friday, Sept. 15, from 6 to 10 p.m.; Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. Spend $5 on a possibly winning ticket and you could even win the raffle for the 55-inch TV you are watching. The TV was purchased at cost by the chamber from Loepp Furniture. Remember: College foo...
Two police officers from Coulee Dam and Grand Coulee interrupted a burglary at 301 Columbia last Thursday in Coulee Dam. Grand Coulee officer Matthew Ponusky heard that a residential alarm had been sounded and went to assist Coulee Dam officer Jordan Ulrich in pursuing the alarm. Ulrich had gone to the back door and contacted a male intruder who slammed the door in his face and went back inside. Meanwhile, Ponusky had gone to the side of the house, where another man who had broken the screen from inside the house was preparing to jump, but...
School bells chimed today (Wednesday) for the start of the new school year. School personnel gathered Tuesday to hear Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Paul Turner give an outline of activities scheduled for this year, the main one emphasizing "Goal 2" of the district's Strategic Plan, providing a "safe and secure learning environment." Turner emphasized that the district is conducting a "year-long" training period for all employees, focusing on the "whole child." The superintenden...