News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Mayor Ruth Dalton pulled ahead in the race to keep her office in Grand Coulee. Dalton switched the advantage since last week, when challenger Chantel Crowe, the deputy city clerk was ahead by a few votes. Dalton now leads with 56% of the vote, 120-104. Likewise, for Grand Coulee’s council member 2 seat, Andrew Dobson pulled ahead of Cameron Whitney 88- 79. Cheryl Hoffman gained a 54% lead over Jeremiah Seekins in the race for Electric City’s Council Member 1 seat, 154-129. Bradley Oliver holds an insurmountable 185-97 lead over Robbin Boy...
Seven Lake Roosevelt Raiders traveled to Pasco to compete in the WIAA State XC Championships last week, which has not occurred with a Raider team since this one's oldest athlete was in first grade, Coach Matthew Timentwa said. At a school assembly the day before they got on the bus for Sun Willows Golf Course outside Pasco, Timentwa praised the team. "They worked so hard this year," the coach said. "They all ... put in their best effort, every single one of them, and every single day." Timentwa...
An important institution celebrated its 90th anniversary Saturday, when the Grand Coulee Volunteer Fire Department members gathered at the fire station on Spokane Way, which was built in the 1970s. The modern fire department was consolidated from two earlier, separate departments for the different parts of the city, Rick Paris recounted as people gathered at the station for food and drink, and to honor the department's work and role in the community. Before there was a city or an ordinance to...
Even in an election year when most races were for often uncontested local offices, several were too close to call last night when county election offices stopped counting ballots after 8 p.m. In Grand Coulee, Mayor Ruth Dalton wasn’t getting too nervous yet about barely trailing by 52-48, Chantel Crowe, the city’s deputy clerk who decided to run for the mayor’s office. Neither was Crowe, reached on her way back from a leadership class in Ephrata. She also said it was too close to call. “As of now, I’m excited and I’m certainly honored,” she sai...
The Raider football team capped their season Thursday night with a big win at home on senior night. Lake Roosevelt hosted the Tekoa-Rosalia Timberwolves in an 8-man game that took the place of an originally scheduled contest with the Okanogan Bulldogs. Head Coach Geary Oliver said the Raiders forfeited to Okanogan because it would have been a mismatch, going against one of the primary safety guidelines coaches in the state are supposed to follow: don't mismatch teams. He indicated this year's...
Lake Roosevelt’s boys’ cross-country team took sixth place at the District 5 meet Thursday and qualified seven athletes to compete at the state meet in Pasco Nov. 8. Senior Caden Portch set a personal record to take seventh out of 93 competitors on the district’s 3-mile race at Apple Ridge last week in 16 minutes, 33.4 seconds, beating his own 3-mile time at Oroville last month by 13.5 seconds. Each Raider set a personal record on the 3-mile course. After a send-off assembly at the school on Thursday at 10:15 a.m., the team will board the b...
by Scott Hunter The Care and Share Food Bank, like many others, is getting ready to meet the needs of people who will be caught in the midst of the fight in Congress that has shut down much of the nation’s federal government, including food assistance. “Thanks to our government budget, local support and prudent management, we will be able to support all those in need with basic food support,” Shawn Neider wrote in a note to The Star about what the local food bank expects. “We may have to spread our food thinner but nobody needs to starve.” Neid...
by Scott Hunter It wasn’t for a far-off cause that people gathered to walk through brilliant fall foliage on a perfect afternoon last Thursday. It was to help local women get a mammogram, a screening that can detect breast cancer early and thereby save lives. It was Walking Together for Mammograms. Kelly Buche said she is “a survivor, nine years strong, nine years grateful and nine years blessed” because she had good health insurance. “But I was lucky,” said the local accountant just before aw...
As over 7 million people reportedly took part in No Kings demonstration around the United States Saturday, a group of about 100 of them walked on Midway Avenue in Grand Coulee, waving signs and chatting, dancing to music, and wearing inflatable suits. The crowd was several times the size of what has become the usual 20-35 on a weekly basis in downtown Grand Coulee each Saturday. Started by a single person, Sheri Edwards (my wife) who decided last February she had to do something to speak up...
The outcome of the game with Liberty Bell was even more lopsided than the numbers of players on each football team, but not much. The Mountain Lions mauled the Raiders 70-46 in only the second home game of a "weird" season for the Raiders, and their second to last game of the year. For the Lake Roosevelt team, the challenging schedule comes in part from decisions to play 8-man ball when too few players on either team were eligible. Out of a total official roster of 21, Raiders in the game often...
Lake Roosevelt’s soccer players ended their regular season and their winning streak last night with a 5-0 loss to Tonasket, but a win-loss record of 5-3 in the Central Washington 2B League and 9-5 overall. The LR team finished 15th out of 48 teams in the 2B classification in Washington with a 0.5184 RPI. Now seeded third, the Raiders will play Saturday at home at 11 a.m. in game one of the District 5 tournament for the start of postseason play in a loser-out game. They'll host sixth seed Liberty Bell. This story was updated....
An elementary school teacher was arrested Monday on a charge of “Communication with a Minor for Immoral Purposes.” Kittitas County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Ross Ashenfelter, a fourth-grade teacher at Lake Roosevelt Elementary School at 11:55 a.m. Ashenfelter, 42, of Coulee Dam, was arrested at the school, where he was doing some administrative work while the school was closed for the holiday, the sheriff’s department said in a statement. The sheriff’s office said the arrest resulted from investigations by detectives with the Washington taskf...
The Trump Administration on Friday reportedly fired the entire staff of an office in the Treasury Department that runs a broadly popular program that helps local loan funds in places that are typically underserved by banks, including Native American reservations. The Community Development Financial Institutions that get the funds loan them out to small businesses to help develop local economies, often for higher rates than a bank might charge if they were interested. Those CDFIs include the... Full story
Coulee Dam will not be providing a school resource officer for Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High School this year as was earlier expected. Mayor Bob Poch said at the Oct. 8 town council meeting that the town didn’t have enough police officers to cover the duties at this point. The town just swore in a new officer last week. Police Chief Paul Bowden said there was not enough time to get everything done before sending an officer to that duty. Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Rod Broadnax said the delay actually helps the district with a b...
by Scott Hunter The Lake Roosevelt Raiders won their football game against the Chewelah Cougars 56-12 at Jenkins High School Friday in another journey into 8-man play. The team, and some opponents, has had to adjust all season to illness, injury or ineligibility, making it tough to plan on their regular 11-man game. "It has been a crazy season," Coach Geary Oliver said. "Over a third of our players are freshmen, and they have made significant progress since August. "Each game this year players...
by Scott Hunter Nespelem School District ceremonially broke ground on construction of their new CTE building Monday morning as the whole school looked on. Nespelem's high school closed in 1956 as the state consolidated schools, sending local students to high school in Coulee Dam. The district's board of directors has long expressed their current dissatisfaction with the arrangement, thinking some of their students were not thriving in the neighboring system. Board President Jolene Marchand said...
The city of Grand Coulee will be able to fix a lot of dilapidated sewer lines with funding from the state of Washington’s Public Works Board for $4 million, the board said in a press release Monday. The city’s sewer improvements project will replace or rehabilitate approximately 10,200 linear feet of deteriorating sewer mains and manholes, PWB said. Planning for the project has already been started while the city engineer has been working with city leaders on updating its wastewater treatment plant, a job that will cost more than $10 mil...
The Raider football team played the closest thing they've had to a home game so far this season on Saturday in an exhibition game against ACH at the Warrior's Brickhouse Athletic Field in a version of football for which they had one day to prepare. Almira Coulee Hartline, a 1B team, plays 8-man ball; the 2B Raiders play 11-man, which may not sound too different. The game proved otherwise, leaving a 92-44 ACH imprint on the Raiders' backsides. The game replaced a canceled Soap Lake home game for...
The Raider varsity football team will have a game this week after all. It starts at 5 p.m. Saturday in Coulee City against ACH. A Friday game scheduled against Soap Lake was canceled due to a lack of eligible players at Soap Lake, Athletic Director Casey Brewster told the school board Monday night, not long after learning of the cancellation. He was trying to fill the slot, for what had been a home game for the Raiders, by Wednesday but apparently was unable to do so. Lake Roosevelt and Soap... Full story
The town of Coulee Dam gained its fifth police officer, completing the department last week. Following his graduation from the Washington State Police Academy, Phillip Ogren was sworn in as an officer Sept. 15 and took the Law Enforcement Oath of Honor in a brief ceremony and reception at the Town Hall Ballroom. Chief Paul Bowden administered the oath of office. City officials, and Ogren's family and friends attended. Coulee Dam's police department also provides policing services for Electric...
The Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation have been planning on launching fast fiber-optic internet access, including for Elmer City and Coulee Dam. Elmer City’s town council at its last meeting didn’t have objections to a plan for the buildout, including adding some utility poles in town. The town took plans for review and will likely be ready to sign a franchise agreement with the tribes at the October council meeting. That likelihood is a turnaround from a few months ago, when council and staff took exception to a plan presented wit...
Several local businesses came together to arrange for weekend snacks and meals for certain local kids who might otherwise go hungrier over the weekend. A Second Harvest van rolled up to Lake Roosevelt Elementary School Thursday with about a month's worth of supplies for feeding 55 kids who can use a little extra help on the weekends. The delivery was the start of Second Harvest's Bite2Go program that partners up local donors with school staff who know which students would seem to benefit from...
The city council in Grand Coulee voted Tuesday to get started adopting a new ordinance intended to encourage commercial property owners to use their property, clean it up or sell it. Councilmember Tom Poplawski said he’s had no contacts from the owners of what he estimated were 10-15 local properties that are deteriorating instead of housing some business. Poplawski in July had brought to council examples of similar programs in other cities, including an actual ordinance from Medical Lake. A study undertaken in Blaine, Washington was also inclu...
by Scott Hunter The driver of a late model car left Spring Canyon Road after apparently losing control Saturday afternoon about 3, landing in dry brush and starting a fire. The crash happened right in front of a home at 4550 Spring Canyon Road. Firefighters got there quickly, according to Coulee Dam Police Officer Josh Watkins, who was at the scene for traffic control. No injuries were reported, other than financial. Only a metal hulk was left of the apparently late model car. Firefighters...
Electric City will shift dollars from a project city council members decided to give up on after years of setbacks, spending it instead on a popular park project that is taking shape but needs a financial boost. The city park being built just uphill from the fire station, but will eventually need more funding that what was currently available, despite fundraising efforts. Mayor Diane Kohout said a vote was taken at a special council meeting Aug. 28 to drop the Shoreline Waterfront Trail project that now would cost about $1.4 million to...
