News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 551 - 575 of 1887
The Lake Roosevelt Raider wrestling team on Saturday qualified 11 athletes for the regional tournament next weekend, including two District 6 champions. Zach Elwell took first place at the 106-pound weight division over teammate and 2022 state champion Rodger Cate. Teyten Flores, at 145, claimed that championship with a pin of Tonasket's Logan Stucker at the event, which was held at Lake Roosevelt High School. Dillan Yazzie took second place at 113, as did Dakota Green at 138, Landon Krohn at...
The Lady Raiders beat down the Liberty Bell Lady Mountain Lions Friday night in Coulee Dam 64-12 in their first post-season game, sending them on to meet Brewster last night (Tuesday) at Omak High School, where the next part of the 2023 District 6 2B Girls Basketball tournament is being held. If the LR girls, with an overall win-loss record of 14-7, beat Brewster (12-7), they’ll meet either Tonasket or Okanogan at Omak at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10. If Brewster won last night, the Lady Raiders will still play the earlier Omak game on the 10th at 6 p...
Coulee Dam will accept a $906,000 bid by a contractor for work on a sewage lift station if funding and that award is approved by a federal agency. The city council voted last week to accept a bid from Strider Construction for $906,716 to update its west side lift station, which sends wastewater from the neighborhood on the west side of the Columbia River, across the bridge to the town’s new treatment plant. But that acceptance is contingent on the federal Dept. of Agriculture’s Rural Development Fund (RD)approving extra funding for the imp...
The Grand Coulee Dam and Nespelem school districts came to agreement Friday on terms of a "tuition" agreement they've been negotiating for the current school year. A solution for the next school year is still under discussion. The districts had until Jan. 31 to file applications with the U.S. Dept. of Education for "impact aid" funds that are meant to replace tax levy money they can't get because of non-taxable federal land within their boundaries. They've had an agreement since 1995 on sharing...
The Raider boys get to keep this regular-season, top-of-the-league boasting rights after winning at home against Tonasket last night, securing a first-round by in the District 6 tournament that starts Saturday. The win came after they had suffered a seven-point loss in Okanogan Jan. 24, the second in league loss the whole season, but emerged the top seed into the District 6 post season last night in Coulee Dam. Coming off a 22-point win against Manson Jan. 20, the Raiders met stiffer resistance...
Two points are so inefficient. So, Aaliyah Marchand increased her scoring efficiency by 50 percent per basket, hitting all seven from beyond the three-point line to lead the Lady Raiders in scoring against Okanogan last week with 21 - to match her jersey number. One of the team's most physical players under the basket, she got nothing 'neath the net, which may have been the Bulldogs' plan, but no matter. The Lady Raiders' only senior showed her versatility, proving the point with long-range miss...
The Grand Coulee Dam School District will help fund a lawsuit against the state intended to have a far-reaching effect on funding school facilities and programs. School board members voted unanimously Monday to chip in $5,000 to to the Wahkiakum School District in the endeavor. Wahkiakum Superintendent Brent Freeman attended the meeting and filled the board in on progress on the suit, which will be heard by the state Supreme Court. The suit claims the state is not meeting its constitutional...
After beating Brewster by nine points at home and dominating Manson 78-12 last week, the Lady Raiders stood at second in the league Tuesday night before meeting Okanogan at the home of the Lady Bulldogs, the Central Washington 2B League leaders. The Okanogan girls, with a 7-0 win-loss record in league and 16-0 overall, may have felt secure going into that game against Lake Roosevelt (5-2, 11-6), with ample reason. Okanogan won 91 – 48. LR started out strong, scoring 34 in the first half, but couldn’t execute in the second, Coach Melissa Meza sa...
The Raider boys beat Brewster in a bruiser of a basketball game Jan. 17 in Coulee Dam, 61-60, then went to Manson to trample the Trojans 63-41 on Friday. The Raiders, with a 7-0 league win-loss record, 15-2 overall, ranked first in the Central Washington 2B league and second in the state as of Tuesday night, according to WIAA’s site. They trailed only Brewster (5-2, 13-4) statewide. The RPI rankings used by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association factor in the difficulty of a team’s schedule during the season, making it pos...
Twice last weekend people wanting to fish through the ice of Banks Lake found out it was thinner than they'd figured. On Saturday afternoon and amphibious motor vehicle designed for ice fishing headed out on the ice from Coulee Playland with three men inside. When they tried to drive the four-wheeled vehicle over the off-shore log boom, the vehicle, a Wilcraft amphibious ice fishing vehicle, high centered on the logs and it broke through the ice at both ends, leaving it unmovable. But it was bui...
Coulee Dam officials had hoped they’d get some of the funding in the form of free grants for work to replace an aging sewage lift station on the west side of the Columbia River, but learned last week the funding agency intended to only offer a loan for the near million-dollar project. Clerk Stefani Bowden said she’d gotten a call right before Wednesday’s city council meeting. “I was a little disappointed to see this news today,” she told the council about 20 minutes later. The lift station has been on the back burner for years while the city...
Elmer City utility customers will pay about $13 a month more for water and sewer service beginning in March, but garbage rates will remain the same. The town council passed a new utility rate ordinance last Thursday to set the increase in motion. The increases include a $5 jump for water and $8 for sewer, plus some increases for fees such as for being late paying the bill, or ordering a start or end to a service. Mayor Jesse Tilman said the bump puts the town more on par with other area towns. “Years ago, when I first came on council, we w...
Sporting officials and umpires are in short supply locally, and the association that schedules those workers is looking for interested people to fill the roles that keep sports going. "The shortage of umpires for high school baseball and softball in the Central Columbia Basin may cause disruptions in local games this season," stated Bruce Shields, the assigning secretary for the Central Columbia Basin Umpires Association (CCBUA). The group assigns umpires for seven high schools and five middle... Full story
I know the subject of childcare has been brought up before, and we do have a daycare center and several in home sitters available. They all seem busy showing the need is there. I believe that there is an area of great need not being met, and that is evening and weekend care. Think about how many area businesses pay minimum wage, part-time, with a lot of nights and weekends. The need is there, BUT will anyone fill it? Carol Schoning...
The Lake Roosevelt Raiders currently top their league, facing two top competitors and five other schools in the Central Washington 2B League. After their Friday night home-court win against the Oroville Hornets, the Raiders' win-loss record in the league stands at 5-0, and overall at 13-2. The Hornets lost 88-37 Friday, putting them at the other end of the league list at 0-5. The Raiders fed the Tigers (1-4) a similar meal in Tonasket Jan. 10, winning 84-44. "We're getting better every single...
The Lady Raiders breezed past Oroville Friday in a decisive home-court victory, 66-20. Aaliyah Marchand did the most damage to the visitors, adding 21 points for Lake Roosevelt, 15 of those coming from outside the three-point line. And Marchand's last-second near-half-court shot to hit 66 on the scoreboard might have been the biggest excitement of the game. Carly Neddo put in 16 points for LR, followed closely by Cylia St. Pierre's 14. The girls were third in the Central Washington 2B League as...
A slide of rocks and mud covered Peter Dan Road about a half mile from SR-155 Tuesday morning, forcing a detour until mid-afternoon and recalling a massive effort to keep the hillside from sloughing off. Okanogan County Emergency Management texted an alert at 6:40 a.m. to its subscribers, letting them know of the road closure as people got ready to go to work or school. Peter Dan runs between Elmer City and Keller, plus the Buffalo Lake area. The road remained closed until about 2:15 p.m. The sl...
Looking at something from a different angle can reveal much that hadn’t been noticed before. That principle may have been evident at a school board meeting Monday night. School leaders made plans Monday to systematically consider student opinion in coming meetings, the result of advocacy on the school board by two new student representatives. Appointed as ex-officio representatives in October 2022, Juniors Layla Flett and Celeste LaPlace have been discussing with other Grand Coulee Dam School District board members ways to get student c...
Park district commissioners last month approved a proposal for vendors to address in bidding on the maintenance work for North Dam Park for the year. The Coulee Area Park and Recreation District maintains and manages the park on about eight acres of land that belongs to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation below North Dam. Commissioners Dec. 14 approved as to form a document that lays out the scope of work they expect will be done for up to $25,000 in 2023, including everything from mowing the lawns...
Lake Roosevelt's wrestling team distinguished itself at a tournament full of much larger schools Dec. 30, earning placings in enough weights to take fourth in the Freeman Winter Classic. "Our success is coming from everyone contributing and finding a way to win," Head Coach Casey Brewster said. "They are wrestling the whole match and making it very difficult on their opponents." The 2B Raiders took fourth with a score of 107 behind 3A-4A size teams like Post Falls (194), West Valley (149) and Sh...
Covid is apparently on the move locally. Coulee Medical Center cautioned community members Monday that although all services are still available, covid-related staffing problems may cause delays in service. “We are now in the midst of a COVID 19 outbreak in the community which is affecting the operations of Coulee Medical Center,” CMC posted on their Facebook page Monday. CEO Ramona Hicks said CMC has had nine staff members out in just four days after testing positive, far more than they’ve had in months. “I think there’s just a lot more covi...
Grand Coulee’s city council passed its budget reluctantly last week, with one council member warning that the city would need to find another $50,000 by year’s end or layoffs would be necessary. “I wanted to have a balanced budget that we could vote on,” said Councilmember Tom Poplawski at the council’s meeting Dec. 20. “But after all the discussions and all of the meetings, looking at numbers and analysis of it all, we can’t get there unless we were to lay people off. That’s the bottom line. We’ve chosen not to do that.” The city’s 2023 bud...
Utility crews for Grant County PUD worked through the extreme weather last week as power outages affected their customers from Royal City to Grand Coulee. With temperatures plunging to the well-below-zero range, then frozen rain falling across the region, the National Weather Service warned people to prepare for power outages. One hit the Electric City-Grand Coulee area on Christmas night, apparently around 8 p.m. and took until morning to repair. Customers on the PUD Facebook page asked for...
Several people reported hearing a loud boom Monday night in west Coulee Dam, some speculating an electrical transformer may have blown in the town’s electric system. Not exactly. But City Superintendent Mike Steffens said that’s what it sounds like when two big fuses blow at the same time, which is what happened at the end of Stevens Avenue Monday about 4:30 p.m. “Turkeys in the line again,” Steffens said. A flock of about a dozen wild turkeys roam the west side of town, often roosting in trees in nearby Fiddle Creek or Cole Park. When they mi...
Over the last several weeks, I’ve felt slightly uneasy breaking the habit of strict social distancing and mask wearing to avoid infection. It was a justified queasiness. Following Christmas gatherings and indoor sporting events all over the country, an increase in viral spread was predictable and apparently is happening in our area. I’ll be donning a mask again when in crowded indoor spaces, including sporting events, small meetings in small rooms, and anywhere its likely we’re all breathing each other’s exhalations. That’s not the advice gi...