News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 1268 - 1292 of 1840
It wasn't the smoothest sailing for festival planners over this Independence Day weekend. Problems started with short notice from Grant County Health District authorities that a water park for kids couldn't happen the way it was planned. Smaller complications, such as reportedly rude political protesters and a lost child (she was found) were wedged between that announcement and the final blow - a power outage that cancelled the Laser Light Show during the biggest festival of the year. Officials...
County commissioners told those attending the sixth public meeting on the Okanogan County’s Juvenile Department last week that they would commit to continue housing juveniles in the county facility in Okanogan, rather than outsource the job to a far-away place. The latter possibility had brought 100 or more citizens, including two opposed superior court judges, out to a series of meetings in which commissioners explored various aspects of the question. Their announcement June 21 followed the filing of a lawsuit against them a day earlier by t...
New interpretations of old regulations forced a last-minute change to plans for a water park, a new feature of the chamber of commerce's Festival of America. The Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce, which is putting on the festival and an associated feature for kids meant to be more about water features, is less so than planned. The changed followed an 11th-hour phone call from the Grant County Health District, which said it wouldn't allow the features that had been planned. There are...
Jim Boyd, leader of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and renowned musician and recording artist, died unexpectedly last week at the age of 60. "This is a very, very sad day for the Colville Tribes," said Vice Chairman of the Colville Business Council Michael Marchand. "One of our most respected leaders and talented tribal members is no longer among us. The sheer enormity of our loss has not set in yet, and I doubt that it will for quite some time." Boyd, who won seven Native...
I didn’t know Jim Boyd well, just enough to like him and admire his talent. So it came as a complete surprise when the sudden news of his death overwhelmed me last week. That reaction likely has something to do with being nearly the same age, but it was more than that. Boyd was an artist who was a leader, someone who could articulate for those of us on the outside of his culture, his tribe, the importance of the commonplace and of the sacred. Because he had that ability, politics somehow seemed less about self-interest than about grappling w...
The Colville Tribes announced this morning (6-22-16) that Chairman Jim Boyd has died at the age of 60. What follows is the tribal press release: Chairman Boyd walks on NESPELEM, WA - The Colville Business Council has announced today that the Chairman of the Colville Tribes, James L. Boyd, has passed on. He was 60. Boyd, a prolific songwriter and entertainer, was well known throughout Indian Country. He travelled throughout the United States, was known for his love ofHarleyDavidson Motorcycles,...
Hospital officials met last week with Washington State University officials working to make that institution's new medical school a reality. Kenneth Roberts, the vice dean for academic and community partnerships for the WSU College of Medicine, along with Jeffrey Bell, a partner at Gallatin Public Affairs, stopped at CMC to give officials there an update on WSU's progress in launching the new medical school. They've also been touring rural hospitals to undertand the needs and capabilities they h...
A major art show, drawn in cloth and stitches, and honoring the National Park Service in its 100th year, will arrive in Coulee Dam just in time for the Fourth of July. The "Inspired by the National Parks" Quilt Show will be on display in the Lake Roosevelt Elementary School gym July 1-4, with more than 180 art quilts. Don't think about those warm blankets sewn from scraps that may first spring to mind. These quilts depict something inspirational from the nation's most beautiful places. Detailed...
If you see a huge aircraft flying low over the Colville Indian Reservation from now through next Tuesday, you're seeing the world's largest supertanker aircraft and crews practicing in a firefighting training exercise. Global Supertanker Services will fly over the Keller Butte area Saturday with a Boeing 747 tanker to practice flying in a mountainous area in advance of the coming fire season. A lead plane and possibly a photo plane likely will also be in sight. On some flights, potable water...
Pop quiz: How would you feel about merging local towns? That’s the essence of a new, very short survey that likely arrived in your mailbox early this week. It’s being asked by the local chamber of commerce in order to gauge the interest local citizens have regarding the subject, and what their feelings are. The chamber was approached by elected leaders in Grand Coulee and Electric City some time ago and asked to facilitate a community discussion on the subject. Evidently, they, like many business people in the area, saw a potential for better s...
She described it perfectly, although few could hear her. “Everybody’s worst nightmare,” was the way Principal Ronanda Liberty pegged the experience she was having in front of a gymnasium full of people anxiously waiting to see and hear the names of their sons, daughters, friends, relatives at a key life passage — high school graduation. Liberty had stepped up to the microphone, ready for the happy event, only to discover the sound system didn’t work. Batteries were changed. Nothing. Switches and settings checked. Nothing. It had worked ea...
Officials have encountered numerous reports in the region recently of con artists calling people to demand immediate payment and even threaten jail time with a supposed warrant for the arrest of the person getting the call. The callers are often good at what they do and are very convincing, as one local woman recently found out after forking over $1,500. Such a call recently came to the home of Mike Ianetta, he said, and his wife was about to get out the credit card for payment. They wanted $4,000 immediately. Ianetta said the caller had the...
At a horrific scene in the middle of the school day last Friday, the screams of victims and their mothers twisted the air with an agony many seemed to feel - even though they knew it wasn't real. Some 200 or more students and staff from Lake Roosevelt High School arrived at the scene at the Nespelem Community Center by bus and crowded near blue tarps held up as a curtain between them and the sight of dead classmates killed in a drunken driving crash. As the curtain lowered, LR students could...
A sale of used items on the sidewalk outside of Harvest Foods and Variety in Coulee Dam Saturday drew huge support from contributors, raising about $6,400. The sale was held to give support to the family of Justin "Jay" Arnold in their efforts to bring him closer to home from a New York care facility. Arnold suffered a critical brain injury when he was struck by a car in New York, where he was pursuing his education as a chef. Transporting him across the country required a special flight, which...
The folks who put together last Friday’s “mock crash” did a great service to the whole community. The event, designed to give young drivers a taste of the reality of a car crash, not something depicted neatly for a television scene, probably left an impression even on the Lake Roosevelt Junior/Senior High kids who tried not to be impressed, the way kids often do. Judging by the looks on most of their faces, the drama was enough to deliver the message, just as a gripping drama in any medium often does when it elicits a tightness in your throa...
Approached by someone who knew nothing about the area you live in, how would you answer them if asked for the most important facts they should know before or during a visit to the area we call home? That’s the essence of a question asked by Kate, who plans to bicycle through the area in August on a cross-country trek with a large group of bicyclists — all the way from Providence, Rhode Island. “I was wondering if there was any information you think visitors should know about Grand Coulee,” Kate wrote in a recent email to The Star. That’s...
A sale of used items on the sidewalk outside of Harvest Foods and Variety in Coulee Dam today (Saturday) has drawn huge support from contributors. The sale is to give support to the family of Justin Arnold in their efforts to bring him closer to home from a New York care facility. Arnold suffered a critical brain injury when he was struck by a car in New York, where he was pursuing his education as a chef. Transporting him across the country will require a special flight. The sale today is...
A man involved in many local causes who helped with the sound system heard at Saturday’s parade died driving his Harley later that night just east of Grand Coulee. Walter H. Nuehring, known locally as Steve Nuehring, was riding his white 2007 Harley Davidson motorcycle toward Wilbur on highway 174 at milepost 23 when he left the road to the right, then tried to correct it and rolled the bike, the Washington State Patrol reported. He was 59. Nuehring had lived in the Grand Coulee Dam area for a couple years, he had told The Star last year, s...
Lest we get into the “it will never happen here” mood, let’s remind ourselves that the existence of this community was preceded by a very nutty idea that was laughed at by the whole nation. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was derided for supporting the building of Grand Coulee Dam. That is, until he looked like a genius when the nation suddenly needed its hydropower to fight World War II. But big dreams are easy for those of us with noses to the grindstone to dismiss. Grasping their particulars often requires more time and energy than...
If you live in Grand Coulee, Coulee Dam or Elmer City, you should have gotten a plastic bag in the mail on Thursday. That's to put food in for the Care and Share Food Bank. Add some non-perishable food item to the bag and your postal carrier will pick it up on Saturday. Or you can drop it off at the Grand Coulee Post Office, where they're also putting on a barbecue from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the parking lot. You can just drive through to drop off your donation, if you like. This volunteer...
County officials discussed with the Coulee Dam Town Council Wednesday a plan county commissioners are considering to house juvenile offenders out of the county at a privately-run facility in Medical Lake. Juvenile Court Administrator Dennis Rabidou, Superior Court judges Christopher Culp and Henry Rawson, and others attended. Rawson said he does not understand why the county commissioners are even considering a proposal that will be more expensive and serve the community more poorly, but he suggested the town council consider passing a...
There is no disputing that any organization has a right to control who speaks for it, but that doesn’t translate into a right to censor speech. Birdie Hensley was officially admonished by her colleagues on the Electric City Council last week for doing her own research on questions she has about the city’s direction. It seems that she is free to research on behalf of herself as a city councilmember, but not on behalf of the city council. … Got that? That comes pretty close to being a hair split by semantics. It’s probably not couth for members...
The state Dept. of Transportation said Monday afternoon that drivers on highway 155 should expect delays for pavement maintenance this Tuesday through Thursday. The work is scheduled to take place between Elmer City and Nespelem from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and drivers should expect delays up to 20 minutes where the DOT maintenance crew is applying asphalt pavement patches from four miles north of Coulee Dam to Nespelem. Drivers are directed to follow the directions of the flaggers and slow down through the work zone....
A Coulee Dam man arrested in February on charges related to his alleged relationship with a 14-year-old girl in Wisconsin found himself in federal court Monday in Spokane, not a state court in Okanogan. Nate Piturachsatit, 37, pleaded not guilty to one count of producing child pornography. The girl’s mother contacted Wisconsin police when she found a package containing a T-shirt mailed to her from Piturachsatit from a Spokane address. He is suspected of sending and receiving sexually-explicit pictures with the girl via an Instagram account. A...
State Sen. Linda Evans Parlette visited the community last week to fill in schools Superintendent Dennis Carlson on changes in the capital budget staff in Olympia, which could affect the Grand Coulee Dam School District. Parlette spoke at the Rotary Club on Wednesday. Parlette, who has served on the Senate Ways and Means Committee for 20 years, managed to get the state to fund the district's new school complex, which it could not do on its own because of the high amount of non-taxable federal...