News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 1624 - 1648 of 1807
Wildland fire breaks out on reservation Wildifire consumed more than 500 acres on the Colville Indian Reservation July 4, on the 10th anniversary of a fire that burned more than 10,000 in the same area. The Mt. Tolman Fire Center got the call at 3:47 p.m. for the blaze about 50 miles southeast of Keller on the north side of Lake Roosevelt. The cause is under investigation. As of 9:30 Friday morning, the 2013 Rattlesnake Fire had consumed 516 acres of grass, sage, and bitter brush in steep, rocky...
The National Weather Service has issued not only a heat advisory, but a “Red Flag Warning” until late Thursday night for a large area that apparently includes North Dam, a popular site for lighting fireworks. Grand Coulee officials are still planning to allow people to use the top of the dam for fireworks, however, because they see it as the the safest spot in the area for lighting up the traditional explosives. The alert was issued due to expected windy conditions mixed with very low hum... Full story
A chamber of commerce-sponsored meeting of community leaders Monday selected a committee whose goal is to approach the three municipalities that collect hotel/motel tax money about the possible formation of a tourism advisory board to oversee spending it. Many in the room clearly would like to see local municipal councils shake loose of nearly a half million dollars not being used to increase tourism, the intent of the law that authorizes the tax. The meeting was a continuation of an earlier gathering where many of the same people discussed... Full story
Is it surprising just how much innovation is required to build a community, or a school? Learning that some 4,000 concrete blocks will build a retaining wall for the new school site, one is tempted to draw analogies to the building blocks of community. As we enter fire season, remember to be careful out there. I don’t ever want to see fire descending the hillsides around town again, as we did last year, but I’m afraid we may yet again in our lifetimes. Yes, our climate is changing; it’s obvious. A firefighter who has been in that business since... Full story
Tribal election polls Saturday recorded 1,619 votes in the election races for seven Colville Business Council seats, many of which will be determined with the count of absentee ballots on Thursday. In the Nespelem District, Ricky Gabriel polled narrowly ahead of Deb Louie 117-101 for Position 1. Neither is an incumbent but they’ve both held the job before. For Nespelem Position 2, incumbent Andrew Joseph Jr. garnered 209 votes to Enid Wippel’s 89. There were 423 absentee ballots to count for the Nespelem District as of Tuesday afternoon. Bal... Full story
A wildfire of unknown origin was contained by firefighters Friday night after consuming a little more than 200 acres of grass, brush and some trees just east of the Colville Indian Agency campus and within site of a housing development. The fire that started Friday afternoon just off Buffalo Lake Road apparently surrounded, but did not burn, two nearby houses. Fire engines were protecting those houses Friday evening as tenders ferried water to a hilltop and the farthest advance line of the fire... Full story
The Star will be closed from 1:45 to 4:15 p.m. this afternoon due to scheduling conflicts with news events. We will re-open by 4:15, and the deadline for classified ads will extend to Tuesday noon. Classifieds can be entered online anytime here: http://www.grandcoulee.com/classifieds. And news announcements and letters to the editor can always be emailed in to star@grandcoulee.com or placed in the physical dropbox outside the front door.... Full story
Our Grand Coulee Dam Area Visitors Guide online site has the map of activities for Saturday's Koulee Kids Fest, at which some lucky kid will win an iPod Touch. Check it out here: http://ow.ly/m3caF... Full story
If anyone could figure the odds of an international finance engineer ending up in Grand Coulee running a quilting business, Marlene Oddie could. She’s opening her KISSed Quilts business at 12:15 p.m. Friday in the little shop that was last an ice cream parlor at 301 Main Street in Grand Coulee. Oddie, with masters degrees in engineering and business administration, spent a decade steeped in the world of high, arcane finance, figuring out complex problems in derivatives markets around the w... Full story
A 21-year-old Nespelem woman was injured when the car she was driving hit a deer on the highway south of Grand Coulee Monday morning. Breanna Salas, 21, was driving a red 2002 Chevy Impala when it struck a deer on SR155 19 miles south of Grand Coulee about 6:10 a.m. Salas was injured and taken to Coulee Medical Center. The car, which came to rest on the shoulder, was “totalled” and impounded to Randy’s Towing, the Washington State Patrol reported. A passenger, Justin Chuckulnaskit, 33, was not injured. He and Salas were wearing seatb... Full story
A 21-year-old Nespelem woman was injured when the car she was driving hit a deer on the highway south of Grand Coulee Monday morning. Breanna Salas, 21, was driving a red 2002 Chevy Impala when it struck a deer on SR155 19 miles south of Grand Coulee about 6:10 a.m. Salas was injured and taken to Coulee Medical Center. The car, which came to rest on the shoulder, was “totalled” and impounded to Randy’s Towing, the Washington State Patrol reported. A passenger, Justin Chuckulnaskit, 33, was not injured. He and Salas were wearing seatb...
The collapse of a Skagit River bridge on I-5 last week should give all of us pause to think about our nation’s longterm strategy, including local infrastructure. Stuff wears out, even steel bridges. That’s a dynamic that challenges the best intentions of priority pickers (also known as budget makers) in government who must continually weigh how to spend our money. Such constant pressure over decades can even influence the standards by which supposedly objective measurers of safety decide on acceptable risks. Consider that until rocks fell on... Full story
Community members listen at the annual Isle of Flags memorial service at Spring Canyon Cemetery to remember veterans on Memorial Day. The Isle of Flags committee hoisted some 530 U.S. flags this year, each in honor of a local veteran buried there. More photos of the spectacle and a video are available below: Isle of Flags 2013 - Images by Scott Hunter... Full story
A candidate for the Colville Business Council has filed a formal grievance against the tribal election committee, saying she was denied a recount required as automatic by tribal law, she said. Charlene BearCub, who ran for the position 2 seat in the Nespelem District, was edged out in the May 18 primary by two votes. She said the tribal election code requires an automatic recount if the difference between candidates is three votes or less. “I verbally requested a recount, TWICE, due to the confusion and the ballot counts not matching,” Bea... Full story
Three science teams from Lake Roosevelt High School competed in the Imagine Tomorrow event at Washington State University in Pullman last weekend, bringing home cash and kudos for a big effort from a small school. In its sixth year, the competition asks high school teams from around the Pacific Northwest in four broad categories. LRHS competed in three categories this year, with each category having more than 40 teams, most from the west side of the state in large school districts with special s... Full story
A couple girls ride the Octopus at the Colorama carnival Friday night. More photos of the Colorama weekend are available to view online. Follow the slideshow below and just click through to see it in a larger format, or to buy photos and more. Colorama 2013 - Images by Scott Hunter... Full story
A drive to raise $95,000 to replace Village Cinema’s projection equipment with new digital technology has failed, and the theater’s owners hope to end their lease early, unable to continue with a broken, obsolete projector. A report on Kickstarter, an online fund raising site, reported at the end of the drive, May 4, that only $2,688 had been pledged, less than 2 percent of what was needed to make a transition to digital equipment required by new industry standards next year. Owner Lynette Zierden said they just made the last payment to the... Full story
• Congratulations to Fern Blaylock, who was recognized by Gov. Inslee last week for her volunteer service. Often nominated for The Star Volunteer of the Year award, Blaylock’s service is something many people in the local community appreciate. • A sense of anticipation turned into a let-down when we learned that the school board had chosen a name for the new school complex without a public process for input. Lake Roosevelt, of course, is not a bad name but it is an old one. Fitting that new edifice with an old name could be seen as new wine... Full story
The Coeur d'Alene Press reported on its website May 1 that a firm based there has recently been awarded a contract to build an administration building for the Colville Tribe. Contractors Northwest, Inc. as offices in Coeur d'Alene and Boise, Idaho. The site did not report an award amount for the building, for which the Colville Business Council recently set aside $40 million amidst considerable controversy among tribal members. http://www.cdapress.com/news/business/article_7b036302-547d-5f56-beb8-213d9d9add78.html http://www... Full story
Grand Coulee Dam School District Athletic Director Rich Black reports the following is an updated sports schedule for Lake Roosevelt High School as of Friday afternoon. May 6-11: *Monday, May 6th: Baseball District Playoffs versus White Swan at Wenatchee Valley Community College @ 12:00 pm (bus departs at 9:00 am) *Tuesday, May 7th: Softball versus Bridgeport/home @ 4:00 pm Golf versus Oroville/Manson at Bear Creek (Liberty Bell) @ 2:30 pm (bus departs at 11:15 am) Tennis versus Entiat/home @ 4:30 pm *Thursday, May 9th: Baseball District...
The first time I met Guillermo Guzman he had just done the butterfly stroke across Crescent Bay and back in September. I had taken his photograph for possible use in the paper and so introduced myself and asked his name. His thick Mexican accent was compounded by the fact that he was shivering terribly, his teeth chattering, yet he politely entered conversation as if he weren’t dying to get dried off from the frigid lake water. I’ve had little interaction with him since that 2009 encounter until this spring, when he hit on the idea of rai... Full story
At an arraignment hearing for his brother Monday, Carlos Guzman Romo anxiously showed a reporter a portfolio stuffed full of evidence he thought showed that his brother is a “really good guy” who had put himself through the University of Washington by working hard as a technician. Guillermo Guzman Romo, 43, a teacher at Lake Roosevelt High School since 2008, is accused of fraud and identity theft. Police say he was using another man’s Social Security Number to stay in the country illeg... Full story
Life changed for Charli Knight after her sister was murdered by her husband in 2009. Charli was a freshman in high school at the time, and her dream was to become a chef, an ambition that lost its luster after Collette Pakootas’ death at the age of 23. Charli needed to make a difference of a another kind, to help bring justice to the world. She’s a senior at Lake Roosevelt High School now, and that meant deciding on some sort of senior project. A walk to benefit a women’s shelter sounded like... Full story
Science teacher Ralph Rise was presented with a statewide award last week, an example for educators across the state. Sonia Siegel Vexler, co-director of LASER, the Pacific Science Center’s Leadership Assistance for Science Education Reform, presented Rise Wednesday with a check for $5,000 and a trophy in the form of a Galileo thermometer with a special inscription. Rise will give the money to the school to further the science programs that have built him a reputation over the last several y... Full story
Electric service went down in the town of Coulee Dam just after 7 a.m. Wednesday, morning and would not be restored until late afternoon. Lake Roosevelt High School dismissed for the day, and businesses in town were closed. It’s unusual for the whole town of Coulee Dam to lose power at once, since it has redundant power feeds coming into the town’s utility. Or at least it normally does. That was the problem. Last year’s big fires took out wooden power poles that carry the town’s “Feeder... Full story