News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 1767 - 1791 of 1807
A local resident has been honored by the Inland Northwest Blood Center as their blood drive coordinator volunteer of the year. Bonnie Femling was recognized at the INBC’s annual banquet May 9 at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane. Femling has been arranging local blood drives for the INBC for decades. “Bonnie goes above and beyond the normal duties of a chairperson,” reads the information INBC shared about her, “in that she will travel throughout the area letting people know abou the blood program...
The Keller Ferry will be closed Friday, the state Dept of Transportation announce Thursday afternoon. The ferry that shuttles travelers, workers and school buses across Lake Roosevelt every half hour will not do so from 6 a.m. until as late as 9 p.m., the DOT said in a general email sent just after 2 p.m. Thursday. Drivers should seek alternate state routes while crews move the north terminal from the low water ramp on the San Poil Arm to the main location on the Columbia River north shore. The ferry normally operates from 6a.m. until...
Our latest printed issue of the Visitors’ Guide is at the printer, but why wait? You can click on the Expand button below to see the whole thing in your browser. If you know someone who wants to visit, share the link. Open publication - Free publishing - More beach...
It’s no longer permitted … most of the time. But this Saturday, residents, tourists and their families can walk across Grand Coulee Dam. Once upon a time, back before 9/11 brought stricter security measures at the dam, people could walk across Grand Coulee Dam just about any day they wanted. They could gaze over the 300-foot spillway, feel the spray in the wind if water was flowing over the top, or just marvel at the mighty river and the edifice that tames it. Now that opportunity is rel...
Discussions were polite but initially tense as Elmer City officials met with their Coulee Dam counterparts Friday at Elmer City Hall on proposed sewer plant upgrades that both towns would pay for. “What we want to know is, are we a partner or are we a customer?” said Elmer City Councilmember Larry Holford. He said they’d hired a lawyer to find out. The legal question stems from a 50-year interlocal contract that appears to give Coulee Dam the power to make maintenance decisions on its own and c...
The Washington State Patrol reported a two-car fatal accident on highway 26 near Colfax Friday evening involving a local driver. One person was killed and five injured in the accident 30 miles west of Colfax. Diana Chun, 21, of Coulee Dam, was driving a 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt west on SR 26 just before 5 p.m. when she fell asleep at the wheel, the WSP report indicates. Chun’s car left the roadway to the right, she overcorrected to the left and struck an oncoming Toyota Prius in the eastbound lane. A passenger in the 2002 Prius, Susie S. K...
Starting a bakery is, for Mary Schilling, an extension of values, the fulfillment of a lifelong love of feeding people. “I’ve always loved to bake and cook and feed people,” she says. It started when she was 10 and wanted to find a use for the bushels of blackberries by her home in Bellingham, Wash. Pies were the answer then. Now, Schilling, who makes her home on Gold Lake Road north of Nespelem, along with husband Mike and daughter Katelyn, recently started a new baking business. Kincaid Creek...
The Washington State Patrol reported a two-car fatal accident on highway 26 near Colfax Friday evening involving a local driver. One person was killed and five injured in the accident 30 miles west of Colfax. Diana Chun, 21, of Coulee Dam, was driving a 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt west on SR 26 just before 5 p.m. when she fell asleep at the wheel, the WSP report indicates. Chun’s car left the roadway to the right, she overcorrected to the left and struck an oncoming Toyota Prius in the eastbound lane. A passenger in the 2002 Prius, Susie S. K...
Bonnie Wendt, who has taught piano in the area for generations, presented her last class in recital Sunday at the Coulee Dam Community Church, more than 50 years after giving her first lesson at the age of 16. “I taught the Everett children every Saturday,” she recalled of those first pupils, just after Sunday’s recital with her last nine students. Wendt taught Siam Palace owner Cheril Piturachsatit to play and Saturday presented her granddaughter Maeha, beginning with a duet with Wendt. Pitur...
It’s tough to know when to give up. As a society, we’ve recognized that every young person who fails to make it through our school system is much more likely to cause more problems for us all later on. On the other hand, kids who become discipline problems in schools can disrupt the learning experience for everyone else. How can teachers, school administrators, counselors, police and everyone else know where to draw the line? Maybe the best answer is simply, sooner. Consistant, fair discipline coupled with a safe, nurturing environment sup...
A project to improve the pump-generator plant at Grand Coulee Dam will have no significant impact on the environment — or on the local school district, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation states in a formal paper. The Bureau released its Finding of No Significant Impact and Final Environmental Assessment for the proposed John W. Keys, III Pump Generating Plant Modernization Project on April 12. The Grand Coulee Dam School District had objected to not being notified and asked for input on the project, contending it could significantly impact d...
Our community is all abuzz with the news that a new school is funded. People from all walks — young parents, elderly without kids, business people, kids in schools, teachers, laborers of all sorts — get an excited gleam in the eye, and even a few tears welling in the eyes sometimes when they bring up the news. And we should be excited. The state’s decision, spearheaded by your 12th Legislative District Senator Linda Evans Parlette, may even be unprece-dented. The state normally offers a match to communities that can raise enough through prope...
Some of you have noticed that our photo site has not been updated for a couple weeks, and you WANT YOUR PHOTOS! OK, ok. We're catching up. The website folks upgraded their site about two weeks ago, and I've had to wait for them to fix some things before I could upload. Here's a slideshow for the 4-11 issue, which had a bunch of photos never printed, including the Easter Egg Hunt. Enjoy. 4-11-12 Star Photos - Images by Scott Hunter...
Sometimes dreams do come true. The Grand Coulee Dam School District’s plans for a new school appear to be a go. After long budgeting hassles in Olympia, the governor, the House and Senate finally agreed today, mostly, on a budget — one that includes enough money to build a new school for the Grand Coulee Dam community. Added to the $14 million already approved two years ago for the project, a $17 million line item in the supplemental capital budget appeared virtually assured of passage early thi...
As the city of Grand Coulee gets pressured to enforce its cleanup laws, it might consider changing them, if necessary. If city officials are worried about the cost of litigation in forcing residents to clean up their own property, they should at least consider a legal route other towns have taken: put the ordinance in the criminal, rather than civil, code. Doing so no doubt comes with pros and cons on which the city’s attorney can offer advice, but the general thrust of the reasoning for it is that infractions are dealt with in a simpler m...
Rick King stepped down from his longtime post as hospital district commissioner Wednesday, ending a 14-year volunteer career capped by the building of a new hospital. “This has been one of the hardest things to decide,” King said, announcing his resignation at the regular monthly meeting of the Douglas, Grant, Lincoln, Okanogan Hospital District 6 board of commissioners. “It’s been one of the funnest things I’ve done, being on this board. And it’s been one of the worst things I’ve done,” he sai...
The concept is fairly mundane, nothing to get excited about. Executive and leadership boards quite often go on “retreats” to places other than their usual haunts to hash out ideas and plans in a fresh setting, supposedly to add a creative boost to stale neural patterns, a fresh perspective from a different place. But when publicly elected officials decide to move their public meeting to a venue far away from their constituents, the retreat concept can take on a different twist altogether. Electric City’s City Council is planning one in Moses...
Locals prevailed in mixed martial arts matches held at the Nespelem Community Center Saturday night in an event billed as “Rez Cage Wars”. The event featured six adult MMA matches and one youth grappling (no boxing) match. The night’s headliner provided suspense as Nespelem’s Ricky Gabriel, a Colville Business Council member, took the title against Kevin James by decision 29-28 in three rounds. Gabriel said after the fight that he, along with Community Center Coordinator Dan Nanamkin, started...
The promotional material hinted at a possible bias in the way the tale might unfurl. Had the documentary film makers at WGBH Boston’s “American Experience” history series built into their telling of the story of “Grand Coulee Dam” a kind of modern hindsight sensationalism? A super-green perspective that sees no good in the harnessing of the great Columbia? Passages like “… this film explores how the tension between technological achievement and environmental impact hangs over the project's legacy” led me to wonder. After 90 minutes of watc...
With the decision this year to revamp The Star Online, and starting to charge for full access to it, readers will soon find added benefits in subscribing and that the online version will supplement the printed one. The decision will mean that updates in between issues won’t be stealing any thunder from the printed newspaper, just preluding it, so there is added incentive to get news online faster. In addition, readers will find a few new features to the site we launched in February, which at present does not require a subscription, but will s...
The only thing certain about how a $193 million settlement with the U.S. government will be used is that 20 percent of it will be paid out to members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. Exactly how and when the $38.6 million in annual “per capitas” will be distributed from a trust account is also undecided. But an initial payment will likely come in August, notes an information sheet distributed at district meeting in Nespelem Monday night. News media independent of the tribes were excluded from the meeting, but Col...
An American Indian evangelist, singer and songwriter will minister at the Coulee Dam Community Church Sunday, April 1, at 11 a.m. Morning Sun Yellow Pony, from her home in Montana, has been traveling for eight years with her “Healing Wings Ministries,” with a primary goal “to lift up the First Nation’s people, and all hurting and wounded people,” her press release says. “If I were to tell you my whole story,” she says, “it would tear your heart out. But I am not my sad story. I am and you are what we choose to do about our sad story. I am able...
Lake Roosevelt High School’s head softball coach resigned Monday, leaving the team’s first game of the season, scheduled for Thursday, uncertain. Athletic Director Rich Black said the resignation came as a surprise to him, and noted that, from his perspective, there had been no reason for coach Flint Bjorson to step down. “Flint has some personal concerns that convinced him that he could no longer perform in the capacity of head softball coach,” Black said. Bjorson could not be reached for comment by deadline. “Going forward, we are attemptin...
For the last quarter century or so, Reg Morgan has managed to turn out a column in The Star just about every week. That’s a lot of “musings” to scratch out into a collection of observations that folks want to read as part of their weekly routine. Morgan’s Musings has morphed over the years from a column primarily about hunting and fishing in the region to just about anything that fired up the neurons of its author, from flag protocol to federal finances to the ambulations of his cat. This week, Reg decided to give the keyboard a rest, more or...
The Colville Tribes’ settlement with the federal government over mismanagment of tribal assets held in trust is a good thing for the tribes and for this area. With a little over 9,000 members, the Colville membership and their leaders can do some very positive things with $193 million, including a substantial injection into the regional economy through buildup of their own resources and industry, payments to members or a combination. The hiring of a “records manager” in Coulee Dam may be prudent, if costly. The best outcome would occur if th...