News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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A non-profit organization that is all about getting kids involved in active recreation pitched Grand Coulee's city council June 17 on a vision for a "community center" on city land with a great view. Nic Alexander, president of Reel Rec, is a local builder and developer who looks at the city's vacant land overlooking Crescent Bay Lake and Lake Roosevelt as a great place for a center with a view. The vision is still a little vague. Would it include a pool, batting cage, archery range, golf simula...
A group working to inject the skills and abilities of thoughtful leadership into communities is offering training to do that in Grant County, and north county residents can even get some pay to offset mileage. The Leadership Institute of NCW is all about "Educating and Empowering Community Members for Civic Leadership in NCW." It was a hit in Chelan County last year; this year it's concentrating on Grant County, with plans to do it again in Okanogan County in the next year or so. Nancy Boord is...
The next town council members in Coulee Dam will get paid on a different scale than council currently does, following a vote of the council earlier this month. Council members are currently paid $50 a month. The new scale changes that to $50 per regular council meeting attended. Two council meetings are normally scheduled per month, but the town often cancels one for lack of agenda items, which is the case this week. Tonight’s regular council meeting was canceled. Council could have changed the pay to add in compensation for extra meetings s...
Every time Larry Hernandez runs into a new obstacle, he seems to find a way around it. That's how it's been ever since he started working on reviving the Village Cinema in Coulee Dam, a place that has been largely vacant for a generation of movie-goers who missed out. Recently, it was something as mundane as a sewer plugged up. He got that fixed with the same plumber who showed up and did a lot of work for no charge just to help in the effort. That community effort is what makes it all worth it...
Coulee Dam is mulling an inquiry as to whether the city would allow a Level 3 electric vehicle charging station on its electric grid. Such a 180-kilowatt station would be capable of adding 100-250 miles of range in 30-45 minutes. That capability could be an added attraction for customers of the 12 Tribes Casino. Mayor Bob Poch told the city council last month that the Colville Tribes had approached the city on the question. The city owns its own electric utility, but Poch wants to be careful to not add something that would jeopardize a...
The use of fire is restricted in 20 Eastern Washington counties by one federal agency, and along Lake Roosevelt by the National Park Service, even after two local counties started their annual fire restrictions earlier than normal. Federal Bureau of Land Management officials have restricted activities on public lands to reduce the risk of human-caused wildfires in Adams, Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Columbia, Douglas, Ferry, Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Kittitas, Klickitat, Lincoln, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens, Walla Walla, Whitman, and...
Our local hot summers provide plenty of lessons we might also keep in mind for our politics. Most people who don’t fight fires on a regular basis may not appreciate the delicate relationship between fuel and energy, but it’s key to understanding ignition, the point at which flame erupts. The hotter the air is, the closer the energy level of everything is to its ignition point. The drier the fuel, likewise. So, when the wind blows in the heat, when “relative humidity” — that is the amount of moisture in the air — is low, a spark can light a fir...
Nearly four dozen young adults walked across the stage and out the door Saturday after graduating from Lake Roosevelt High School having already seen some hard reality and ready to take life on. "We are proof that hard times create strong people," is the official motto of the class of 2025. They started high school in 2021 in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic with all its health and cultural complications, steeped in a time that would teach them about the fragility of human life. In the middle...
Two people trekked across the country last week to understand a piece of their Kentucky company's history, with a major claim to fame being the Grand Coulee Dam. Now called Mason & Hanger, theirs was the lead company in the consortium of companies that built the original dam. They're the M in MWAK, the initials for Mason-Walsh-Atkinson-Kier. On Wednesday, Ben Lilly, the president of Mason & Hanger, and Holly Holt, its vice president in charge of marketing, came to town to fill in the blanks in...
by Scott Hunter It's been 69 years since Nespelem High School graduated a class of students, but that longed-for possibility finally became a reality last week. A class of nine students graduated May 29, 2025, in a commencement ceremony before a gym full of relatives and community members. Nespelem School Board Chair Jolene Marchand, in a commencement address, related the story of the dream now come true. In 1956 the state said it was consolidating schools. Nespelem's high school was closed,...
Matt Ponusky is no stranger to the city of Grand Coulee. He served it as a police officer for about seven years, then transferred to Coulee Dam's police department at the end of 2023. Now, he's back - as the chief of police. Hiring him ends a long slog for the city, which started looking for a new chief before longtime chief John Tufts retired in March, 2024. The post has been filled either by an interim chief or not at all since then. Turns out finding a chief of police is not too easy....
Parents will be able to track their kids as if they were being delivered by UPS. That’s because school bus drivers in the Grand Coulee Dam School District will log on and off each child who rides their bus, with new devices and software to help keep track of the students. And, of course, there’s an app for that. Parents can follow their kids’ buses on their phones and know what time the child will be dropped off, said Superintendent Rod Broadnax at his last “Coffee with the Superintendent” May 27 at Voltage Coffee House. “We’ve had a couple of...
Lake Roosevelt track and field athletes did themselves proud last week, setting personal records at the state meet and earning one big mention from the governing body of Washington state high school athletics. That would be for senior John Cooley, whom the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) named athlete of the week May 28, noting his achievements the week before: "John Cooley qualified for Districts in four events: 110m hurdles, 300m hurdles, long jump, and triple jump....
After a threat against the school was reported, Lake Roosevelt Schools canceled Tuesday classes Monday night before reconvening after the holiday weekend. The school posted a notice on its Facebook page about 9:45 Monday night. A Snapchat between students had been reported in which one student had made threats against the school, officials said. Superintendent Rod Broadnax said Tuesday morning the Snapchat had occurred with up to 30 students on it. He said the chat text had not been recovered yet, so police had not been able to get a warrant...
Nespelem School District directors Tuesday voted to reject a proposal for a combined sports program with the Grand Coulee Dam School District. Directors said it was too restrictive and unfair and reacted to it taking obvious offense. I clause outlining “participation restrictions” sparked resentment. Board Chair Jolene Marchand read it out loud: “Nespelem School District may not initiate, offer or support any independent high school sports program for the duration of this agreement. Should Nespelem launch or sanction any such program, the f...
Three local women with a history of getting things done spoke with Grand Coulee's city council May 20 to advocate a new approach to tackling an old problem that the city was just beginning to explore again. Earlier this year, Councilmember Tom Poplawski proposed a possible ordinance to encourage owners of vacant buildings to either actively use them or sell them so someone else can. The council set up a "Town Hall" meeting to discuss that possibility and encouraged business owners to attend it,...
Those wanting to clean up the mess we tend to get used to harken back to a time when this community had set its sights on self-improvement. That’s a good sign. Some people say such efforts didn’t make any difference. They misremember. Many improvements did come out of the discussions and initiatives to spruce up the place, even if some of it was cosmetic, like the awnings on buildings that were an inexpensive fix for flawed architecture. Even that helped. That was Project REV back in the 1990s. The new discussion goes deeper, though, and see...
The Raider track and field team at last week’s 2B District 5 meet qualified 11 athletes to continue on to the state championship in Yakima May 29-31. The boys’ team placed fourth out of 17 teams at the Central Washington University Recreational Sports Complex in Ellensburg Thursday, where the top six competitors qualified for state. “It’s been a number of years since we have qualified so many student athletes for state competition,” said Head Coach Lori Adkins. “Many of our athletes went into the district meet having already met steep state...
The Lady Raiders took their postseason softball play as far as they could Friday, ending their season after two games at the state tournament in Yakima. It's always a tough go for the team seeded 16th to go up against the number-one team in the state right off the bus. Lake Roosevelt lost to Freeman May 23 in the opening rounds of the 2025 2B State Fastpitch Softball Tournament at the Gateway Sports Complex, 11-0. The Raider girls gave the next team a good game, leading 1-0 for the better part...
by Scott Hunter Lake Roosevelt’s track and field team last Thursday in Brewster qualified 14 athletes for the District 5 meet May 22 in Ellensburg. They missed taking first place as a team by three points, 138-135, to take second to Brewster as Raiders earned championships and set several personal records that night. “It was a real team effort on a super exciting night where our athletes were scraping for every LR point they could earn,” said head coach Lori Adkins. “They performed PR after PR as many families and fans cheered them on.” Se...
A teacher at Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High School thought he was just attending a pep assembly Friday when his name was called to receive a statewide award as educator of the year. Derek Atkins, who graduated from Lake Roosevelt, teaches science there now and revived a club that was important to his own development and direction. The pep assembly turned out to be a well-kept secret to surprise him. Shawn Brehm, a Wellpinit teacher who serves as the chair of the Washington Education Association's Cau...
This year’s election season will focus on local positions: city councils, port districts, school boards and such. Last week was the week to file intentions to seek such an office. Here’s a look at who filed. Three candidates are seeking the mayor’s seat in Grand Coulee, including incumbent Ruth Dalton and challengers Micah Seekins and Chantel Crowe, who is currently a deputy clerk at city hall. Voters will pick two of those three in the Aug. 5 Primary Election to go on to the General Election on Nov. 4. Janet Christy filed to keep the counc...
“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” Seems pretty clear, practical, wise. Like they could see this coming. When the Framers wrote the Constitution, they didn’t want a grifter in chief ruling the nation for profit, but obviously they could foresee such a person coming along someday. So they told him i...
An accidental gunshot incident got a student at the Lake Roosevelt Alternative School in Grand Coulee kicked out of school for a year and booked into a Chelan County Juvenile Detention facility last week, one week after it happened. The student — who is not yet 18, which prevents school officials from releasing a name — lost footing while riding a hoverboard in a classroom around other students when the board bumped into another student’s foot. A handgun fell out of the suspect’s jacket at that point, hit the floor and discharged, sending...
Nobody gets out of here alive, but before the inevitable, we'd all like to keep living the best life possible. Evelyn Wright has had some success at that, but in her later years (she's 92 now) she's had to accept that she can't really go it alone. "I'm extremely healthy, but that may be not the same six months from now," Evelyn said in an interview April 24. "I don't know what's going to change for me, but it was tough for me to finally admit that I have to turn over most of my life to my...
