News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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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...
By Scott Hunter Among 17 teams competing, the Raider boys' team earned second place as a team twice in the last week. At the Naches Invite last Friday LR took second with a score of 98, compared to the winning score by 2A Toppenish of 173. Yesterday at the Manson Small School Meet they scored 135.83, just behind Chelan's 140.83. Okanogan took third with 67. "The team aspect of Track & Field is really being experienced by the Raiders," wrote Coach Lori Adkins in an email. "They are starting to...
Directors of the two school districts impacted by a recent policy change got together for a meal and sometimes spirited discussion Tuesday night. The full Nespelem School District Board of Directors and two from Grand Coulee Dam School District met at Hometown Pizza, a meeting prompted by discontent at Nespelem over a new policy at GCD that will not allow students from other districts to participate in their sports programs, beginning next school year. Its passage laid bare perceptions that came out during the discussion. Nespelem didn’t a...
People walked the sidewalk on Midway Avenue in Grand Coulee on Saturday, April 19, holding signs to protest various policies of the Trump Administration. Signs addressed a plethora of issues Trump has addressed, often with executive orders but sometimes by shrinking the employee base of the federal agencies charged with handling them, with courts sometimes ruling the administration's actions illegal. Among the signs: "Keep the Refugees, Deport the Racists", "When Injustice Becomes Law,... Full story
A police officer with plenty of local experience has been approved to take over as Grand Coulee’s chief of police. Matt Ponusky, who has worked for Coulee Dam’s police department for three years, will move up to the chief’s spot in Grand Coulee. He had also served as an officer at Grand Coulee for eight years before making a move to Coulee Dam. The Grand Coulee City Council voted to approve the hire Tuesday night by a unanimous vote. Ponusky, who was not present at the meeting, will likely be sworn in this week, City Clerk Lorna Pearce said....
Janet Christy will fill the Position 1 seat on the Grand Coulee City Council following the council's decision Tuesday night. A Roosevelt Drive resident, Christy said she retired from USBR a year-and-a-half ago after 10 years there, following a 27-year career in the U.S. Army, retiring as a master sergeant in 2015. Asked by Councilmember Tom Poplawski if she had experience with budgeting, she said she did in the army. "I don't know everything," Christy said. "I can learn."...
Nearly 50 people walked along Grand Coulee's Midway Avenue Saturday with signs expressing frustration with the direction of the federal government, about twice the size of the group that has been making the gathering a weekly event for weeks. They were joining a national push to make an impression across the country as millions hit the streets in cities large and small carrying signs and conversing about a range of complaints, from President Donald Trump's rapid changes to the federal... Full story
The term “public health” takes in a lot of territory, and even in relatively less populated Grant County it takes a lot to do the job of watching out for the public’s health. This is public health week, and Grant County Health District met with local media last week to encourage some coverage and enhance understanding of just what’s involved. GCHD has a staff of 38 people in several departments, all working to keep our air and water clean, ensure our food is safe, prevent disease, and promote healthier communities. “From ensuring food safety th...
In a sign that there is hope for a better government, a bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate seeks to reassert the authority over trade granted to Congress in the Constitution. The Congress abdicated (delegated is actually the word they’ll use) that responsibility to the president back in 1934 in the midst of the Great Depression after the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act had deepened it in an attempt to protect American businesses. But that was back in the day when Americans expected and demanded normalcy and decency in a president, not when they c... Full story
Three hospital leaders trekked to the other Washington last week to make the case at Congress for support of Coulee Medical Center. "During our meetings with Sen. Patty Murray, Sen. Maria Cantwell, and Rep. Dan Newhouse we discussed CMC's workforce housing needs, overdose prevention efforts and recent success in increasing breast cancer screening, as well as the significance of federal Medicaid funding to maintaining accessible healthcare services in our region," Chief Executive Office Kelly...
When Sam Peterson got the call, it was already too late. The National Park Service was offering to give him his job back, but he'd taken a job in Oregon and three days earlier signed a lease on an apartment. He needed to follow through on the commitment. "We have bills," Peterson said, "and a dog." Peterson, 26, had just started as a federal employee in June 2024 and was still in probationary status in February when the Trump administration started its Valentine's Day Massacre of federal...
Dozens of local students attend schools out of the Grand Coulee Dam School District, according to numbers compiled for the school board at their request. Director Alex Tufts had asked earlier this year that the district develop an exit interview as a matter of course to track reasons for students choosing to leave. The district has averaged 645 students across all grades this year, but is currently down by 22 students from the beginning of the school year. Director Rich Black asked at the March 24 meeting what reasons are for the migration. “So...
Students at other school districts will no longer be able to participate in Lake Roosevelt’s sports programs following a vote Monday night by the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors. The new policy takes effect in the next school year. Currently, and for many years, students whose own nearby schools have not offered a sport have been able to arrange to participate in practices and play in Raider sports. But recent changes have drawn attention to the policy. Athletic Director Casey Brewster told the board Monday that the d...
A sixth-grade teacher at Lake Roosevelt Elementary will leave to join her husband in Astoria, Oregon. The school board voted Monday to let her out of her contract to leave before the end of the school year. Ashley St. Aubin-Clark's husband, Sam Peterson, was a first-year National Park Service employee at Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area when the Trump Administration started cutting federal jobs across government services, starting with employees in probationary status. St. Aubin-Clark...