News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 883 - 907 of 1807
Rotary club members Paul Turner, left, and James Heuvel help out at the Grant County Household Hazardous Waste Collection event Friday at the Delano Transfer Station. - Scott Hunter photo...
He put a ring on her finger the night she graduated from high school seven decades ago, and the love was still palpable between them Saturday as Don and Gerry McClure celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. Friends and family came from as far away as Florida to the McClure Ranch north of Nespelem, where the two have made their home on the acreage homesteaded by Don's father and grandfather in 1918. "Lightning stuck," Gerry McClure said about Don's proposal that came just three days after...
A couple who just moved to town from nearly 5,000 miles away will serve as lay pastors of the Church of the Nazarene, and for her it's a homecoming. Philip and Juliene Munts officially took their new post Sunday, having just moved from Malmö, Sweden. The two operated three "ministries" there, the said - two art galleries and a café called Fill My Cup. Always affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene, the couple recently got a call to lead the local congregation. Juliene was thrilled; it m...
Art Show from The Star on Vimeo....
A group of people have been working this summer to start a new booster club to help with equipment and other needs for Raider athletic teams. The LR Athletic Booster Club has a board of directors and all the legal paperwork completed, including having achieved non-profit legal status. Now they’re in fundraising and membership-expansion mode. President Kevin Portch says he’s been pleasantly surprised by the high level of enthusiasm he’s seen from many, “especially alumni.” The group has already enlisted about 30 members so far, but gained about...
The Coulee Dam Town Council voted Aug. 14 to accept one grant and apply for another from the state’s Transportation Improvement Board totalling nearly $900,000 for street and sidewalk repairs. The agency granted $120,000 for new sidewalks on Ferry Avenue, rather than a slightly lesser amount sought by the town, and required no matching funds. The application included a letter bearing the signatures of 74 citizens contacted by Councilmember Fred Netzel. Across town, the “worst street in town” could get a remake at a cost of $734,670, none of it...
Watching even the “cultural” reintroduction of salmon to local waters denied to them for eight decades can inspire wonder, grief, admiration, joy, hope, questions, and anticipation. Over the last couple weeks, as the Colville Tribes and a coalition of other tribes and state and federal agencies have held ceremonial plantings of hatchery Chinook salmon above the dams that keep them from spawning in the upper Columbia River, the meaning to the tribes of the return of the fish echos like an eternal drum off a canyon wall, deeply felt and acu...
After decades of absence, the "chief of all of the rest of the fish" returned to the upper Columbia River Friday when a tribal elder slipped an adult salmon into the water of Lake Rufus Woods, followed by 29 more that had begun their journey years ago after coming into existence at a hatchery downriver. A ceremonial song to reintroduce the chinook echoed back from the Douglas County side of the river Friday morning at the Colville Tribes' campgrounds near commercial fish-raising pens along Lake...
Jill Fraser has been passionate about dogs her whole life, grooming her first one at age 10 when she decided her aunt's cocker spaniel could use an upgrade. Since then, she's pursued a career around dogs, showing breeds at 16 after leaving Spokane for California on her own, then getting into the grooming business in Portland, Oregon that year when she worked for a veterinarian as the boarding and grooming manager, she says. "I know what dogs are supposed to look like, regardless if it's a show c...
In this week’s Star, we offer a short feature on a person relatively new to the area under the heading One of Us. We’d like to do more of this kind of story, those that help bring a new face to the community, or just tell us something many might not have known about someone who may be more familiar. If you know of someone who might make a good subject for One of Us, give us a call at 509-633-1350, or email star@grandcoulee.com with the details. Stories that tell us about each other can help bring us together as a community. We hope tha...
A paraglider comes down from the sky into a field on Strahl Canyon Road just north of SR-174 in Douglas County, after taking off from Chelan Butte July 13, the final day of the US Open of Paragliding. - Chelan 2019. The seven-day event tested the skills of about 170 participants. Seventy of them made their goals on this Saturday. Other tasks on earlier days included flights from Chelan to Omak, Wilbur, Brewster and elsewhere. "Really good day, a lot of happy people," said Matt Senior, organizer... Full story
In this issue we welcome back the latest iteration of Them Dam Writers, a group that has sought to provide local history to local people for decades. The column in the lower right corner of this page will, several times a month, present you with a photograph along with text explaining its significance. These days, the group is more far-flung than in its most recent past, with a couple of its members writing from Coulee City or another state. Nevertheless, they share an enthusiasm for local history. We hope our readers benefit from their...
Every two years, the Washington State Legislature’s House Healthcare and Wellness Committee takes a tour of facilities in rural areas, but they’ve never been to Grand Coulee. That will change Sept. 23, when the committee led by Rep. Eileen Cody ends a tour here with a “robust” meeting at the end of the day. Cody’s staff asked if Coulee Medical Center would be willing to participate, Chief Executive Officer Ramona Hicks told the commissioners of Hospital District 6 Monday. “They’re bringing 20 people in a bus,” Hicks said. In other business at t...
A wildfire in the Hellgate Game Preserve on the Colville Reservation has burned about 2,500 acres, pitting firefighters against steep, rocky terrain, and rattlesnakes. About 45 firefighters are working on the Williams Flats fire some 7 miles southeast of Keller. A press release from the Colville Tribes Dept. of Natural Resources Friday afternoon said one evacuation had been ordered and that one home was threatened in the remote area north of Lake Roosevelt. Tribal officials are asking boaters...
A house in Delano was raided July 16 as part of a larger drug bust in Eastern Washington involving hundreds of officers of multiple law enforcement agencies that served 19 search warrants in three counties. A federal search warrant was issued and executed on a house on Lake View Boulevard on the morning of July 16, confirmed Jodie Underwood, a public information officer at the Drug Enforcement Administration in Seattle. Underwood was unable to say if anyone was arrested at the Delano residence. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and...
The city of Coulee Dam may get a big loan and grant package to pay for added improvements to the sewage handling system, including paying for two new “lift stations” to pump the material to the new wastewater filtration plant. The city council Wednesday authorized the mayor to sign an application for “wastewater subsequent funding” from the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development office. The funding package would provide a $304,000 loan and a $909,000 grant to pay for lift stations on both the west and east sides of town. The curre...
You can only milk a cow, or an asset, for so long before you have to put something back in. Cities and towns, whose elected officials feel the pain of their tax- and rate-payers, eventually get forced to deal with that problem. Local cities are no different. Currently, Coulee Dam has had its share of struggles with an added historical burden that makes the pain seem worse. A case in point came to the fore briefly at last Wednesday’s city council meeting. The Community Building, that concrete edifice which houses the Melody Restaurant, R...
In the park below the Visitor Center July 4, people watch the fireworks off Grand Coulee Dam, put on by the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce. The chamber reported receiving praise for this year's "best ever" fireworks from many people that night and in emails later. Their Festival of America, which draws thousands each year to Coulee Dam, suffered no "major drama" this year, reported Executive Director Peggy Nevsimal, despite a thunderstorm during set-up time on Tuesday, and one lost... Full story
More than 40 Beavers gathered in front of Lake Roosevelt Schools July 4. The Beavers, alumni of Coulee Dam High School, attended the unveiling of a plaque commemorating their alma mater and mascot as one of the forerunners of Lake Roosevelt Jr-Sr High School and its Raiders. The plaque, applied the day before to a basalt column already sporting a similar one for the Grand Coulee Tigers, shows the school's blue and gold colors and a depiction of the mascot newly re-imagined by 1970 graduate Jack...
Three weeks into her latest foray and seven years after starting this adventure, the self-proclaimed most-decorated National Park Service junior ranger made it to Coulee Dam on Monday. Aida Frey, 17, has, along with proud and devoted parents, been to more than 300 national parks since she was 9 years old. That's when they met a couple dedicated park rangers who brushed aside quitting time at 5 p.m. to sign her up for the junior ranger program. She completed a workbook about the park at Effigy...
Coulee Dam will move ahead with applying for a grant to fix the sidewalks on Ferry Avenue, several portions of which have been heaving several inches as tree roots underneath push up the concrete. Councilmember Fred Netzel and the city’s consulting engineer Kurt Holland, of Varela Engineering, pulled together a grant application just in time to submit to the state’s Transportation Improvement Board to replace all 1,200 feet of walkways along each side of the street. Coulee Dam is asking for some $103,600 in grant funding. If the state gra...
The man who leads the state's legal bureaucracy, basically the state's own law firm, told an audience in Grand Coulee last week that the smaller part of their work gets the most headlines, but costs taxpayers nothing. That's because that part of the Attorney General's Office that takes others to court - actually sues other agencies or private companies - is in essence a state-owned law firm that operates off the settlements or judgments from those suits. But the vast majority of their work is...
Kids and their parents in the region will have plenty to do this weekend, with the local chamber of commerce’s Koulee Kids Fest offering activities all over town and Nespelem’s Millpond Days offering activities there. The chamber event for kids starts at 10 a.m. Saturday and offers 14 different activities around the community, from touring a fire truck to mini-golf, planting a flower, painting a piggy bank to free ice cream to building a dam. Those locations and more are detailed on a map on page 8 in an advertisement. Parents can pick and cho...
One of the least threatening places you can go is a beach in late afternoon where a couple of old anglers are quietly staring at the water, waiting for a line to move. If anybody understands the unwritten rule, the need for common courtesy, the paramount importance of everyone doing his or her part to maintain the norm, it’s people who like to sit quietly and fish. That could have something to do with why no instances of unsafe or uncivil behavior come to mind, over the last several decades, at the place that has come to be known as Geezer B...
On a day for celebrating their accomplishments, the Lake Roosevelt High School class of 2019 seemed to take as much joy in giving awards as getting them Saturday, as they took part in the annual graduation rituals at the school's Gailord Nelson Gym. An undercurrent of emotion carried through the formalities. Principal Ronanda Liberty's understated description of the class as "resilient" hinted at a year more challenging than most for the class. She didn't elaborate. Before accolades were given...