News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Cayla Zlateff sings the national anthem at the Isle of Flags ceremony on Memorial Day at Spring Canyon Cemetery Monday as breeze unfurls flags around her and others at the front of the audience. - Scott Hunter photo...
Multiple times per week, two local people drive hours away in pursuit of gaining life-saving aid for their community. Merlee Liberty and Mike Shear are undergoing extensive education in order to become paramedics. Liberty and Shear, who live in Coulee Dam and Electric City, respectively, both travel around two hours to school and work. Their graduation as paramedics will be in early June. At the same time, their community has also engaged in discussion about creating an emergency services...
by Scott Hunter Grand Coulee Dam School District teachers and staff pressed board members and administrators for clearer budget information and a different approach to staffing cuts during at Monday’s school board meeting, saying the current reductions are eroding morale and will ultimately harm students. Several elementary teachers described rising class sizes, increased responsibilities, and what they see as a lack of shared sacrifice between district office staff and those working directly with students. “I would like to see the real dat...
The Ridge Riders will once again be sponsoring a junior rodeo and co-sanctioning with Eastern Washington and Caribou Trail Jr. Rodeo Associations May 30th & 31st at the Ridge Rider Arena in Grand Coulee. Some 223 Contestants travel from all over the Pacific Northwest to attend these junior rodeos, which are becoming fewer and fewer due to rising costs, organizers say. The youth equestrian competition allows kids from ages 3 to 18 to learn and compete in core rodeo events in age-related...
Connor Shillam can play just about every musical instrument in the band room at Lake Roosevelt Schools, where he’s just finishing up his second and last year in the school district. Shillam has lost his job to the current cutbacks at the district. He offered to give his perspective on the situation in an interview. We spoke over Zoom. Obviously, he thinks music education has value to students, so what does it offer, I asked him during our conversation. His answer didn’t have anything to do with quarter notes, but everything to do with eve...
The region's canola crop was in full bloom Monday, which lasts about two weeks every year in May. Vast expanses on the hillsides north of Wilbur to Coulee City are full of the bright yellow flowers. - Scott Hunter photo...
The Colville Business Council has banned the sale, ignition and use of all fireworks within the boundaries of the Colville Indian Reservation for the 2026 season. The council approved the ban May 7, acting on a recommendation from its Community Development Committee. The resolution says the action is intended “to protect Tribal lands and the safety of the Membership and reservation residents.” The resolution cites dry conditions as a factor, noting that the Washington State Department of Ecology issued a drought declaration in April for all...
The Isle of Flags, the annual display of hundreds of American flags over the Memorial Day weekend at Spring Canyon Cemetery, will be put up by volunteers at 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 23. Volunteers are welcome to help. Eight new flags will be dedicated at this year's ceremony on Memorial Day. It begins at 11 a.m. May 25. The Isle of Flags Association was formed to collect, care for, and fly the burial flags of our deceased veterans, on appropriate occasions at Spring Canyon Cemetery. Flags will...
John Duresky stopped in Grand Coulee Friday on a trip to talk with people in the far north end of the Washington's Fourth Congressional District, which he'd like to represent in the other Washington. The longtime Democrat lists 37 years of government service to his credit, 10 of those working at Hanford after a career in the US Airforce where he attained the rank of major. Retired from all of that, when Duresky learned Dan Newhouse, the Republican currently representing the Fourth District, had...
Senior Center members, "to celebrate maturity in life," as Stan Cass put it, constructed a fun float that took the blue ribbon high award for local clubs, in Saturday's Colorama Parade. "A group of energetic seniors gathered together creating something from a flatbed trailer, donated and driven by Jerry Sands, to share with the crowd expressing the joy we share as mature citizens and leaders in our community" Cass said. Senior Center Members participating were Jerry Sands, Cass, Cindy Johnson,...
Aaron Derr told the school board Monday that cuts to personnel were going drastically in the wrong direction to satisfy budget tightening needs in response to lowering enrollment. Derr, a teacher at Lake Roosevelt, said he'd used data from the state website for the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the lead K-12 education agency in the state, or OSPI. The Grand Coulee Dam School District has lost 120 students in the last three years, he said, and OSPI recommends about the...
Kindergarten kids take off in the first heat of the Mini Bloomsday run at Lake Roosevelt Schools' ball field Thursday. The first Mini Bloomsday occurred in 1979, 47 years ago. The idea came from a first-grade teacher at the time, Carolyn McNeil. in 2026, the weather was way too perfect for the kids to be inside anyway. - Scott Hunter photo...
An early peek at a survey done by the Grand Coulee Dam School District to gauge feelings about the transition to a four-day school week for students indicates most parents are more pleased than not with the change, Superintendent Rod Broadnax says. Broadnax presented the school board the results so far at the last school board meeting April 27 and discussed it at an informal meeting with constituents at Voltage Coffee House the next morning during his bimonthly "Coffee with the Superintendent"...
by Scott Hunter As the Colorama Rodeo comes barreling at them, volunteers on Monday were fixing up the rodeo grounds to get ready, from minor to major improvements or repairs. John and Cheryl Pryor were concentrating on the stock chute gates, apparently fixing some small detail. Mike Clanahan and Randy Willette were placing huge concrete blocks inside a newly excavated flat space to hold more bleachers east of the Rattlesnake Saloon. Wayne Fowler, who got elected president after George Kohout di...
The Nespelem Junior Rodeo drew kid contestants for the two day event last weekend eager to compete in events ranging from a "chicken scramble" to a bull ride and more types of events than you knew existed. Here are a few photos.... Full story
The Grand Coulee Dam School District's reduced education program is colliding headon with the people who run classrooms every day. Over the last two board meetings, staff and community members have spoken up to plead for preschool, career and technical education (CTE), athletics, and key administrative positions they say are holding the system together - even as district leaders stress that the math simply no longer works. "We're shrinking, we're going away" At the March 24 meeting, CTE...
No additional measles infections have been identified in connection with two Grant County cases reported in March, Grant County Health District reported. Six weeks have passed since those cases were confirmed, which is enough time for symptoms to have appeared in anyone who may have been exposed. “We are incredibly grateful that the children who were infected with measles last month are recovering well, and that no additional people became ill,” said Alexander Brzezny, Grant County Health Officer. “While our active response in Grant Count...
At Lake Roosevelt Elementary, students start many mornings not by quietly filing into classrooms, but by moving, reading and thinking all at once in a program staff say is helping focus and literacy: LitFit. Principal Lisa Lakin said the key to LitFit's success is that the school has committed real time to it, treating it as an essential part of the day rather than an add‑on. "We put dedicated time into our schedule for it, and it's like, non‑negotiable - we do it every day that we can," Lak...
Young students/actors fill the stage at the Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High School gym for a bow after their first performance Saturday of the Missoula Children's Theatre production of The Tortoise and the Hare. MCT comes to town on Monday, selects the cast after auditions that night, holds rehearsals all week, then puts on two shows on Saturday. - Scott Hunter photo...
Big fish like this one were caught repeatedly at the Funday Friday event last week before Reel Recreation's Triple Fish Challenge fishing tournament at Coulee Playland Resort. The group set up a net between docks that served to hold a horde of fish hauled in by Pacific Seafood, all for kids to catch for free. - Scott Hunter photo...
A lease was approved by the city council in Coulee Dam last week so that a couple who moved to town again last August can re-imagine what was the Village Cinema into something new. Ben and Naomi Dupris were set to sign the lease Wednesday. The couple envision an art-centered community space for all ages, one that will honor Ben's memory of, and hope for, the community he grew up in, meet the needs of its people today, and embody a business model emerging for such spaces. Ben is a 1992 graduate...
The Funday Friday that starts the Triple Fish Challenge is set for noon to 6 p.m. at Coulee Playland Resort and will feature more than a dozen different stations of free kids’ activities. “Outdoor fun for all ages,” as the poster promotes for Reel Recreation’s annual fishing derby on Banks Lake. This year, an animal processing demonstration will take place at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. The Triple Fish Challenge is a “family-friendly fishing tournament like no other!” Reel Rec’s website says. “Anglers will compete to catch three different speci...
Washington's Department of Ecology announced a statewide drought emergency April 8, marking the fourth consecutive year that part or all of the state has been in a drought. "We declare drought when water supply drops below 75% of normal," said Casey Sixkiller, director of Ecology. "This year, every watershed in our state has met that threshold." Snowpack in the mountains is at about half of normal. The emergency declaration follows an above average wet winter where precipitation levels were...
Easter Egg hunts in the area.... Full story
The following notice came from the GCDSD office today: Notice of Date Change for the GCDSD School Board Meeting Please be informed that the Board of Directors of the Grand Coulee Dam School District has changed the date of their School Board Meeting from Monday April 13th to Wednesday April 15th. (The meeting will be held at the regular time and location; 5:30 p.m. at the Jr./Sr. High Library)... Full story