The Star - News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area

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...

My wife and I liked the coulee so much that we moved here twice. The first time was in 1954 when I accepted a job grading lumber at the planing mill above the dam. I worked for Everett Kirkpatrick and a junior partner. Old timers will remember the...

A story out of Ritzville recently gained national attention: Larry Yockey is a fourth-generation wheat farmer, and for nearly fifty years, he hasn’t missed a harvest. Sadly, Larry was recently diagnosed with stage four cancer, allowing him to only...

Drones planting trees in burned wildlands While drones are coming of age in firefighting, they are also establishing a foothold in restoring fire-scorched forests. Firefighting drones grabbed the spotlight last April 15 as viewers around the world wa...

I’m Mikayla Higgins, and I have lived in Electric City since I was 2. Two years ago, I left for the first time when I began college in Seattle at the University of Washington. When I got the opportunity for the internship at the Grand Coulee Dam...

Young people today, when you make up your bucket list, be sure to put in a train ride. Transportation by train is a rarity today, and only on occasion do you stumble on a coal-fired engine. I was a “gandy dancer” for the Northern Pacific...

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...

Who will stand up for geezer privilege? Without the benefit of definable organization, geezers are at a disadvantage. They lack status to call for a press conference or to issue position statements. The only recourse at present is to submit articles...

Congress is responsible for funding our country, and we have some difficult decisions to make. I came to Washington D.C. to advocate for the priorities of my constituents, and I have heard loud and clear that the people of Central Washington want to...

For decades, Big Pharma has raised drug prices with impunity. Here in Washington state, the average annual cost of brand name prescription drug treatment increased 58% between 2012 and 2017, while the annual income for Washingtonians increased only...

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...

We have two kinds of water problems: too much and not enough. The oceans cover 70 percent of our planet, and they contain 97 percent of the water on Earth. Samuel Coleridge in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “Water, water every where, Nor any...

Last week, the House of Representatives voted on the Raise the Wage Act, which would increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, despite warnings from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that this would result in the loss of...

I’d like to thank Officer Jordan for making my day Thursday, July 18. I know I’m always dropping brain cells along the road; however, I never thought I’d drop my wallet. Officer Jordan delivers my wallet to me before I even knew I had lost it....

I am a lousy fisherman, getting boxed out, except one time. That was out of Kodiak, Alaska, fishing for halibut. I was on a charter boat that had twin engines and a lot of speed. We were 50 miles out, where the skipper said that the area had a good...