News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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With a heart full of gratitude I want to say thank you to Coulee Medical Center for blessing all school district staff members with a Voltage drink and delicious scone to start our first day of school. Thank you to Siam for lightening the dinner time burden for staff members during our first week of school. I love the support and partnering that happens in this community. It is a nice reminder that we truly are all in this together! Nicole Rasmussen Teacher and grateful community member...
This year’s fire season, in terms of severity and numbers of fires, is a scary and devastating reminder that we live in fire country. The Cascade mountain range and the normal summertime temperature differences between western and eastern Washington are underlying causes for our wildfire season. But, an equally important part is the temperature rise during this century. Whether you believe in climate change or not, we all know that our fire season is more severe than previously. Each “biggest fire yet” becomes eclipsed by the next year...
A few years ago my wife and I worked two fire seasons for OK Cascade, a firm that under contract provided food, shower and laundry services during major wildfires. The firm then was owned by John and JoAnn Keener, both now deceased, John having passed away just a few days ago. The Keeners were from Bothell, and their rolling stock was housed in Twisp. We signed on with them just after moving here. We had known the Keeners during our 25 years in Bothell. We were told that during fire season we needed to be packed and ready to leave at a phone...
Oscar Osborne had a pure-black, well-trained cattle horse he named Tommy. One hundred years ago Oscar ran the largest, arguably oldest, cattle ranches in the Grand Coulee, selling beef to far away places like Seattle and Spokane. His beef was featured at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane, where a huge portrait of him herding cattle around the horn of Steamboat Rock hung. Word is that Texas Jack had stolen and attempted to sell his trained stallion Tommy, and the horse was nowhere to be found. Oscar gathered up a posse and waited for Texas Jack to...
Replanting the millions of acres scorched by wildfires in our western woodlands will be herculean task priced in the hundreds of billions. Thankfully, many businesses, such as Bank of America, Microsoft, and Salesforce, have joined with conservation organizations to fund planting a trillion trees in our public forests by 2028. B of A pledged $300 billion to fight climate change by planting young seedlings. Salesforce plans to “conserve and restore 100 million trees,” according to Fas...
Sometimes it is strange the things that draw you back to your childhood. While driving the other day, I looked down at my left hand that was grasping the steering wheel. My hand looked exactly like my father’s. I often think of my parents, even though they have been gone for a very long time. My dad was a lifelong Democrat. The New Deal worked for our family, and making a negative comment about FDR would put you in peril around our house. There were many arguments around the house between my dad and two of his brothers. But one stern look f...
“Standing at the foot of History” were the titles of Roger Lucas Reporter’s Notebook in the Star. This is really true in the Grand Coulee Dam Area. We live under the shadow of one of the Greatest Project ever built, Grand Coulee Dam. But there is some much more history in the Grand Coulee Dam Area than Grand Coulee Dam which visitors from all over the world flock to this area to see. I am glad that Roger and his family have had to the opportunity to visit so maybe places of history around these United States. I was born in Seattle and because a...
If you live in the Coulee, it’s likely you have an inkling of glacial history and the power that can be unleashed by glaciers. The Grand Coulee is prime evidence of glacial activity. There have been about a half dozen major Ice Ages in the history of Earth over the past three billion years. The landscape we live on was, in part, created by glacial activity, cataclysmic flooding and thousands of years of lava flows. Drive the Coulee Corridor and read the new roadside exhibits, or read about t...
Not only is the world in the grasp of the COVID-19 pandemic, but America’s western wildlands are burning up as well. Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters California has a dual crises: the massive wildfire complexes and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “At this time last year, California had seen 4,292 fires that burned 56,000 acres. So far this year, we’ve had 7,002 fires that have burned a whopping 1.4 million acres.” California reports more than 660,000 coronavirus cases. In Washington, the gig...
We are a nation adrift. Even before the pandemic and George Floyd’s death, the U.S. was piling on problems with little sense that we had either the leadership or the political will to address them. The coronavirus and Black Lives Matter protests have amplified those challenges, throwing older ones into stark relief and adding new ones. I am as convinced as ever that this country has the strength and ingenuity to find its way out. I don’t know about you, but I see rising out of the multiple crises besetting us a bedrock recognition that the...
The wind energy industry remains one of the fastest growing in the U.S. It has not only increased capacity, but provided consumers and utilities with clean energy while creating additional economic benefits, such as tax revenue, career opportunities and direct payments to landowners who host turbines. However, with that growth has come questions and concerns, leaving local officials trying to decide the best approach to regulating development. The most common solution is zoning, in particular setbacks, which plays an important role in setting...
Elections for key WA State positions are imminent. It is a timely election with much at stake, including the leadership to guide us out of a pandemic, to protect our lands and natural resources against the ever increasing climate change, to fight against corporate corruption, to ensure our public safety and protect our civil liberties, to improve our public schools, to protect our agricultural areas, and to implement an affordable healthcare care system. Each level of government adds to this body to make sure that the needs of the various...
When we think of bravery, we have a tendency to think big. Actually, acts of bravery are all around us, some more apparent than others. While in Vietnam a number of years ago I met a medical doctor who was captured by the Viet Cong and held captive four years. It wasn’t unusual at the time for people to turn up missing. The doctor was held in a jungle field hospital where he worked on soldiers who were wounded or people who came down with jungle diseases. He was somewhat philosophical about it all. He reasoned that he was trained for this k...
Hunters, fishers, and farmers are the original conservationists. Growing up in Central Washington, I have been surrounded by agriculture my whole life. As our farmers and ranchers work to feed the world, we also recognize the importance of conserving our precious natural resources and native species. The same goes for sportsmen, many of whom hunt or fish in order to honor generational traditions or provide for their families. Without responsible land use, resource development, and local conservation efforts, hunting, farming, and fishing as we...
Sometimes you discover history after it is past. I have visited a lot of cemeteries and memorials, but probably the most moving is the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. I’ve been there twice, the second time after I had learned that a cousin had been killed in the war and that his name was etched on the marble wall. I had a natural interest in the wall because I had made three trips to Vietnam while the war was still going on. Visiting the wall is a moving experience. It is one of the most popular memorials in D.C. On my visits it was crowded...
When rural communities call, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) answers. Our postal service employees provide critical services to the communities of Central Washington and are often the only delivery service that will go the “final mile” to ensure that important mail – including prescriptions, bills, and checks – can be safely delivered to every house in America. In Washington state, we also rely on the USPS to securely deliver our ballots as recently as earlier this month during our state’s primary election. In recent days, there has been a lot o...
Sunny summer weather helped restaurant owners and workers recover after they were broadsided by the coronavirus pandemic last March. However, as fall morphs into winter and diners are forced back inside, the big question will be: Are there enough customers to keep what’s left of the restaurant sector financially viable? The worst fears of many American businesses are coming true. With no recovery in sight from the COVID-19 pandemic, 72,842 businesses across the U.S. have permanently closed, acco...
Small businesses continue to feel the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. While they are doing their best to keep the doors open, they are hurting. That is especially true in our rural towns. Congress has acted to provide businesses with loans through the Small Business Administration six months of payment forgiveness. This is a lifeline for big city enterprises, but it doesn’t help rural entrepreneurs. That is because many rural businesses do not have access to an SBA lender and must borrow from a USDA Rural Development program instead. On A...
The English language is the best friend while traveling in most countries. In all my travels in Asia, the one most constant thing was that English was spoken and understood in every country. Part of the reason was the influence of English colonialism, and the fact that most people study English as a second language. While English is prevalent in both Japan and Hong Kong, Sometimes natives seek out touring English-speaking people so they can practice their English. This happened to me in both Japan and Hong Kong. In Osaka, Japan, I had walked...
I recently conducted a survey of constituents in Central Washington, asking a question that is on the minds of parents across our district and the entire country: “Do you support doing everything we can to safely reopen schools for in-person instruction in the fall?” The overwhelming response was “yes.” As we all know, on March 13, 2020, Gov. Jay Inslee ordered Washington state schools to close in response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. As other states followed suit, the governor extended the order several times and, unfortu...
If Americans are to receive all of their electricity without coal and natural gas by 2035, they will need nuclear power. Even if Washingtonians, who already procure over 70 percent of their electricity from hydro, are to be completely devoid of fossil fuel generation by 2045, they must have nuclear. Washington’s Clean Energy Transformation Act passed earlier this year by the Legislature leans heavily on renewable fuels, particularly wind and solar. It calls for electrical generation to be c...
In January 1950, a group of community leaders formed the Grand Coulee Dam Athletic Association to fund community athletic teams. To help provide funding, the association booked nationally recognized dance bands to the Coulee Dam high school gym. A member from the association had a close contact within the Music Corporation of America, which was the nation's largest booking agency for famous-name bands. What followed between January 1950 and May 1953 was then described as the "Parade of Bands."...
If popular differences can show up any place in the United States, it’s very possible they could show up first in Okanogan County. Once considered a bellwether county in presidential politics, the county supports a variety of types, from ranchers to escaped urbanites and everything in between. So it’s no surprise that county commissioners in recent discussions have represented the politics of our national Covid angst writ small, right down to the mask-wearing controversy. It was obvious the three commissioners fit well into distinct cross sec...
The people of the 12th District are so fortunate to have a meaningful choice in the legislative race to represent us in Olympia. Adrianne Moore is an exciting, hardworking candidate with family roots five generations deep in North Central Washington. Having worked in long -erm recovery from the impact of wildfires, she is primed to get the economy going following COVID19. Having worked to assist people to access health care, she will do all in her power to make sure people have adequate healthcare coverage. Our local hospital administrators in...
I once moved twice on the same day. We have moved 14 times, but only once in the past 56 years. Our first move was to Palouse from southern Idaho. We were so recently married that it only took a couple of boxes, and those fit neatly in the trunk of our 1946 Ford. We spent the winter there. Trained as a lumber grader, I answered an ad in the Spokesman Review for a position at Lincoln Lumber Company. We interviewed, got the position and found an apartment in Wilbur. The apartment belonged to the school district there, and we got it with the...