News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 1958 - 1982 of 3733
President Trump campaigned on cutting taxes, streamlining regulations and improving infrastructure. He also vowed to renegotiate our trade agreements, calling the North American Free Trade Agreement “the worst deal ever made.” On his first day in office, he signed an executive order aimed at reducing regulations and controlling regulatory costs. However, revamping our vast web of federal rules is much easier said than done. It is even more difficult when state and local rules are considered. The cost of regulations is a key American com...
Two months ago, my big brother, George Davis III, was hospitalized and diagnosed with Leukemia. This was a huge shock to our family and all his friends. I always saw my big brother as invincible; you could hit him in the head with a two-by-four and it wouldn’t slow him down. Then all of the sudden, he got slowed way down by something invisible to the naked eye. I wanted to do something to help. I knew George and his wife would be in need financially, so I decided to hold a benefit dinner for him. This past Saturday, the dinner was held at T...
In 1965 I got a job in California. Five months later, some new friends asked this Idaho country boy to go hunting with them in the Sierras on one guy’s family ranch, where I had to show three of them how to load their rifles. There were some very close calls. The same gun laws that kept people safe in Idaho didn’t even come close in California. I somehow survived, and this was among friends. Forty years later I strapped on a pistol for a walk in the woods. A visiting granddaughter started yelling “Gun! Gun! Gun!” What a wake-up call! Even in...
This letter is to address several false and erroneous statements in a guest column in your paper by Jack Stevenson regarding the AR-15 rifle. The AR-15 has been called “America’s most popular rifle” and there are somewhere between 5-10 million in existence in the U.S. It is a box-magazine-fed, semi-automatic rifle. The box detachable magazine was patented in 1864; the first successful design semi-auto rifle was designed in 1895; the AR-15 was designed by ArmaLite in 1956; so nothing about the box-magazine-fed, semi-auto AR-15 rifle is new....
I recently traveled across Washington’s Fourth Congressional District to speak with farmers from each county and to hear their concerns about an upcoming Farm Bill. One of the largest concerns expressed by farmers had little to do with congressional action, however: Central Washington farmers expressed their anxiety about the impact of a potentially escalating trade war with global trading partners. President Trump recently announced new tariffs worth billions of dollars on products manufactured by China. The reasons he cited for tariffs are c...
I sat one day, about three years ago, with Keianna Vera. She told me her story up to that point. On that day, I knew that this young lady was going to go places. She told me about her roller coaster ride of a life. She said all this with a smile on her face and a little emotion in her eyes. Today that same smile was there while we talked about many things as her senior year has about a quarter left to go. “Not too shabby,” is how she answered my first question about how her senior year was goi...
By now most of us have read that plastic, that incredibly useful product that all of us use every day, is fast becoming public enemy number one. We have been using plastics for decades, and as a result, plastic is everywhere: in our fish, in our food, in our oceans, in our waste water treatment systems, and in our public spaces. We use plastics in every part of our lives, from single-use plastics, such as bags, bottles, and straws, to our babies’ toys to our nylon clothes to our paint. Plastic particles and plastic microbeads are used in our s...
One of the most urgent issues we face right now in Central Washington is the ongoing threat to dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Just this week, a 9th Circuit Court panel rejected arguments for an injunction to pause a forced spill order by an Oregon federal judge. The Oregon judge’s order requires an increase in spill for the eight lower Columbia and Snake River dams and now goes into effect as of April 3. Increasing spill comes with a $40 million price tag for ratepayers this year alone. That price is too high, and it is only a f...
How often does this happen, Aprils Fools and Easter on the same day? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is the state of the world today. I will let that sink in a bit. It is a thought provoking question and probably even insulting to some, but it might just reflect what is happening out there on the most holy of days. I ended up traveling across the state on Easter. That was after a great message from a great man on Easter morning at church. I was a chaperone for the Northwest Native Youth Conference, and this year we...
1 Years Ago Coulee Dam woman arrested with millions of dollars worth of cocaine: A Coulee Dam woman has been arrested with millions of dollars worth of cocaine in California, where she was scheduled to make a court appearance. She had 71 bricks of cocaine in the back seat of her vehicle which she was allegedly driving at 90 miles per hour on the freeway. 40 Years Ago Spillway Lighting Is Assured During Summer: The Popular spillway program at the Grand Coulee Dam is assured for the 1978 visitor season. That assurance came from the Bureau’s Regi...
Bull riding school coming up The Shane Proctor Bull Riding School will take place at the Nespelem Rodeo Arena on April 3 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 9-4 on April 4. The school is booked up, but is open to the public to watch. Concessions are available. Taco feed set for junior rodeo Also on April 3, the Nespelem Junior Rodeo Association will hold an Auction & Indian Taco Feed at the Nespelem Community Center starting at 5 p.m.; the auction starts at 6. The dinner costs $8 a plate and auction items are still being accepted. More information is av...
There are two things you need to know about newspapers. Newspapers are important to community life and democracy. Always have been. We at the National Newspaper Association think it is important for all sorts of newspapers to survive for the sake of a free society—the very large and the very small ones, the liberal ones, the conservative ones, the middle-of-the-road ones, the ones with no viewpoint but just important news, all of them. Some are our members. Many are not. We defend them anyway. America needs them like we need oxygen. The s...
Most of the 2.5 million annual Alamo visitors focus on the epic 1836 battle in which a small band of brave Texans was eventually overrun by the Mexican army. Folk heroes like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and William Travis were among the Texans killed while fighting for independence from Mexico. However, the Alamo is more than a small Spanish-style church, depicted on tourism brochures, which barely withstood a 13-day pummeling from Mexican cannons. It is a large complex built nearly a century before the siege where irrigated agriculture was...
John W. Schoen, CNBC, wrote in a June 2016 article that “the National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates there are roughly 5 million to 10 million AR-15 rifles [privately] owned in the United States. . . .” The U.S. Government has purchased an estimated eight million of the military version for use by our armed forces and our allies. The AR-15 rifle uses military ammunition. It has a rapid-fire function, and it accepts large-capacity ammunition magazines. If any one of those three factors were changed, it would be a much less deadly wea...
This past week I have gotten to hang, be in meetings and just spend time with some pretty cool dawgs and cats. So I thought I might share a bit with all of you. If anyone went to Coulee Medical Center last week, you might have noticed four fresh faced youngsters hanging around. They were interns from the University of Washington. After a week of job shadowing some of our professionals in the medical field who call Coulee Country home, they spent the day at Lake Roosevelt High School. They spoke...
There may be good reasons for Electric City to consider un-acquiring territory it gained when it annexed a considerable amount of land several years ago, but the city council should think about it more than a little before doing so. Some people probably think it would be best for one of the likeliest growth spots in the area to be devoid of local leadership or direction. If members of the council are hoping that turkeys would roam free beyond the causeway, they may be right. The area didn’t develop after the Great Recession killed all p...
Want a bus so you can get to the store or doctor? Want a bus in town to take you to the senior center? Want bus service to drive you home from a community event? Raise your hand! If any of this is true, why did we have a Grand Coulee Mobility Summit March 15 at the Grand Coulee Dam Senior Center, and out of 20-plus organization that were invited ONLY three attended? It does not help just to sit with your friend at coffee or at the bar and complain about things we do not have in town. Only one city had a representative, no representative from...
We have subscribed to The Star newspaper for almost 40 years, but we have never seen such partisan writings ever before. We are sick of the progressive bias that you show and, in particular, the Trump bashing from the Editorial cartoon. (I use that term loosely ... because it is far from funny!) President Trump is the only person strong enough to try to fight off socialism against all odds and the uphill battle to rid our government of the serious corruption. I hope in the future, for our country’s sake, you will take a good, hard look at y...
What do Congressman Dan Newhouse and the Republican Party have against United States citizens’ relying on the courts to defend their rights, their lives, the places they love, and their livelihoods? Wonder what I’m referring to? During the 115th Congress, Republicans have introduced at least 50 bills to limit your rights as a citizen to take cases of corporate and private misconduct to the courts. Eleven have passed in the House of Representatives and Newhouse voted for all eleven of them. These include: - H.J. Res. 111, which limits your abi...
We’re at a watershed moment in American political history. Our Congress — I’m talking about the people’s body, the institution created by our founders, and not just the men and women who currently inhabit it — is in deep trouble. And no one seems to be offering hope. Its public standing is abysmal, occasionally dropping into the single digits in polling. Very few people seem to respect it, even on Capitol Hill. Small surprise, as the Pew Research Center reported the other day that “More members of the U.S. House of Representatives are choosin...
Most parents realize this not long after bringing their newborn home. A lack of sleep is something that must be overcome as we pray and wait to see if our child will actually sleep through the night tonight. As those kids grow up, yes, they do start sleeping all night long, all morning long, all afternoon long and then we start praying for some awake time with them. As parents we also lose sleep when our teenagers are awake. First dates for our daughters and sons can bring us to a new place of sleeplessness, as we wait for their return or a...
1 Years Ago Proctor wins: Shane Proctor’s “Number 7” provided him with all the luck needed Saturday night as he battled his way to the “Toughest Cowboy” championship and the deed to the Jager ranch. The final event of the season was played out in the Columbus, Ohio, Nationwide Arena, and came down to points in the bull riding event to decide the championship and the title to the 38-acre ranch. 20 Years Ago Texaco upgrades: Work began on a major upgrade to Tim’s Texaco at the 4-Corners in Grand Coulee. Owners Tim and Michele Arrants are adding...
I just received the “Benefits of Fiber to the Home” (FTTH) survey included with our Coulee Dam utility bill. The “survey” reads like a poorly written grade-school student project! If Coulee Dam is truly interested in developing a broadband/fiber enterprise, the City should take the quality time and invest the funds by working with experienced consultant(s), including business, legal, and applicable engineers. How you craft the first considerations, you must understand the options, the limitations, and the strategies. One of the first and mos...
1) It is incongruous that a semester of study in 8th grade on the Constitution would give anyone the knowledge and ability to make a learned opinion on the 1st and 2nd Amendments. 2) It is indeed chilling to hear a 9th grader claiming that when they are of voting age and in charge that they are going to “right the wrongs that past generations have made.” I recall such sentiments when I was young in the mid-sixties and that has not happened. We have only gotten worse. 3) The Bible is the only book that lays out God’s “plumb line” on the “cult...
A letter in last week’s Opinion section blamed gun culture and the NRA for the horrid acts committed by individuals. The guns that are used in these acts are simply the tools that these evil, psychotic, deranged, and/or mentally ill people use to carry out their acts. The reasons for their actions will differ with each individual, but those blaming the NRA are just taking the popular, easy, and wrong route. The letter mentioned that guns are the leading cause of homicide in the United States. If you could magically take away all guns, then the...