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

Born locally,

a national

hero is dead

A man who as a soldier faced down a rogue platoon of compatriots to help stop the slaughter of innocents in Vietnam in 1968, died Dec. 17.

Larry Colburn, 67, was born in Coulee Dam in 1949. His father was a WWII veteran and civil engineer who worked on Grand Coulee Dam, the New York Times reported last week.

Colburn, a door gunner in a helicopter, agreed to back up the pilot, who placed the aircraft between the remaining civilians at My Lai and the platoon that was killing them. Colburn agreed to fire an M-60 machine gun at his fellow soldiers if they opened up on the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr.

Colburn was 18 at the time he stood with Thompson and Crew Chief Glenn Andreotta to stop the “My Lai Massacre,” as it would come to be known worldwide, an object lesson in battlefield ethics that was a touchstone of controversy during the unpopular war.

Fireworks ord.mired down

Electric City is still struggling with its new fireworks ordinance. It has been on the city council agenda for the past several meetings. The ordinance will explain the limitations of where fireworks can be set off and when. It will be on the agenda again.

Meanwhile, the Colville Business Council on Friday approved the sale of fireworks through New Year’s Day, the Tribal Tribune reports.

City supports

senior meals

Electric City will provide $2,500 to the Grand Coulee Dam Area Senior Meals Program. The organization provided an average of 173 meals a month to Electric City residents this year.

The $2,500 donation is the same as the city gave to the meals programs in prior years.

Council liked

park lighting

The entire Electric City council made positive comments about the tree lighting at North Dam Park, Nov. 26. The council had voted $50 to help with the refreshments served that day. Councilmember Birdie Hensley had organized the event, which included a visit by Santa. Councilmember Lonna Bussert got comments on her recent raffle drawing for two bikes, with proceeds benefitting parks. The raffle raised $500. The Coulee Dam Federal Credit Union purchased the bikes for the drawing.

Kayakers to defy temperatures

Some very hardy kayakers plan to meet at noon, Jan. 1, at Coulee Playland for some winter kayaking. Those showing up are encouraged to wear life jackets. (And, might we suggest, taking hot cocoa.)

Sheriff: burglary suspect caught

A 27-year-old Ephrata man was arrested by Grant County sheriff’s deputies Tuesday morning while burglarizing a shop south of Soap Lake, the Grant County Sheriff’s Office said.

Deputies were called just before 11 a.m. for a trespassing in progress at a shop building in the 17000 block of Road B.5-Northeast. A deputy on patrol nearby arrived to find a pickup truck — later determined to have been stolen — backed up to the shop door, GCSO reported. The deputy found Patrick Walker inside the shop and took him into custody. Other deputies and a Soap Lake police officer also responded and checked the shop but found no other persons inside.

The shop had been the subject of previous burglaries.

Walker is lodged in the Grant County Jail on suspicion of residential burglary and possession of a stolen vehicle.