News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Community members aren't happy with library-related decisions made at the administrative level that have affected the local library and that have led to the resignation of branch librarian Lisa Moore. The topic was brought up at Grand Coulee's April 20 council meeting, where the council discussed workers at the library being required to "have some kind of degree," a requirement Councilmember Alan Cain called "elitism B.S." City Clerk Lorna Pearce said that a representative from the North...
Lake Roosevelt Junior/Senior High School is in need of a new principal again with current Principal Kirk Marshlain resigning to take a special education director position in Okanogan. The Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors accepted Marshlain’s resignation, effective June 30, at the April 26 board meeting. Marshlain has served as principal for the past two school years at LR. “It’s a decision that came based on family needs and trying to raise my family and provide what they need,” Marshlain told the board. Marshlain said hi...
The continued closure of a city emergency route during a long-stalled federal construction project is worrying the city council in Grand Coulee. During their April 20 meeting, the Grand Coulee City Council discussed the continued closure of B Street during construction of the US Bureau of Reclamation’s fire station located along SR-155. The bureau awarded the $13.6 million construction contract in 2016. Construction began in April of 2017 and was originally scheduled to be complete in the first half of 2018. Numerous delays, including c...
The Colorama parade will be held like normal along it’s Midway Avenue route, but button raffles will be held online with multiple prize drawings held over multiple days. “The parade is on!” Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Rachel Haven told The Star in an email. Haven received official word that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will be opening B Street, which runs near the fire station they are constructing, as an alternate route which allows Midway Avenue to be used for the parade. Colorama buttons are also out and f...
School leaders chose NAC Architecture as the district’s new architect during their April 26 board meeting. A week prior, the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors had interviewed both NAC and Design West Architecture and had the week to review each of their statements of qualifications. The board’s decision was made without much discussion. Superintendent Paul Turner explained last week that once the architect was chosen, the district could then move onto the next step, which is to collect community input on what they want to do...
Softball loses to Brewster, splits DH with Tonasket The Lady Raiders' fastpitch team won one and lost two this past week. Lake Roosevelt lost the April 20 road game against Brewster 13-7. "Defensively, we had too many errors, racking up nine!" Head Coach Jaci Gross said. "It was a great first game" with "a lot of positives" as well as "a lot of things we need to work on." "It felt great to have the athletes back on the field after a long absence," she continued. "I think we are all just grateful...
The Colville Tribes are interested in purchasing the community building in Coulee Dam that houses the old movie theater, bowling alley, restaurant, fire station, and more. At Coulee Dam’s April 14 city council meeting, the Colville Tribes Natural Resources Director Cody Desautel, who also oversees the tribes’ Real Estate Services program, asked the city council if they were interested in selling the building. Asked by Councilmember Merv Schmidt how the tribes might use the building, Desautel replied that it would be used similarly to its curren...
Receiving no response from the contractor that built their wastewater treatment plant, nearly to completion, has led Coulee Dam representatives to consider taking a trip to the contractor’s office across the state so the city can close the books on the cost of the plant and tell Elmer City what its share will cost. The wastewater treatment plant being built by McClure & Sons, based out of Mill Creek, Washington, is almost entirely complete, and is functioning, but some details are not finished, including installation of a handrail and some p...
Next Monday the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors will choose an architect to help design the future of their facilities. On April 19, the board interviewed two architectural firms: Design West Architects and NAC Architecture, and will choose one of them on April 26. "The board this week is looking at the material, looking through their Statements of Qualifications, so they can be ready," Superintendent Paul Turner told The Star on Tuesday. "Either one of them will be very...
The Community Crab Feed and Triple Fish Challenge events held this past weekend and sponsored by the local chamber of commerce were judged a success, especially by the angler who has been trying to win that tournament since he was 7. “The Community Crab Feed went great!” Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Rachelle Haven told The Star in an email. “The meals were delicious. We heard that many people were planning at-home crab feeds, which sounded like a lot of fun.” She said 300 pounds of crab from Pacific Seafood...
The school district will be interviewing, then selecting, an architect who could eventually design new athletic facilities, as well as options for what to do with the former high school and middle school. The Grand Coulee Dam School District board of directors voted Monday to interview two architectural firms out of five applicants to a Request for Qualifications to design options for school facilities. The interviews of Design West Architects and NAC Architecture will take place at a special Ap...
Lake Roosevelt Schools are seeking a community review panel for their School Improvement Plan. “We are in the process of finalizing the LRHS School Improvement Plan (SIP) and would like feedback from our community stakeholders,” a description on the school’s website reads. The SIP is a document required by Washington State and “includes academic outcomes and action steps that focus on improving school goals, community engagement, equity, and other important factors for school success.” The SIP review will take place sometime from April 26-...
Nez Perce descendents who are currently in fourth through eighth grades have until April 27 to apply for a free rafting trip down the Snake River in their ancestral Nez Perce homelands. The rafting trip program seeks to have 15 youth from three different areas with Nez Perce residents to go on a 32-river-mile trip along the Snake River July 25-29, which includes two nights camping along the river. The program, paid for with grant money from the Gray Family Foundation, is being conducted in a partnership between the Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland Pr...
A woman standing on two horses and jumping through a hoop of fire is something you have to see, and can see, at this year's Colorama Rodeo. Haley Proctor, wife of Grand Coulee's own national rodeo star Shane Proctor, is a trick rider in rodeos herself. Having seen her uncle do trick riding when she was little, Haley Proctor got in trouble trying to do things she wasn't supposed to do like standing up on her horse or hanging off the side. So her parents told her if she was going to do trick...
Grant PUD announced last week that it would join in a partnership with two other entities to pursue building a nuclear power project. The county-based utility that already operates two hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River will work with Energy Northwest and X-energy, in a "TRi Energy Partnership," a "mutual partnership to support the development and commercial demonstration of the country's first advanced nuclear reactor," the public utility district announced in a press release Thursday....
Having grown up on a cattle ranch in Nespelem, Rachel McClure now finds herself working for a congressman, striding two worlds connected by legislation with a large influence on agriculture. McClure grew up on her family's cattle ranch, near Nespelem, that has been in operation for over 100 years. "My roots are deep there," she told The Star in an interview conducted over email. " I feel very fortunate to have grown up in such a beautiful place and with access to horses, fishing, and all the...
The area comprising the Grand Coulee Dam School District has a 14-day COVID-19 incident rate of 263 cases per 100,000 population. The district’s website, www.gcdsd.org, includes a link to a Covid report compiling data from the five local zip codes within the district including 99123, 99133, 99155, 99124, and 99116. Updated on Friday, the report shows 11 cases within those zip codes making for the incidence rate of 283 cases per 100,000 population, as of March 26. In Grant County, the incident rate as of March 26 was 211. As of March 29, t... Full story
Nespelem School has been phasing students into in-person schooling. The school board approved the return to in person school at their meeting held at the end of February. Principal and Superintendent Effie Dean told The Star that Indian Health Services vaccinated the school staff in February, giving the school board the confidence to bring kids back to in-person school. Dean said the school started phasing students into in-person schooling a couple of weeks ago with kindergarten through second-grade students attending for about a full day of in...
If awarded a grant, Grand Coulee’s Shane Proctor Park could have new playground equipment, a half-court basketball court, and more. The city of Grand Coulee applied for a $162,000 grant from the Ephrata-based Paul Lauzier Foundation to make improvements to the park located along SR-174 between the gas station and the Mexican restaurant. The grant would pay for new playground equipment and playground surface, a half-court basketball court, and to make the park compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. “The last couple of years the...
The Colorama Rodeo this year will include a show put on by Jason Dent, also known as Whistle-Nut, and his pet bull that he can ride around like a horse. Whistle-Nut is an entertainer, barrel man, clown, and stuntman "all rolled into one," he told The Star over the phone on Monday. "We're the real deal. ... They can expect to really be wowed," he said about his show that includes comedy, stunts, and personal interaction with the crowd. Ole (pronounced OH-lee), now 15 years old, was trained as a...
The annual spring cleanup will be free after all. The Regional Board of Mayors, after being awarded a grant, chose during a special meeting March 18 not to charge locals for dumping yard waste at the Delano Regional Transfer Station during spring cleanup week, which runs from April 3-16, with days depending on each town (see the ad on page 2). Originally, the mayors had chosen this year to charge a fee for pickup loads of yard waste taken to the transfer station to cover the costs of taking that waste to the landfill in Ephrata. They were previ...
Pedestrians in Elmer City will be more footloose and fancy-free with a pathway project being completed later this year. In 2018, phase one of the pathway project built a path along the Lower River Road from Third Street to about halfway to Front Street, with two crosswalks connecting to the Downriver Trail across the Lower River Road. Phase two will finish the path down to Front Street. Front Street’s sidewalk, which currently stops short of the corner with the Lower River Road, will be completed and connect with the pathway. During their M...
Scouts are staying busy with another food drive. “A food drive is always helpful,” said Carol Nordine, who manages the local Care and Share Food Bank located at the Nazarene Church on the outskirts of Grand Coulee heading east on SR-174. “It gets us a variety of things we normally don’t have.” The boys and girls in the local troops left bags at area residences last weekend with a flier explaining how to donate food. Residents are encouraged to place food in the bags and leave them outside their homes before 9 a.m. this Saturday, March 27,...
Raiders win third straight football shutout The Lake Roosevelt Raiders football team defeated the Manson Trojans 41-0 in Coulee Dam Friday, their third straight shutout in a row, for a 3-0 win-loss record. The Raiders first got on the scoreboard when quarterback Hunter Whitelaw powered his way into the endzone on a short run after the Raiders made their way downfield. Next, Whitelaw threw a 26-yard touchdown pass to Sam Wapato, and then ran a 50-yard touchdown run to end the first quarter with...
Whether they continue to share a wastewater treatment facility with Coulee Dam, or build their own, Elmer City ratepayers are looking at higher sewer rates, but how much higher remains to be determined. The Elmer City council watched a presentation from Project Engineer Nancy Wetch of Gray and Osbourne last Thursday night. Wetch’s report compared the estimated cost of building Elmer City’s own wastewater treatment facility to the costs of renegotiating their current agreement with Coulee Dam, which expires at the end of 2024. The report loo...