News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Lake Roosevelt Schools could get new sports facilities built if they are "shovel ready" when and if grant money becomes available. Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Paul Turner spoke to The Star on Monday about plans to issue a Request for Qualifications soon for an architect to work with on facilities projects. Turner said the school board needs to look at the "bigger picture" of the district's facilities and decide what their vision is. "When we built [the new school] we had...
A man driving a Grant Transit Authority bus out of Moses Lake was pursued by police on Wednesday morning, with the chase ending in Electric City at the intersection of Hillcrest Avenue and SR-155 where the driver hit a stop sign and came to a stop. The bus had been reported stolen at about 7 a.m., and Moses Lake Police and other agencies were watching for it when a Grant County Sheriff's deputy spotted it about 30 minutes later. The driver, 62-year-old Richard D. Manley of Grand Coulee, was on...
Tentative dates for spring and winter sports seasons have been set by athletic directors of the North Central Region, which includes Lake Roosevelt High School. The high school athletic season starts with sports traditionally played in the fall, for which a schedule was already set. For fall sports, football practice starts Feb. 16, while cross country, soccer, volleyball and cheer practices start Feb. 22. All of those sports run through April 3. A tentative schedule presented in Athletic Director Tim Rasmussen’s report to the Grand Coulee D...
With case counts rising and hospitalizations of patients with COVID-19 shooting up, the North Central Region of Washington remains in Phase One of the two-phase Healthy Washington — Roadmap to Recovery plan for handling the COVID-19 pandemic, while the Puget Sound and West regions both moved to Phase Two. Grant, Okanogan, Douglas, and Chelan counties are grouped into the North Central Region, which currently only meets one of the four requirements to move to Phase Two, which has less stringent restrictions on individuals, businesses, and s...
An addition to the local airport that would make it safer and more usable is on the horizon and may land if a major grant comes through to pay for it. A new Automated Weather Observing System (AWOS) at the Grand Coulee Dam Airport would offer various aviation advantages, specifically by increasing safety and ease of landing. The estimated $274,000 AWOS project should be paid for in part with a 90% Federal Aviation Administration grant, and a 5% Washington Department of Transportation Aviation...
Electric City's tourism fund appears to have benefitted during the COVID-19 pandemic, while Grand Coulee has brought in more sales tax this year, reflecting different areas of strength in each city's economy. The Star looked at data provided by city clerks, which show that Electric City's revenue from lodging tax, collected on motel and campground stays, went up in 2020. That revenue category went down in Grand Coulee and Coulee Dam last year, which may reflect the fact that Electric City has...
A popular beach at Steamboat Rock State Park, located northeast of the boat launch, is being closed permanently due to erosion, authorities say. "The Bureau of Reclamation in cooperation with Washington State Parks will permanently close a beach area located in Steamboat Rock State Park in order to provide resource protection," a legal notice published throughout December 2020 in the Columbia Basin Herald states. "The closure will take place on January 1, 2021. Washington State Parks will...
Superintendent Paul Turner told the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors on Monday that an investigative report should be ready later this week concerning an incident in which someone left religious/political propaganda on the desks of 11 teachers at Lake Roosevelt Elementary School. Sometime during the weekend of Jan. 5-6, someone left black-and-white copies featuring the writings of Kim Clement on the teachers’ desks. Clement’s prophecies are for sale in several books on Amazon.com, and a “House of Destiny” website offers,...
Lake Roosevelt Schools have continued in-school teaching even when local infection rates of COVID-19 crossed a threshold set by the school board, a teacher showed its directors Monday night. A committee that will be tasked with informing school staff and the public about the latest Covid developments in the area is one result from Monday's meeting of the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors. Teacher Pam Johnson, during the public comment period of the meeting, presented facts,...
Diane Kohout became the new mayor in Electric City just before the COVID-19 pandemic started, but that hasn’t stopped her from doing her mayoral duties. In speaking with The Star over the phone on Monday, she said her two biggest hopes for the city are for the pandemic to end, as well as to increase public input on projects and other citizen concerns, communication between the city and residents being an issue that she and new council members ran on when they were elected in 2019. Part of increasing public input, something made challenging b...
A young couple has made a fresh start with a new business, recognizing that health is more important than ever these days. Makenna Tipps grew up in Electric City and now has returned home along with fiancé Caleb Phillips. The two opened Lakeside Fitness on Coulee Boulevard in late December after the stars seemed to align to make that happen. The pair met in a gym at Central Washington University in 2015 and share an enthusiasm for fitness. Phillips said he really got into fitness during his...
High school sports traditionally played in the fall are scheduled to begin in February. Indoor winter sports were originally scheduled to be the first sports played this athletic school year, but the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association Executive Board decided fall sports would be the new starting point according to a Jan. 6 announcement on their website. Fall sports include cross country, football, soccer, cheer, and volleyball. WIAA allows flexibility for leagues to schedule their seasons as they see fit. A tentative schedule...
Measuring COVID rates by region rather than counties, and using other metrics, are part of a new recovery plan in Washington state. Gov. Jay Inslee announced the "Healthy Washington - Roadmap to Recovery" plan on Jan. 5, and signed the plan into effect on Jan. 11. The plan groups counties into regions, all starting in phase one of a two-phase (so far) approach to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The two phases vary in their restrictions for various aspects of life for Washington residents an...
A free streaming service launched by North Central Washington Libraries, which includes the Grand Coulee Library, offers 30,000 movie titles, including hit movies, documentaries, and kids’ content. And it all only requires a library card to access. The streaming service, called Kanopy, was announced on the NCW LIbraries blog page on Dec. 21, 2020. Kanopy is accessible via computers, mobile and tablet apps for iPhone and Android, as well as SmartTV apps like Roku, Apple TV, and Fire Stick. Kids’ content is unlimited for viewers, and for other co...
Local people are handling issues presented by the COVID-19 pandemic in different ways, with many optimistic about 2021, but many not. With an online survey focused on Coulee life during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Star asked questions related to how work, raising kids, and life in general have been affected. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (61%) said they plan to get the vaccine. Forty-eight percent (28) said they plan to get it as soon as they can. Only eight (14%) said they plan to get it after others try it first. Thirteen people (22%) said...
High school administrators in Easter Washington have been hoping that extracurricular activities, including sports, will return as planned beginning on Feb. 1, but a Tuesday announcement of a new state plan for managing the pandemic makes that prospect unclear. A letter signed by 103 Eastern Washington School Administrators, including Lake Roosevelt Athletic Director Tim Rasmussen, was sent to Gov. Jay Inslee, the Washington State Legislature, and the Washington State Department of Health, emphasizing the importance of returning to sports and...
A curriculum focused on students learning outdoors within the Columbia River watershed began locally and has grown to include thousands of students and teachers in the Pacific Northwest. The River Mile was awarded a $100,000 Environmental Education grant from the Environmental Protection Agency in late 2020. Janice Elvidge has worked as the education specialist for the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area since 2005. Her office is at Spring Canyon. Tasked with coming up with an education...
After 51 years of cutting meats professionally, Ed Moore is retiring from Ed's Meat Market. Located in the back of Harvest Foods, Ed's Meat Market has been a local staple for meat eaters for decades, and now Moore will be retiring but will stay available as a consultant for his coworkers who will be taking over the meat cutting. Moore was raised on a cattle ranch in Benton City, and after graduating high school in 1965, began working at Moon's Grocery Store for about a year before joining the...
The Electric City council this month approved donating $2 per resident, roughly $2,000, to the Grant County Health District, but not before some discussion. At their Dec. 8 council meeting, Mayor Diane Kohout read a report from Brad Parrish, who is the representative for northern Grant County on the GCHD Board of Directors. and is also a commissioner for Hospital District 6, which runs Coulee Medical Center. Parrish’s report starts by saying the GCHD can use all donations they get, but went on to say he thinks the city’s donation should com...
Opportunity for growth has opened for the town of Nespelem with an upgraded water system now up and running. Mayor Darcy Epperson explained to The Star over the phone on Tuesday that the town actually has two water systems, and needed to repair one of them. "We did two because if our one goes down, we are without [water] and our town has no way to get that water to our customers. So that's why it was such an emergent situation. We have them both up and running now." "The town had been in this...
In-person school is being encouraged by the state, but Lake Roosevelt is limited on space to keep a safe distance between students and staff. The guidelines for when to open schools to in-person learning were loosened up by Gov. Jay Inslee last week, citing data showing schools as being relatively safe during the COVID pandemic when they’re careful to follow safety protocols. The Washington State Department of Health and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction worked with the governor on the decision. Guidelines from the state pr...
Locals have a lot of ideas for their North Dam Park, a Star survey reveals, including lights, updated playground equipment, a dog park, outdoor movies, and more. Last week, The Star reported on a meeting between Coulee Area Park and Recreation District commissioners in which they discussed areas for improvement at the park, and the need to look into grants to help pay for those improvements. The Star then shared a survey online asking readers their opinions on the commissioners' ideas, and to...
The Colville Tribes extended the closure of the Colville Reservation to non-essential visitors until midnight on May 31, 2021, and started a curfew in the Keller District. Chairman for the Colville Tribes Rodney Cawston said in a Dec. 22 press release that the Keller District is “experiencing a severe outbreak of COVID-19 infections.” As of Dec. 21, there are 15 active cases of COVID-19 in Keller and more people in quarantine while they await test results or to see if symptoms develop. “It is absolutely necessary to impose this curfew to prese...
The long, controversial story of the imagined Ice Age Park in Electric City has come to an end, but the potential for a park is still there. The city council voted at their Dec. 8 meeting to stop the Ice Age Park project and so to return $28,234.31 of spent grant money to the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office. That grant included $257,650 from the state, and an exact match from the city. The city returned their $257,650 match back into their hotel/motel fund which now has $519,275 in it. The $32,190.69 the city spent on the...
Efforts from local scouts to collect food donations from the community last week brought in over 2,000 pounds of food to the Care and Share Food Bank. Carole Nordine, who manages the food bank, said they received lots of mac and cheese, soups, and fruits and vegetables. She felt that this year’s haul from the annual event seemed better than in previous years. “It was awesome!” she said. Combined with the foods already there, the donations brought in from the girls and boys in local Scouts BSA troops will last through about March, Nordine said....
