News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is often misunderstood as favoring urban residents over rural. Formerly known as food stamps, a new study analyzing this program shows the opposite may be true. SNAP provides nutrition assistance payments to one in eight Americans every month. Approximately 16% of rural households use SNAP benefits, compared to 13% of metro households. In those rural households, a large majority of benefits assist vulnerable populations, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities. The...
The newly passed infrastructure package approved by Congress last week promises to reach every corner of the country, and for rural America, funding for water and sewer, broadband internet, and electrical projects could have the most impact. An $11.7 billion annual increase for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds will assist small towns in making much-needed drinking water and sewage system upgrades. The federal-state partnership provides low-interest loans to eligible communities to improve their drinking water supply,...
I am writing about the article published in the Star on October 20, 2021. I know you [Coulee Dam council member Dale Rey] didn’t mention my husband by name. However, we live in a small town where everyone knows everyone. PLEASE, get your FACTS straight before jumping to conclusions. John did NOT die from covid. John died from heart issues and kidney failure, as per medical records. PLEASE do NOT use John as an escape goat to mandate the vaccine. If YOU, Dale Rey, want to mandate the shots, I suggest you man up and do it. John did his r...
I am now to a point where I welcome new leadership at the highest levels in my hometown school district. This is because there is a proven pattern of not listening to valid concerns with responsive progressive changes and people are treated poorly or ignored. As a community member for 40 years, a taxpayer and someone who loves our local school district, I will clearly focus on just 2 major areas of concern for now. Sound human dynamics I feel that quality relationships and a high level of collaborative thinking with a growth mindset must...
On August 31, 2021, I injured myself when a 400-pound welding table fell off a cable, knocking me down, causing a severe laceration to my right leg requiring surgery. I have lived in this community since 1969 and have had limited encounters with our local hospital. I had formed a somewhat passive opinion of the emergency medical care available, however this injury gave me a new and more definite perspective. From admittance to discharge, my care was excellent and complete from the all members of the medical team. I was so impressed with the...
On August 31, 2021, I injured myself when a 400-pound welding table fell off a cable, knocking me down, causing a severe laceration to my right leg requiring surgery. I have lived in this community since 1969 and have had limited encounters with our local hospital. I had formed a somewhat passive opinion of the emergency medical care available, however this injury gave me a new and more definite perspective. From admittance to discharge, my care was excellent and complete from the all members of the medical team. I was so impressed with the...
I want to thank the GCDSD Board of Directors for making sure their coaches are being fully compensated and that each sport is getting an assistant for various logical reasons. Thanks for stepping up and doing the right thing. I respect our volunteer local board members who try to find balance with issues and will always be questioned. As board members they nor us educators are health experts. They’re doing their best with the COVID-19 challenges. The recent approval for school staff to get vaccinated is tremendously helpful and addresses the “s...
I am writing in response to John Adkins’ series of letters to the editor, the most recent being 2/17/21. As a Lake Roosevelt teacher of nearly 17 years, I have had the opportunity to experience the changing tides of many administrators, several superintendents, and more changes in education than I can honestly remember at times. As a parent of school-aged students for the last 21 years, I have navigated three school districts ranging in size from 250 students to 9,000. I have been trying to determine what point John Adkins’ series of letters is...
When I see Kenny Hoke he always waves and makes my day. Every time this happens, I think about the state championship basketball team he was on back in the days when the rim and net were real baskets. Since Grand Coulee and Coulee Dam combined into the Grand Coulee Dam School District there has only been one Raider team that has won a state championship. That championship was in Track & Field. Raider Track & Field has won multiple team state trophies. It also has had more individual state champions and medalists over time than any other Raider...
My wife, who knows me well after 47 years, says I’m the most patient person she has ever met. When you combine this patience with the actions of putting others first and practicing sound human dynamics, learned from Gonzaga’s leadership program, you’ll see why I’ve finally been speaking up about our local school district. The GCDSD means so much to me, but these important qualities are not practiced at the top level of this organization. When someone talks about my opinion, they need to realize I’m speaking for me and a lot of people who have...
School finance is becoming more and more challenging. When we keep losing ground we cannot continue to make up the deficit by asking our community members to fill the funding gaps. For factual information look into all Washington state school ballot measures. Most districts are asking for $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property values. One in our region is asking for $2.50 per $1,000 but not continuing with their capital projects measure to balance the costs for their voters. If the GCDSD would have kept their levy total at $1.50 it would still...
Our small community has many exceptional people. I want to take a moment to highlight just a few that have earned my admiration over decades, years or recently. Their messages during this extremely challenging, chaotic time are wonderful and heartwarming. Roger Lucas – I’ve known Roger for decades. Like fine wine, he just gets better over time. I look forward to his articles because he knows that simple things in life are by far the most rewarding, and his sense of humor always makes me smile. Almost 70 years ago, sneaking away with his gir...
Whether you’re a local CEO of an organization, business owner and/or a community member, I’m thankful for many of you who’ve been appreciative of the thoughts I’ve shared about our local school district. I’m especially thankful that most of you know me and realize how much I care and how hard it was for me to finally say something. School district officials are ignoring current reality when they keep informing people that issues can be resolved by following the chain of command. This has not been working for quite a while. Also, blaming f...
As Superintendent of the Wellpinit School District, I am very fortunate that all of my staff have been at work in person. This has taken extensive collaborative preventive preparation and is due in a large part, to the support and actions of the Spokane Tribe. The Spokane Tribe arranged for COVID-19 Vaccinations for my staff. This tremendous gesture has given assurance and confidence to everyone involved and we are extremely thankful and grateful. If possible, I would appreciate it if the Colville Tribes would help the Nespelem and Grand...
I wanted to share a few parting thoughts as I step down as the Okanogan County Health Officer. First and foremost, it has been a privilege to serve this community for the past 16 years. I am confident that my successor, Dr. James Wallace, will provide stellar leadership moving forward. Over the last 10 years, I have truly enjoyed working with “Jimmy”; he will be excellent in this role. Community Health Director, Lauri Jones, has been the backbone of our PH response to COVID-19 in Okanogan County. She has been stalwart in her work for us. Our...
Thanks, Donna DeWinkler, for the thoughts you shared in The Star Newspaper recently. Tolerance of a diversity of viewpoints is always healthy. Everyone needs to have a growth mindset and be open to learning from each other. We get better together when different perspectives are valued. Often times we listen to others but we don’t validate that they have been heard. It is time in our local school district, that we love, for a new progressive direction to be taken that has true collaboration from all stakeholders involved. Donna went old s...
Wow, it was great to hear from Ray Gilman in The Star newspaper last week. Ray served the Grand Coulee Dam School District as an administrator for decades. His loyalty and longevity were amazing. He is aware of what is going on with funding in our local school district, regionally and statewide. Our school district is in the “B” school classification. “B” schools are the smallest size-wise in Washington state. With our student population, we are grossly over-staffed with administrators. Ray is spot on about the district office, but there is ove...
Our local Star newspaper has always done a good job of sharing a diversity of viewpoints: It is extremely hard for me to share these thoughts. Numerous people over the last few years have shared frustrations with me about our local school district. Many have felt they were treated poorly or even ignored. Some have taken their students out of our district. I’ve listened and shared productive solutions. I have lived in Coulee Dam for almost 40 years and have always supported our school district no matter what. I also show up and cheer on our R...
During my college years I worked for the USDA Forest Service on fire crews and in the Red Zone at Mount St. Helens after the volcano erupted. These jobs were very time and labor intensive. I admire, appreciate and am extremely grateful for all of our firefighters during these unprecedented, challenging times. Your relentless, unwavering, courageous efforts to keep everyone safe are amazing. Many thanks, John M. Adkins...
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...
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 area around where Grand Coulee sits today was sparsely populated around the turn of the 20th Century, and the few settlers and ranchers all knew each other. They also knew Texas Jack, a loner who lived down in the bottom of Rattlesnake Canyon, in a cave. One day, Texas Jack returned home with a young mixed-race woman. He never called her by name in public and referred to her as 'Woman" as if that was her name. She dressed rugged and in men's clothes. Some people in the community took pity...
When the Million Dollar Mile outside of Coulee City was created it inadvertently ran through a field with a level area and a natural spring surrounded by trees. For uncounted years this was a camping spot for the original nomadic inhabitants of the Upper Grand Coulee. The spring was nestled up on the cliff wall just out of sight, and the trail up ran along a cut to the south east. Once there was a large stone table for preparing food and families gathered together at the spring for generations....
Rather than discussing the Governor’s egregious assaults on the 1st Amendment regarding churches and his dogmatic executive orders on what is “essential” and “non essential”, I feel that it would behoove all of us to look into what the Federal Government is up too. Growing up in the 1950’s, on of my Mom’s sayings was: “money doesn’t grow on trees”. Well, it looks like Congress, with the approval of the President, just planted a $2.2 trillion dollar tree. The tree planting took a short time and the tree will be ready to harvest fruit in th...
With the Second World War over, work started on the creation of a 27-mile-long reservoir from Electric City to Coulee City. The old highway ran down the Upper Coulee floor, and a new replacement route would have to be built. To avoid being flooded, the new highway would cling to the southern coulee wall. This road was named Secondary State Highway 2F and ran through several condemned farmyards as it made its way across the coulee. Just outside Coulee City, the ground at the base of the east wall was unstable due to a series of unpredictable...
