News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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My son Paul is a month into a five-month trip to Alaska. He called Sunday from a small campsite near Prudhoe Bay, where you can get to the gate but you can’t get in unless you have a permit or work there. There are about 2,000 workers at the oil site, mostly Eskimos who reside in nearby villages. The oil-and-gas site is expansive and the living quarters are huge, allowing for an influx of temporary workers. It is claimed that the oil companies are highly sensitive to environmental issues since the big Exxon Valdez oil tanker issue in 1989. A n...
Here’s a story that is growing bigger by the day: Cyber scams are on the rise. My elderly family member fell for a common scam a few weeks ago: His screen appeared to be locked by “Microsoft” and he was urged to call the number the phony security alert displayed. If you call that fake number, a fake Microsoft representative will ask you to provide access to your computer, so he can steal sensitive data or download malicious apps. To be sure, in the digital era in which we all now live 24/7, you must assume that every email, text and phone call...
After a process going back more than two years, the Banks Lake Golf Course will soon be owned and operated by descendents of the area's original people: the Colville Confederated Tribes. Grant County Port District #7 Commissioners quickly voted to approve moving forward with the $1.2 million purchase and sale agreement after Commission Chair Jim Keene gave a presentation on the negotiations and terms at a June 11 Port Commission meeting. It was the only item on the agenda. "I'll just say that...
A member of the Grand Coulee Dam school board has resigned in the wake of a contentious stand the board took last week to not allow four graduates to "walk" at graduation. Deidre Ellsworth explained her decision to step down in a letter to "students offended by my action after the board meeting," which she asked The Star to publish. It's on page 2. The affected students allegedly had arranged to buy alcohol on the senior trip to Disneyland. The board backed the decision of the administration to...
The opening for Grand Coulee mayor netted one candidate, Ruth Dalton, who serves on the city council and has been the stand-in mayor for the last month, since the previous mayor resigned. Letters of interest were due Monday, and the council had planned to interview applicants at their June public meeting, which is scheduled for Tuesday, June 25 at 6 p.m. However, with the sole applicant already being a member of the council, the council may appoint Dalton as mayor at the June meeting without a formal interview, as allowed under state law, City...
The Colville Tribal Museum opened for the season last week, and they've already had visitors from multiple states stop in to learn local history and culture from the Tribes' History/Archeology Department. This year, staff have installed new exhibits you have probably not seen before - even if you are local. These exhibits include twined basket work by Omak mixed-media artist and tribal member Joe Feddersen, an old dendroglyph on a San Poil ponderosa pine, and a section dedicated to the crisis...
To the students offended by my actions after the board meeting regarding their classmates not allowed to walk in the LR graduation: As you can imagine this was very hard on all of us and coming to this decision had me heartbroken for all the families of the students not allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony. In the meeting I spoke on how it’s unfair to be placed in this position at all and how the blame fell on our shoulders in their eyes. When the meeting was over I approached a scene where another board member was being c...
Oh-K, I’m sorry. I should not have made everybody read my smarty mouth letters. I was really looking for a targeted reader. This huge pile of concrete has sat for years, I know the project had no plans to deal with this eyesore. I am not so naïve to think my letters would change their minds. Fact, nobody likes to be reminded of their obligations. Now they are really not going to look into this mess. This is pretty much what I figured would happen. My target readers list should be a superintendent or someone in upper management. So as Paul Ha...
Dreams did come true for Colleen Leskinen of Nespelem. Last week Colleen had an open house for her new daycare center. The daycare, just 50 yards from Colleen’s house, will be fully operable when state licensing officials make their official visit and signoff on the 2,400 square foot daycare building. Colleen is licensed for 35 children. She currently has 28. Building a new facility has long been a dream of Colleen’s. Her dream has come true. Her home and new daycare building is at the end of a long lane. If her dog Duke doesn’t announce your...
Four seniors at Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High School lost an appeal to the school board Tuesday night, after asking the board to let them walk across the stage at graduation with their peers. The seniors had reportedly bought alcohol on the senior trip to Disneyland the prior weekend, which they had promised not to do. The board had heard the appeals of four students in a meeting last Thursday and decided not to counter the administration's decision. The appeals of their classmates played out in...
June 7 is the official first First Friday of 2024. This year, the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber’s serial summertime pop-up market will be back at North Dam Park instead of Main Street. The evening market will run from 4 to 9 p.m. on June 7, August 2, and September 6. Vendors will include local businesses, art, leather and jewelry vendors, food trucks, plus a free craft table hosted by the local library, and other activities for kids. For entertainment, Kolton Carson, a Lake Roosevelt 10th grader, will be playing acoustic guitar and singing f...
Bureau of Reclamation officials opened the doors of the new fire station in Grand Coulee Tuesday during public tours of the nearly complete new facility they said would be open within a few weeks. With terrazzo floors embedded with LED lighting strips to guide engine drivers in, a computer room overlooking the engine bay, a huge kitchen with lockers for individual crew members, windows that adjust the incoming sunlight to the needs dictated by the HVAC system, and much more, the bright facility...
It’s not always clear who is going to learn what or when as consequences come down after rules are broken. But one possibility this week is that the community is learning to draw a meaningful line. Four students, by all accounts good ones, will suffer the consequences of breaking rules against alcohol at school functions and contrary to their own pledges: They won’t be allowed to walk at graduation this Saturday. Following two executive sessions, appeals from each of the four, and more appeals from some 30 or so of their supporters Tuesday nig...
Last Friday I received a phone call from Wir Smith, the adopted son of the late Dr. Pat Smith. I knew of Wir and his older brother Det from my trips to Vietnam in the period between 1968-1970. I had read about Dr. Smith in an article in the Seattle Times. She graduated from the UW School of Medicine and responded to a challenge to go to Vietnam and open a hospital in the Central Highlands. That was in the 1950s. It was not known at the time that in a few years there would be a war in the area. The article told of a group in the Seattle area tha...
We recently celebrated Memorial Day, a time of remembrance of those brave Americans who gave their lives to promote and protect the right of men everywhere to live free and responsibly in peace. My own Dad served in the army in Hawaii after the bombing of Pearl Harbor which began the Pacific campaign of WWII. We became a nation defending two fronts, one in the Pacific and the other in Europe where we joined forces with Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union against a truly deranged despot named Adolph Hitler. Had the Allies lost that war, o...
Celeste LaPlace chooses challenges, an evident mindset that has put her at the front of her class at Lake Roosevelt High School, which she hasn't really seen much of for a couple years. LaPlace is a Running Start student who will graduate from LR with both her high school diploma and a two-year college degree from Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake. "I've been able to do two years of college for free," she noted when asked about the good and bad aspects of pursuing that tougher path. She...
At the end of her high school education, Raeley Portch looks back on a community of people she says have influenced what she would become. "Everyone's been here for me," said the class co-salutatorian, "... everyone's shaped me into the person I've become." Portch, with a 3.98 GPA, reflected on "all the support our community has," whether it comes from teachers helping to make sure an event goes smoothly, or businesses, organizations, or individuals chipping in to help. "There's always someone...
The Grand Coulee city council is looking for the next mayor, and any registered voter living within city limits can throw their name into the ring. Interested applicants should bring a letter of intent to City Hall, 306 Midway Ave, by 4 p.m. on June 10. Letters can also be mailed to Grand Coulee City Hall, P.O. Box 180, Grand Coulee 99133. A letter of intent is similar to a cover letter for a job, and is up to individual applicants to decide what to write about. Possible topics could include: why you are interested in serving as mayor; your...
The Banks Lake Pumped Storage Project has lingered since Columbia Basin Hydropower first brought it to the attention of local leaders in 2016. Lately the project, planned to generate 500 to 1,000 megawatts of hydropower by moving water in an underground tunnel between Banks Lake and Lake Roosevelt, has drawn attention from a new potential investor and developer. But questions remain, hurdles are high, and clear steps forward are a ways off for the proposed project that would involve...
Faced with a housing shortage that threatens their efforts to find and keep rural health workers, Coulee Medical Center wants to develop a tiny-home community for their medical staff. If all the pieces fall into place, the designated "critical access" hospital serving four counties and the Colville Reservation could begin purchasing 30 tiny homes this October to place on their property across SR-174. The cluster of tiny 357-square-foot homes would be developed between the grain silos and the...
Every year on Memorial Day, a few citizens go to great effort to put on a tremendous display of patriotism to honor and remember those veterans who have passed on, dedicating new flags to those whose families wish to have them remembered with one. More than 600 American flags were flapping gently in the breeze Monday as speakers shared their thoughts on the day, and also during a moment of silence, which was a beautiful moment. It also meant volunteers put up and took down 600-plus flags, no easy task. But it is one that yields the kind of...
Service people catch the brunt of angry people. They have to take it out on somebody, I guess. You constantly read of incidents of anger interrupting airline travel. Usually, it is some small inconvenience brought on by someone who is having a very bad day. Incidents that you read about would have been unheard of in travel 50 years ago. I have traveled a lot, flying all over, and I never saw anger that you read about today. Airlines need to develop a D.B. Cooper drop from 30,000 feet to cool off some of these characters. Airline attendants are...
Four Lake Roosevelt athletes competed at the WIAA 1B, 2B, 1A State Championship Meet at Yakima's Zaepfel Stadium at Eisenhower High School May 23-25. John Cooley placed sixth at the state track meet in the 110-meter hurdles in 16.94 seconds. Cooley came in ninth in the 300-meter hurdles in 43.10. He came in 12th in the triple jump with a personal record of 38 feet, 2.5 inches. Carly Neddo placed eighth in the javelin at the state tournament with a throw of 109 feet, 11 inches, and ninth in the...
The Lady Raiders notched their first-ever win at the state tournament last week before losing two more games to knock them out of the competition. The Lady Raiders ended their season ranked eighth among the state's 48 teams in the 2B classification, with a 19-7 overall win-loss record. Head Coach Jaci Gross said the team has been to the WIAA state tournament in Yakima four times, but hadn't won a game there until they beat the Liberty (Spangle) Lancers in their first game on May 24 in the...
After eight weeks with the position vacant, Grand Coulee now officially has an acting police chief. Grand Coulee Police Officer Levi Johnson will serve in the role for up to six months until a permanent chief is hired, the city council affirmed at their regular meeting May 21. Although the motion to appoint Johnson passed unanimously, no one from the council table made any speeches or comments surrounding the appointment. Afterwards, some council members and members of the public offered their...
