News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Electric City's first-ever city-owned park may open this year on a parcel of city land behind the fire barn, capping off years of planning and discussions going back nearly a decade. The city council May 14 voted to approve the park committee's proposed plan, scaled back from some of the original proposals. The fenced, rectangular park will include a covered picnic shelter with tables and charcoal BBQ, a vault toilet, a walking path around the perimeter, irrigated lawn, a water fountain and...
On Memorial Day, we traditionally honor Americans in our military who gave their lives in battle for our country. It is called the “Ultimate Sacrifice,” and they died protecting our freedoms and keeping us safe. In recent times, we have acknowledged our citizens in uniform who continue to suffer with permanent combat emotional and physical scars. They are alive largely because our battlefield survival is dramatically improving, and our accompanying rehabilitation expands. This Memorial Day we...
It’s true; apples don’t fall far from trees. Over the years I have been fortunate to travel quite a bit. Now it’s my oldest son Paul’s time to travel. He retired a year ago and started planning a near five-month trip to Alaska. He is the Daniel Boone member of the family. His travels are outdoor treks, living in the great outdoors. He has a half dozen canoe trips on Yellowstone Lake, living along the shoreline in all kind of situations, most of the time alone. On his last trip there, he had a grizzly bear in his camp only a few feet away. When...
As many of you know, Central Washington is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. From Sunnyside to Okanogan, our hardworking producers provide the food for our nation, and the world. Central Washington is currently the top producer of many agricultural products, including potatoes, tree fruit, berries, wheat, and various types of livestock and poultry. This success resulted in over $7.29 billion in sales in Washington’s 4th Congressional District alone in 2022. This is due to the over 7,890 farms across Central W...
Five Raiders will compete at the 2024 WIAA 1B - 2B - 1A Track & Field Championships in Yakima May 23-25 after their team won the North Central 2B League Championship May 7, then qualified for state at the District 6 Championships in Brewster last Thursday. Lake Roosevelt junior John Cooley took first in Brewster in the 300-meter hurdles in 43.69 seconds. Cooley also took second in the 110m hurdles in 16.09, third in the triple jump at 37 feet, 5.575 inches, and sixth in javelin with a 116-foot t...
When Presley Steffens was in sixth grade, her future coach, Jaci Gross, gave her a shot at batting against standout Lady Raider pitcher Emma Marchand, just to try it out, see how it feels. Marchand got one past her. The next one went over the fence. Friday night, Steffens, now a sophomore, demonstrated her skills at both pitching and batting, slugging one over the fence in the fourth inning to bring in Taylor Thomas Vargas and herself, bumping the score to its final 15-4, then taking the mound f...
Grand Coulee is looking for more patrol officers, a police chief, a wastewater treatment plant operator, and a public works director. Starting Friday, the city will need a new mayor as well. Mayor Mike Eylar announced his intention to step down from the role, due to medical issues, at a special city council meeting May 14, less than five months after being sworn in. “Bills will continue to be paid, payroll will continue to be paid, decisions will continue to flow,” Eylar said at the special session. Councilmembers had just learned of his res...
Leaders of two school districts Tuesday night, agreed to a “tuition” plan that’s been in dispute for months, which threatened to cost them over half a million dollars that would otherwise go to educating their students. Everyone was relieved at a joint meeting of the boards of directors of the Nespelem and Grand Coulee Dam School districts. “Thank you so much for working hard to make that agreement successful,” GCDSD Board President Rich Black said. “I know it wasn’t exactly what you had in mind. It wasn’t exactly what we had in mind.” At is...
Two short roads responsible for carrying 100% of Coulee Medical Center traffic in Grand Coulee will undergo reconstruction beginning next week and lasting into the summer. Fortuyn Road and James Saunders Street will be closed except to “local traffic only” starting Monday, May 20, according to an informational flyer delivered to Fortuyn residents last week. What that means in practice for ambulances and hospital visitors is not yet known, but the contractor is working on a plan for continued access, according to Grand Coulee Clerk Lorna Pea...
Last Saturday was my 34th Colorama Parade. I will likely remember this one more than the rest. I had sat at my vantage point for over an hour before the parade started. It was really hot out. Just as the first part of the parade reached my location the heat got to me and I passed out. This is really about our local healthcare providers and how they help us when we have problems. On the scene almost immediately was Rick Paris and his ambulance crew. While I wasn’t tuned in to much, I remember how pleased I was that Paris was on the scene. I h...
I am the first to admit when I’m wrong. A city employee and I had a talk. He informed me that the concrete (see “Let’s try common sense on illegal dump” in May 8 issue) was not from the city road project, but from a private party. He knows who but doesn’t want to get in volved. So, my apologies to the city. But I still wish it would get cleaned up! Robert Fields...
I am the first to admit when I’m wrong. A city employee and I had a talk. He informed me that the concrete (see “Let’s try common sense on illegal dump” in May 8 issue) was not from the city road project, but from a private party. He knows who but doesn’t want to get in volved. So, my apologies to the city. But I still wish it would get cleaned up! Robert Fields...
The Lady Raiders took a loss after a win this week in their quest to make it to the state Fastpitch Softball Championships at Yakima's Gateway Sports Complex May 24-25. In District 6 playoffs, Lake Roosevelt bested Tonasket 8-7 in Grand Coulee May 10, as league pitcher of the year Presley Steffens struck out 13 batters. Last night, however, LR lost to the Lady Bulldogs, 5-2, in Okanogan. LR (17-5) will now play Brewster on the Raider's home diamond in Grand Coulee Friday at 4:30 p.m. in a...
It will start at 11 a.m., just as it has for decades, but for a few hours, chamber leaders thought the upcoming annual Colorama Parade on Saturday would have to be canceled. In fact, it was called off on Monday afternoon. Until about 5 a.m. Tuesday. That's when the executive director of the chamber got an email from the Grant County Sheriff's Office, saying they would, after all, be able to send three deputies in cars to help with traffic control. Closing two intersecting state highways for an h...
Don Redfield will not be the Grand Coulee police chief after all, Mayor Mike Eylar confirmed yesterday. Details were closely guarded at press time, but the city will “re-cast the net,” Eylar said, based on the city attorney’s counsel. “For reasons I can’t go into, it was on advice from counsel that we not go in that direction,” Eylar said in a phone call yesterday. “I hate to pass the buck on this because the buck stops with me. But I don’t know what in particular I’m allowed to speak of, so I’m going to err on the side of caution.” City atto...
The town hall on regionally-significant topics spanning town and county boundaries in the Grand Coulee Dam area has been postponed indefinitely, the Regional Board of Mayors decided at their May meeting last week. It would have been the first town hall of its kind, and was to include time for the public to comment on regional issues in the presence of all four mayors and most of the council members from the four towns. But diminished staffing availability meant the most knowledgeable people wouldn’t be present for the main agenda item: the p...
I have tried to address the illegal dumping on federal land a couple of times, but Scott did not agree with me, so he throws my letters in the trash. So I went to The Star building and asked why? He told me I need to quit writing my letters as though they are facts. So let’s use another word, common sense. A couple of years ago Grand Coulee had a contract to do a good sized road project on Federal Ave. (The shortcut through town.) I can only guess that the contractor was paid to properly dispose of the leftover landfill. That was when five d...
Having family at Grand Coulee, I have relatives who work at the dam and it mystifies me how little attention presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., pays to hydro-electric power. True, I mention wind and solar, but rarely (if ever) hydro. The man comes from a rich family and most of them have disavowed him as “dangerous” and called his make-believe candidacy a “vanity project”. He shows images of his father (RFK, Senior) and his uncle (President JFK). But one thing is for sure, “Junior” cannot hold a candle to either of those gentl...
We honor our mothers this week. This, of course, is something we should do all year long. I was born at the beginning of the Great Depression. My mother was a depression mother, the kind that is made of kindness and steel. She was the rock of the family. During the 1930s jobs were scarce. My father often had to work out of town and returned home for the weekends. I remember he worked one full year at Moses Lake. The depression is what brought my parents and siblings to Palouse. My father, who was born in Palouse, was discharged out of the army...
Two students at Lake Roosevelt Jr./Sr. High School were expelled on an emergency basis Thursday after an investigation of their emails revealed threats to kill five students at the school. During an authorized investigation into one student’s emails, school personnel came across a “hit list” of five students to kill, naming two of them. The responding student asked who they were and wrote that he or she would help. The two students doing the emailing were not in school on Thursday and now won’t be, following the emergency expulsion. The school...
If you’ve received an unexpected hospital bill recently due to your insurance company denying payment, you’re not alone: Coulee Medical Center staff reported an uptick in denials by insurers when the hospital attempts to collect on claims. “They’re hanging up on our billers when they call,” Chief Financial Officer Kelly Hughes told the hospital board last month as part of her monthly financial report. It’s an issue that goes far beyond the Coulee area, and in fact appears to reflect a nationwide trend that started to become evident to hospitals...
Colorama gets its name from the colorful lights the Bureau of Reclamation used to project onto the milelong concrete dam to mark the start of the summer tourism season here in the Coulee, in the years before the laser light show became a summertime staple. Nowadays, a big part of the weekend festival happens at North Dam Park in Grand Coulee: the vendor fair and food purveyors, live music, a beer garden, and this year, a little traveling circus of aerialists, stilt walkers, jugglers, clowns and...
Jericho Desautel was crowned queen of the prom Friday night, with Damon Landeros crowned king. Alice "Wheatie" Desautel said Jericho's classmates had been "nothing but amazing," supporting the girl who has a rare chromosomal disorder that causes developmental delay. "As her family, the people that love her, we find comfort that since day one, her classmates have loved her, cared for her, watch out for her, acknowledge her as their peer, and treat her like she's a part of THEM," Desautel wrote...
What if our president went to the Arlington Cemetery to put a wreath on the unknown soldier and said the soldier who gave his life to protect us was a loser and a sucker? What if our president got out of the service draft about a half dozen times by claiming one ailment after another and then bragged that he had torn up his draft card? What if he said John McCain was no hero after his airplane was shot down and the Vietnamese captured him. John did about five years of torture. Was McClain a loser and sucker also? Don Andrews...
When coming from Coulee Dam through Grand Coulee I understand people like to take a left at The Star newspaper building to save time on the way to Wilbur. If it is a safety hazard, make it a four-way stop! Or tell area police to patrol it. The money was not appropriated for signs on Federal and Main; they were bought for entry into our town from Bridgeport and Wilbur. Is that so hard? I feel like Nicholas Cage in the movie Con Air. (Why can’t you just give me the bunny????) Robert Fields...
