News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 326 - 350 of 6969
The Raiders were slipping in their game early against Bridgeport Friday night until an attitude adjustment took hold. That's when Coach Ed Wolfe refocused the team's efforts on the word "team." "I told them we didn't have any players who were the best in the state, but when we play as a team, it's fantastic," Wolfe said later. Lake Roosevelt was up by six points early in the second quarter, but had gained a 46-27 margin by the half. The Raiders stuffed the Mustangs 85-44 at the end. LR beat...
The Lady Raiders prevailed over Waterville-Mansfield in basketball last week, but lost to Tonasket last night by a similar score last night. Both games were on the Raider home court. Another game on Friday, against Bridgeport, was canceled. Against the Shockers last Wednesday at home, Lake Roosevelt's girls kept ahead of the Shockers throughout the game and won 57-47. Hosting Tonasket Tuesday night, the Raider girls fell 55-42. LR heads to Oroville Friday night but faces Spangle in Coulee Dam...
An effort to put a school resource officer at Lake Roosevelt Schools and add another policeman to Grand Coulee’s department has been stopped, and grant funding for it turned down. Funded partially by a federal grant, the effort would have expanded Grand Coulee Police efforts to enhance community relations and allay potential future problems with an in-school presence. It also would have required coordination of two budgetary processes right at a time when both the city and the school district needed to finalize budgets by law. The city had u...
Nespelem School is hoping to find extra land on which to expand with a future sports area. The board voted last week to formally inquire with the Colville Tribes about land across the street currently held in trust status that the school board members recall being acquired by the tribes for that purpose. The board met in special session Dec. 26 specifically to authorize a letter to Colville Business Council Chairman Jarred-Michael Erickson to address the topic. “It was years ago that the tribe had let us know that they had purchased the p...
How about making an effort to visit a national park this year. It’s a great way to rebuild your appreciation of our country. We have three great national parks in our own state and a couple of others within a day’s drive. One of my favorites is Olympic National Park. It’s a day’s drive away but will take you to our coast, and inside the park offers a unique experience. The Rain Forest is unique and a bit scary with the moss hanging from the trees. Allow time to go into the Rain Forest for at least a couple of miles. Quite often you will ru...
Tom Smothers wasn’t the first performer to weaponize comedy for political purposes, but he was perfectly suited for it. During the height of his career with brother Dick in the ’60s and ’70s he took on Lyndon Johnson over his Vietnam policies and Richard Nixon over, well, just about everything. When news came that Tommy died of cancer on Dec. 26, many of us immediately recalled the playful jibes exchanged by the brothers as hosts of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” on CBS. “Mom always liked you best,” was Tommy’s favorite bit of bait for...
It was half-past second coffee and darn near to French toast time and it had been very quiet at the round table, that general headquarters of the World Dilemma Think Tank. “Heard something interesting yesterday,” said Herb. “Kids were talking on the sidewalk and I couldn’t help but hear parts of it. I had to stop and ask them about it, even if it seemed rude to them. “Seems somebody tipped them off that there was a thousand dollars in gold coins buried beneath the stepping stone going into Jenkin’s cabin.” Dud looked up, “But nobody knows wh...
Electric City will ask voters to approve a ballot measure in February that will remove four parcels of land from the city that had been added in an earlier annexation. The city had started to add the question to last month’s ballot but had missed the deadline to do so. The city council Dec. 12 unanimously passed Resolution 2023-14 to put the measure on the Feb. 13, 2024 ballot. The proposal would de-annex all of the state and federal lands surrounding Osborne Bay east of the causeway, which the city annexed several years ago, along with l...
Coulee Dam is planning street and sidewalk improvement projects in the new year that will smooth out streets, build or rebuild sidewalk ramps and plant trees to replace those lost on Ferry Avenue in last year’s sidewalk replacement project. The city has been awarded two grants, one for a chip seal street project for $546,485. An ADA ramp replacement project will cost $481,406. Both projects are totally funded by grants, funds that don’t have to be paid back, not loans. TD&H Engineering representative Marisa Stevens said they had actually mea...
As we wrap up a very inflationary 2023, pet shelters across the country are at maximum capacity and they don’t have room to house the pets people are turning in. ABC News reports that animals entering shelters began to climb in 2021. During the covid pandemic, you see, many people adopted pets, but as they began to go back to the workplace, some decided they no longer wanted to care for a pet, so they turned them back in. The past year was significantly worse for pets because adoptions are falling far short of the increase in sheltered pets. ...
In the 1990s, “Things go better with Coca Cola” was the catchy slogan that dairy farmers dreaded. At the time, milk producers were in a head-to-head battle with soft drink giants and losing market share. Milk consumption had steadily declined over the previous two decades. One key reason was aggressive advertising by bottlers of iced tea, water, and soda pop. By 1993, nationwide milk consumption declined 20 percent and was down to less than one cup per person per day, Savuer.com reported. So,...
Lake Roosevelt sent 10 girls to the mat at the 2023 Powerhouse Girls' Tournament at LR Thursday, taking third place among 11 teams of girls with 64 wrestlers entered. LR's Nelly Selam won the 100 weight category, defeating athletes from White Swan and Leavenworth, pinning each. Phenyx Marchand also took a first, at 155, besting wrestlers from Omak and Tonasket. The team's only senior, Arianna Waters took second place at the 135 weight category, pinning two opponents, including White Swan's...
Four of Lake Roosevelt's nine wrestlers at the Powerhouse Tournament they hosted Dec. 21 placed in the tournament, putting the team in the middle of the 16-team tourney with 74 team points. Tonasket won the tourney with 216.5 points. Wrestling at 150 pounds, Francis Louie pinned Tonasket's Casen Clark in 1:55 to take third place in the weight and earn 22 points for the team. Along the way, he pinned three opponents and got pinned once himself. Dillan Yazzie, at 113, lost 5-3 to a White Swan...
Events for or featuring kids marked the week before Christmas, with a school pre-holiday musical event kicking off a mood of celebration Friday that packed the Lake Roosevelt gym with a "mind-blowing" number of adults, according to the emcee, Jess Tufts. That spirit of community support seemed to carry through the weekend, with Santa hearing children's Christmas wishes in at least three venues in town on Saturday - at the Moose Lodge's annual party, at Les Schwab Tire Center, and at a new...
Lake Roosevelt's relatively short Raider basketball team seriously beat up on their league's perennial powerhouse Brewster Bears Friday night, 90-56, signaling with a lot of talent that Raider fans will continue to like this basketball season. Head Coach Ed Wolfe had touted the varsity team's defensive chops earlier in the season, but they've got some serious scoring ability too, and it's widespread - over the court and through the team. They scored on fast breaks a lot, with Chase Marchand...
The Lady Raiders had a mixed week with two losses and a win, all on their home court, that puts them at a 3-3 overall win-loss record so far. Lake Roosevelt fell hard to Brewster Friday night, 65-34, but took down 1A Omak 64-23 the next night. Mabton flipped that score to claim the win Tuesday night 68-40. The Lady Raiders (3-3 overall) will meet Nine Mile's Lakeside Eagles (6-0) Dec. 28 in Reardan at 2 p.m., then take on Okanogan (4-1) there Jan. 2 at 6 p.m. LR will host Waterville-Mansfield...
The Grand Coulee Police Department is critically understaffed, yet the city council has declared a hiring freeze for an unspecified length of time. Currently, the department has six full-time officers. A fully staffed local police force would be eight officers. Interestingly, mandatory overtime has become the norm as the city refuses to search for qualified candidates. Presumably, the reason behind the hiring freeze is an unbalanced budget. However, typical monthly overtime for our officers averages 30-40 hours per month, and we all know... Full story
My love for flying in a small plane came gradually. The first small plane ride was when I lived here the first time, in 1954. I was a lumber grader at the small planer mill above the dam. There was a guy working on the crew who had been a bush pilot in Alaska who had his own plane. The guy invited me to go along with him on a Saturday flight. We flew to Spokane, Missoula, Orifino, to the Pullman-Moscow airport, and then home. We took all day. That was my first experience in a small plane. The next time was when I started writing for the Idaho...
Not only did four Raiders place well at last Saturday's Brice Williams Invite in Spangle, but Lake Roosevelt's wrestling team also turned out to be the most underestimated at the 16-team tourney. The Raider wrestlers, taken all together, scored the most match points of any team there (151), and ended up with the largest difference between their seeding into the event and where they actually ended up among the team rankings. When it was all over LR came in eighth with 81 team points racked up by...
The Raider boys scored their fifth straight win Tuesday night, defeating the Mountain Lions at Liberty Bell 61-52. "The game started out very slow and sluggish for us but once we got our tempo picked up things turned around for us," said Head Coach Ed Wolfe. Brandon Pino picked it up early and finished with 22 points to lead in Raider scoring. In the first quarter, Chase Marchand scored the 1,000th point in his high school basketball career, a rare feat and "huge milestone for him," Wolfe said....
Grand Coulee will offer a new police chief a starting salary range from $95,000 to $110,000 a year. That was decided at the Nov. 21 city council meeting to prepare for the coming retirement of Chief John Tufts, who is currently paid a salary of about $127,200 per year, the mayor said. That outpaces salaries for chiefs in many other cities of similar size in Washington, according to Councilmember Anita Eylar, who looked up several with populations around 1,000 currently paying in a range of $4,800-$6,100. Others pointed out that population size...
Elmer City residents should look in their utility bills for a link to a survey that is the first step in the town's planning efforts toward coming up with a plan to improve its park or outdoor recreation offerings, and apply for funds to make them real. In addition to the online link, paper copies will be available at the town hall. "It is important that the Town receive a high return rate in order to accurately assess community desires," a press release on the subject states. "It is fine for...
Six local municipalities will receive nearly $3.9 million in funding help for street projects in 2024, having been selected by the state Transportation Improvement Board, the agency announced this week. Coulee Dam will get more than $1 million for two projects: $546,185 will go for chip sealing many streets in the city. Another $486,406 will go to wheelchair ramp upgrades in multiple locations. Electric City will get $155,000 for street maintenance. Grand Coulee will get $126,875 for Spokane Way improvements from Alcan Road to East Grand...
For 2024, Lincoln County will be paying over $1,500,000 in risk insurance premiums. This represents a drastic increase of over 83% from just two years ago and 53% over 2023. And … these rates are expected to escalate next year as well, with no end in sight. Next to wages and benefits, risk insurance represents the second largest expense for the county. One might wonder why such dramatic increases are happening. There are multiple factors at play, such as the state Legislature passing laws that de-criminalize property crime, joint and several l...
America has a love affair with ghost towns. I’ve visited several, but the most memorable is Silver City, Idaho. Silver City is about 75 miles south of Boise and is probably the most significant thing in Owyhee County. This county is in the southwest corner of Idaho. We lived in Nampa at the time and used our weekends to explore the area. We had read about the ghost town and headed out that way. The county seat of Owyhee County is Murphy. Barely 100 people call it home. Not many buildings there. In front of its courthouse is a lone parking m...
