News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Recently while visiting Cole Memorial Park in Coulee Dam, I noticed a few small decorations at the edge of the swimming pool, now a beach volleyball court, along with the following note: "I tried to beautify this area of memories. I wanted to bring back the joyful laughter and energy that used to echo off the walls. It was a safe place for kids to splash and holler and play with their school friends during the heat of the summer. "Because of the lifeguard, it was a place kids walked to for...
I’ve lived in the Nespelem area most of my life and am a graduate of Lake Roosevelt High School. My children were raised here too and are graduates of LRHS. Now my grandkids, grandnieces and grandnephews are being raised here on their way to being graduates of LR. I came from a traditionally Native home that was riddled with alcoholism and, unfortunately, so were my children. Now our families are living alcohol free, some of us 6-plus years in, and are doing our best to raise our children and grandchildren without that dysfunction of a...
On Homecoming night October 7, 2023, at about 11 p.m., I witnessed a Coulee Dam Police SUV travel through Grand Coulee at a very high speed with blue lights on. I would guess 70 miles per hour or more. If there would have been anything in his way it would be roadkill. To Coulee Dam, get a hold of your officer. Our officers in Grand Coulee may not do the traffic control that I like but they do show common sense. Robert Fields...
The good news is “we have good people in the right place” at Lake Roosevelt Schools, a consultant hired to coach principals in the school district told the board of directors Tuesday night, but “we have our work cut out.” Mike Horn had been working in the district for a 10-day period of coaching principals, also talking with staff to get input. In the course of discovering the district’s needs, he said, he’d learned that 78 percent of students at the school miss 10 percent of classes. “That’s daunting,” he told the board. Hiring Horn was one of...
A discussion on a persistent problem with vaping at school turned into an opening conversation on how to solve that and other discipline problems for some students at Lake Roosevelt Schools. Layla Flett, a student representative on the board of directors for the Grand Coulee Dam Area School District, cautioned the board and superintendent Tuesday night that some measures may not work as intended. The subject came up when Superintendent Rod Broadnax asked Flett how she thought the school year was going so far. Flett said the only real issue she...
Gone are the days when the area was served by two volunteer ambulance services, one in Coulee Dam, one in Grand Coulee, which now is the only one left. That’s getting to be a big job for the few volunteers left on the crew. And the city of Grand Coulee knows it’s picking up the whole tab. Grand Coulee Councilmember Tom Poplawski told local mayors at their Regional Board of Mayors meeting last week that the city would like them to start thinking about helping out with a specific portion of the cost. Every time an ambulance rolls out of the sta...
An agreement that lets the local community send trash to the local transfer station is in question because some of that trash comes from outside Grant County, where it ends up. The problem has to do with how state money is allocated down to counties for solid waste disposal. The Regional Board of Mayors first learned of the problem last month. Chairing the Oct. 4 meeting, Electric City Diane Kohout gave an update. As Grant County Solid Waste department was preparing a plan, they noticed that Coulee Dam was in their written plan, but Elmer City...
My pick is the fall. It offers some relief from the heat, and everything seems to return to normal. The tourists have thinned out, school is back in session, and the football season is upon us. I also like the fall colors. We don’t have a lot here in the coulee, but what we have is great. I’ve been to the New England states, but never at the right time of year. I moved to southern Idaho when I was in my 20s and always anxious to see new things. I discovered the South Hills, a splotch of hills and forests just south of Twin Falls. There were lar...
The Lady Raiders split the week with a win and loss, but their coach doesn't really see it that way. The Lake Roosevelt team beat Bridgeport in three sets in Coulee Dam Tuesday night, 25-12, 25-7, 25-17. With a 6-4 win-loss record in league (6-4 overall), the Raiders are two-thirds through their season, currently third in the league between Okanogan (7-1, 9-1), and Brewster (4-3, 4-4). After LR's win over Bridgeport in Coulee Dam Tuesday, Coach Kasey Garvin reflected on the win and on their...
The Colville Tribes announced Monday it had released nearly two dozen buffalo onto the open range on the reservation "to live in the wild" and that they planned to release all 30 they were receiving from the Kalispel Tribe. The animals once lived by the millions, primarily in the central plains for North America, until they were nearly driven to extinction through uncontrolled hunting and a U.S. government policy of eradication tied to intentional harm against, and control of, tribes, according...
Old cars are becoming a problem in Coulee Dam, just one of many that are increasing because the city’s ordinances don’t wield enough clout, according to one city council member. Councilmember Keith St. Jeor said he gets complaints from people who know the city has laws on the books to keep unlicensed cars from accumulating on the streets but they see no enforcement. “We don’t have a fee or fine schedule,” St. Jeor said, urging the city to create one to blanket many ordinances with a progressively increasing cost per violation. St. Jeor said...
National Newspaper Week (October 1-7) compels me to acknowledge my journalistic catastrophe of fifth grade. Based on my passion for reading Nashville’s two dailies, Miss Bunch handed me the plum assignment of launching a newspaper for our class. I joyously composed articles of my own and proofread the contributions of classmates. Alas, my mechanical ineptitude reared its ugly head and for the life of me, I couldn’t operate the mimeograph! So the project died without its first issue hitting the...
It’s football time and I am getting confused. Between time taken up by penalties and replays, plus ads, it’s getting tough to watch games. There are five- and 10-minute stretches where nothing is happening except poorly conceived ads and avoidable penalties. With all the talent in the country, you would think at least some ads would show some creativity. The penalties show me that there isn’t a lot of fine tuning going on in football programs. Upping test scores It’s time for parents and townspeople to take more of an interest in our schools...
When it comes to Brewster, there have been years when Lake Roosevelt could have claimed a moral victory if they'd held the Bears to two touchdowns by halftime, but not this year. The two teams looked like a good match on LR's field Friday night, better than Brewster's winning score of 19-8 might let on. "I think we played hard. We just lost our focus late in the game," Coach Geary Oliver said, and injuries didn't help, putting the team down three offensive line starters. "The replacement...
A month into the new school year, the school district in Grand Coulee Dam is teaching 23 fewer students than a year ago, the superintendent reported Monday night, but the Nespelem district has gained more than expected in its new, limited high school program. Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Rod Broadnax told the school board 10 specific students had not yet shown up but may yet. He did not say which grades those students would be in. Broadnax reminded the board that enrollment numbers affect the budget. In Nespelem Tuesday night...
As a kid I remember rooting for Idaho when they played the Cougars. It was great in both 1999 and 2000 when the Vandals won. In 1999, Idaho won 28-17, and in 2000, 38-34. They had a great tradition: the losing cheer squad had to walk from Pullman to Moscow, about nine miles. Needless to say that the Vandal cheer squad over the years got very familiar with the scenes between the two towns. Later it was great football when Jerry Kramer and Wayne Walker played for the Vandals. The two had great careers at Idaho and were drafted in the fourth...
How does that shirt hanging in your closet — that one (or five) you haven’t worn for a long time — fit in with high school spirit? Believe it or not, a week of school-spirit activities in October will include a clothing drive at Lake Roosevelt Jr/Sr High School that the community can participate in — either with donations or usage of what gets collected. The “LR Closet” is an intra-class competition to see which class can gather the most donations during Spirit Week, which will culminate in the annual homecoming football game Friday, Oct...
Lake Roosevelt's cross country athletes have been running all over - from Manson to Okanogan to Kettle Falls - and they're scheduled in Tonasket, Omak and Winthrop coming up. Their times at the Trojan Invite were reported last week. Below are Raider results from Okanogan with 11 other schools, and from Kettle Falls, with 17 other schools. The Raiders are scheduled to run in Tonasket Wednesday, Omak Oct. 4, and at Liberty Bell Oct. 7. Okanogan Invite LR varsity boys Place Grade Athlete Time Note...
A mechanic repairing his company’s semi-trailer died Sept. 11 at Coulee Medical Center as he was repairing its suspension, the company said in a press release. Mike Coppess, of Bellevue, Washington, was 68, married and the father of two, said Rich Braedt, director of Clinical Operations for Heritage Imaging. Emergency personnel responded to the scene at the hospital, where Coppess was pronounced dead. The trailer he was working on contained magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment, a service the company has been supplying at Coulee Medical C...
Coulee Dam is reviewing a proposed change in the rules that govern how property owners can rent their property for short periods of time. The change is sought by those who want to meet what they say is a consistent need in the local market already served by online companies like Airbnb that serve both property owners and renters for stays under 30 days. The city council spoke with Mike Manning of SCJ Alliance, a planning consultant for the city at their Sept. 13 meeting. Manning has been drafting changes to the city’s Comprehensive Plan to spel...
My name is Victoria Youmans, long time resident of the Columbia River living in Nakusp, British Columbia. As some of you may know, the water has been going your way most of the summer and continues to for the foreseeable future, while you have your summer recreation and nothing has changed for you. You would see a huge change in our back yard: our reservoir is almost at pre-dam levels and has left our lake to devastation. Our fish are dead on shores, birds abandoned nests with eggs, and marsh lands completely dried up. Not to mention our...
While media focus was on Joe Biden’s decree putting a tiny plot of land within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) off limits to oil and gas exploration, reporters ignored the bigger story. Biden’s other proclamation forbids tapping more than 10 million acres within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, a 23-million-acre area on Alaska’s North Slope. That is the area which should replenish the crude oil drawdown stemming from Biden’s oil withdrawal from strategic wells establi...
We are slowly losing a national treasure. Former president Jimmy Carter is 99 years old and is under permanent hospice care in his home in Plains, Georgia. His wife Rosalynn is also under hospice care. Jimmy is a national treasure and continues to be an inspiration to the country. The Iran hostage crisis began during his first year in office, 1977. The hostages were released as soon as Reagan defeated Carter amid reports of the B-actor’s activities to take advantage of the crisis. Carter was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the P...
The Raiders dominated the visiting Vikings of Mabton Friday in a game that racked up yardage for the Lake Roosevelt offense and showed off strengths of several Raiders, including some off the bench. LR prevailed 54-14, even after affording field time to less experienced players going into the second half up 40-0. Before the first home game of the season Friday, the team and fans paid homage with a moment of silence for their former coach and mentor, Bubba Egbert, who died in a horse-related acci...
Hundreds turned out for the Fish Fest at Spring Canyon last Saturday for what Emilee Franklin hopes will become an annual event. Franklin, and education specialist at Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area, said the event drew over 500 people into the park. Five of them actually caught fish, but 175 caught free fishing poles at the event that was put on to help kids learn to fish. "I think for the first year of the park ever doing anything like this in the community, it was a pretty big...
