News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Why am I cold all the time? Doesn’t the weatherman know it’s supposed to be spring? But I’ve seen much colder days. I endured 46 below when working for Potlatch Forest shortly after I got out of high school. Work area layout was a cement slab with a tin roof and the sides all open. Three planer machines filled the interior of the huge shed. One person fed the boards into the machine, and two graders marked the planed boards according to their value. Two more pulled the boards off the chains and put them in appropriate piles. The winter had b...
In my column I have often mentioned what good neighbors I have. I particularly mention Dave and Dorothy Stiegelmeyer, who frequently are doing little things to make life easier for me. I received a postcard recently from an old friend asking if he was a good neighbor when living next to us in Nampa, Idaho when we were both attending college. That was in or about 1957. I assured him that he was. Earl Tromburg and his wife Velma lived right next to us in the Vetville apartment complex made up of about a dozen apartments for students attending sch...
We have just celebrated Indigenous People’s Day. We have called this Columbus Day for far too long. We have been taught for centuries that Columbus discovered America. As a people, we developed a word ditty that helps us remember this untruth. When Columbus landed in the new world there were already over a million natives occupying the land. In their eyes, his appearance and the resulting occupation of the country by the white man created issues that we are still learning how to deal with. School boards are the most recent place to show a...
Sometimes doing things only once is a good idea. This is particularly true for me when it involves heights. The top rung in an eight-foot ladder is enough for me. Flying into Kodiak, Alaska was a prime example of the kind of coward I’ve become. We were in an old plane, I should say a primitive plane, which held about 20 passengers — and our suitcases were loaded inside the passenger compartment. We were making our approach to the runway with 70 mph winds pushing the plane to the side. The pilot would rev the engines to bring us back in lin...
You see, I have this dog, by accident I remind you. Ten years ago I stopped and bought a dog from someone selling pups from the trunk of their car. The plan was for the pup to go to my great granddaughter, Kaylee. That lasted about two or three days and to my dismay the pup landed at my house. Well, I should have known better because Kaylee was only 6 at the time. It was a she dog, and I made my second mistake; I had the dog spayed. I should have planned a batch of pups so I could get my money back. I can’t see me selling pups out of my t...
My wife and I liked the coulee so much that we moved here twice. The first time was in 1954 when I accepted a job grading lumber at the planing mill above the dam. I worked for Everett Kirkpatrick and a junior partner. Old timers will remember the mill and Kirkpatrick. I had come to the area to take a position as lumber grader at Lincoln Lumber Company, a few miles upstream. I’d had earlier training at Potlatch Lumber Company in Potlatch, Idaho. At that time, they floated logs down the Columbia River to the mill site. Sad to say that the o...
Two Gun Willie was a featured attraction at Silver City, Idaho. The old mining town had seen better days, and so had “two gun.” Willie was born William James Hawes in 1876, right in the town, that in its heyday had some 2,500 residents. Willie became the guardian of the ghost town after mining diminished and the houses wore out and slowly tumbled to the ground. Silver City is 75 miles from Boise, the final 23 miles from Murphy on a dirt-and-clay road that you want to stay away from when it’s been raining. Murphy is the county seat of Owyhe...
A few years ago, I found a small box in my mail from Bill Thompson, a classmate of mine from Palouse. Bill and I, along with 13 others, spent all 12 years together out of a class of 24. Needless to say, we were tight, and very close friends. I opened the box when I got home, and inside was a small agate marble, and a note. The note said, “As God is my witness, this is a marble that I got from you a long time ago when we were kids.” When we were young, we played marbles for keeps, and I had, over the years from about 1940-42, accumulated abo...
A fossilized leg bone of the Hagerman Horse will soon be on its way home. It has been in my possession for 60 years, and it will soon rest where it had been for thousands of years before I dug it up in 1958. The bone has been with me in Nampa, Boise, Othello, Lynnwood, Woodinville, Bothell and now Electric City. I am told that the Hagerman Horse (equus simplicidens) was killed off some 50,000 years ago, and I will be happy when the bone is finally returned to the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, at Hagerman, Idaho. I dug the bone out of...
In a few days the University of Washington Huskies will be in the Rose Bowl. It will be their 15th appearance in Pasadena and the Huskies will have the opportunity to tilt the record in their favor, currently having a 7-7 record. Washington’s first appearance was in 1924, and their last in 2001. But this column is about Washington’s sixth appearance, in 1960, when they defeated the University of Wisconsin, 44-8, and how I got there. I was working for the Idaho Statesman in Boise at the time. One day the owner of the paper, Jim Brown, came and...
I had my heroes, just like every kid. Mine really got started by getting to know the owner of one of the three active taverns in Palouse in the late 1930s. His name was Pop Brantner. I never did learn his first name. The unlikely friendship began from my bringing in empty beer bottles, for a penny a “stubby” and five cents for a quart bottle. Kids could go in the back door of the tavern, up to the pool tables with their retrieved bottles, and Pop would come back and pay us for them. For some reason, Pop took a liking to me and started tal...
Meet the late Will Chaussee. On the outside, he was a cedar lumber owner-dealer. On the inside, he was a mountain man, and he owned a sapphire mine between Hamilton and Philipsburg, Montana. He retired and annually invited me to his place up in the mountains, where we fished, explored a bit and told stories that were mostly true. He had returned to Bothell on business and looked in on me at the newspaper there where I worked, and said, “Look what I found at the mine, a sapphire fit for a king.” That started it, and for the next several mon...
I would like to make it clear: I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me who wrote that op-ed piece in the New York Times telling of the disarray at the White House. This is for the record. I do not know anyone that works for the Times, I have never been in their building, and I have not met with anyone from the Times at an alternate location. Now, I must admit that I do receive the Times’ Sunday edition, courtesy of my daughter, Kathy Beck. I receive it on Monday, but I do not have contact with a member of their staff. It comes in the mail. For insta...
The person who called it “the last great race on earth” was probably right. The Iditarod is run each year the first weekend in March, with the next one is kicking off March 2, 2019. It’s the sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska, a distance of nearly 1,000 miles. There are actually two routes they use, one for even numbered years and another for odd numbered years, each just shy of the 1,000 miles. The race tests the endurance of man, beast, and equipment, with the elements usually taking their toll. It was in 1993 that I met Stan Smith...
The long, sleek train reeked of speed as it pulled into Tokyo station. I was finally going to ride Japan’s world-famous “bullet train” at speeds over 100 miles an hour. It was difficult to reference speeds on rails of such proportions. I was traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto, and later to Osaka, a total distance of some 375 miles. This was to be new to me of rail travel for a number of reasons — the speed, of course, but also for the absence of the constant clickety clack of the wheels of the train passing over the joints of the rails beneath...
Sometimes sports heroes come from unlikely places. Take the case of Vernon Law, right-handed pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Vernon came from Meridian, Idaho, a few clicks out of Boise, and midway between Boise and Nampa. Law won two games during the 1960 World Series as Pittsburgh turned away the New York Yankees in a seven-game series. A tall, lanky kid at the time, Law threw from the right, and distinguished himself over a long career, interrupted by three years in the military. That World Series year, Law ended with a 20-9 win-loss...
In the late 1950s and well into the ’60s, a number of Idaho athletes were at the edge of dominating their respective sports. Shirley Englehorn, from Caldwell, Idaho, at the west end of the Boise Valley, was one of them. She won 11 times on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour and posted another win, not part of the tour. She was born in 1940 and turned pro in 1958, winning her first tournament, the Eastern Open, by a three-stroke margin in 1962. Her career was closely watched by everyone at the Idaho Statesman, where Publisher James B...
I entered Electric City the other day through its southern portal, and was shocked. I don’t know why; I had entered the city through its south end a hundred times before. But this time the many eyesores along the entrance to the city stood out like sore thumbs. There are a number of eyesores — all, I think, owned by individuals — that would shock anyone. I wondered, are all these landowners from Kansas, and why had they all settled here? Maybe the former city attorney had it right after all. He painted a welcoming sign on the front of his b...
Strike, ball, foul ball, you're out, you are safe - all calls you would expect from an umpire. Right? Meet one umpire that has added a whole lot more. Kenny Dexter. Ken was the public works director for Electric City, retiring about a year ago after nearly 40 years on the job. He not only had a long career working for the city, but Ken has been a softball umpire for about 20 years now, and is still at it. He's added a new dimension over the years to umpiring. Sitting in the stands, you probably...
Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Dennis Carlson announced Wednesday that both he and Nespelem School District Superintendent Rich Stewart have agreed to delay the opening of their respective schools until Sept. 8. Both schools were scheduled to begin Sept. 1, but with the problem of wildfires and smoke, it was decided on the delay. In Nespelem, Sept. 8 will actually be a training day for teachers, not a school day for students. Nespelem's annual welcoming barbecue is set for Sept. 9 at 5 p.m. The first full day of classes is...
Animal control workers removed over 60 cats from a home in Electric City Monday. Representatives from Pasado’s Safe Haven, a rescue operation from Monroe, Wash., along with Grand Coulee Police Chief John Tufts, completed taking the cats from Mardee Davis at 103 W. Grand Avenue. Davis said Tuesday that she had called Pasado’s for help. “I have been trying to get help since things started piling up on me,” Davis said. Friends are coming this weekend to help her clean the place, she explained. Davis said she had been busy helping her ailing... Full story
Update As of 9 a.m., Thursday, Aug. 7, the fires had consumed nearly 8,300 acres and was threatening some 50 homes and 50 other structures. One outbuilding has burned. San Poil Valley residents were ordered to evacuate Tuesday due to several fires on the Colville Indian Reservation that have burned about 2,000 acres, according to officials at the Mt. Tolman Fire Center. Some 20 to 25 homes are threatened, along with cultural resources, power lines and commercial timber. One fire, burning in... Full story
A new mayor and two new council members were sworn in at Coulee Dam last Monday. Mayor-elect Greg Wilder, and council members-elect Gayle Swagerty and Duane Johnson all took their oaths of office at a ceremony at town hall with U. S. Attorney Michael C. Ormsby, United States Attorney from the Eastern Division of Washington, and Dana Cleveland of the Office of the Reservation Attorney at the Colville Indian Agency, officiating. Over 60 persons showed up for the official swearing in process.... Full story
Two fires separated by a couple of miles and a day scrambled local fire fighters early this week to protect property. Brisk winds pushed a fire Sunday night perilously close to Lone Pine homes and briefly brought on a level-three evacuation notice for that area as well as River Drive in Coulee Dam. Monday, fire marshals were combing the area trying to determine the cause of the 15-acre blaze. The fire started shortly after 7 p.m. and lit up the skies as flames worked their way through grass,... Full story
A chamber of commerce-sponsored meeting of community leaders Monday selected a committee whose goal is to approach the three municipalities that collect hotel/motel tax money about the possible formation of a tourism advisory board to oversee spending it. Many in the room clearly would like to see local municipal councils shake loose of nearly a half million dollars not being used to increase tourism, the intent of the law that authorizes the tax. The meeting was a continuation of an earlier gathering where many of the same people discussed... Full story