News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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John Nordine is living proof that the third time is the charm. That's how many times he tried to enlist in the Army before he was accepted. The first two times, John was rejected because he was just under 5 feet tall and just under 100 pounds. The third time John tried, he had a little help from a helpful doctor who measured his height while he was wearing cowboy boots and weighed him with all his clothes on, of which he had plenty. "I measured five feet and a quarter inch and just over 100...
Jess Ford in Grand Coulee has purchased Damskov Auto Sales in Omak. This will be the third auto store under the Jess family name. The Omak location is 707 Okama Drive, and will eventually become Jess Auto. “We have taken over operations of the Omak agency while all the final details are concluded,” Wade Jess said Monday. The Jess family purchased its Grand Coulee operation from L.F. “Buss” Carlson in 1991, and the Ford dealership on Grand Avenue in Pullman, Washington, in 2004. Speaking of the Damskov purchase, Wade Jess said that his son, Co...
A 100-year-old Odessa man, who was the oldest living man known to work on Grand Coulee Dam, has died. Edwin Kerns, who in his latter years, returned to Grand Coulee Dam on his birthday, May 25, passed away Nov. 3. His full obituary is on page four in this week’s Star Newspaper. Employees at the Visitor Center honored Kerns each year when he returned to view Grand Coulee Dam, and especially last May 25, on his 100th birthday. Kerns worked on the dam from 1935 to 1939. While here on his 100th birthday, Kerns received best wishes from the VC s...
’Tis the Season for the Trees of Sharing of 2016. The Trees of Sharing program is a way for area residents to anonymously provide Christmas gifts to local children who might not receive a gift overwise. Children’s names may be submitted on slips and dropped off at collection boxes at Safeway Pharmacy, Coulee Medical Center, or Harvest Foods. Names will be collected through Sunday, Nov. 13. Following the collection of names, trees with ornament tags will be placed at selected locations in the community by Nov. 18. Those wishing to provide gif...
A notice went out this week seeking sealed bids for the purchase of Center School in Grand Coulee. The elementary school was declared surplus after students there were transferred to the new school in Coulee Dam. The school board had advertised for bids on the school earlier, but at the time no one was interested in bidding. At the school board’s last meeting, it was determined to seek bids again since three parties had indicated interest in the property. Sealed bids will be received until 2 p.m., Dec. 1. The school property includes the b...
There’s a big stink at the new school. A sewer smell is upsetting students and proving to be a headache for Lake Roosevelt Schools officials. For maintenance director Randy Bowman, it means getting up above the classrooms frequently to treat the coolers, mainly on the elementary side of the new school. The complaint came up at the recent school board meeting. The problem isn’t new; in fact, it is a carryover from last year. School district Superintendent Paul Turner said that he thinks the problem centers around “hard water” and may cause t...
Grant County Port District 7 will take in and spend nearly a half million dollars in 2017, the largest portion of that coming from grants, according to a budget commissioners passed last week. The total budget amount of $467,000 includes one major project for the new year. With grants from the Federal Aviation Administration and Washington State Department of Transportation Aviation, the district plans to repair the 4,200-foot runway. The runway has developed major cracks and the FAA has...
Clarence Roosevelt Jerred, a homeless man featured in The Star last week, was settled in an assisted living home in Omak Tuesday. Jerred, 84, who insisted that he was 86, was taken to Omak Tuesday by Kathy Baty, where he met with Social and Health Services officials and then was located in Katimbang House, an assisted living facility. He is now one of seven living there. "This is already better," Baty said he told her after arriving. "He ate a good meal and was in fine spirits," Baty said. She s...
A trailer fire destroyed an older residence at 306 Burdin Boulevard last Wednesday morning. One firefighter, Jerry Sands, said Grand Coulee was the second fire department to respond, with the Bureau of Reclamation fire truck arriving at the scene moments earlier. The mobile home, sandwiched between other trailers, was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived. Several fire departments responded, and police provided control on Burdin Boulevard. The fire started just before 6:30 a.m., and other...
The former Center School in Grand Coulee is for sale, this time with three parties already showing interest in the property. Grand Coulee Dam School District Superintendent Paul Turner told the school board Monday night that he has been in touch with three parties who have shown interest in the building and a total of about eight acres of land. Turner said he is proceeding with an open bid date of Dec. 1. He declined to say who the interested parties are, but said he would have to excuse himself from being involved in the discussions and...
The pyrotechnics are coming. Look for a lot of noise and fireworks in the sky, Dec. 2 and 3, when fireworks experts from across the state gather on a 135-acre tract near Grand Coulee in Lincoln County. Host to the event will be Alan Cain, who is in the process of completing his pyrotech license. The occasion is a gathering of the Northwest Pyrotechnics Association, whose members gather at different locations to talk about fireworks, and put on a show for themselves and anyone who cares to watch. The show is actually demonstrations by members...
Put yourself in this situation. You are elderly, diabetic, have a memory problem, and you're homeless, and you don't know how to get help. That's the situation Clarence Roosevelt Jerred was in until he met up with Kathy and Dale Baty, owners of Center Lodge Motel in Grand Coulee. They have housed him at the motel since Sept. 25, while they sought ways to help him. Homelessness is increasingly a problem, not only in urban areas, but in small towns across America. Last January, more than 20,000...
A dog named Malquin was declared “potentially dangerous” by the Grand Coulee City Council last Tuesday night. The dog was in the possession of Dorothy Hall, of the 400 block on Roosevelt Drive, at the time of a Sept. 20 incident, who explained that she was keeping the dog for its owner, Sean Bradshaw, who had recently moved out. Malquin, a reddish colored and rather large pit bull, had attacked a yellow Labrador dog owned by Stephanie Hermetz. When Hermetz reported the incident to police she said that “there was blood everywhere.”And when sh...
Tony Wilson, a 1995 graduate of Lake Roosevelt High School, retired from the military recently after serving 20 years in the U.S. Army. Wilson retired as a master sergeant and served as a combat engineer and explosives ordnance disposal specialist. He served combat deployments to Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, and has received the Bronze Star with two Oak Leaf clusters, the Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf cluster, the Army Combat Badge, the Master Explosive Ordnance Disposal Badge, the Meritorious Service Commendation...
The public and Lake Roosevelt Schools students will have an opportunity to meet abstract artist Lucinda Parker on Thursday morning, in two sessions. Parker will speak at 9 a.m., and meet with elementary and seventh- and eighth-grade students in the elementary cafeteria. She will meet in a second session at 10:15 a.m., at the same location, with 9th- through 12th-grade students. The public is invited to attend either session. There will be a dedication of Parker’s six abstract paintings, and Mike Sweney of the Washington State Arts Commission wi...
Two men with guns were arrested and taken to Grant County jail after shooting a street light out from their car near the top of the Grand Coulee Dam. The incident was reported to police by Plant Protection dispatcher Monroe Merriman, who heard the firing while outside his office. Police stopped the pair near Greene Field, and they admitted firing and hitting the street light, police reported. The two, Kristopher T. Simms, 24, from Port Townsend, Washington, and Paul J. Van Dyke, 23, from Chimacan, Washington, said they were on their way to...
Grant County computer systems being down last week will delay or make it more difficult for Electric City and Grand Coulee to develop budgets for 2017. Electric City has a budget workshop scheduled for 6 p.m., Oct. 25. “We will just have to work around this,” City Clerk Jackie Perman said. The county government’s computer systems were completely offline for about two and a half hours Oct. 12, also making all but a few emergency phone numbers inoperable. Enhanced 9-1-1 was not affected. Jury duty was also canceled for the day. Partial servi...
Electric City has agreed to provide Washington State University an additional $1,000 to finish up work on its Pathway and Revitalization project. The city had contracted with WSU’s Rural Communities Design Initiative team last spring to do initial planning for a project that includes downtown sidewalks, two parks and a trail system along Banks Lake. WSU Assistant Professor Kathleen Ryan, leader of the group, informed the city that her group would need another $1,000 to complete the project. The WSU RCDI group’s original contract was for $5,...
A 69-year-old man spent over 10 hours shivering in Banks Lake after his boat capsized Saturday afternoon, Oct. 1. Donald L. Childers, of Brewster, had been fishing on Banks Lake for about an hour when wind-swept waves capsized his 13-foot fishing boat about 2:30 in the afternoon. Childers said he thought he was going to die because he was so cold and no one was responding to his calls for help. Childers said last Monday that when water started coming in he rushed to the front of the boat to grab his life jacket while slipping off a heavy coat...
The Electric City Council rejected an offer from Grant County Mosquito District 2 to sell the city a 10-foot by 90-foot strip of land on property it owns on Coulee Boulevard, where it plans to build a pole building for its headquarters. The mosquito district, in a letter to the city, said that a survey of its property showed that Kent Street encroaches 15 feet onto its property and also that the city’s fire hydrant is also on its property. The district was asking $1.81 a square foot for the property, and for the city to waive its hookup fees fo...
An event that drew a rebuke by the Electric City Council against one of its members is still on the books. Councilmember Birdie Hensley was officially warned last month for presuming to speak for the city when she and fellow Councilmember Lonna Bussert proposed a Christmas event at North Dam Park. The reprimand stuck on Hensley, who took the blame for proposing an event without clearing it with the full council. On Sept. 13, the council issued Hensley the rebuke, overlooking Bussert’s part in the planning for the Christmas event. Hensley got h...
The administration and board of Grand Coulee Dam School District have set their sights on improving the graduation rate of Lake Roosevelt seniors. Under the district’s policy “Accountability Goals” the graduate rate objective is 85 percent. Superintendent Paul Turner said last week that the policy is outdated and that the board is waiting for information from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to update the policy. “The goal won’t change, but our goal is always 100 percent,” he said. The graduation rate of the 2015-16 cla...
A Coulee Dam woman chased a thief off with a shovel in the middle of the night last week when she realized someone was stealing her motorcycle. The dirt bike stolen from Jaci Gross at her Coulee Dam residence on Stevens Avenue very early last Wednesday, Oct. 5, was recovered about noon the same day in Electric City. Gross was out in her lawn with a shovel when police arrived and told officers she was looking for the person who stole her motorcycle. She said in a Facebook post that the thief had also tried to take her four-wheeler ATV, “but I c...
Heard about the successful moose hunt — by a school bus? With a load of young volleyball players aboard, driver Keith Powell had a young cow moose charge in front of his school bus last Wednesday night, Oct. 5, about 8:30, as they were returning from a volleyball match in Okanogan. The moose was alongside SR-155, and charged in front of the bus just after it had gotten over Disautel Pass. The bus hit the moose with its front fender, killing the animal. The bus held both the seventh- and eighth-grade girls volleyball squads that had just c...
School officials plan an open house Oct. 27, so visitors can see a number of abstract paintings, which were installed last June at Lake Roosevelt Schools, and meet artist Lucinda Palmer. Palmer painted six large paintings as part of the Washington Arts Commission grant for arts for public buildings. Palmer, from Portland, Oregon, was selected from a number of applicants to create the paintings, part of a $70,000 grant. Two paintings were hung in the elementary school cafeteria, two in the junior/senior cafeteria and one in each of the...