News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
Sorted by date Results 251 - 275 of 1539
The Grand Coulee Dam School District will help fund a lawsuit against the state intended to have a far-reaching effect on funding school facilities and programs. School board members voted unanimously Monday to chip in $5,000 to to the Wahkiakum School District in the endeavor. Wahkiakum Superintendent Brent Freeman attended the meeting and filled the board in on progress on the suit, which will be heard by the state Supreme Court. The suit claims the state is not meeting its constitutional...
After beating Brewster by nine points at home and dominating Manson 78-12 last week, the Lady Raiders stood at second in the league Tuesday night before meeting Okanogan at the home of the Lady Bulldogs, the Central Washington 2B League leaders. The Okanogan girls, with a 7-0 win-loss record in league and 16-0 overall, may have felt secure going into that game against Lake Roosevelt (5-2, 11-6), with ample reason. Okanogan won 91 – 48. LR started out strong, scoring 34 in the first half, but couldn’t execute in the second, Coach Melissa Meza sa...
The Raider boys beat Brewster in a bruiser of a basketball game Jan. 17 in Coulee Dam, 61-60, then went to Manson to trample the Trojans 63-41 on Friday. The Raiders, with a 7-0 league win-loss record, 15-2 overall, ranked first in the Central Washington 2B league and second in the state as of Tuesday night, according to WIAA’s site. They trailed only Brewster (5-2, 13-4) statewide. The RPI rankings used by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association factor in the difficulty of a team’s schedule during the season, making it pos...
Twice last weekend people wanting to fish through the ice of Banks Lake found out it was thinner than they'd figured. On Saturday afternoon and amphibious motor vehicle designed for ice fishing headed out on the ice from Coulee Playland with three men inside. When they tried to drive the four-wheeled vehicle over the off-shore log boom, the vehicle, a Wilcraft amphibious ice fishing vehicle, high centered on the logs and it broke through the ice at both ends, leaving it unmovable. But it was bui...
Coulee Dam officials had hoped they’d get some of the funding in the form of free grants for work to replace an aging sewage lift station on the west side of the Columbia River, but learned last week the funding agency intended to only offer a loan for the near million-dollar project. Clerk Stefani Bowden said she’d gotten a call right before Wednesday’s city council meeting. “I was a little disappointed to see this news today,” she told the council about 20 minutes later. The lift station has been on the back burner for years while the city...
Elmer City utility customers will pay about $13 a month more for water and sewer service beginning in March, but garbage rates will remain the same. The town council passed a new utility rate ordinance last Thursday to set the increase in motion. The increases include a $5 jump for water and $8 for sewer, plus some increases for fees such as for being late paying the bill, or ordering a start or end to a service. Mayor Jesse Tilman said the bump puts the town more on par with other area towns. “Years ago, when I first came on council, we w...
Sporting officials and umpires are in short supply locally, and the association that schedules those workers is looking for interested people to fill the roles that keep sports going. "The shortage of umpires for high school baseball and softball in the Central Columbia Basin may cause disruptions in local games this season," stated Bruce Shields, the assigning secretary for the Central Columbia Basin Umpires Association (CCBUA). The group assigns umpires for seven high schools and five middle... Full story
The Lake Roosevelt Raiders currently top their league, facing two top competitors and five other schools in the Central Washington 2B League. After their Friday night home-court win against the Oroville Hornets, the Raiders' win-loss record in the league stands at 5-0, and overall at 13-2. The Hornets lost 88-37 Friday, putting them at the other end of the league list at 0-5. The Raiders fed the Tigers (1-4) a similar meal in Tonasket Jan. 10, winning 84-44. "We're getting better every single...
The Lady Raiders breezed past Oroville Friday in a decisive home-court victory, 66-20. Aaliyah Marchand did the most damage to the visitors, adding 21 points for Lake Roosevelt, 15 of those coming from outside the three-point line. And Marchand's last-second near-half-court shot to hit 66 on the scoreboard might have been the biggest excitement of the game. Carly Neddo put in 16 points for LR, followed closely by Cylia St. Pierre's 14. The girls were third in the Central Washington 2B League as...
A slide of rocks and mud covered Peter Dan Road about a half mile from SR-155 Tuesday morning, forcing a detour until mid-afternoon and recalling a massive effort to keep the hillside from sloughing off. Okanogan County Emergency Management texted an alert at 6:40 a.m. to its subscribers, letting them know of the road closure as people got ready to go to work or school. Peter Dan runs between Elmer City and Keller, plus the Buffalo Lake area. The road remained closed until about 2:15 p.m. The sl...
Looking at something from a different angle can reveal much that hadn’t been noticed before. That principle may have been evident at a school board meeting Monday night. School leaders made plans Monday to systematically consider student opinion in coming meetings, the result of advocacy on the school board by two new student representatives. Appointed as ex-officio representatives in October 2022, Juniors Layla Flett and Celeste LaPlace have been discussing with other Grand Coulee Dam School District board members ways to get student c...
Park district commissioners last month approved a proposal for vendors to address in bidding on the maintenance work for North Dam Park for the year. The Coulee Area Park and Recreation District maintains and manages the park on about eight acres of land that belongs to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation below North Dam. Commissioners Dec. 14 approved as to form a document that lays out the scope of work they expect will be done for up to $25,000 in 2023, including everything from mowing the lawns...
Lake Roosevelt's wrestling team distinguished itself at a tournament full of much larger schools Dec. 30, earning placings in enough weights to take fourth in the Freeman Winter Classic. "Our success is coming from everyone contributing and finding a way to win," Head Coach Casey Brewster said. "They are wrestling the whole match and making it very difficult on their opponents." The 2B Raiders took fourth with a score of 107 behind 3A-4A size teams like Post Falls (194), West Valley (149) and Sh...
Covid is apparently on the move locally. Coulee Medical Center cautioned community members Monday that although all services are still available, covid-related staffing problems may cause delays in service. “We are now in the midst of a COVID 19 outbreak in the community which is affecting the operations of Coulee Medical Center,” CMC posted on their Facebook page Monday. CEO Ramona Hicks said CMC has had nine staff members out in just four days after testing positive, far more than they’ve had in months. “I think there’s just a lot more covi...
Grand Coulee’s city council passed its budget reluctantly last week, with one council member warning that the city would need to find another $50,000 by year’s end or layoffs would be necessary. “I wanted to have a balanced budget that we could vote on,” said Councilmember Tom Poplawski at the council’s meeting Dec. 20. “But after all the discussions and all of the meetings, looking at numbers and analysis of it all, we can’t get there unless we were to lay people off. That’s the bottom line. We’ve chosen not to do that.” The city’s 2023 bud...
Utility crews for Grant County PUD worked through the extreme weather last week as power outages affected their customers from Royal City to Grand Coulee. With temperatures plunging to the well-below-zero range, then frozen rain falling across the region, the National Weather Service warned people to prepare for power outages. One hit the Electric City-Grand Coulee area on Christmas night, apparently around 8 p.m. and took until morning to repair. Customers on the PUD Facebook page asked for...
Several people reported hearing a loud boom Monday night in west Coulee Dam, some speculating an electrical transformer may have blown in the town’s electric system. Not exactly. But City Superintendent Mike Steffens said that’s what it sounds like when two big fuses blow at the same time, which is what happened at the end of Stevens Avenue Monday about 4:30 p.m. “Turkeys in the line again,” Steffens said. A flock of about a dozen wild turkeys roam the west side of town, often roosting in trees in nearby Fiddle Creek or Cole Park. When they mi...
Over the last several weeks, I’ve felt slightly uneasy breaking the habit of strict social distancing and mask wearing to avoid infection. It was a justified queasiness. Following Christmas gatherings and indoor sporting events all over the country, an increase in viral spread was predictable and apparently is happening in our area. I’ll be donning a mask again when in crowded indoor spaces, including sporting events, small meetings in small rooms, and anywhere its likely we’re all breathing each other’s exhalations. That’s not the advice gi...
The Raiders hosted their annual Powerhouse Wrestling Tournament in Coulee Dam Dec. 22, bringing in competitors from as far away as Napavine, Washington and filling the Lake Roosevelt gym with over 100 athletes from 10 schools participating and finding out what they need to work on for the rest of the season. Three schools didn't make it because of the weather. The Raider boys' team had 11 members place in eight of the 13 weight categories, coming in third as a team with a score of 154, behind...
The Care and Share Food Bank last Friday gave out Christmas baskets of food to bout 150 clients, including families and a lot of elderly folks, said manager Carol Nordine. That number indicates need is up from past years. Last year’s big Christmas giveaway drew 115. A story in The Star recently reported that Second Harvest, a major food distributor to local food banks, is cutting back deliveries in Okanogan County. Care and Share is on the same route, but Nordine noted they only supply about 10 percent of the locals pantry’s supplies. Con...
The Raiders topped a mixed weekend with a very large lead Monday night over White Swan in Coulee Dam, beating the Cougars 85-44. The win came on the heels of a one-point loss to Omak on Saturday, which itself had followed a huge victory over Brewster's Bears, 71-60, on their home court, a game about which Raider Coach Jeremy Crollard had not been optimistic due to past experience with uneven officiating. "We left it all on the court when it came to Brewster," Crollard said. The Raiders played...
The Lady Raiders met a challenge by White Swan Monday night, fresh off a defeat by the Omak Lady Pioneers Saturday, to win 64-46. Starting off slow in the first quarter, Lake Roosevelt trailed to finish it behind three points, 11-8. And by the half the Lady Raiders had just reversed the advantage to lead 27-23. The pace was about to change. After the halftime break, Lake Roosevelt went into dominate mode, racking up another 37 points while holding White Swan again to 23 more. "The girls came...
School board directors will study whether to allow weighted grade point averages to be considered for graduation. Considering whether to pass a recommended policy on high school graduation requirements Monday night, Chairman George LaPlace and Superintendent Paul Turner each spoke in favor of tabling that discussion to give time for more discussion with students and staff. Weighted GPAs can add more points for higher-level courses. An honors course might gain half a point on a regular class in the same subject area, for instance. “It takes a li...
Local mayors decided against further studying whether their Regional Board of Mayors could consider taking over the Spring Canyon Cemetery. Meeting as the RBOM Dec. 7, the mayors voted to drop their research into taking over ownership of the cemetery currently owned by the local Lions Club. The club had approached the mayors about that possibility last August, and they’ve been looking into it ever since. Coulee Dam Mayor Bob Poch said his council was not in favor of it. City Clerk Stefani Bowden had asked the Municipal Research Services Corpora...
Sometimes, if it’s not one thing, it’s another when you’re dealing a federal agency that gives you money. Or takes it back. Nespelem’s school board learned Monday that some of their Impact Aid money was being clawed back. Impact Aid is a federal grant program for local educational agencies that have lost local property tax revenue due to the presence of non-taxable federal land. Superintendent Effie Dean explained that the Impact Aid agency had found the school district’s 2019-2020 school year application for Impact Aid faulty, for two years...