News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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People at a virtual auction last weekend bid each other up as much or more than they do in person and the chamber benefited. With its annual Vintners and Brewers dinner and auction canceled for Covid, the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce licensed online bidding software and held the auction anyway, with most participants buying dinner prepared by PK’s Culinary and heating it up at home. The auction of all-donated items brought in $15,396. “That will keep us going for a while,” said chamber President Natalie Dennis. The chamber has n...
Billboards along Main Street in Grand Coulee will be allowed to stay, at least until leases for the billboards are over, and a committee will be looking at ways to possibly allow them to stay indefinitely. Following a couple of complaints, Sam Hsieh, who owns Coulee Plaza, a lot of grass and picnic tables on Main Street, was told he’d have to take down his advertising signs that line the property. The money brought in from those signs helped pay the mortgage and maintenance costs of the property. After being told he’d have to take them dow...
The group that puts on popular events such as Colorama and the Harvest Festival is seeking to raise funds in a virtual auction and dinner to help them to keep functioning and hosting these events. With a slew of events canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce has lost out on a lot of revenue to pay expenses such as rent and wages for its lone employee. “We really want the chamber to survive into the future when we can do live events again,” said board member Solveig Chaffee, who is wor...
So far, 180 businesses in Grant County have received grants amounting up to $10,000 for economic relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. Grant County’s Economic Development Council doled out the awards in three phases. Phase one awards totaled $438,000; phase two awards totaled $910,000, and phase three awards totaled $339,000 for a total of $1,687,000. The money comes from $2.5 million set aside from the county’s $5 million total they received in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, Economic Security (CARES) Act funds the county received. Local bus...
Small businesses that operate in Electric City will be receiving some financial relief from the economically distressed times caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Electric City council voted at their Sept. 8 meeting to approve distributing $24,000 in federal relief money to local businesses through a grant application process they held during the summer. The money comes from a grant program set up using some of the city’s $30,900 the city is qualified for in total in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds. The 12 b...
More local events that have become traditions have been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Run the Dam running event, as well as the Harvest Festival, have both been canceled this past week. Both were originally scheduled for the third week in September. The Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce announced on July 17 the cancellation of what would have been the ninth Harvest Festival on their Facebook page. Their board of directors "have explored all possible options to keep this...
Kids got out of the house this past weekend to take part in the 2020 Koulee Kids Fest. "Koulee Kids Fest went FANTASTIC!" wrote Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Rachelle Haven in an email to The Star. "The turn-out was amazing, more than we ever expected." The festival included children going to local businesses to get take-home activity kits or take part in an activity. Coulee Wall Variety Store had close to 250 kids attend their "fishing pond" activity, Haven said,...
Koulee Kids Fest will take place this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and one lucky child will win an iPad Mini and a pair of Beats headphones. Children of any age participating in Koulee Kids Fest will pick up a “passport,” then take it to area businesses where they will pick up kits, a treat, or take part in an activity that follows social distance guidelines. Each location will stamp their passport, and six stamps qualify a child to win the iPad Mini and Beats headphones grand prize by dropping their passport off at the Grand Coulee Dam...
Potatoes, apples, and onions oh my! Anyone who’d like some free produce can get a box with a bag each of potatoes, apples, and onions at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Saturday, June 13, beginning at 9 a.m. The church is located at 806 Spruce Street in Coulee Dam. The giveaway was organized by the church in collaboration with Chelan Fresh, with the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce helping to get the word out over their Facebook page. Chelan Fresh takes part in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmers to Fam...
In the face of uncertainty during the COVID-19 restrictions, the chamber of commerce board of directors voted May20 to cancel any planning for the Festival of America over this year’s Independence Day holiday. The annual event, which normally includes vendors and performers in the park below the visitor center at Grand Coulee Dam, draws thousands each year, most to watch the fireworks off the top of the iconic dam. But all of that takes planning and a timeline that has run out. And the host federal agency, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, has n...
"Achiever of the Year" and "Business of the Year" for 2019 were chosen last week by members of the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce. Kerry Higgins, who co-owns Coulee Hardware, was named achiever of the year. Coulee Wall Variety Store was picked for business of the year. Coulee Wall Variety Store was named business of the year, an honor given to a business that "is active in the area, demonstrates growth, has innovative products or services for the community, provides excellent...
Rachelle Haven took the reins as executive director of the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce in April during a strange year for a local economy that counts on tourism. Haven moved here 10 years ago, but has been coming here longer. "I grew up on the coast, but my dad is a 'Grand Coulee original,' and I still have many family members located here," she said. "I grew up spending my summers in the Coulee with my grandparents and fell in love with the area. I decided that Coulee was my home...
A charitable-giving organization that manages millions and has grown 380 times its initial size in 24 years is reaching out to smaller communities, including this one, wanting to make a bigger impact. Not that it hasn’t given to local causes in the past. Just recently, the Ephrata-based Columbia Basin Foundation has given the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce $1,000 for local business support, and it’s donating another $1,000 to the Care and Share Food Bank, both under the foundation’s “ReCOVIDery,” initiative to help during the COVID...
Even though Lake Roosevelt Raiders spring sports were canceled due to the Coronavirus, The Star, along with area businesses felt the 2020 teams should be recognized. These area businesses support Raider sports: • Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce • Bird’s Auto Glass & Body Shop • Strate Funeral Home • R&A Café • Flowers & Sons Construction LLC • Coulee Wall Variety Store • Jackson’s Chevron • Coulee Construction • H&H Grocery • North Cascades Bank • Moomaw Hearing Center • Siam Pala...
The annual early-May Colorama festival has been called off by the organizing chamber of commerce due to the uncertainties created by the coronavirus pandemic and the cancelation of a major vendor, the carnival. The Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce board of directors met in special session last week, a time when preparations either had to move ahead or refunds made to vendors who had applied to work the event. Although starting at the end of the second week in May the event would have come after the statewide emergency is set to...
The Coulee Dam Service Station at the southeast corner of what is now Roosevelt Way and River Drive had been a Standard Oil station; but after my parents, Henry and Margaret (Seaton) Taschereau bought it at the end of 1942, it became Texaco. They sold it and moved to Coulee City in 1953. Just up and across the street, where the Coulee House Inn & Suites is now located, was a Ford garage, and just east of that was a theater owned by Oliver Hartman, who had moved to the area about 1936, when his...
School to close, local events altering in wake of new virus Schools statewide will close by Tuesday, following an orders coming from Gov. Jay Inslee as the state responds to the threat of a new virus that experts fear could overwhelm the healthcare system and cost many lives if its spread cannot be slowed down in time. Inslee Friday afternoon said the COVID-19 epidemic has reached 15 counties representing 75 percent of the state's population. "A county-by-county approach to this epidemic is not...
The Electric City council voted in a new city clerk/administrator, as well as a new council member, at their meeting Tuesday night. Peggy Nevsimal was chosen out of four candidates as the new city clerk/administrator following an executive session at the meeting. Nevsimal, who is currently the executive director at the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce, was absent from the meeting. "At this time we feel that Peggy would be a great asset to the city of Electric City," Mayor Diane Kohout...
Lucas Bird has been racing since he started with go-karts at age 6 and has been winning championships ever since. The 2018 Lake Roosevelt graduate won the NASCAR WHELEN All-American Series Stateline Modifieds championship at Stateline Speedway in Post Falls, Idaho, Sept. 14, 2019. Throughout the season, Bird won two races, including the championship, placed second in two of the races, and didn't finish the other two. Bird and his team were surprised to be the point leaders and win the championsh...
The Grand Coulee City Council voted Nov. 19 to partially fund several requests from other organizations. From the city’s “stadium tax fund,” also known as lodging or hotel/motel tax fund, the city agreed to donate $8,000 to the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce for tourism promotion, $7,000 to The Ridge Riders for tourism promotion, and $4,000 to the Coulee Area Park & Recreation District. CAPRD manages North Dam Park, where several local events are held in addition to the recreation offered by the park. Additionally, the council appro...
The little local rodeo that almost stopped happening nearly a decade ago is poised to join the ranks of the larger professional rodeo world. The Ridge Riders Saddle Club’s annual Colorama Rodeo each May will likely join the Professional Cowboys Rodeo Association, following a vote of the Ridge Riders board of directors Nov. 6. President George Kohout announced the coming change at the chamber of commerce luncheon the next day. “This is by far the biggest chance we’ve ever taken,” Kohout said. The move was instigated by the group’s stock con...
A proposition on the November ballot could bring millions of dollars into Grant County coffers to fund a new jail and add to local police budgets, and two officers explained the measure at a luncheon last week. Chief Deputies Dustin Canfield and Darrik Gregg from the Grant County Sheriff's Office spoke about Proposition 1 at the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon Oct. 10. They encouraged those present to vote yes to increase sales tax in Grant County by 0.3%. The estimated $5.5...
"I'm always interested in the places I live and what's going on and I'd like to be a part of it," Birdie Hensley said about running for reelection on the city council. "If you're not on the council you don't know what the heck's going on." Hensley has served six non-consecutive years on the council, and is currently finishing a four-year term. Hensley spoke to some of the limits and frustrations of being on the council. "What the people don't understand is there's a lot of things we'd like to do...
The Electric City Council Tuesday voted to spend $338,550 of funds collected for improving tourism, most of it on a city park, departing from years of what some saw as an overly stingy practice. The new Ice Age Park, for which city officials turned ceremonial shovels of dirt at a ground-breaking event last week, will include features such as a mammoth head in the playground, a fossil digging area, and more, designed to cater to local kids and tourists alike. Including the park, the city will spend 85 percent of the funds on its own tourism init...
Chamber Meetings at Siam Palace The chamber of commerce will be meeting the month of September at the Siam Palace. This Thursday, Sept. 12 will be general business beginning at noon. Grant County Mosquito District 2 to Meet The Grant County Mosquito District #2 will hold its monthly meeting at 5 p.m., Thursday, September 12, at 210 W. Coulee Blvd., in Electric City. Food Bank Hours Normal operating hours are every Friday from 2 to 4 p.m. It is located at the Church of Nazarene, Hwy 174, Grand Coulee. Clients are encouraged to provide their own...
