News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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As many of you know, Central Washington is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. From Sunnyside to Okanogan, our hardworking producers provide the food for our nation, and the world. Central Washington is currently the top producer of many agricultural products, including potatoes, tree fruit, berries, wheat, and various types of livestock and poultry. This success resulted in over $7.29 billion in sales in Washington’s 4th Congressional District alone in 2022. This is due to the over 7,890 farms across Central W...
Last Saturday was my 34th Colorama Parade. I will likely remember this one more than the rest. I had sat at my vantage point for over an hour before the parade started. It was really hot out. Just as the first part of the parade reached my location the heat got to me and I passed out. This is really about our local healthcare providers and how they help us when we have problems. On the scene almost immediately was Rick Paris and his ambulance crew. While I wasn’t tuned in to much, I remember how pleased I was that Paris was on the scene. I h...
I am the first to admit when I’m wrong. A city employee and I had a talk. He informed me that the concrete (see “Let’s try common sense on illegal dump” in May 8 issue) was not from the city road project, but from a private party. He knows who but doesn’t want to get in volved. So, my apologies to the city. But I still wish it would get cleaned up! Robert Fields...
I am the first to admit when I’m wrong. A city employee and I had a talk. He informed me that the concrete (see “Let’s try common sense on illegal dump” in May 8 issue) was not from the city road project, but from a private party. He knows who but doesn’t want to get in volved. So, my apologies to the city. But I still wish it would get cleaned up! Robert Fields...
I have tried to address the illegal dumping on federal land a couple of times, but Scott did not agree with me, so he throws my letters in the trash. So I went to The Star building and asked why? He told me I need to quit writing my letters as though they are facts. So let’s use another word, common sense. A couple of years ago Grand Coulee had a contract to do a good sized road project on Federal Ave. (The shortcut through town.) I can only guess that the contractor was paid to properly dispose of the leftover landfill. That was when five d...
Having family at Grand Coulee, I have relatives who work at the dam and it mystifies me how little attention presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., pays to hydro-electric power. True, I mention wind and solar, but rarely (if ever) hydro. The man comes from a rich family and most of them have disavowed him as “dangerous” and called his make-believe candidacy a “vanity project”. He shows images of his father (RFK, Senior) and his uncle (President JFK). But one thing is for sure, “Junior” cannot hold a candle to either of those gentl...
We honor our mothers this week. This, of course, is something we should do all year long. I was born at the beginning of the Great Depression. My mother was a depression mother, the kind that is made of kindness and steel. She was the rock of the family. During the 1930s jobs were scarce. My father often had to work out of town and returned home for the weekends. I remember he worked one full year at Moses Lake. The depression is what brought my parents and siblings to Palouse. My father, who was born in Palouse, was discharged out of the army...
It’s tempting sometimes to lump people into easy categories. Stereotypes exist for a reason. But if you learn anything from this issue of The Star, it should be this: Labeling groups of “those people” as this type or that one is just pure laziness. In case you were tempted to do that after reading about some horrible threats allegedly made by some students at a local school toward other students (see the story on the front page), you should realize that the story about the king and queen of the senior prom (page 3) is also about kids at the l...
What if our president went to the Arlington Cemetery to put a wreath on the unknown soldier and said the soldier who gave his life to protect us was a loser and a sucker? What if our president got out of the service draft about a half dozen times by claiming one ailment after another and then bragged that he had torn up his draft card? What if he said John McCain was no hero after his airplane was shot down and the Vietnamese captured him. John did about five years of torture. Was McClain a loser and sucker also? Don Andrews...
When coming from Coulee Dam through Grand Coulee I understand people like to take a left at The Star newspaper building to save time on the way to Wilbur. If it is a safety hazard, make it a four-way stop! Or tell area police to patrol it. The money was not appropriated for signs on Federal and Main; they were bought for entry into our town from Bridgeport and Wilbur. Is that so hard? I feel like Nicholas Cage in the movie Con Air. (Why can’t you just give me the bunny????) Robert Fields...
I decided to quit my job with Potlatch Forests and move to southern Idaho so I could see my future wife more easily and not have to drive 500 miles on weekends to see her. I guess that’s when I came in contact with Idaho potatoes. If you are in Idaho you wouldn’t be served anything but. Wherever we went and ate out I would ask the waitress if these were Idaho potatoes. I did it as a lark and would get the funniest looks. The answer was usually yes, they were, or I don’t know I will ask the cook. I really didn’t care, I was just having a littl...
Unfortunately, too many pragmatic Democrats and Republicans in Congress are retiring at a time when we need them most. Two are from Washington: Reps. Derek Kilmer (D), Olympic Peninsula; and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R), Eastern Washington. McMorris Rodgers and Kilmer cut their political teeth in Washington’s Legislature. While they faithfully followed their parties, they found ways to come together on issues vital to our state and nation. McMorris Rodgers was elected to Congress in 2004 and Kilmer in 2012. Recently, problem-solving Democrats a...
Some deep thinking has been going on, and its helping. Last week, many local professionals in law enforcement, emergency medicine, and other first responders, — the folks who have to live with the possible trauma of a car crash to which they only responded to help — took time to show every local high school student just what happens in a crash. Many of them worked for weeks or months in preparation and planning. Teenagers as a group are far more likely to be involved in car crashes, and this area has too often seen the worst side of those sta...
Communities across Central Washington have been devastated by the epidemic of synthetic opioids like fentanyl, which is the leading cause of death for people ages 18-45 in the United States. Dubbed the “silent killer” of American youth, fentanyl’s lethal potency is alarming; a mere two milligrams, equivalent to 10-15 grains of table salt, constitutes a fatal dose. Bad actors in China have been taking advantage of loopholes in our laws in the United States to push these dangerous substances over our borders, and I have been working tirel...
Watching the evening television news is something I typically don’t do. There are a few reasons why. There is the widespread TV news edict, “If it burns or bleeds, it leads.” Next, there is the never-ending prescription drug advertising that is most prevalent on the national networks. Let me share an interesting fact — of the 195 nations on Earth, only two permit prescription drug advertising directed at potential consumers. It’s called direct-to-consumer advertising, or DTC. Who are those two...
“Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” is on April 25th, and I think we should try something different this year: Let’s take our daughters and sons to grandma’s. The Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day Foundation says that April 25th is designed to be more than just a career day — more than the practice of “shadowing” an adult in the workplace. It’s equally important to show children “the value of their education, helping them discover the power and possibilities of work and family life…” It’s about “providing boys and girls a chance t...
For the people that have not followed political history, I would like to give you my perspective as to where the political parties have gone from the late 1950s and early 1960s. (I voted for JFK.) The Democratic Party today is where the Socialist party was in the 1950s &1960s, and a large part of the DNC is where the communist party was. The Republican Party is where the Democrats were in the late 1950s and early 1960s. To demonstrate my point, John Fitzgerald Kennedy could NEVER be nominated or elected President in the DNC party today. But he...
If a dog is man’s best friend, then why can’t a man be a dog’s best friend? I lost my little dog over a year ago. She had been with me for about 15 years. Now I don’t want to pick a fight with people who feel differently about pets. I bought my little dog when she was just a small puppy. A woman was selling her dog’s puppies out of the trunk of her car on Bureau property near The Star newspaper corner. I paid $50 for the puppy. Upon the advice of my wife, I eventually picked a female puppy, while I liked the color of the male puppy better. My i...
While wind and solar farms generate “greenhouse gas free” electricity, there are ongoing concerns over their impacts on our environment especially as a rapidly growing number of worn-out blades and panels are landing in landfills. Those blades, housed on giant wind towers reaching over 250 feet in the sky, are starting to reach the end of their useful lives (15 to 20 years) and are being taken down, cut up and hauled to burial sites. Even though over 90 percent of the decommissioned wind tow...
Last month, I traveled to Anchorage, Alaska for a Maternal and Child Health Conference. This conference brought together maternal health experts and advocates to discuss the heart-wrenching maternal health crisis in our country and what we’re doing to promote better outcomes. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries. In 2021, 1,205 women died of maternal causes in the United States. In 2020, 861 women died of maternal causes in the U.S., a 40% increase in just one year, and some of our neighbors a...
Carmela Conroy gives eastern Washington voters the unusual, important opportunity to elect a foreign policy expert as their US Representative. As Foreign Service Officer for 24 years, she served in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Norway, New Zealand, and Tom Foley’s Japan office. US voters must weigh foreign policy experience much more heavily than usual in their 2024 voting decisions. Electing wannabe dictator Donald Trump would be a huge catastrophe for our national security by his policies towards Ukraine and Russia, with most congressional Republica...
Ohs and ahs were the favorite two words uttered in the early days when visitors viewed Grand Coulee Dam. My first experience with the dam was in 1948, when a couple of buddies and I escaped the halls of our high school for the day and drove up here. I can’t say we were too excited, but it was clearly a memorable event. We started out from Palouse, hit Spokane, then the coulee, and we ended up in Moses Lake. My next trip here was in 1953, after I was married, when we moved to Grand Coulee after I took a job grading lumber at the mill in L...
In the United States, one of our most important freedoms is individual choice. However, the Biden Administration has unmistakably signaled its determination to advance its aggressive climate agenda at any cost — even at the expense of consumer choice — whether it pertains to gas stoves, dishwashers, or even gas-powered vehicles. As this administration continues their unconstitutional efforts to phase out gas vehicles in favor of electric vehicles (EVs), it overlooks a critical factor: the United States currently lacks the necessary inf...
For decades, the debate over grizzly bear introduction into the North Cascades ecosystem has raged on, and I have been fighting tirelessly to ensure that the voices of Central Washingtonians are heard. Regrettably, last week saw the release of the U.S. National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) with proposed action on the question of introducing grizzly bears to the region. This proves that—once again—the Biden Administration is acting without due consideration for the concerns of Ce...
Last year I wrote several letters to The Star paper addressing people entering Grand Coulee at high rates of speed from the Bridgeport highway. Over the summer there was no traffic control, but I do feel good knowing the city hall’s well protected. I also asked for the city to install the solar slowdown signs that were purchased for traffic entering our town on Hwy [174] about eight years ago. Well, the signs were not used for the purpose they were purchased for. I have found the signs. They were installed at the corner of Federal and Main S...