News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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With the cold temperatures and winds Okanogan County has been having and will continue to have, it is essential to take precautions, the county’s emergency management team advised in an alert on Tuesday, as temperatures head into the low negative single digits. Here’s their advise on preparing for and living with the cold: On your water: Emergency Management spoke to most of the public works directors of the cities/towns in Okanogan County today assessing whether any damage occurred over the past few days due to the cold temperatures and hig...
Our longest fire camp experience was near Prairie City, Oregon, a 21-day ordeal where our kitchen unit served 1,500 firefighters and support personnel. My wife and I worked a couple of seasons for OK Cascade, a Bothell company owned by the Keener family well known to us. The hourly pay was small, but we often got 50-60 hours of overtime a week. We would get a call from the company and immediately leave for our camp location. The workday started usually at 5 a.m. and ended between 10 and 12 p.m. Our rest break was brief, and we often had to...
When Toyota speaks, car buyers listen. Hopefully, our elected officials will as well. It is one of the world’s two largest auto and truck manufacturers--twice the size of GM, our biggest. Toyota warns the world is far from ready to jettison gasoline and diesel engines and require batteries to run our replacements. For Toyota, it is not just about finding enough critical battery material such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, but it is about having enough electricity in our power grid to recharge them. Specifically, Toyota not only worries about o...
Cheers. This is a festive time of year and I want to cheer on a few who make our community wonderful. First, I want to thank our Raider Cheerleaders. Almost two dozen students turned out and they are rockin’ our athletic events. I would love to have a cup of coffee with the head coach who’s been at the helm for almost four decades. Our local athletic director was voted Athletic Director of the Year and deserves it based on the challenges of the last two years. We are lucky to have him as a leader of two systems and a coach in our school dis...
As a kid, I loved the snow. In Palouse we got a lot of it. When it came down, I knew it was time to get out my Flexible Flier sled. The Fliers were the sleds of all sleds. When there was a good base, we would gather on North Hill and clear the side streets for the best sledding you could ever find. We would station someone, usually a parent, on each side street to divert traffic away from our hill run. The run from the top of North Hill was about 10 blocks, with the end being in the city’s main street. By the time the snow was packed, the r...
A few weeks ago, I was speaking with former Defense Secretary General James Mattis about some of the lessons he’s learned over the years. One of his biggest takeaways? How incredible of a community Central Washington is, and that sometimes it takes leaving to know what you have. As I breathe in the clean, crisp air in Sunnyside this winter morning, I couldn’t agree more. Central Washington truly has it all, from majestic rivers that we’ve harnessed to power our homes to gorgeous national forests and public lands. In our communities, peopl...
I still remember a question I got years ago. It was at a public meeting in southern Indiana, where a young woman commented that I’d traveled throughout the US and wanted to know: What was my impression of Americans? I didn’t even hesitate: The American people are fundamentally decent, I told her. Why even mention this? Because at the moment, we live in a country where a lot of Americans don’t believe it. They think fellow citizens and public officials they don’t agree with are at best misguided and, at worst, evil. I don’t think this happened...
In a space of 7 miles Here’s a further perspective. Four communities, or neighborhoods, that have a combined population of 3,378 (current Census), a distance of 7 miles or 15 minutes from the southernmost to the northernmost town. Today, as Scott states, 20 council members and 4 mayors for a population of less than 3,400 people. Each town competes with the others, duplicating efforts for such things as grant dollars for various and important community needs and improvements. Fire protection, ambulance and police needs are contracts or a...
I have driven north and south and east and west in Kansas. I have searched over the two trips through there to see if I could remember one redeeming quality about the state. My first trip through the state was enroute to Kansas City, Missouri. It was in January and there was snow and black ice. It was a risky trip. The next time I ran through Kansas, it was summer, and I entered in the south and drove to the north on my way back home after a trip to the east coast. I have never met anyone who admitted being from Kansas. My two trips through...
The annual Coulee Polar Plunge is set for noon, Saturday, January 1, at Spring Canyon near the boat launch. Brave kayakers will also be afloat at that time. Everyone is invited....
I try to avoid questionable sources of information, but I came across some gossip on Elf Net that I am obliged to pass along to you. It seems that Santa will be delivering by robot this year, and some really bad grinch is attempting to hack the system. Then, there is the possibility that the robot could get stuck in your chimney. If you don’t get what you wished for, check the Santa clause in your contract. And don’t forget to lay out some batteries for the robot. The Merry in Merry Christmas, at least for adults, is about family and fri...
On Friday, the Labor Department announced that consumer prices increased by 6.8 percent in November compared to last year, the largest annual increase in over 39 years. If that doesn’t make apparent the impacts President Biden’s policies are having on American families to my progressive colleagues, I don’t know what will. Americans deserve fiscal responsibility. With the stranglehold the far left has on the Democratic Party, we’ve seen anything but that. Trillions of dollars in wasteful spending has been rammed through Congress over the las...
The current runaround faced by the local Regional Board of Mayors points to a structural problem we’ve tried to work around before and failed. The RBOM, itself, was created as an end run around the reality that this is a community split by municipal boundaries drawn in a time when they may have made perfect sense but no longer do. That group of four mayors was formed so we could have and operate a landfill, with all four towns paying their fair share. It has worked for decades and might possibly work for decades more. But not well, and with f...
I never could understand why a person in good health would choose not to work. Several times, as early as high school, I had more than one job at a time.There was a period in my junior and senior years in high school in Palouse when I had three jobs at the same time. It started by being fast at peeling potatoes at the Oasis Restaurant. A week later, the evening fry cook didn’t show up and I was made the fry cook. I already had a job six days a week running Darigold milk products to the door. Shorty Ransom was my boss, and we delivered to S...
Several interesting research efforts have provided findings about our atmosphere and its content. Here are two that I found to be noteworthy and wanted to share them here. Just last month the Journal of Climate published the work of five climate scientists. Their work addressed historic Northern Hemisphere large concurrent heatwaves driven by changing atmospheric circulations. Remember the heatwave we witnessed in June 2021? Our new all-time high temperature for that month is now at 112˚F. Up...
To “Build Back America” people must return to work! In a U.S. Chamber of Commerce poll released in early December, the findings spell trouble for America’s employers whether they are in the private or public sectors. It found that over 60 percent of the respondents are in no hurry to return to work and over a third of the unemployed are not actively going after a job or looking at all. The problem is growing worse. A large number of respondents feel they can get by for at least another six months before they have to find employment. The surve...
For many of us, the holidays mean coming home. With all the joys of being reunited with family and friends, you might also be figuring out how to avoid certain topics of conversation with people you love but don’t always agree with. It’s okay if you change the subject when Uncle Ron starts telling you about his most recent alien encounter, but one topic that can’t be ignored if it shows up is impaired driving. If you’re at a gathering where someone intends to drive impaired, the greatest gift you can give them this holiday season is an alterna...
As talks of defunding the police ring through the halls of Congress, West-side legislators in Olympia continue to push through policies that are negatively impacting our communities, and this time, the consequences could be dangerous. Instead of empowering our law enforcement officers to protect our families and businesses, recent legislation passed by Democratic leaders in our state, in particular HB 1310, has tied the hands of our law enforcement officers behind their backs. Under this law, which went into effect in July of this year, our...
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is often misunderstood as favoring urban residents over rural. Formerly known as food stamps, a new study analyzing this program shows the opposite may be true. SNAP provides nutrition assistance payments to one in eight Americans every month. Approximately 16% of rural households use SNAP benefits, compared to 13% of metro households. In those rural households, a large majority of benefits assist vulnerable populations, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities. The...
When I lived in Bothell, I used to fly a lot in small planes. One of my friends, Phil Strathy, had a land plane, kept in Monroe. Another friend had a seaplane, kept on Lake Washington at Kenmore. About every month I would get a call from Phil wanting to know if I wanted to fly with him to someplace for lunch. The answer was always yes. Phil was the Darigold distributor for our area, and he was always interested in getting some flying time in. Usually, lunch meant about a three- or four-hour break. You can do this if you are the boss. One day...
If the goal was to keep people well and stop the spread, then we would be testing for natural antibodies which have proven to be far superior to these mRNA “vaccines.” But we are not, so tell me again what the goal is? Gary Benton Elmer City resident Good question. The answer we found is below. But first, you should know that a new program will let you, because you live in Okanogan County, order a free in-home rapid test through the “The Say Yes! COVID Test At-Home Testing Challenge.” You’ll become part of the research as researchers at NIH- s... Full story
We would like to express our gratitude and say thank you for your continued support through countless drive-thru feeds and other fundraisers. Due to being unable to have concessions at sporting events this school year, classes such as ours are having to come up with other ways to bring in funds for senior trips. The Class of 2023 is hosting the Holiday Penny Auction Sunday, Dec. 12, from 1-3 p.m. at the High School Hub. We invite you to join us for this fun event. We will also have a chili lunch available to purchase while waiting for the...
As a substitute teacher, I was sitting amongst the students during the Lake Roosevelt School Veteran’s Day assembly. The students were so attentive and respectful for the men and women sitting in front of them. Each student gave applause and appreciation for the time and sacrifice these veterans had given. I feel the students are aware that the veterans’ lives needed to be honored and acknowledged . I’m proud of you, students at Lake Roosevelt. Karen Depew...
I have only moved once in the past 55 years. When younger, we moved several times chasing college and job opportunities. We lived in Grand Coulee for a couple of years before moving on to Idaho where we spent seven years. When I told friends in Bothell that I was moving to Electric City, they asked why, as if I had done something wrong and was trying to avoid the consequences. We lived in Bothell for 25 years, all in the same house, and only a half mile from my work. It was an ideal situation, and then something happened. The roads got jammed...
For centuries people struggled to determine whether citizens would be governed by the Catholic Church or by civil governments, whether they would be ruled by hereditary monarchies or by elected governments, whether enslaved by fascist armies or saved by military forces from democratic nations. The US has long been admired for its democracy, but that image was damaged by the assault on the U.S. Capitol and U.S. democracy on January 6, 2021. Radical deviant politicians are now condoning and exploiting the people who hold bizarre beliefs...