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Earth, wind and fire. It's not just a famous 1970s soul band. The three elements also represent threats to the vacant and dilapidated Moore-Clark warehouse and areas around the former industrial hub, a landmark on the La Conner waterfront since 1898. Residents wary of the building's vulnerabilities shared their concerns with the Town Emergency Management Commission during its March 5 meeting at Maple Hall. "I think of Lahaina," Lori Wise, who has a background in real estate development, said of...
Town officials say they heard plenty of valued input during the recent community mingle addressing First Street parking and traffic issues, but there’s still plenty of time to get the last word in. “We haven’t taken anything off the table,” Town Assistant Planner Ajah Eills told planning commissioners during their March 5 meeting at Maple Hall. “We’re still in the information gathering mode.” Among those whose insights are being sought is Public Works Director Brian Lease. Commissioners want to hear from Lease before a target date is set f...
Town officials over the next few months will begin examining potential options for the Jenson property located south of Channel Cove near the Maple Avenue approach to Pioneer Park. The Jenson family sold the land to the town at a reduced price – about one-third its assessed value – on condition it be utilized in the best interest of the community. Suggested uses for the property have ranged from affordable housing to a public garden. “We have saved the letters and emails that we have received about options for the use of the property when...
New La Conner Emergency Management Commission chair Jerry George had sad news to share when the panel met March 5 at Maple Hall. George had the unenviable task of announcing the death of commission charter member Duane Carpenter, 64, whose expertise in meteorology was frequently tapped during the board’s inaugural year as it considered flood mitigation strategies. George said that Carpenter, with an extensive background in cartography and weather analysis, died unexpectedly March 1 from complications following a surgical procedure. “Duane was...
The season is over but La Conner High School basketball standouts are still scoring points with their conference peers. Seven players – four boys, three girls – have garnered All-League recognition in recent polling of NW2B/1B hoops programs. La Conner’s Ivory Damien and Brayden Pedroza were first team All-League picks on the boys’ side while Maeve McCormick was a girls’ All-NW2B/1B first-unit selection. Damien and Pedroza were reliable scorers all season for the Braves. Damien netted a game-high 38 points – all but three of those in the seco...
La Conner High School alumnus Emma Worgum, who won a state title her senior year with the Braves, led the Western Washington University women’s golf team during its recent season debut at the Tim Tierney Pioneer Shootout in Alameda, California. Worgum, a WWU sophomore, placed 15th out of a 96-player field by shooting 6-over-par at the 36-hole event. The Lady Vikings finished 10th overall. Worgum carded four of her five birdies during the tournament’s first round. “Emma continued her solid play and finished the tournament with two consi...
No one in town knows a better yarn than Chris Jennings. The owner of Jennings Yarn & Needlecrafts, a fixture on First Street for more than a half-century, is spinning a yarn in the literary sense these days, coordinating the plot for La Conner’s Second Annual Murder Mystery event set for March 23. Chamber of Commerce Director Mark Hulst credits Jennings with weaving the thread that ties together “The Case of the Bumped-Off Bootlegger,” a throwback to the 1920s Prohibition era of rumrunners and speakeasies, among the more colorful chapt...
During his celebrated career as an award-winning newspaper columnist and author, Timothy Egan has traveled the globe in search of the stories that connect him to his readers. For a much longer time – dating to childhood – he has made shorter treks to public libraries and rural bookmobile stops to discover stories that would shape and define Egan as one of the nation's most powerful voices on behalf of literacy. The University of Washington alum, a former op-ed writer for the New York Times and...
The public got to peek into the Mount Vernon Library Commons Project, under construction across from the Skagit County Courthouse, with a series of tours on Saturday afternoon. Designed for climate resiliency and as an integral community hub for the next 100 years, the $53 million facility will feature a 4,000-square-foot children’s library, the largest one north of Seattle; a teen and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) center; study rooms; a computer lab; and quiet reading spaces. The building’s commons area will be highlighted...
La Conner Schools officials tackled the status of Braves football and student enrollment to kick off a lengthy hybrid school board meeting Monday night. District financial chief David Cram reported to board members that K-12 enrollment had dipped from 497 to 485 full-time students since the start of the calendar year, with most of the losses coming in the fifth and 12th grades. “It’s not unusual at this time of year,” Cram told the board, noting that student movement tends to increase during semester breaks. Enrollment is a major driver when...
Word is getting out on one of Skagit County's best-kept secrets. That's thanks to La Conner High School alum and former Swinomish Tribal Community Senator Leon John, now the outreach director at Didgwalic Wellness Center northwest of town along Highway 20. The Didgwalic facility is a rehabilitation center for anyone, tribal and non-tribal, dealing with addiction or other challenges to mental and physical health. John outlined the Didgwalic mission as guest speaker for the second in a series of...
It was a four-letter word that defined a briskly paced, 45-minute hybrid Town Council meeting at Maple Hall on Feb. 27. That word was code. As in the council’s approval of both a formal town code of ethics and update to La Conner’s uniform development code. The ethics code was one of Mayor Marna Hanneman’s first initiatives upon taking office in January. “In this climate of people not being civil to each other – not that this is happening here – I asked for a code of ethics,” Hanneman said. Upon adoption of the code, following a motion by cou...
Longtime La Conner High School baseball coach Jeremiah LeSourd has a favorite saying this time of year. "You know it's the start of baseball season," he often notes at the end of February and start of March, "because there'll be snow on the ground." Mother Nature has been true to form this year. The first week of practice for Braves baseball, Lady Braves softball, and La Conner track and field and golf teams was met variously with snow, hail, wind and rain. All that plus a couple brief sun...
In his all-too-short life, La Conner's Rich Watkins created a legacy to last generations. Consider pre-season baseball practices now under way at La Conner High School, where two decades ago Watkins was the team's head coach, an ideal role for the former Spokane area sports standout. His influence is still felt by current Braves' coach Jeremiah LeSourd, whom Watkins mentored. "He prepared me for the job," said LeSourd, who along with Andy Otis has since coached the baseball team to numerous post...
Longtime La Conner news photographer Don Coyote is renowned for making magic with his camera. But no magic was needed to enhance the image of his favorite photographic subject, the late Brodie Coyote, the endearing golden retriever who was loyally at Don's side for more than a decade before the four-legged La Conner goodwill ambassador's death Feb. 15. Variously described as a "godly creature" and "darling retriever," Brodie Coyote was the ideal model and photographer's sidekick. Coyote called...
State seeding sent La Conner High School's basketball teams south. Unfortunately, their hopes of advancing to the round of 12 at the Spokane Arena this week went south as well. The boys' team was eliminated by Adna with a heartbreaking 66-62 overtime loss in Chehalis on Saturday, a game that saw the Braves battle back from foul trouble and a double-digit deficit to have a shot at winning in the waning moments of regulation. The youthful girls, meanwhile, with six eighth graders and no seniors...
A La Conner youth sports standout is already on the radar of all 32 National Football League teams. And soon he will attract that same kind of attention from major league baseball. Cassius Landworth, a second grader in teacher Stacy Silver's classroom, has received an impressive collection of memorabilia from some of the nation's most famous and popular sports franchises. It started last fall when Cash, as he's known to friends and family, decided to write to each of the NFL teams. It was no...
If February's first town council meeting was any indication, new La Conner Mayor Marna Hanneman is in it for the long haul. The marathon Feb. 13 session covered new and old business and multiple discussion and action items before concluding with a closed executive session. "I thought after the first month," said Hanneman, who took office Jan. 1, "that things would be kind of calm. Then February came." The 95-minute meeting began on a pair of somber notes. Resident Debbie Aldrich shared that...
Fire District 13 emergency responders are used to pulling their weight – and then some. Now they’re getting much appreciated help. The added muscle is in the form of a new power loader gurney system purchased with funds from the HF Sinclair Refinery of Anacortes. “These run in the $30,000 range,” said Fire Chief Wood Weiss. “So, I reached out to Sinclair and Andrea Petrich found the funding for us.” Petrich is the refinery’s head of communications and external relations advisor. She and other HF Sinclair representatives attended the fire dist...
The La Conner High School girls’ basketball team took two different routes last week to reach the same destination – Victory Lane at Coupeville. The Lady Braves netted top honors on the girls’ side of the NW2B bi-district tournament with a lopsided 52-15 win at home over Northwest Christian of Lacey on Feb. 13 followed by a tense 46-42 triumph over league rival Friday Harbor last Thursday in Coupeville. They were two totally different games that produced a single result. La Conner, 16-7 overall and with no seniors on its roster in an expect...
Home sweet home. That time-honored phrase perfectly served the La Conner Braves well at last week’s Northwest 2B bi-district basketball tournament where they sandwiched triumphs on their home floor over Northwest Christian of Lacey and Auburn Adventist Academy around a tough loss to league rival Coupeville on the Wolves’ court. The 68-57 win over Auburn Adventist last Saturday secured for La Conner (16-7) a berth in the regional round of the state playoffs. Junior guard Brayden Pedroza, who had erupted for 43 points in the Braves’ 74-29 bi-di...
It’s Sweet Sixteen time for La Conner High School’s basketball teams. Both boys and girls teams have qualified for the round of 16 of the state 2B hoops playoffs. The girls’ team drew a No. 13 seed and have drawn No. 12 Toutle Lake in a first round, loser-out regional pairing. The winner will advance to the Round of 12 at the Spokane Arena on Feb. 28. The boys’ team won two of three bi-district tests and is seeded 15th. It faces a loser-out contest with No. 10 Adna. The La Conner-Adna winner also moves on to Spokane for the round of 12. The...
The League of Women Voters of Skagit County dares to venture into the weeds of the democratic process while refusing to wallow in the mud that has stained American politics. Last week they hosted a public forum on the sometimes complex “ins and outs” of the 2024 Washington state presidential primary. The hour-long hybrid event at the Skagit PUD Meeting Room in Mount Vernon, billed specifically as a non-campaign event, featured four guest speakers – Skagit County Elections Manager Gabrielle Clay, Skagit County Republican Party Chair Bill Bruch...
Brodie Coyote, the winsome and engaging golden retriever who served as the town's goodwill ambassador and whose image graced calendar pages and numerous editions of the Weekly News, died Thursday, Feb. 15. Brodie passed away peacefully with his human, noted La Conner news and lifestyle photographer Don Zieger Coyote, at his side, according to a social media post by longtime local music promoter and former mayoral candidate Marc "Zappa" Daniel. Brodie Coyote was 14 and retired from being the...
Community members and La Conner Schools officials met Thursday to kick around ideas on how to structure the high school football program given fallen enrollment. Unless 25 La Conner High students firmly commit by mid-March to playing football this fall, only three viable options remain for the upcoming season – eliminate football, play an eight-man schedule with no post-season opportunity, or combine with the 2A state championship 11-man Anacortes High School program – La Conner secondary principal and director of athletics Christine Tripp sai...
