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Sorted by date Results 301 - 325 of 1887
After having survived last month’s primary by a single vote, Bruce James, Jr. emerged from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community general election on Saturday with a comfortable victory for a five-year Senate term outpolling Myrtle Rivas 167-124. Rivas had led a three-candidate field with 97 votes in a low turnout bad weather day Jan. 20 primary election. James followed with 84. Three-term incumbent Brian Wilbur, had 83 votes and was eliminated by a lone ballot. Prior to the primary, James told the Swinomish Qyuuqs publication that his ...
While it’s been a hot topic in La Conner for decades, the last word on parking likely won’t be spoken here anytime soon. And the always lively local conversation continues 6 p.m. Feb. 20 at the Civic Garden Club on South Second Street. The second in a series of in-person “community mingles” will address all angles of downtown parking, from traffic safety and pedestrian access to signage and revenue opportunities. “We’re wanting to solicit input on what if any changes and improvements the public wants to see regarding parking,” Assistant Pla...
Call them the Comeback Kids. The La Conner Braves mounted two furious second half rallies in NW2B/1B boy’s hoops action last week, the second bringing a convincing 73-57 win at Friday Harbor Feb. 9 that secured top seeding at the Bi-District Tournament. La Conner opened bi-district play at home Monday night opposite Northwest Christian of Lacey.They’re at Coupeville tonight (Wednesday) opposite either the host Wolves or Auburn Adventist. The four-team, double elimination Bi-District format will send two teams to the state 2B tournament. La Con...
A pair of double-digit wins over league rivals last week clinched a No. 1 bi-district tournament seed for the La Conner High School girls’ basketball team. La Conner (14-7 overall; 7-1 in league) closed out the regular season, defeating Coupeville 46-30 Feb. 6 at Landy James Gym and winning 41-29 at Friday Harbor on Saturday. With the wins, the Lady Braves secured the top seed to the bi-district tournament, which opened last night at home opposite Northwest Christian of Lacey. La Conner moves on to the second round Thursday in Coupeville a...
Greg Whiting has rarely – if ever – lacked for energy. Consider that in a robust and wide-ranging professional life Whiting has variously researched, analyzed, helped develop and written about energy systems designed to both improve quality of life and protect the environment. And now, with his partner Jenelle Whitton as co-proprietor of Raven's Cup Coffee and Art Gallery on First Street, he markets beverages that, while served in a laid-back Pacific Northwest setting, are the fuel that kee...
Local firefighters are taking a step in the right direction when it comes to winning the fight against cancer. Make that many steps. Six members of Skagit County Fire District 13, including Chief Wood Weiss, will take part in the 33rd annual Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Firefighter Stair Climb in Seattle on March 10. The event, whose mission is to raise much needed funding toward finding a cure for those battling blood cancer, is billed as the largest on-air stair climb competition in the world. Standing 788 feet tall, the Columbia Center is...
Delivering a baby at roadside and rescuing kayakers in distress was all in a week’s work for Swinomish Indian Tribal Community police officer Brian Geer. Geer, who doubles as the Swinomish Emergency Management coordinator, was hailed last week for heroic actions by both Swinomish Tribal Police and Skagit County Fire District 13 leadership. Geer was first on the scene Jan. 30 when a kayak capsized in Skagit Bay south of Lone Tree Point. He quickly commandeered another kayak and was able to pull a person to shore who had been in the cold water fo...
The future is looking brighter for solar energy in La Conner. “You have a big advantage,” Markus Virta, managing partner and co-founder of Cascadia Renewables, told two dozen people attending a community solar storage feasibility study meeting at La Conner Swinomish Library last Saturday. Virta said collection and analysis of detailed energy usage data at La Conner Schools and the La Conner fire station, could lead to future state grant funding for installation of clean energy systems and backup generators at both venues This is his fir...
C.J. Edwards scored a season-high 17 points to go along with his usual deft passing in leading La Conner to a convincing 56-39 NW2B/1B boys’ basketball win over Mount Vernon Christian at a packed DeKok Court on Jan. 30. Edwards, the reigning Skagit Valley Herald Boys’ Athlete of the Week, threw several dazzling overhand baseball passes from backcourt to ignite a lethal La Conner transition game that was especially effective in the decisive second half. The 5-10 junior point guard drained two of his three perimeter treys during a 16-7 fou...
C.J. Edwards is used to making his teammates look good, repeatedly feeding them for baskets as the La Conner High School boys’ basketball team’s assists leader. Edwards is looking pretty good himself these days as the Skagit Valley Herald’s Boys’ Athlete of the Week award recipient. Edwards, a 5-10 junior who runs the point for his team, received the SVH honor after scoring seven points and dishing off six assists in a 77-69 league triumph over Orcas Island on Jan. 23. He followed that up with a season-high 17-point effort Jan. 30 at Mount Vern...
Youth will be served. Sometimes, but not last week. The La Conner High School girls’ basketball team, with several eighth graders in key roles, fell 56-30 to a solid and veteran Mount Vernon Christian lineup before a large Jan. 30 Senior Night crowd at MVC’s DeKok Court. La Conner has no seniors. It started eighth graders and sophomores against the Lady Hurricanes, who enjoyed a considerable size advantage across the front line. MVC bolted to an 11-0 first quarter lead and never looked back enroute to the NW2B/1B triumph. Senior Allie Heino led...
A Swinomish fisherman has netted national attention for his 47-foot crabber built from an in-house design at Full Time Fabrication in Sedro-Woolley. Matt Johnston's new boat, Wild West, is featured in National Fisherman magazine, which covers the U.S. and Canadian fishing industries and whose target audience includes commercial fishermen, academics, government staffers, sport fishermen and environmental advocates. Wild West was to begin sea trials in late January. National Fisherman...
Emergency management has been a priority here since channel flooding in 2022 swamped waterfront and low-lying areas. Attention turned last week to fears of catastrophes and disaster at the dilapidated former Moore-Clark warehouse building at South First and Caledonia streets. A fixture in La Conner since before the turn of the century – to the 20th century– and once part of a bustling hatchery fish food processing plant and longtime local industrial hub, it was constructed as a grain war...
More people are seeing the light solar energy offers. Members of the La Conner-based Skagit Valley Clean Energy Cooperative are hoping to see that number grow Saturday after a 10 a.m. forum at the La Conner Swinomish Library. The program explores solar and energy storage and how they help build climate resilience and support community needs. They will discuss their approved feasibility study for a grant to fund solarization and energy storage at the La Conner fire station and school campus. If funded, both venues will serve as emergency...
The La Conner High School girls' basketball team enjoyed a banner night on Friday, routing The Northwest School of Seattle 64-11 in non-league hoops action. So did a group of special guests at Landy James Gym. The members of La Conner High School's undefeated 1968 football team and their families and friends were honored during halftime ceremonies highlighted by the unveiling of a banner bearing a photograph of the players and their coaches, the late Jim Frey and Vince Sellen, who now resides...
So much for El Nino. The climate pattern linked to warmer than normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean and which led to forecasts of above average temperatures this winter went AWOL for more than a week. A major storm swept into Skagit County last Wednesday on the heels of an arctic blast that had earlier plunged thermometers and wind chill gauges into single digits. The result was an extended stretch of icy and snowy roads and streets that forced local business closures and pushed...
Every vote counts is no mere cliché. Just ask Bruce James, Jr. James advanced to the Swinomish Tribal Senate general election next month by a single vote, edging incumbent Brian Wilbur 84-83 and placing second in primary balloting last Saturday. Myrtle Rivas, who received 97 votes, will face James in the Feb. 10 contest for the Swinomish Senate Seat No. 10 that Wilbur had held for three terms. Meanwhile, Rodney John and incumbent Eric Day will vie for Seat No. 11 in the tribe’s general election. John polled 103 primary votes while 88 voters se...
Hours before snow hit outside, the La Conner Planning Commissioners plowed through a busy agenda during their 80-minute Jan. 16 hybrid meeting at Maple Hall. The pile of issues addressed were housing and parking issues, the status of the Talmon Project at 306 Center Street, population projections for the town and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s plans to convert its Maple Avenue apartment complex to a staffed home recovery facility. The tribe has designed a program for persons and families who have completed treatment at the Didgwalic W...
La Conner High School seniors started their freshman year wearing masks and learning from home in front of their computers. Three years later they’re still playing catch-up from the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus the La Conner’s Class of ‘24 has lagged in fundraising, not possible with the campus closed. The class must still raise about half of the estimated $25,000 needed for its June trip to Disneyland. Senior class advisor Theresa James apprised school board members at their Jan. 22 meeting that despite the yeoman effor...
Braves hoop team blister nets, win 2 With a frigid winter cold snap outside, the La Conner Braves turned up the heat inside gyms at Coupeville and Darrington for a pair of key NW2B/1B high school hoops triumphs last week. Fittingly, given the plunging temps, La Conner’s 69-68 victory at Coupeville Jan. 16 was a classic barnburner. The Braves then scorched the nets Friday night enroute to a lopsided 76-35 decision at Darrington. “It was a good conference win after two days off for weather,” coach Lance Lopez told the Weekly News after the route...
The La Conner High School girls’ basketball team saved its best for last at Coupeville. Entering the fourth quarter deadlocked, the Lady Braves finished with an 18-4 spurt that secured a 46-32 NW2B/1B triumph Jan. 16, extending their winning streak over the hosts to 11 games dating to 2018. Coupled with a 51-25 road victory over Darrington Jan. 19, the team is unbeaten (5-0) in conference play before last night’s clash with Orcas Island. For La Conner, the road trip to Coupeville was Valentine’s Day a month early. With head coach Joe Harpe...
When the iconic Rainbow Bridge, the often-photographed arched orange span synonymous with La Conner opened in 1957, it looked like a million. Fast forward to 2024 and the now faded local landmark requires several millions – as in dollars – to reclaim its original bright orange appeal. The estimated cost of repainting Rainbow Bridge, which links La Conner and the Skagit County mainland with Fidalgo Island and Swinomish Reservation, is about $4 million, town resident Linda Peterson learned fro...
Extreme tide changes on Swinomish Channel have made difficult the efforts by multiple agencies to find a 27-year-old Kirkland woman whose last known whereabouts was the La Conner waterfront early on New Year’s Day. “At this time,” Sgt. Brad Holmes, who administers the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office La Conner Detachment, said on Sunday, “the missing female has not been located and most search efforts have been maxed out.” Intense searches involving divers from throughout the Puget Sound region have been conducted during low tide periods on...
A new year, a new mayor. It's been a long while – going back to January 2008 – since that sentence has applied to the Town of La Conner. Now it does. Former planning commissioner Marna Hanneman, who has spent the past six months prepping to succeed retiring four-term mayor Ramon Hayes, transitioned into her new role at a Jan. 9 hybrid town council meeting at Maple Hall that ended with a half-hour executive session. Council members Annie Taylor and Mary Wohleb also took ceremonial oaths of office...
Politics can get quite heated in this day and age. But on Saturday Mother Nature cooled more than campaign rhetoric. Extreme cold weather, with temperatures plunging into the low teens and below throughout greater La Conner, greatly reduced turnout at a Skagit County Republican Party caucus at the Civic Garden Club Building that morning. A couple dozen GOP and independent voters arrived the first hour of the caucus, which ran from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and chose delegates to the county and state Re...
