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Sorted by date Results 659 - 683 of 1887
Public safety in emergency situations was the talk of the town at the La Conner Retirement Inn Saturday morning. The latest in a series of quarterly public forums coordinated by La Conner Town Council communications committee members MaryLee Chamberlain and Rick Dole focused on December's flood and proposed measures to mitigate future episodes. The Dec. 27 flooding, a combination of factors – seasonal king tides, low barometric pressure, strong westerly winds and steady rainfall – struck rap...
Even a U.S. representative can have trouble finding a parking place in La Conner. And not just during peak summer tourist season, but on a January weekday morning. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Arlington), top Democrat on the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, knows that all too well. He had to park in a police zone Thursday before a full round of activities here, including speaking at the 24th annual Storming the Sound Conference at Maple Hall. The 11-term lawmaker avoided a ticket...
A La Conner man's lifelong dream and five years of his hard work quickly went up in smoke last week. Tyrone McLeod lost to fire on Tuesday, Jan. 17 the house he had been building on family property off Indian Road. McLeod is perhaps best known for having built the elaborate rampway at the former Dorsten residence on Morris Street west of the Firehall Kitchen and Taphouse, "They weren't moved in yet, everyone is okay," McLeod's mother, retired La Conner Schools staff member Linda Rumbolt, told th...
The La Conner Braves went from heartache to heartened in 48 hours last week. The high school team (7-7) rebounded from a tough 57-56 home loss to Coupeville Wednesday with a 64-14 blowout win over Darrington at Landy James Gym Friday night. With the two-game split, La Conner was 3-2 in NW1B/2B play before last night's conference action at Orcas Island. The lopsided Darrington triumph helped take the sting out of the last-second setback to the Wolves, which was no ordinary one-point defeat. It...
There was plenty of highlight reel material when the La Conner High School girls' basketball team swept conference foes Coupeville and Darrington at home last week. The Lady Braves routed Coupeville 72-16 Wednesday and romped past Darrington 69-9 Friday, extending their winning streak to four games and improving to 11-3 going into Tuesday's action at Orcas Island. "Those two games gave us the opportunity to get playing time for everyone," said head coach Joe Harper. "It was also a chance for us...
When the La Conner and Mount Vernon Christian basketball teams tip off next Tuesday, winners will have already been determined. They being the La Conner High senior class and lucky raffle ticketholders. The seniors will be raffling over $1,000 in donated items at Landy James Gym that night to raise funds for their graduation trip in the spring. Tickets will be sold during the boys’ game, which gets under way at 5:15 p.m., with drawings held at halftime of the girls’ game that follows immediately afterward. Ticket prices are $5 each or five for...
Rising tides have in turn given rise to a renewed focus on flood control and long-term effects of climate change here. The Town of La Conner is looking to form a five-member commission with regular monthly meetings where data will be studied and experts consulted to stay ahead of future significant flood events such as the town experienced last month. Mayor Ramon Hayes last week announced an intent to convert the present two-member Town Council flood committee to a full-fledged commission....
A sudden shortage of bus drivers at La Conner Schools is forcing daily routes to be combined while threatening cancellation of student field trips and overnight travel to athletic events. Randy Swift of the schools short-handed transportation department apprised school board members of the troubling situation during their two-hour meeting Jan. 9. Swift said one driver retired over winter break. In November supervisor Kim Pedroza left for a similar post with the Stanwood School District. “We don’t have enough drivers to do our regular rou...
More than once during a lifetime that spanned nearly a century the late Fred Mesman was referred to as a Renaissance Man – a person with wide interests and expertise in numerous areas. So it was only fitting that Mesman, who died in December at age 98, would be remembered as such during graveside services Saturday afternoon at Pleasant Ridge Cemetery attended by a wide cross-section of the La Conner community. Gathering on a picture-perfect sunlit day – one in which Mesman, an outdoors ent...
The past year was a busy one at Fire District 13. That trend will likely continue this year as the La Conner area district prepares to launch a community paramedicine program while adding a modular residential unit at its Snee-Oosh Road station. Fire Chief Wood Weiss noted 2022 statistics set new marks for annual demands for service at the commissioners Jan. 12 meeting. “It was a very big year,” Weiss reported. “Our biggest year pre-COVID was 2019 when we had 1,340 incident calls. We surpassed that in 2022 with 1,413 calls,” with Decembe...
La Conner Town Council and La Conner Schools officials addressed common goals and interests at their respective meetings last week. Councilmembers Mary Wohleb and MaryLee Chamberlain joined the Jan. 9 school board session via Zoom to share tips for the district best applying for state Department of Commerce grants that fund solar energy projects. Superintendent Will Nelson and Bobby Vaughn, director of operations and planning, returned the favor by attending the Jan. 10 Council meeting to weigh in on a possible joint venture to install a new...
They had to shuffle their lineup, but a league hoops triumph was still in the cards for the La Conner High School Lady Braves at Friday Harbor Saturday afternoon. Minus two starters, including Skagit County leading scorer Ellie Marble, the visitors dealt the hosts a lopsided 76-31 NW1B/2B defeat. Seniors Makayla Herrera and Josie Harper each matched Friday Harbor's team point total with career best 31-point outings. Herrera's point production included her first two perimeter treys of the...
There's no doubting Thomas regarding the La Conner High School boys' basketball team's resurrected post-season hopes. Senior transfer Braden Thoma confirmed that in a big way at Friday Harbor Saturday, scoring a game-high 19 points to pace La Conner in a key 61-45 NW1B/2B win at Turnbull Gym. Thomas, making his sixth start after transferring from Anacortes, delivered two of the team's nine outside treys as they won their third straight game and squared their season mark at 6-6. La Conner has...
A high-tech La Conner organic dairy has entered into an old-fashioned agreement to supply fresh milk to Samish Bay Cheese. Both are members of Genuine Skagit Valley, the marketing organization that supports growers and producers in the county. Mesman Farm, just east of town, has signed a three-year deal to haul milk six days a week to the Bow cheese maker, a 200-acre operation intent on growing its business. Samish Bay Cheese has a mixed herd of mostly milking shorthorns and has been making its...
Spring has not come early to La Conner. But spring cleaning has – out of necessity. In the aftermath of severe flooding of the town's low-lying areas Dec. 27, residents have been clearing water-damaged items from their garages and homes and building owners and merchants have been removing soaked carpets and merchandise from their commercial properties. Unlike routine spring-cleanups, this has not been a cathartic exercise. Frustrating is a more apt description. That frustration could well l...
The actor Jonathan Goldsmith gained a wide following for portraying "The Most Interesting Man in the World" during a popular Dos Equis promotional campaign. The part could have just as easily gone to Fred Owens, who carved out a creative and colorful niche in La Conner as a journalist, author and activist among his numerous careers and landing spots around the globe. Owens byline appeared in the Channel Town Press. In the 1980s he briefly resurrected the historic Puget Sound Mail here. He died...
It is hard to predict the future and often just as difficult to remember the distant past. But Vince Sellen, a retired La Conner schools teacher and former town council member, has shown a command of both. That is fitting for the one-time finalist for appointment to the state legislature and someone whom a local public service scholarship is named. Sellen, now an Anacortes resident, was among La Conner officials in the 1980s cautioning against over-development of vacant lots here, especially commercial encroachment into neighborhoods. He can...
In a fast-paced, often physical non-conference home hoops clash with Clallam Bay Saturday afternoon when several players were flung to the floor – and one even crashed into the scorer's table – the La Conner Braves continued to raise the ceiling on their '22-23 campaign. The boys high school team recorded its second straight blowout win with a 67-22 romp past the Bruins, a nearly identical outcome to the previous night when the Braves posted a 67-27 triumph at NW1B/2B rival Concrete. With the tw...
The ending of La Conner High School's home girls' basketball game with Neah Bay last Tuesday is one fans would just as soon forget. But what happened at halftime will remain a fond memory for years to come. Several decades of Swinomish Indian Tribal Community members who played basketball at La Conner were honored during intermission of the much-anticipated non-league matchup, which the Lady Reds won on Amber Swan's no-look, over-the-head shot in the paint off an inbounds pass as the final...
Talk is usually cheap but for the La Conner High School girls' basketball team it paid huge dividends ahead of the Lady Braves' 79-2 NW1B/2B blowout win at Concrete Friday night. Coming off a tough two-game slide – close losses to 1B powers Mount Vernon Christian and Neah Bay – La Conner (8-3) amped up its defensive energy against the Lady Lions. "We had a pretty honest meeting Tuesday with the girls while watching our game film of Neah Bay," head coach Joe Harper said, referencing a hea...
Normal lasted less than 24 hours last week after La Conner weathered heavy snowfall and thick ice before Christmas that brought the community to a virtual standstill. Winter king tides along with high westerly winds and low barometric pressure contributing to steady rain and rapid melt-off combined to produce flood conditions causing significant damage to more than a dozen homes and businesses in the town's low-lying areas from Sherman Street (south) to State Street (north) and downtown last...
They come from opposite ends of the country, different generations and work separately at Town Hall. But Ajah (pronounced Asia) Eills and Lynne Lovejoy, the Town of La Conner's new staff hires, complement one another quite nicely. Eills, a native of Concord, New Hampshire and a 2021 graduate of College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Massachusetts – a Jesuit school that has produced numerous business and political leaders, actors and sports stars – arrived here in November as the assistant pla...
After winning a razor-thin race made closer by late campaign charges that he had embellished his military service and civilian career resumes, it is full steam ahead for U.S. Naval Academy graduate Clyde Shavers as he embarks for Olympia as the 10th Legislative District's newest lawmaker. Shavers said he has already been swamped with work ahead of the Jan. 9 opening of the 2023 legislative session. "These past few weeks," he told the Weekly News recently, "I have been tirelessly working on...
The two-sport college athlete is a rare bird these days. But Skagit Valley College boasts one in Sarah Cook, who has excelled at both volleyball and basketball in her first year as a Lady Cardinal. An All-State selection in both sports at La Conner High School, where she graduated in 2022, Cook has seamlessly transitioned to collegiate athletics. At 5'-8", Cook was versatile enough to be listed as both an outside hitter and libero for the SVC volleyball program last fall. Her season highlights...
Thieves tried turning the hiding of the golf cart they stole into an art form. The reviews to date have not been pretty. The cart, which belongs to North First Street resident Mit Harlan, was recovered last week after having been crudely spray-painted green, camouflaged and partially buried in thickets in the McGlinn Island area. Whoever was responsible apparently had use for the cart and was not looking to sell the hot wheels: They altered its appearance and concealed it in a remote area just...
