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Dear Editor, I want to remind your readers of the great opportunity this Friday night at 6 p.m. to support La Conner Parks. There is a “fun” raiser at Hellam’s Vineyard to generate donations toward the construction of a beautiful log pavilion (picnic shelter) in Conner Waterfront Park under the Rainbow Bridge. The event activities include wine tasting and fabulous desserts produced by the La Conner School Culinary Club and music by Mayor Ramon Hayes. There are some pretty cool auction items, too! An original painting by Mark Bistranin of Seasi...
Wouldn’t you be outraged if the Afghanistan war racked up 14,708 deaths in one year? That is the number of deaths from gun violence in just 2018*. Compare that to 2,372** military deaths in all the 17 years of the Afghanistan war, start to present. Consider 3,492 children, under age of 18years, are victims of gun violence, injured or killed, which works out to 9.5 children/day. That does not include suicides. If suicides by gun are included, those numbers double. Hurricane Katrina killed 1,836. How does gun violence not qualify as a national c...
On behalf of our students, staff and school board, we thank you, our community, for your incredible and overwhelming support on our 2019 educational programs and operations levy. It is passing with an amazing 70 percent YES vote, and we are so grateful. To those who served on our levy committee, most notably Debra Lekanoff and Kelly Harper, to all who attended the “get out the vote” event hosted by Swinomish, to Alicia Neely and the Swinomish tax committee, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. To all who participated in our “Pr...
“Happy Birthday” wasn’t the only song sung during Sybil East’s party in Shelter Bay on Saturday. Those gathered in Dallas and Nancy Burlison’s living room heard the guest of honor sing several tunes, including “You Are My Sunshine,” “Amazing Grace,” and “A Long Way to Tipperary.” The latter melody dates to World War I, which had begun a mere six months before Sybil’s birth in rural Illinois. Sybil, who was born Feb. 18, 1915 – the mid-point of Woodrow Wilson’s first term in the White H...
Some 200 people from La Conner and as far away as Bellingham and Anacortes rallied in Mount Vernon Monday at 5 p.m. “to protest Trump’s declaration of a national disaster at the US-Mexico border,” organizers Molly Calvin and Christine Kohnert reported. Calvin emailed: “Participants were protesting Donald Trump’s fake national emergency, indicating that it is a direct attack on our democracy and the critical need for our members of Congress to rein in this executive overreach and stop the emerg...
Farmers and agriculture industry allies heard from Skagit County economic development leaders on the afternoon of the fourth annual Ag Summit Feb. 8, sponsored by WSU Extension at their Mount Vernon offices. Port of Skagit Executive Director Patsy Martin had the day’s big announcement, which she and the Innovation Partnership Zone, partners the Port is working with, shared with the group at the session on “Innovation.” Martin unveiled “Genuine Skagit Valley,” a certification program years in...
Eight representatives from the town of La Conner, Skagit County, La Conner Regional Library and La Conner Library Foundation spent last Thursday in Olympia at the state Capitol, seeking continued financial support for the new La Conner Library project. The group included Mayor Ramon Hayes, town administrator Scott Thomas, county commissioner Ron Wesen, La Conner Library board members Jean Markert and Bill Taylor, La Conner Library Foundation board member Denise Willup, library director Joy Neal and foundation director Susan Macek. Throughout...
My list of grievances against our government is long, built over time, and well thought out. My biggest frustration might surprise folks, given all the illegal as well as unjust wars we have fought and the people wrongly harassed, spied on, murdered and imprisoned. Perhaps because it is so personal, intruding on me twice a year, I bristle and take umbrage. Daylight saving time. My least favorite weekend of the year is in March, when we speed ahead to an imposed hour of darkness in the morning. My favorite weekend is in November, when an hour...
Before we had newspapers and journalists, we had poets. When all communities were small and tribal, poets were sometimes leaders and prophets. A prophet is a poet naming out loud the community’s pain. That is what some of the books, psalms and words of the Old Testament are. In today’s paper is a Bob Skeele poem about KeyBank closing their La Conner branch in April. It is his response to the letter they mailed customers saying that to provide better service they are moving to Mount Vernon. Skeele’s poem asks, “How are the users better served...
La Conner school district voters overwhelming approved renewing their school levy Feb. 12, one of four levy wins in three Skagit County school districts. The La Conner levy won with 70 percent of the vote, with 1,123 vote of over 1,600 cast. The last 200 ballots for the four districts will be counted Thursday. Dr. Whitney Meissner, La Conner superintendent, went to the County Auditor’s office election night with School Board President Janie Beasley and Board Member Katie Szurek. They greeted t...
