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It was a Chamber of Commerce kind of day both outside and inside Maple Hall on March 15. A special 90-minute evening business forum there, coordinated by Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Heather Carter, capped a sunny near-spring day in La Conner. The event served multiple purposes. It introduced new Town Administrator Scott Thomas to local merchants and business owners, allowed Mayor Ramon Hayes to outline future municipal budget goals and offered those attending to take part in a free-flowing question-and-answer session. “I think it w...
Some 60 people came out on a near winter-like Sunday afternoon to see local filmmaker Jack Gunter’s documentary “The Quest for the Lost Paintings of Siberia” in Maple Hall. Gunter, a Camano Island artist better known for his paintings, calls himself the “Brat Artist.” Much of his art is humorous, exemplified by his flying pigs, which are a part of the film. In fact, a pig narrates Gunter’s account of his 2013 trip to Russia to recover paintings stuck in the former Soviet Union back in 1989. Th...
The Skagit County Board of Commissioners last week dismissed arguments made by environmental organizations and upheld a key permit for the Tesoro (recently renamed Andeavor) Anacortes Refinery to export new petrochemicals. The permit is one of several the refinery needs before it can complete the proposed project to export raw xylenes to markets in Asia. Xylenes are a petrochemical used in manufacturing plastics, films and related products. “Despite significant public concerns raised about the project, the board opted not to consider whether t...
Lila Long, aged almost 92, of 400 Gilkey Road, Burlington, WA, passed away at Skagit Valley Hospital on March 22, 2018 after a two-month struggle with respiratory related health issues. Lila was a 34-year resident of Skagit County, moving here in 1984. She was born March 28, 1926 in Canton China. From China, she moved to Canada and then to the United States. Lila was a housewife and talented artist who painted in multiple media and was always learning new techniques. She was predeceased by Luke, her husband of 60 years, and her daughter...
He was a poet, this Minnesota senator so bold, And long a politician before war got in his way. What to do but march off alone into the dark and cold? That acerbic wit fit his Irish heritage mold. His words a sword, a mighty dragon he did slay. And yet he was a poet and thus inclined to be bold. Slushing through New Hampshire’s snow, he sold Enough people to vote for the words he had no choice but to say. Thank god he marched off alone into that dark winter’s cold. Alone, recall, he faced LBJ; he Irish and so truth to power told, Showing tha...
If this week’s column had a title, it would be “This Generation’s Children Crusade.” How many remember, even if they are old enough, that it was 50 years ago, March 1968, when Eugene McCarthy, the very Irish and very Minnesotan United States Senator, a former sociology professor, lost to President Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary? I had forgotten he lost, and didn’t remember that the election was March 12. I did remember March 31: that was the day that Johnson shocked the nation with an evening TV announcement that he was dropping...
Arms are for hugging. Protect citizens not guns. Arm our teachers with compassion and understanding not guns. The only arms that belong in school are for hugging. Who’s next? Enough is enough. I’d rather not be shot. Protect kids not guns. [several] Students demand action. Am I next? Arm teachers with pencils not guns. Grannies against gun violence. Register to vote. [several] Vote Vote Vote. Arms are for hugging. Protect citizens not guns. No more silence. End gun violence. Our children lives over the gun industry. Listen to our kids. Boo...
“American Fiction” opens at the Museum of Northwest Art Saturday with a 1 p.m. presentation on artist Robert McCauley’s work by Greg Robinson followed by a 2 p.m. reception. McCauley will attend. Robinson, chief curator at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, says “McCauley’s work visually places him in the Northwest, although most of his life was spent teaching in Illinois. His main theme – the ethics of conquest is universal and, unfortunately, timeless. His exquisite paintings and assemblage works, his engagement with diverse v...
It’s no joke: the 35th annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival runs the month of April. Expect to see folks on greater La Conner roads this weekend. They will be fooled: only daffodils are now in bloom. Started as a three-day festival in 1984, it has grown to 10, then 17 days and, for more than five years, into a 30-day event. The activities are many and assorted: art shows, gala celebrations, concerts, tours of local shellfish and cheese operations and an open house at PACCAR. The Downtown Mount Vernon Street Fair and the Kiwanis Salmon B...
SPRING HAS SPRUNG IN THE SKAGIT – “This is what happens when Winter and Spring meet and the Earth wants to warm up, but the Sky keeps laying her cool blanket down. It was a beautiful morning,” is the photographer’s poetic summary of what she captured with her camera. – Photo by Robin Carneen...
Teens, parents and elders made the trek to Mount Vernon to support students from at least the Anacortes, Burlington-Edison, La Conner, Mount Vernon and Sedro Woolley school districts in the Skagit County March for Our Lives. An estimated 1,000 people gathered at Mount Vernon high school at 12 p.m. under clearing skies to hear students encourage their fellow students to be brave and make history. Arlo Liddell, a La Conner high school junior, was one of the speakers. The crowd marched the...
