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No fooling: the Tulip Festival season is here. A week into April, it is for sure: The month long Skagit Tulip Festival has blossomed. Flower fields unfold in every direction this year, south, north and east of La Conner. They are in full press daffodil yellow, spectacularly so, some 500 acres of bright yellow. While tulips are starting to flower in a variety of colors, the dominant tone is green, as in leaves. The late tulip blossoming may mean Washington Bulb Company’s workers will wait u...
Town Councilmember and First on First advocate John Leaver summarized the group’s April 3 first Saturday effort as “mixed results, partially due to somewhat chilly weather as well as a reduced vendor count and no music in Gilkey Square.” He called two new vendors exciting: SAFIUCHI showing her display of art and Dave McCormick with custom made “beer flites:” wood based mantles for 4-5.5 ounce beer tasting glasses. Youngsters again enjoyed chalk art on Gilkey Square’s “Concrete Canvas,” incl...
Good news. The profit will be about $71,142 to the Town of La Conner in its sale of the Hedlin Maple Avenue ballfield property. Incomplete reporting resulted in an inaccurate story in the March 31 Weekly News, when the headline cited $20,000. Add to that the $37,000 2020 purchase option, which held the property. That was part of the purchase price,. Another $13,340 is gained because the Town, as a government, does not pay real estate excise tax when it sells property. That is a swing of over $50,000 for La Conner. The Town’s total cost to b...
There is no alternative. — Margaret Thatcher Dan Armland’s family had been around so long it was sometimes difficult for newcomers to Ma Donner to know where his farm property ended and the town’s boundary began. The ballfield on which generations of kids had grown up learning baseball and teamwork as well as playing frisbee fetch with their dogs was his family’s. So Mayor Herman Rays was not surprised when Armland called and asked to meet him for coffee at the Ma Donner Coffee Company. He was surprised when Dan told him, putting his s...
Skagit County announced another round of assistance funds with the availability of $8.9 million in rent and utility assistance for Skagitonians impacted by COVID-19 April 2. This grant was provided by the Washington State Department of Commerce and funded by Treasury Rent Assistance Program (T-RAP). The program is to prevent evictions during the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis by paying past due and current/future rent and utilities for people needing relief. The monies extend $2.2 million in funding from the Washington State Department of Comme...
I really want to say that the public relations and outreach Fire District 13 continues to provide to our Swinomish Indian Tribal Community has not only been creative but it has nurtured our Spirits too, throughout 2020 and continues in 2021. For example, FD 13 has a staff member call me every single morning through a “Good Morning” program I signed up for when I first fell ill a few years ago. I also qualified for it because I am a Swinomish Elder. I look forward to their phone call every morning, especially during this pandemic. If I don...
Will Nelson is a new face in town. But it will not be long before his will be a familiar face. Nelson, chosen last Wednesday as the new superintendent of La Conner Schools, plans to be a visible administrator, interacting regularly with students, staff and the community at large. “I’m really passionate about the position,” Nelson, director of equity and student success at Arlington Public Schools and a member of the Blackfeet Nation, told board members during a rigorous interview process last...
James Owen Lockrem Sr, 61, passed away from cancer at his home in La Conner, WA surrounded by his family on April 1, 2021. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on April 28, 1959 to Richard and Florence Lockrem. The family moved to Washington State when Jim was 8 years old. Jim graduated from Glacier High School in Burien, WA. He married the love of his life, Carol Starkweather, in Burien on June 30, 1979. They moved to La Conner in 1982 and raised five children. Jim attended Skagit College in... Full story
The first pitch of the last season of youth baseball at historic Hedlin’s Ballfield has yet to be thrown, but game plans are already being developed for next year. At least in terms of securing a new sports venue in 2022. Spring practices have begun much as they have this time of year going back decades, but now prospective building lots for a planned new residential development are staked out behind the ballfield’s backstop and parallel to its first base line. These are subtle signs that the nearly two-acre Maple Avenue site is soon to be con...
My greatest priorities for the 2021 legislative session are to support economic development and recovery in rural communities, promote sustainable environmental and economic health and support families and those hit hardest by the pandemic and recession. The House recently released its operating, capital and transportation budgets. I am proud to have fought for local projects and programs that will go a long way to support these priorities. Economic Recovery Washington’s recovery begins with community, which is why House Democrats built a plan...
The La Conner High track and field and softball teams made up for lost time in big ways last week. After having their entire 2020 schedules shelved by COVID-19 and losing two weeks this season due to positive virus test cases, the two local school sports programs wrapped up their shortened 2021 campaign with a flourish. The track teams competed twice last week, including their lone home meet, a Senior Day clash with NW2B rivals Mount Vernon Christian, Coupeville and Concrete on Wednesday that saw La Conner top both halves of the leaderboard....
They say 90 per cent of success is just showing up. The La Conner High baseball team, sidelined for the 2019 and 2020 seasons, reached the 90 per cent mark this spring with a rebuilt young roster loaded with eighth graders and freshmen. The next step for veteran co-coaches Jeremiah LeSourd and Andy Otis is to bring the team the remaining 10 per cent during what hopefully will be a full schedule next spring. The Braves dropped their final two games of a modified and shortened 2021 varsity season with conference losses last week to Darrington...
For the second straight year La Conner churches found a way amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to celebrate the miracle of Easter. Historic Sacred Heart Catholic Church, one of the oldest parishes in the Archdiocese of Seattle; La Conner United Methodist Church, known throughout the area as “a home for all God’s children;” and La Conner Christ the King Church, a true “meet and greet” congregation, each offered worshippers options for celebrating Holy Week here. “We met in small home groups and as individuals on-line,” pastor Jon Skiffington o...
Clams and other foods from our area waters are eaten at every opportunity in my home. These Butter Clams were dug by Ben James, who is also known as “Ben Jammin” or “Ben be Jammin” as in “clam jamming”, or digging clams. What a perfect nickname, to be associated with one of the traditional foods of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. They say, “when the tide is out, the table is set.” My husband tells the family story that his step-grandfather, Alfred Sampson, Sr., would walk through the woo...
Monday, March 29 3:26 p.m.: Geese were here – Report of people parking on the roadway taking pictures of the geese. Best / Calhoun Rds., Greater La Conner. 7:42 p.m.: Rainbow rumor – Report of people walking “on top” of the rainbow bridge. Deputies could not confirm if this occurred. Pioneer Pkwy., La Conner. Tuesday, March 30 10:02 a.m.: Paint spray – Report of gang graffiti spray painted on an observation deck. Bay View Edison Rd., Bay View. 11:56 a.m.: Blowing smoke – Report of a box van that was weaving and blo...
