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Plastics dominated the Town Council’s May 8 session. The Council signaled its willingness to ban disposable plastic bags handed out at retail stores. Carol Sullivan of Mount Vernon, the “BAG Lady with Skagit BAG BANd Wagon,” made a lively, lengthy, power-less, pointed presentation, using poster board signs to start the meeting. She buried them with facts: in this plastic age 350 million tons are produced annually. One hundred billion bags are used annually. Half of all plastics are single use and then trashed. Sullivan said society has “fall...
To the editor: Sockeye season to open June 15 for a month is good news for local hook and line fishermen. I understand why the Fish Department has opted to close the river during the days the Indians are netting to keep peace. What is concerning to sports fishermen is why the Department has to close the lower river to non-Indians during their open season? The river from Mount Vernon to the mouth of Gilligan Creek is called “Pump Country” because of shallow water. It is no place for an expensive outboard motor with a propeller on it. I wou...
Fellow La Connerans, Please join me in wishing a sincere farewell to Jessica Armey, our former La Conner Regional Public Libraries children’s librarian. She was laid off as of Friday the 11th of May and with the public school year ending soon, the activities and story events she cheerfully orchestrated for local children will be sorely missed. In addition, the great book and research references she shared with all patrons is much appreciated. Thank you very much for your service to the public and may you return soon. Rick Hendrickson r...
Letter to the Editor Thank you for your May 2nd article about our forming cohousing community in the Skagit Valley. We are very excited about this concept. In our mobile and tech-oriented society, many people feel isolated both by the many tech screens dominating our lives and our distance from our extended families. Cohousing is physically structured to promote interactions with neighbors through closely clustered private homes, shared common spaces such as workshops and gardens, and perimeter parking for safe and beautiful pedestrian...
Walking up Valentine Road past Pleasant Ridge cemetery in the evening last week offered a great view of Venus to the northwest. Always the brightest planet, it is particularly distinct in the clear, blue black May sky. Heading south around the curve, it is Jupiter, a bit yellower but almost as bright, hanging proudly in the southeastern sky. These wonderfully clear spring nights, what a gift they are for stargazing. Is that what our farm neighbors are thinking as they slowly head west across their fields? Their tractors power the brightest...
Thursday, the 17th, you can make your mouth happy, your spouse or partner happy, the owners of one of five of your favorite La Conner restaurants and chefs happy and in the process do a fleeting good deed for poor people. See the ad on this issue’s back page. Find a restaurant participating, eat out and take a BITE for Skagit. It is a small way to do a little bit of good. So go. Eat out. Take a BITE for Skagit is an annual May Foodie Fundraiser benefiting Community Action of Skagit County’s Skagit Food Bank Distribution Center. It is org...
Longtime La Conner resident Jeanne (Alaways) Johnson passed away on May 2, 2018. Jeanne was born in Anacortes, WA July 21, 1924. She was the oldest of six children and grew up in Port Angeles and Clear Lake working in the family shingle mill. After traveling from Alaska to Louisiana she settled in La Conner in 1964. Her passions were gardening, hiking, rock hounding and cooking. She had several businesses throughout Skagit County and through these hobbies and ventures she met and touched many lives. In the early 80’s she went back to school a...
The drive between La Conner and Whidbey Island has become longer. Not in terms of distance, but time. Traffic delays in the Sharpe’s Corner area northwest of La Conner have been the norm recently due to roundabout construction at the intersection of State Route 20 and the Paul Luvera Memorial Highway. This Washington State Department of Transportation project is designed to increase motorist safety and improve traffic flow, as is the recently built roundabout south of Sharpe’s Corner on Sta...
AND THE WINNER IS – Mara Leite, of Seattle, won the La Conner Chamber of Commerce’s annual daffodil photo contest. Her “Golden Hour” will be on the official 2019 Daffodil Festival poster. Leite posted her photo to the Chamber’s social media pages. It became a finalist. Visitors to the Chamber’s site “liked” their favorite photo. This is the photo that was liked the most. The annual La Conner Daffodil Festival is celebrated each March with acres of daffodils, events and activities. &...
The luthiers came to La Conner last weekend, setting up in Maple Hall for the second annual La Conner Guitar Festival. The bait set by festival organizers Shirley Makela and spouse Brent McElroy brought some 1,500 guitar playing enthusiasts from across the country for three days of workshops, cabarets, mini-concerts, concerts and an exhibit hall full of the finest hand crafted acoustic and electric guitars, harp guitars, mandolins and ukeleles made in North America. Luthiers make stringed...
Irish poet Tony Curtis has a sort of magic. When he walks into a classroom, he enthralls the most skeptical English students with a world where words, music and humor make the most ardent of non-book lovers forget the bell. “I find students the most fascinating audience,” said Curtis, who will travel to ten schools in his two-week visit, punctuated by the Skagit River Poetry Festival which begins Thursday and will be held in venues throughout La Conner over the weekend. “If they can understand it, there’s hope for the adults.” One of his many...
La Conner High thinclads were definitely on the fast track Friday afternoon. The fast track to twin District 1 championships, that is. The Braves and Lady Braves track teams won their respective halves of the 2B side of District trials held at Mount Vernon High. The La Conner boys outpointed runner-up Friday Harbor by a comfortable 226-87 margin. Concrete (60) finished third. La Conner’s girls outdistanced Concrete 183-86, with Friday Harbor (46) taking bronze. It was a wonderful-Lee s...
