Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Sorted by date Results 676 - 700 of 1389
The two-time defending state 2B volleyball team brought its ‘A’ game to Burlington Saturday. La Conner High School, benefiting from superb serving, strong net play and crisp defense, won 11 of 12 sets in pool play and split two matches in the main bracket against teams from larger schools competing at the annual Burlington-Edison Invitational Tournament. La Conner defeated Lynden Christian 25-19, 25-17, 28-26, edged Washington High 25-20, 25-21, 16-25, swept North Kitsap 25-22, 25-12, 25-18 and prevailed over Meridian 25-22, 25-12, 25-18 in...
A La Conner civic leader helping shape the community’s future has also proved adept at bringing history to life. Susie Gardner Deyo, who chairs the La Conner School Board, revisited vivid chapters of her family legacy through a 10-minute video as part of the recent centennial celebration in Anacortes of the Ann Washington chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution. The DAR is a lineage-based membership organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United S...
It is often said that if you want a job done, assign it to a busy person. In that case, the Skagit County Historical Society couldn’t have found a more qualified candidate to preside over its board of trustees. Local attorney Pat Paul, known for wearing many hats – including as food editor for the La Conner Weekly News – was elected earlier in October to chair the historical society’s governing panel, which administers policies designed to preserve Skagit County’s cultural heritage. She has been a trustee for two years. Paul, an Al...
Justine Benson set the pace for the La Conner High School volleyball team’s state title runs in 2018 and 2019. Now she is stepping up her game even further at the college level. “I think my overall game has improved significantly,” Benson, a 5’-9” freshman setter for Bellevue College told the Weekly News Thursday. “The pace is definitely a bit faster and more intense, but it has been the most rewarding process.” Benson has clearly kept pace, helping Bellevue race to five wins in its first six co...
Ellie Marble is a big hit with La Conner High volleyball fans. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association is a huge fan, too. The WIAA selected Marble for Athlete of the Week honors based on her stellar play at the recent Capital City Invitational Tournament in Olympia. Marble helped La Conner place third among 17 tourney teams from all enrollment classifications. She compiled 119 digs and 109 kills, served at a 98 per cent clip and was 77 of 77 on serve receives. “Marble has been a...
The La Conner High School volleyball team swept three matches last week, two of them in conference play. The team, the two-time defending state 2B champion, followed up on its superb performance at a major non-league tournament in Olympia. It placed third among 17 larger school entries at the Capital City Invitational Tournament earlier this month. The Lady Braves, undefeated in 12 regular season contests, returned from Olympia to defeat 1A Lynden Christian and league foe Concrete at home and NW2B rival Friday Harbor on the road. The...
No lunch at The Fork at Skagit Bay. No summer patio service at the Calico Cupboard. One person filling parts orders at the Morris Street NAPA store. A dozen-plus openings on the La Conner School District website. These are among the local impacts of a national scenario that in July saw 10.1 million job openings and 9.5 million unemployed people. “That’s backwards,” said Scott Price of Edward Jones in La Conner. “Now we are at about 4.8 million unemployed, but there are still a lot of job openings out there, especially in the restaurant and ser...
The two-time defending state champion La Conner High School volleyball team took a break from NW2B play last week for matches against teams from larger enrollment schools. And the Lady Braves showed they clearly weren’t out of their league. The team, which had not lost a single set to open the 2021 campaign, defeated 4A Glacier Peak 3-1 in a key road test on Thursday, then placed third overall Saturday among 17 larger school entrants at the Capital City Invitational Tournament in Olympia. “It was so great for us to compete against larger sch...
Blue and white are the official colors of La Conner Schools – except two weeks ago, on Sept. 30, when orange shirts were worn instead. And, very likely, annually going forward. The change in garb was no mere fashion statement. It was intended to build public awareness of the atrocities and ensuing historical trauma linked to prior forced attendance and assimilation to white culture imposed upon Indigenous students at residential schools in the U.S. and Canada. The La Conner School Board, following an impassioned presentation last month...
The beat goes on – thankfully – for young Nani Luna after surgeons at Seattle Children’s Hospital successfully completed a lengthy procedure on the two-month-old baby’s aortic valve Sept. 29. Their timing couldn’t have been better. It was World Heart Day, which each year draws attention to heart illness and its range of associated issues. On that day doctors closed baby Nani’s chest, about 48 hours after she had undergone the Ross Procedure to replace her aortic valve, the main outflow valve between the heart and the body. Other sur...
Faye Martin, who grew up in La Conner, WA, died at age 66 on Wednesday, September 22, 2021, in Port Angeles, Washington at the Olympic Medical Center. She died peacefully while being treated for Covid-Pneumonia. Though vaccinated, Faye’s immune system was too compromised. Faye Ellen Martin was born in Seattle, on August 11, 1955. The family moved to La Conner in 1956. She attended La Conner Grade School and La Conner High School, graduating in 1973. She then attended Skagit Valley College and r...
For the La Conner High School boys’ soccer program, wins over league power Mount Vernon Christian have come about as often as the U.S. Census in recent seasons. Which means La Conner’s 4-1 win via penalty kicks at MVC Friday counts for a lot. “This was a huge win for us, beating Mount Vernon Christian for the first time in 10 years,” Braves head coach Galen McKnight told the Weekly News afterwards. “Some of the boys have been playing for five years – since eighth grade – and it really meant a lot to them.” La Conner’s Christian Fix...
It’s true that practice makes perfect. But the La Conner High School volleyball team remained perfect last week without any practice. After having had several playing dates shelved earlier due to COVID-19 infections, the two-time defending state champions were faced with a heavy makeup schedule featuring four league matches in as many days. The Lady Braves (6-0) won each in straight sets, completing a Monday through Thursday sweep of NW2B foes Concrete, Orcas Island, Friday Harbor and Mount Vernon Christian. Ellie Marble dominated the net at M...
All football players are faced with adversity at one time or another and in many cases the most difficult challenges come after their playing careers are over. That was the message delivered to the La Conner High School football team last week by someone who has tackled big tests on and off the field. Former NFL defensive end and linebacker Joe Tafoya, a member of the Seattle Seahawks’ 2006 Super Bowl team, has since gone on to become a successful entrepreneur. He met with La Conner players to offer them encouragement as they struggle through a...
Two weeks after approving a new labor contract with the La Conner Education Association, La Conner School District board members rolled up their sleeves and got to work on several key tasks marking the start of the 2021-22 academic year. The first of those at their Sept. 27 meeting was to unanimously approve a proclamation designating Sept. 30 as Orange Shirt-Residential School Awareness Day during their 90-minute hybrid public session. The board action followed a presentation by district...
During the public portion of the board meeting, La Conner resident and former Skagit County Treasurer Dan O’Donnell asked members to address debt service issues at their next meeting. Board president Susie Gardner Deyo, without further comment, thanked O’Donnell for addressing the panel and having submitted correspondence earlier. District Business Manager Brian Gianello said that in September La Conner Schools has recorded a head count of 579 students, with a Full Time Equivalent (FTE) total of 563. “That’s up from what we budgeted, from ou...
The La Conner High School volleyball team is not used to losing. Not even a single set. But it lost last week’s slate of matches due to COVID-19 protocols. Winners of the 2018 and 2019 State 2B net crowns and among the favorites to capture this year’s Yakima tourney, the team is poised to make up for lost time. Head coach Suzanne Marble’s undefeated squad is scheduled for six matches and an invitational tournament over a 12-day stretch starting with Monday’s Sept. 27 NW2B clash at Concrete. With coaches not allowed to comment publicly on COVI...
During La Conner High School’s NW2B football game at Coupeville Friday night a disoriented deer sauntered onto the field. But Bambi had nothing to fear. It was a young and injury-riddled Braves team that was in Coupeville’s crosshairs instead. The host Wolves (1-2), paced by four long touchdowns by Scott Hilborn, extended La Conner’s scoreless streak to three games with a convincing 51-0 league triumph. Hillborn scored on a 48-yard option pitch in the first period, returned a punt 51 yards in the second quarter for a TD and reached paydi...
It isn’t just a new library being built at the old Pederson Automotive site on Morris Street. An understanding that the local area is one community – a single, multi-cultural community – is being built there as well, La Conner Library Foundation Director Susan Macek said last week. The much-anticipated start of construction of the La Conner-Swinomish Regional Library underscores the value of working together on a project that will serve and benefit the many diverse groups within the library district here, Macek said. And s...
If science requires solving complex problems one step at a time, a La Conner alumnus is among those setting the pace when it comes to the vital on-going study of viruses, stem cells and gene therapy. Nick Llewellyn, a 1998 high school graduate, is a member of the research team at the acclaimed Paula Cannon Lab at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he has been engaged in critical studies involving both HIV and COVID-19. “My work over the past year,” Llewellyn told the...
Three greater La Conner family farms will participate in the Skagit Festival of Family Farms this weekend: Roozengaarde, Schuh Farms and Gordon Skagit Farms. Longtime participant Hedlin Family Farms is not on the roster. Started 20-plus years ago by the Washington State University’s Skagit County Extension program, the event took a break last year, a result of the coronavirus pandemic. “Last fall there was no vaccine, so we as a group decided it would be better not to encourage people to com...
Construction Update The La Conner Library is excited to announce Tiger Construction is mobilizing to the site of the new La Conner Swinomish Library and demolition of the Thrift Shop is expected this week. This is an exciting step forward in a series of highly visible progress on the new library. A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept.29. The community is invited to this long anticipated event. The site will be blessed by the Swinomish Tribe and county and state representatives have been invited to take part. Summer R...
There was no saving Grace in Marysville Friday. The La Conner High School boys' soccer team saw to that. The Braves won their first match of the young season with an impressive 4-0 triumph over Grace Academy, helping take the sting out of close losses to NW2B foes Friday Harbor and Mount Vernon Christian that opened the fall campaign. Cameron Burks, Isa Rojas-Gonzales, Thomas Kitchen and Christian Fix – all among a core of key Braves returnees – scored goals for the victors. Mason Wilson assisted on two scores, while Samuel...
They say it is an ill wind that blows no good. If that’s the case, conditions at Whittaker Field Friday were plenty bad as heavy rain, fierce winds and a partial power outage made for an uncomfortable night of high school football. And that was just in the stands. Down on the field, a young La Conner High football team suffered a 61-0 blowout loss to perennial NW2B title contender Friday Harbor. The Wolverines (1-2), who opted out of last spring’s modified grid season due to a COVID-19 surge in the San Juan Islands, stormed past a La Con...
A La Conner distance runner shone through gray skies and rainy conditions at the Skagit Flats Marathon Sept. 12. Galina Free, who was a cross-country skier growing up in far east Russia, didn’t melt in the face of a strong field and the opportunity to qualify for the storied Boston Marathon. Far from it, in fact. Free, 45, who can often be seen on training runs in and around La Conner, covered the 26.2 miles course in just over three hours and nine minutes, placing fifth overall and first a...
