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State lawmakers have decided the time has long since passed that use by public schools of Native American sports mascots goes unchecked. And on that score La Conner schools, home of the Braves, has already proved ahead of the game. The local school district has an established history of responding to Swinomish Tribal Community requests regarding imagery portraying Native Americans, most notably the decision several years ago to substitute an interlocking L and C for tribal caricatures as the school logo. That kind of collaboration is what...
La Conner schools has a new superintendent come July 1: Will Nelson, now director of equity and student success at Arlington’s public schools. For Nelson, and all educators, providing an equitable education is a commitment to fairness, so that every student has the opportunity to obtain a quality education. Since some children navigate a variety of obstacles just to arrive at school while others are fortunate to enter classrooms holding silver spoons, there is a wide gap educators must bridge to get all students to a high level of learning. T...
The La Conner and Coupeville high school football teams worked overtime Saturday night, but it was the host Wolves who cashed in with a hard fought 6-0 NW2B triumph in the season debut for both programs. Coupeville running back Ben Smith, who had been bottled up much of the contest by a stout La Conner defensive unit, scored the game’s lone touchdown with a one-yard blast to cap the Wolves’ sole possession of the extra session. The Braves, who had avoided key mistakes in regulation running out of their new Wing-T formation, fumbled on La Con...
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...
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...
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....
Narrowing the field is not the sole domain of college basketball this month. La Conner school board members last weekend chose two finalists from among 21 applicants for the district’s superintendent position, the last step in a process that began last fall. David Forsythe, assistant superintendent of operations at Northwest Educational Services District #189, which serves 35 public school entities and 170,000 students in Skagit, Island, San Juan, Snohomish and Whatcom counties, and Will N...
For the La Conner High baseball team, idle the past two seasons, progress is not always measured on the scoreboard. Take the Braves NW2B home clash with Orcas Island last Friday, for example. The Vikings posted a 20-6 triumph in six innings, but that does not reflect the strides that La Conner – with seven freshmen and two eighth graders on its roster – has made in three short weeks. The hosts, fueled by timely hitting, several catching gems and a strong start by pitcher Haydin Dinuis, held a 6-5 lead after four frames before...
Attorneys do not usually make a living drawing attention to cases they have lost. Stewart Riley, a retired, longtime Seattle criminal defense lawyer, is clearly an exception to the rule. Riley has spoken at length about a high-profile courtroom defeat early in his career – as he did during a stop at Seaport Books in La Conner on Thursday – and has expanded it into his debut as an author. Riley’s newly released “Helena Star” details the epic tale of a major international drug smuggling operation whose prosecution in Seattle more...
The Fourth of July will not be the same here anymore. Nor will home basketball games at Landy James Gym. Mike Cladoosby, the avid, longtime Swinomish fisherman and tribal elder who launched the famed Jughead’s Fireworks Stand in the 1970s and whose unyielding support of La Conner High sports teams resulted in a seating section of the school’s gymnasium being designated in his honor, died last Friday surrounded by family members. He was 87. Cladoosby’s “extended” family, of course, is rooted on...
You can now eat out with your friends – or anyone else – in La Conner and across Washington. Monday, March 22 the entire state moved into Phase 3 reopening of Gov. Jay Inslee’s Healthy Washington: Roadmap to Recovery. Citing decreases in COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations and the increasing rates of people getting vaccinated against the coronavirus, Inslee announced this newly created Phase 3 on March 11. Progress in controlling the pandemic will again be evaluated on a county basis, ending the regional metrics system. La C...
La Conner is growing. In 2021 its housing stock will increase with developments on and above Maple Avenue. Ten homes will be built on the current ballfield. Mayor Ramon Hayes’ Maple View complex five blocks south adds four more. On Snapdragon Hill, C.J. Ebert is developing lots for another seven residences. These will all be market rate homes, selling for whatever price the developer and buyer agree to. These high priced homes will be good news for the town government, increasing the property tax base and adding stable dollars to its budget for...
Kel-Kahl-Tsoot was the hereditary chief of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. His great grandfather Kel-Kahl-Tsoot signed the treaty for the Swinomish tribe in 1855. After his passing the name was handed down to the late Henry Cladoosby, Mike’s uncle. After Henry’s passing in 1973 Kel-Kahl-Tsoot was handed down to Mike. Michael John Cladoosby, Sr. entered this world on August 16, 1933, born to Ernest Cladoosby, Sr. from Swinomish and Lena Shelton Cladoosby from Tulalip. He was the 6th chi...
Maya Masonholder has framed her involvements at school around sports. As a part of the state champion volleyball team, the varsity softball team and the varsity basketball teams, she lettered five times. The evolution of school sports during COVID-19 is a story in itself! She also volunteers to support other teams. Most recently she was the manager for the La Conner high school boys basketball team and filmed the boys and girls junior varsity teams. Little league baseball and little league...
The award-winning La Conner High Knowledge Bowl program is used to having all the answers. And, true to form, not even 2020’a universal campus lockdowns imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has kept team members from participating at a high level. By using technology and collaborating with other knowledge bowlers across Washington state, the team has found a way to practice and compete despite the virus crisis, which forced schools to start the academic year with remote learning formats. La Conner’s Chronically Iliad entry, com...
At a time when the national landscape is scarred with divisions wedged by alternative facts and cancel culture embraced by both left and right, time-honored values upon which participatory democracy was founded enjoy consensus support on the local level. Though political tribalism can send a polarized electorate to respective echo chambers for spin disguised as information, there remains a “we’re all in this together” mindset when it comes to recognizing critical aspects of citizenship upon which communities rely. This is especially true in th...
They go in the books as a pair of double-digit losses, but the La Conner High baseball team’s setbacks at Friday Harbor and Coupeville last week represent a win-win situation of sorts for the Braves. The team is back between the chalk lines after not seeing action since 2018. It is also, so far, prevailing over COVID-19. La Conner was unable to field a baseball team in 2019 due to low numbers. The onset of the virus crisis last spring wiped out the 2020 baseball season. Thus, the Braves’ 27-...
Let the games begin. In fact, they already have. The La Conner High track teams swept a league meet at Coupeville on Friday. The school’s softball team hosted NW2B/1B rival Darrington Saturday afternoon, dropping a 25-3 verdict in four innings. La Conner’s golf teams traveled Monday to Grace Academy, while the Braves baseball program was scheduled at Friday Harbor yesterday. Those represented the first La Conner High sports action in nearly a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which closed campu...
Tuesday night the La Conner Town Council had the purchase of Hedlin’s Ballfield on their agenda. The Council was to approve an agreement with Frank Jeretzky, a commercial loan officer with Mountain Pacific Bank, to buy the property for $800,000, about $25,000 more than the Town’s asking price. The deal enables Landed Gentry Homes, a leader in residential development in Skagit County for more than four decades, to build 10 single-family homes on 70 per cent of the nearly two-acre site, which for...
La Conner High spring sports teams launched their 2021 campaign earlier than usual with practices starting Monday afternoon. Even so, they have some catching up to do. After all, the 2020 season was entirely wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. The school’s softball and baseball teams managed one scrimmage together in mid-March before campuses were closed statewide in response to the virus crisis. In years past, the first day of full spring workouts would have coincided with completion of the s...
Mary Clare Nelson passed away on Sunday, February 21, 2021. She was born in Mount Vernon on January 16, 1926, the daughter of Alfred Mozart and Stella Vivian (Dunlap) Nelson. Mary Clare graduated from La Conner High School with the class of 1944. She then went on to attend Washington State College in 1944 to 1945. She attended the U of W 1946-1947 where she learned shorthand, typing and how to make a living. After college she returned to La Conner to begin her life. Her life’s trail took her o...
The Swinomish Tribal Senate is pleased to announce its approval of the Tribe’s 2021 voluntary contributions to the La Conner Regional Library, Fire District 13 and La Conner School District. The contributions will be paid from Trust Improvement Use and Occupancy taxes, which the Tribe collects from individual Tribal landowners and owners of homes built on leased Swinomish trust lands. Recognizing the economic challenges faced by some taxpayers from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tribe is also pleased to announce reduction of the 2021 tax rate to $...
La Conner High sports teams and fans have long added their own twist to the lyrics when singing the national anthem prior to games. They regularly close the first verse by emphasizing and slightly altering the final lines – “O’er the land of the free and the home of the Braves” – to reflect the school’s longtime mascot. That might change going forward. State Rep. Debra Lekanoff, D-Bow, has introduced a bill that would ban use of Native American mascots for school sports teams in Washington. The proposed legislation, House Bill 13...
At La Conner High, where Samantha Davidson is a sophomore, student life is highlighted in the Pioneer yearbook. In Davidson’s case, that is most fitting since she has achieved pioneer status in her own right. Davidson, known to friends and family as “Sammy,” is the first girl from the tri-county Skagit-Whatcom-Island area to attain the rank of Eagle Scout. It took Davidson just two years to earn that honor, the scouting world’s top achievement and one which is realized by less than five per cen...
Stephen J. Carter, La Conner resident, died January 29, 2021 at the Skagit Regional Hospital of cardiac arrest. He was born in Spokane in 1942 and graduated from Queen Anne High School in Seattle, University of Washington, and University of Washington School of Medicine. After serving as a Naval Flight Surgeon in the U.S. Navy, he began his medical career at the UW and ultimately directed ultrasound at Veteran’s Hospital. He joined a private practice radiology group at United General Hospital in the late 1970’s. Stephen returned to the UW and...
