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Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, high school sports schedules have changed again and again. Still more changes were announced last Wednesday. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) executive board, in response to new pandemic guidelines outlined by Gov. Jay Inslee, has ruled practices for the traditional fall sports season can begin Feb. 1. After several planned launches dating to last summer, the WIAA is now calling the seven-week fall campaign Season 1. “The change in guidelines,” WIAA Executive Director Mick Hof...
Though sidelined all fall by the COVID-19 pandemic, La Conner High’s two-time defending state title volleyball team has still been able to show its championship mettle. Team members have served up two major public service projects in response to the virus crisis, designing and creating custom La Conner Braves face coverings benefitting the Skagit Valley Hospital Foundation and delivering holiday goodie bags to La Conner Retirement Inn. The team has also shared a Zoom Christmas card with the L...
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the La Conner Schools campus has been a remote location this semester. That changed for a couple hours Wednesday afternoon. The La Conner Elementary School parking area morphed into a festive convergence zone with teachers donning favorite Christmas garb – and, of course, masks – while lined up to greet students and families as they drove through the school’s circular drop-off zone. Kids hung out of car windows, waving joyfully, and sharing gleeful s...
The Gilkey Square tree lighting. Fall and spring concerts. Regional music educator festivals. Christmas wreath sales. Pep band. Maybe Disneyland. COVID-19 wiped the 2020-21 school music calendar clean, leaving La Conner Director of Bands and Choirs McKenzie Clark and his students to make music on-line. That is a challenge for an essentially face-to-face endeavor. When meeting in person, music classes begin with call-and-response warm-up exercises. Clark sings or plays a line; students repeat...
The tipoff to the La Conner High basketball season has been delayed once again. The reason is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has rebounded this fall: a tenacious, relentless full-court press. Because of statewide spikes in coronavirus cases, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) executive board has delayed the start of Season 2, including boys’ and girls’ basketball and wrestling, from Dec. 28 to Feb. 1. The delay is the latest in a series of high school sports’ schedule changes prompted by the pandemic. In response to th...
La Conner wrestler Delaney Cobbs rarely faces a foe she cannot beat. The COVID-19 pandemic is one of those, however. New statewide restrictions put in place to curb spread of the coronavirus have forced Cobbs to forego participation in a major mat tournament in Arizona this weekend. Under mandates imposed Nov. 16, after Cobbs was selected to join a Tacoma-based national travel team for the Arizona trip, she and others traveling from Washington would have had to quarantine for two weeks upon their return. That would not have been feasible for...
A La Conner High student has no trouble grappling with success. Adjusting to new COVID-19 pandemic restrictions might be less certain, however. Delaney Cobbs, a reigning girls’ 2A regional wrestling champion has been selected to square off against top mat talent from around the country at a major tournament in Arizona next month. Cobbs, a junior, is scheduled to compete with the Tacoma-based Ford Dynasty Wrestling Club’s national travel team in Bullhead City, Az., about 100 miles south of Las...
Halloween was full of new tricks and treats for La Conner High football players. The Braves spent two hours Saturday morning working out, starting the day wearing helmet facemasks instead of Halloween facemasks. Afterward, first-year head coach Jeff Scoma treated them to ample shares of holiday candy. Just being able to line up on Whittaker Field was Scoma’s idea of an ideal Halloween thrill. “These guys have gone a long time without football,” Scoma, previously a coach in the vaunted Belle...
Spikes on the volleyball court would be a most welcome change from those in COVID-19 cases. The hope is that will soon be the case. Especially in La Conner, where the two-time defending state champion Lady Braves are cleared to resume full team activities under anti-COVID guidelines set by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), which governs school sports and extra-curricular programs in the state. “The WIAA is allowing full team practices for activities and sports that are considered low or moderate at-risk if they a...
Add one more item to the list of COVID-19 impacts here. The school board was told that the long running La Conner High senior seminar class, which featured formal student presentations before community panels, is morphing into a new program that is more technology oriented for this time of distance learning. “This year, with COVID,” La Conner Middle & High School Counselor Lori Buher told board members at their Sept. 28 video-conferenced meeting, “adding the senior seminar class is prohi...
Any other year the two-time defending state champion La Conner High volleyball team would be approaching mid-season form about now. But the COVID-19 pandemic has dictated the school sports calendar since mid-March. As a result, La Conner teams these days are content taking part through November in a modified practice format sanctioned by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), which governs school athletics and extra-curricular programs in the state. La Conner High’s v...
Outdoor education took on a whole new meaning when La Conner students and parents went back to school for Braves Days campus orientation last Thursday and Friday. The two-day event, held outside beneath canopies and shade trees, reflected adjustments being made by school officials this semester in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Families registered on-line for 30-minute outside appointments with teachers prior to the launch of distance learning instruction Sept. 14. While the coronavirus has...
La Conner High head volleyball coach Suzanne Marble and her players will have to wait to pursue a rare state title three-peat. The two-time defending champions will not defend their state 2B net crown until next spring under a modified high school sports schedule unveiled recently by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The WIAA executive board has adopted a sports calendar divided into four seasons with moderate and higher-risk activities –volleyball, football, and soccer...
Former La Conner Schools Superintendent Dr. Whitney Meissner received a warm send-off, symbolized by receipt of a Pendleton blanket, during a farewell ceremony at the Swinomish Pavilions Thursday afternoon. Meissner has begun a new assignment as an administrator with the Lake Washington School District after three years in La Conner. Swinomish officials, staff and students gathered beneath one of the tribal community’s semi-open “cedar hats,” where they wore masks and practiced social dista...
Rich Stewart is no stranger to La Conner, having visited here several times during a long career in public schools marked by stops all over Washington state. He was hired last week to serve as interim superintendent of La Conner Schools, filling a role that has defined much of his more than four decades in public education. “Being an interim superintendent has been a good thing for me,” Stewart, who enjoys a statewide reputation, told the Weekly News on Thursday. “I hope I can help with La Conne...
The first whistle hasn’t blown and already there’s a delay of game call for fall sports at La Conner High and around Washington state. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) Board of Directors has moved to push back the start of the fall sports season two weeks. The WIAA action, taken last week, was in response to the coronavirus threat and makes Sept. 18 the start of fall sports games and matches. The adjusted schedule shifts the start of football workouts to Sept. 5. Other fall sports, such as volleyball and soccer, are...
Richard Stewart has been down this road before, only this time it has led him to La Conner. Stewart, a veteran Washington state public school administrator, agreed to a contract Tuesday with the La Conner School District Directors to become interim superintendent. The Board interviewed Stewart last week. It voted Monday to hire the Ferndale resident during its video-conferenced summer retreat. He will be appointed and administered the oath of office at a 4 p.m. Board meeting Wednesday. Stewart...
The coronavirus nixed her senior year track meets, but Morgan Herrera had already shown University of Washington throwing coach Andrew Ninow enough for him to invite the La Conner High standout to the Montlake campus. Herrera will join the UW track program, once the COVID-19 crisis has passed, as a preferred walk-on to compete in the shot put and hammer throw. As a preferred walk-on, Herrera is guaranteed a spot on the Husky roster. “I had my sights set on the UW for a few weeks,” Herrera tol...
There was no question Justine Benson was one of the best players at the 2B Girls Hardwood Classic in Spokane last month. Nor was there any doubt in the minds of Associated Press sportswriters that the La Conner High standout was among the top hoop talents statewide through the entire 2019-20 season. The AP writers recently named the 5’-8” senior guard-forward to the first unit 2B Girls’ All-State Basketball Team. It is the latest in a slew of awards garnered by Benson, the all-time Lady Braves...
The sands of time have been kind to Cora Kellerman. A trained electrical engineer, the 29-year-old former La Conner High and Eastern Washington University volleyball standout now plugs into office hours on southern California beaches. Kellerman, who helped lead La Conner to State net titles in 2006 and 2007, is riding the popular wave of professional beach volleyball. Even for an accomplished player like Kellerman, who led EWU by averaging nearly three kills per set her senior year –...
The La Conner High girls’ soccer team left nothing to chance in its meeting with Mount Vernon Christian last week. The Lady Braves, locked in a tight battle with Friday Harbor for the top spot in conference standings, blanked MVC 4-0 in a key road test Thursday. With the win, La Conner improved to 8-1 in the NW2B title race and kept pace with the Lady Wolverines, who also entered the week having won eight of nine league matches. This was La Conner’s second straight shutout win. On Oct. 12 they triumphed 5-0 against Concrete. For La Conner goa...
Matty Lagerwey is leading the way. The La Conner High junior middle blocker was named recipient of a Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) Athlete of the Week award for her play at the Mount Vernon Invitational Tournament and in recent NW2B matches. Lagerwey recorded 20 digs, 11 kills, and two aces in conference wins over Friday Harbor and Orcas Island. The numbers she posted against 2A and 3A foes at the Mount Vernon tourney were equally – if not, more –impressive still. She was 35 of 38 serving, with 10 aces,...
Youth will be served. But a senior’s serves led the way for the La Conner High volleyball team last week. Madison Wilson delivered 36-of-39 service attempts, recording 16 aces, to help lead the Lady Braves to straight-sets victories over conference foes Concrete and Mount Vernon Christian. La Conner defeated the Lady Lions 25-14, 25-11, 25-7. In that match Wilson went 17-of-18 from the stripe with seven aces. Her pinpoint serves proved infectious as teammate Joanie Benson was 20-of-21 at the line, 12 of which were aces. Benson also notched s...
A young La Conner High team knew it would need some luck to upset State-ranked Napavine in a non-conference grid clash at Whittaker Field. But the game was played on Friday the 13th. Enough said. The powerhouse Tigers, with highly touted quarterback Dawson Stanley at the helm, rolled to a convincing 48-6 victory on a chilly night during which Napavine was coldly efficient on both sides of the ball. Stanley completed eight of 15 tosses for 206 yards and two touchdowns, both before halftime. He...
Funny, the difference a week makes. After looking tentative in a lopsided non-league grid loss at 1A Coupeville in their season opener, the La Conner Braves posted a decisive 38-8 win over NW2B foe Darrington in their home debut Friday night. “Getting more physical was a top priority going into this game,” Braves head coach Peter Voorhees said afterward. “It was a big turnaround for us, and much needed. We had a great week of practice and it carried over.” On several levels. Senior fullbac...
