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Local history will be shared well into the future thanks to a La Conner student’s research. Rachel Cram, a La Conner high junior, is scripting audio recordings that with the press of a finger on a smartphone will provide anecdotal details about some of the town’s more historic downtown buildings. Cram will present her project, which places optical sign labels on buildings, at the June 15 Town Planning Commission meeting. Each QR code contains building specific historical information. Town Pla...
The rain report for May is in this week’s issue. For more than two years, month after month, a rain report summarizing the local weather from the last month’s weather data at WSU’s Mount Vernon Memorial Highway research station has been compiled. Why? Maybe it is because frogs cannot read. Some say, placed in a pot of water, frogs cannot ascertain or react to water slowly being brought to a boil. But people can read. Whether it is this week’s readers or great grandchildren or alien archeologists digging through archives in the 22nd century...
I offer a unique idea for bringing about peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The idea is based on an incident in World War II. It was told to me by a German priest, Bernard Haring. He was serving in the medical corps in the German army when the German troops began to retreat from Russia. He was assigned to care for three severely wounded German soldiers. To add to his problems, the temperature was way below zero. He came to a Russian farmhouse and decided to seek shelter. He knocked at the door and the owner appeared and saw the Germans...
I have let down my dear friend Elizabeth Hedlin. She was the most generous and kind-hearted woman I have met in my lifetime. She passed those and other virtues to her descendants who still live and work here in La Conner. They are the kind of folk who keep their heads down and work hard and do what they can to serve their community. I was not aware when my representatives in town government were planning to sell the majority of the ballpark that the Hedlin Family Farms had so lovingly shared with our community and baseball lovers from all over...
Thanks to Patricia Aqiimuk Paul for sharing stories about her recipes in a unique column, “Aqiimuk’s Kitchen.” Her descriptive words remind me that decades past, my mother always saved the berry jam “foam” for my father. A spoonful of this warm, tasty sensation was his to enjoy. Sun thoughts, Sunnie Empie La Conner, WA...
Home sellers in La Conner and Skagit County continue to profit from high demand by buyers and limited inventory. In May, 191 new listings were posted countywide, an 8% decrease from April. The seven sales in the La Conner area went for a median price of $505,000, 17% more than in April, though the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which supplies this data, does not cite locations, a key factor in selling price. The median price was $701,275 for the 32 homes that sold in Anacortes last month. Sold home prices in Anacortes continue to rocket...
The rain this weekend, 0.22”, was a tease and cannot make up for the paltry 0.87” of rain in May. Last month matched May 2019’s total. This is the fourth year since 2015 that less than 1” of rain fell. The 0.35” in 2018 made that May the century’s driest. The 0.33” of rain May 6-7 was matched May 23-24. The two rain events were 76% of the month’s precipitation. In the 16 days between, it only rained three times, all below 0.05”. The last week brought 0.12” May 27-28. May was a dry month in a dry...
New COVID-19 cases have dropped dramatically in Skagit County and across Washington state in the three weeks since Gov. Jay Inslee bet on opening the entire state to increased social and economic activity. An ongoing successful coronavirus vaccination campaign has driven down the virus infection rate and corresponding new cases. The state’s Department of Health reported 128.8 new Skagit County cases per 100,000 residents June 5. Only seven of 39 counties have over 200 cases per 100,000 population, a 67% reduction from 22 counties reporting a...
OLYMPIA –– Washington State Parks is now selling gift cards that can be used to reserve campsites, cabins and vacation homes and purchase Parks merchandise, and more. Gift cards will be available in plastic or electronic form. Electronic gift cards can be purchased online. Later this year, people will be able to buy plastic gift cards at Washington state parks. In addition to using the gift cards for reservations and Parks merchandise, people may use them to purchase Discover Passes through the State Parks reservation system...
The La Conner Braves enjoyed a Jolly good time when they hosted co-league leader Friday Harbor in NW2B boys’ basketball action Saturday afternoon. Senior wing Josh Jolly scored a game-high 18 points, all but two coming in the second half, to lead La Conner to a 56-52 upset win at Landy James Gym. Jolly scored seven straight points over a two-minute stretch of the final period to lift the Braves on top of an ebb-and-flow affair from the outset. With the win, La Conner avenged an earlier road l...
It usually is not a good sign when a basketball team has just one defensive rebound in the first quarter and only 14 for the game. But that was not the case for the unbeaten La Conner High girls’ basketball team Saturday at Landy James Gym. The Lady Braves played such good defense against NW2B rival Friday Harbor that the visitors turned the ball over repeatedly and rarely got good shots at the hoop. Thus, there were not rebounds off the defensive glass to be grabbed. La Conner (9-0) remained a...
A La Conner High School student group was to have taken a science field trip to the beach last Tuesday on what would have been a perfect warm and sunny outing. But, as has been the case for more than a year, COVID-19 protocols forced a change in plans. Thankfully, due to the adaptability of La Conner school district and the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve staffs, students in the Between Two Worlds Indigenous Science class could still enjoy the beach life. Padilla Bay’s Annie English and Madi McKay brought forage fish eggs to t...
Shelter Bay author Ashley Sweeney was awarded a gold medal for “Answer Creek” by the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards for best second novel June 1. It is her third gold medal for this historical fiction, published last year, which has also won the 2021 Independent Publishers Association award for best regional fiction and the 2020 Arizona Authors Association Literary Award. “Answer Creek” re-imagines the 1848 Donner Party’s trek from Missouri west on the Oregon-California Trail. Her 19-year-old heroine, Ada Weeks, survives the journey,...
Most of the poems 4-year-old Lenore Micka-Foos dictates to her dad find homes with her admiring relatives. The first-place poem she wrote for the Great Hunt for Magic Skagit Stories will find a home in print. Lenore’s “The Great Skagit List” was one of 61 entries in the Skagit Historical Museum’s debut writing contest. Youth, teen and adult winners in the poetry and essay categories were announced last Friday during a Facebook Live broadcast from the Museum. “A big part of this contest w...
Efforts to find an alternative to historic Hedlin’s Ballfield as a local youth sports venue have apparently made it to first base. The La Conner School District will provide a secondary diamond between Whittaker Field and the high school varsity softball field for youth sports next year, several sources have told the Weekly News. “The field is fenced along the foul lines and there are dugouts,” said outgoing La Conner Schools Superintendent Rich Stewart, who discussed relocation plans with youth sports spokesperson Reb Broker recently. “What...
Monday, May 31 4:14 p.m.: Loose waste – Report of a truck with garbage falling out of the back. McLean Rd., Greater La Conner. 8:13 p.m.: Noise making neighbors – Caller reported neighbors intentionally banging on the walls and stomping on the floors to harass him. Park St., La Conner. Tuesday, June 1 2:39 p.m.: Getting ready to go – Caller had questions about the eviction process. N. 2nd St., Greater La Conner. Wednesday, June 2 12:32 p.m.: Fast track – Caller reported a white Nissan coupe speeding in the area. Calhoun...
Writing up a recipe has challenges, particularly the part where I write the exact amount of an ingredient. Often it is calculated by estimating the amount of an ingredient by visually imagining the sliced pile of hot peppers in a measuring cup. Then I realized each canning jar I used was 4 ounces. Five jars, 4 ounces each, so 5 x 4 equals 20 ounces. Then an ounces to cupsconversion has to be calculated. That equals 2-½ cups sliced hot peppers. Or I could describe the hot peppers by...
Last week the Town of La Conner applied for a $30,000 grant to the state of Washington for creating a “Subarea Plan” for redevelopment of the South Downtown Industrial Area, the area bordered roughly by Town Hall on Commercial Street to Pioneer Park and from the Swinomish Channel to South Third Street. In its application, the Town’s “vision” recognizes the significance of this area for “reasons of heritage, environment, economics, employment, and the preservation, protection and enhancement of natural and cultural resources.” In its May 20 pu...
