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Everyone in Grandpa Vanderhoff’s family does exactly as he pleases. Which is exactly why things will go wrong at the Vanderhoff home in this weekend’s production of “You Can’t Take It With You.” The play opens at the La Conner School auditorium on Friday night at 7:30 p.m., with two additional shows on Saturday at 2 and at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door or reserved by calling 466-3171. The year is 1937, the place, a quiet neighborhood in New York City. “Penny,” played...
La Conner resident Robert John Herrington died at age 94 on Easter morning, April 20, at Mira Vista Care Center in Mount Vernon after suffering an earlier stroke. Bob was born in Klamath Falls, Oregon on December 12, 1919. He attended Pelican Grammar School and Klamath Union High School. He joined the Army Engineers in 1937, and was discharged in 1940, and then went into the Army Reserves. He attended Oregon State University. He was called back into the Army 29th Engineers in 1941 and made...
Wednesday April 30 4:39 p.m.: Lockout – Deputies helped someone at La Conner High School get the keys that were locked inside their vehicle. Monday May 5 12:54 p.m.: Crunch time – An inattentive driver ran into the back of another vehicle that was stopped in the construction zone for the roundabout inConway. Tuesday May 6 11:44 a.m.: AWOL pooch – A local dog was on an unauthorized walkabout and wound up at the espresso stand near the roundabout in La Conner. The barista recognized the dog, which suddenly lost all roaming...
Darrington first responders provided aid and hope aplenty to those impacted by the tragic Oso mudslide. But there was little Darrington’s high school softball team could do to stop the avalanche of runs posted by the Lady Braves last week. La Conner pounded out 16 hits in five innings en route to a 20-3 romp in the nightcap of a key NW2B doubleheader on Tuesday. The Lady Braves had earlier blanked Darrington 3-0 behind a one-hitter tossed by sophomore hurler Olivia Hedlund. With the twin wins, La Conner improved to 5-0 in league play and 1...
The Sedro-Woolley mile relay team was a leg up on its Skagit County foes, but in the end it was a La Conner High quartet standing atop the medal platform. All because of an unfortun-ate wardrobe malfunction. Not one of Super Bowl proportions, but enough to elevate the Braves’ relay squad of Alejandro Ruis, Kolbe Rasler, Harrison Orkney, and Mitchell Grant from runnerup status to 4x400 meter titleists on the boys’ side of the 108th Skagit County Track and Field Championships. The strange tur...
Monday April 28 4:34 p.m.: Crunch time – A truck pulling a trailer pulled left in front of a vehicle traveling south on Pioneer Highway in Conway. Tuesday April 29 2:02 p.m.: Burglary – Somebody tore metal siding from a building onDry Slough Road inConway to get in and steal a rifle and computers. 6:16 p.m.: Just checking – Deputies and emergency medical personnel showed up to check on an intoxicated man who was resting on the sidewalk at a bus stop onCaledonia Street in La Conner. Wednesday April 30 2 a.m.: Noise –...
Remember those cute little neighborhood children who used to ring your doorbell and run away on May Day? Those same youngsters are now in high school, and they are planning to ring your doorbell again this May 1. The difference, however, is that this year they won’t be leaving a bouquet and running to hide. This year they will be offering you a brochure about the La Conner Community Scholarship Foundation. The foundation has been gifted with bequests, donations and memorials that allow it to offer scholarships of varying amounts to the great m...
Long before their long distance events began, La Conner High track teams had gone the distance. And then some. La Conner ventured 300 miles last weekend to take part in the Undeberg Invitational Track Meet — held in Ritzville, near Spokane — which traditionally draws many of Eastern Washington’s top small school programs. This year’s event, featuring nearly three dozen schools, was no exception. La Conner, Lakeside, and Seattle Academy joined the field from west of the Cascades, and...
Karen Van Wieringen Ballard, a self-described adventure junkie, stepped away from her desk job to compete in a sailboat race from Qingdao, China to San Francisco. She is a 1981 La Conner High School graduate and is the daughter of Nancy Van Wieringen, who also graduated from the local schools. The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race begins and ends in South Hampton, England and is divided into several different legs. Karen jumped onboard with a crew of 16 on March 16 in Qingdao, China and docked...
La Conner Town Councilman Jacques Brunisholz offered to resign so that he can fulfill a lifelong dream to hike the Pacific Crest Trail this summer. He had handed in a letter of resignation, but the council decided to place the letter on file and grant him an extended leave unless something comes up that requires a fifth member. Brunisholz said he will be leaving immediately to hike the trail starting in Southern California. He said he could be gone up to five months walking the trail, which extends 2,650 miles from the Mexican border to...
Richard Steele Sunde, a fourth-generation Sitkan and former resident of La Conner, died April 10 at his home in Waikoloa, Hawaii after a long, beautiful hike to the North Kohala beaches. The family will hold celebrations of his life in his three homes — Hawaii, La Conner, and Sitka — at later dates this summer. In the meantime, the family is encouraging all those who loved Rick and were impacted by his life to gather and share stories, and honor Rick’s life. Rick was born on M...
John W. Denton, a lifelong resident of the Skagit Valley, died very peacefully in Burlington on Sunday, April 13. He was born in La Conner on January 24, 1931, the son of Oscar and Mamie Denton and was raised on the Denton and Valentine homestead on Pleasant Ridge. He graduated from La Conner High School and then went into the Army for four years. Upon his return, John went to work for Cascade Frozen Foods as a field man. John met his future bride, Karlyn Kurth, when he jumped onto her tractor,...
It may be more anecdotally than scientifically proven, but La Conner residents stand by the theory that sunny days and blooming tulips are the direct cause of swarming tourists. Last weekend a swarm descended upon the town. And they were hungry. Local restaurants were running out of things like onion rings. But good for us, the visitors were happy, too. And for business owners, who had just slogged through a slow and dreary winter, the tourist dollars were back. “It was a good weekend, and w...
Marvin Kevin Cladoosby, “Dubber,” died on Sunday, April 6 at the age of 57. He was born on February 10, 1957 to Mike Cladoosby and the late Mary Lou Day Cladoosby. His grandparents were the late Ernest Cladoosby, Sr. and Lena Shelton Cladoosby; also the late Garfield Day and Dorothy Billy Day. Dubber was born in Mt. Vernon and was a lifelong resident of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, never living anywhere else, to him there was no place like home. Dubber was the third of six chi...
Construction will resume on the roundabout at Conway’s tricky five-point intersection on May 1, said Dan Berentson, Skagit County’s interim Public Works director. The county doesn’t want to have roadwork snarling traffic during the Tulip Festival, Berentson said. For La Conner residents, Conway’s intersection of Fir Island Road and Pioneer Highway is part of the regular route to Seattle or to Stanwood. At the stop sign on Fir Island Road and the highway, motorists turn left to go to Interstate 5 toward Seattle and right to go to Stanwoo...
Cultures converged at La Conner High School on Friday, as a troupe of young Japanese dancers joined local youth in a celebration of dance and laughter. Swinomish Indian Tribal Community Chairman Brian Cladoosby, Vice Chairman Brian Porter, and Swinomish Princess 2014 Mariah Clark joined in to welcome the “Goujin” dance troupe, who are traveling for 10 days across the U.S., mostly in Washington state, performing yosakoi — a competition dance form among students in Japan. The app...
Two teams from La Conner High School competed in the state Knowledge Bowl tournament held in Arlington on Saturday. Team “Somewhat Clean” finished in fourth place, and team “Somewhat Smart,” Emily Parker, Lily Weigova, Maggie Powell, and Katie Cram came in a respectable 18th. Somewhat Clean’s fourth place award plaque in the 2B category is something that hasn’t been earned by a La Conner team since 2004. Senior Alex Wirth, juniors Jordan Holt and Luke Hulbert, sophomores Will Malcomson a...
One La Conner High diamond team didn’t use a scorebook Saturday. The other would just as soon not have. The end result was pretty much the same, however. Head coaches Peg Seeling and Jeremiah LeSourd now have the means to measure early season progress made by their respective clubs, regardless of stats. Seeling and the Lady Braves debuted at home with a multi-team jamboree format in which the emphasis was to practice game-type situations rather than put crooked numbers on the board. “We don...
Sixty years after graduation from La Conner High School, members of the Class of 1954 are still doing their homework. And the topic of interest is history. Specifically, local history. That’s because these La Conner alums were born the same year — 1936 — that the recently vacated La Conner Elementary School building was constructed, a project made possible in great measure by the Works Progress Administration. The WPA was the largest and most ambitious of President Franklin D. R...
On Saturday evening, March 1, 2014, our 28th wedding anniversary, my dear Bob moved his “Good Humor” stand from his life in the beautiful Skagit Valley to the next part of his journey. Bob was fortunate to pass away in the peaceful and beautiful setting of Evergreen Hospice in Kirkland. His pancreatic cancer had just recently been diagnosed. Those who knew Bob will always remember the warmth of his smile, personality, and hugs, and the color and joy he brought to all those he encountered dur...
Leo “Larry” L. Azure, Jr. of La Conner died peacefully on Friday, February 28, at the age of 74. At the moment of his passing, he was surrounded by numerous extended family while held in the tender, loving embrace of his wife Judy and their three children, Debbie, Darlene and Andrew. He leaves behind a legacy that will touch the lives of family, friends, business associates and the world at large for decades to come. Uncompromising in his love of family, conviction of character and quest to cre...
All of La Conner’s elementary school students and most of the middle school kids will come back from winter break to new classrooms on Monday. This week, the entire school staff has been working to move the kindergarten through fifth grade classes across Sixth Street to what has been the middle school. Meanwhile, the middle school’s grades six and seven classes are moving across the street to the district administration building, where the eighth-grade classes have been housed all year. The rel...
Skagit Valley resident Valerie R. Tully died at age 68 at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Saturday, February 22 with her husband Robert and brother Donald Nault at her side. Valerie was born to Benjamin Howard and Nancy Marilynn MacKenzie Raley on December 2, 1945 in Los Angeles, California. She spent most of her childhood in Great Falls, Montana, where she attended school from 1952 and graduated from Great Falls High School with the class of 1964. She attended various Montana colleges...
First, the bad news. The La Conner Braves dropped successive Bi-District home games last week, falling 70-61 in overtime to Auburn Adventist Academy Thursday night before dropping a 54-50 Saturday matinee decision to Tacoma Baptist. Now, the good news. It wasn’t a totally lost week for the Braves, who at 16-7 on the campaign, remain a key player in the 2B Regional field, despite their rare twin playoff setbacks. What it means, though, is La Conner — one of the more storied small school p...
La Conner alumnus Wayne Lindstrom of Mount Vernon died at age 89 on Sunday, February 9. He was born October 1, 1924 in Northwood, North Dakota to Wendell and Mathea Lundgaard Lindstrom. At an early age, Wayne moved with his family to La Conner, where he grew up and graduated from La Conner High School. Wayne enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1943 and earned an officer’s commission in 1944. On December 19, 1944, he married his high school sweetheart, and love of his life, Birgit Larson. He proudly s...