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The Waterfront Café has long been hosting a wide range of benefit events for La Conner area residents, from the annual free Thanksgiving Day community feast to a dinner and auction fundraiser for an elderly local couple last Friday. It was only fitting, then, that café owners Guy and Marla Vallee would honor another group of champions – the reigning La Conner High School state 2B volleyball title winners – with a Jan. 29 dinner celebration. Members of the public were...
The late JoAnne Self often made a strong pitch for support of La Conner sports teams and their players. Now they will be able to make pitches of their own thanks to a major donation inspired by the memory of the longtime local coach and mentor. The La Conner Youth League is now recipient of funding support to purchase a portable pitching mound to be used on the school campus field where home games will be played this spring now that the old Hedlin’s Ballfield mound has been leveled and cleared for residential construction on Maple Avenue. P...
La Conner High School alum Dean Swanson has been around long enough to know about the school’s basketball history. He also keeps tabs on current holidays. The two intersected last Tuesday when the Lady Braves basketball team posted a 63-42 statement win at 2A Burlington-Edison before a large and masked crowd that packed the gym just days after a two-week COVID-19-related spectator pause was lifted. “Today starts the Chinese New Year of the Tiger,” Swanson said immediately afterward. “But not tonight.” La Conner, the No. 2 ranked 2B team in W...
Daniel “Dano” Rapada has earned many admirers over the years for his courage dealing with a slew of major health issues. Now those admirers will have the opportunity to show their support for the Swinomish teen and 2021 La Conner High School graduate by taking part in a Feb. 23 fundraiser at Santo Coyote to help defray costs of his recent kidney transplant. “His story is amazing,” Jaime Stroebel-Reinstra, a lifelong friend of Rapada’s mom, Sally Wilbur, told the Weekly News. “He is such a miracle and a warrior.” Stroebel-Reinstra said La Conne...
Completing the opening of the Country Inn saga. Built on the former site of the misspelled “Town Getto,” the stylish La Conner Country Inn has hosted and provided lodging for some of the country’s biggest names. None bigger, of course, than the late basketball legend turned actor Wilt Chamberlain. Rick Thompson, an original Country Inn partner, remembers Chamberlain’s stay here quite well. “In the summer of 1980, I think, but could have been 1981,” Thompson related, “it was a beautiful June morning when I received a call from our front desk th...
Some people are aptly named. JoAnne Self was not. Her friends – and there were many – insist the late La Conner school district staff member and coach was one of the most unselfish people they knew. Self died Jan. 8 in Sedro-Woolley. Her giving nature was noticed. The school district, appreciative of the various roles she filled there, years ago established an annual scholarship award in her honor to recognize those students who best emulate her example of selflessly contributing to the campus and community. Whatever her assigned...
On one issue, all in western Washington are agreed. Saving wild salmon runs is a priority. What is not clear cut, as testimony during a virtual State House of Representatives committee hearing indicates, is what sacrifices must be made, and by whom, to preserve Washington’s signature migratory fish. House Bill 1838, designed to protect salmon habitat areas, is a key element in Gov. Jay Inslee’s $187 million salmon recovery program. It is named the Lorraine Loomis Act for the late Swinomish fisheries director and chair of the Northwest Indian Fi...
A standout La Conner high school wrestler went a long distance to spend a short time on the mat last weekend. But that was a good thing in terms of Delaney Cobbs preparing for big matches ahead. Cobbs, a senior wrestling on a co-op basis with the Burlington-Edison High School girls’ program, captured top honors in her weight class at a two-day invitational meet in Othello. She pinned four opponents in a combined time under four minutes to win the 190-pound weight division championship. It was a...
Good things are well worth the wait. Just ask La Conner High School boys’ head basketball coach C.J. Woods. Woods, eyeing his team’s Jan. 25 NW2B matchup at Friday Harbor since the start of the season, saw his patience rewarded with a tense 54-51 road win over his high school alma mater. With the hard-fought triumph, the Braves improved to 5-8 overall and 3-3 in conference standings. For Woods, whose Friday Harbor teammate, Collin Williamson, is a member of the Wolverines’ coaching staff, the outcome could hardly have been sweeter. “It was a h...
The La Conner High School girls’ basketball team is willing to play anyone, anytime, anywhere. For the 2B Lady Braves, that meant a rare Wednesday night tipoff opposite 4A Skyline in Sammamish last week. Despite the unusual game night, a first-time opponent from a large urban school district and suburban King County location, the result was much the same as other scores La Conner has posted enroute to a 15-1 overall mark and 8-0 conference record. The team easily defeated Skyline 71-42 one night after routing NW2B rival Friday Harbor 105-23, a...
La Conner schools are big on tradition. And the district’s newest tradition promises to be among the most significant in school history. The bright blue image of an eagle bearing an interlocking L and C, created by Swinomish artist Jeanette Quintasket, was introduced during the Jan. 24 school board meeting as the new La Conner Braves mascot. The colorful icon reflects regional Coast Salish artistic imagery and replaces prior Braves graphics that for decades depicted Hollywoodish Plains I...
By proclamation of the governor, January is School Board Recognition Month. It is a great time to recognize our elected community members who selflessly give their time and energy in support of high-quality public schooling for our youth. School board members in La Conner are entrusted by this community with responsibility for an annual budget of $14,070,000 for this year, fiscal year 2021-2022, an average of 555 students, 116 employees and nine buildings. School boards are charged with making decisions that can sometimes be quite difficult,...
Demolition of the old garage behind The Slider Café on a January Sunday drew plenty of attention. What was missed, however, were conditions spelled out on the Town demolition permit allowing the structure to be torn down on property eyed as the site for a 20-unit apartment complex. Planner Michael Davolio told the La Conner Planning Commission, during their monthly Zoom meeting two days later, on Jan. 18, that a stop work order was placed on the demolition because representatives of property owners KSA Investments had not conferred with...
There are victories, defeats and moral victories. The latter was the case for the La Conner Braves Friday night, Jan. 21, when they lost a hard-fought 59-49 non-conference boys’ hoops decision to 2A Sedro-Woolley at Landy James Gym. “It was a good game,” first year head coach C.J. Woods told the Weekly News afterward. “We had a chance to win.” Indeed, the 2B Braves truly had a shot to knock off their larger school foe. La Conner (4-8 overall; 2-3 in NW2B/1B play) trailed just 39-33 entering the final stanza on the strength of strong post play...
The powerhouse La Conner High School girls’ basketball team (13-1 overall) is becoming as much a threat to the electric grid as extreme winter weather. The explosive Lady Braves are threatening to short out scoreboards in area gyms with their frenzied point production of late, having broken the century mark in successive matchups with NW2B/1B foes this month. The team followed up a 104-14 rout of Concrete earlier in January with a 108-18 romp over Darrington last Thursday. Between those lopsided triumphs, they defeated 1A programs Klahowya a...
Jenna Rudig, a senior at La Conner High School is the Soroptimist International of La Conner January Honored Student. She has contributed to many causes in the community while working part time, attending Skagit Valley Community College and continuing her education at La Conner High School. Much of Jenna’s volunteerism the last three years has revolved around the LCHS Varsity Volunteer Club. One of their projects this year is the Collective Impact Project, collecting canned food for the La C...
The famed Troubadour Club in Hollywood has helped launch some of the biggest acts in the music business, from Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt to Elton John and the Eagles. Its iconic stage was also graced several times in the 1960s, during the height of the American folk music revival, by a talented southern California female teen string trio, one of whose members would later embrace La Conner as her hometown. Suzie Racanello, who still harmonizes while on car rides with local friends Faye Whi...
The La Conner High School girls’ basketball team did not plan on losing Friday night. Then again, the Lady Braves had not planned on facing undefeated 4A Eastlake on the road, either. The team’s regularly scheduled Jan. 14 tipoff with nearby 1B rival Mount Vernon Christian was postponed due to COVID-19 protocols and the open date was filled with a trip to the Sammamish Plateau and a Hoosiers-type matchup with the Lady Wolves. “We needed to pick up a non-league game for a game that wasn’t played over Christmas break, so we traveled to Eastlake s...
Some would say the La Conner High School girls’ basketball team has the sport down to a science. Count veteran head coach Scott Novak among them. “The chemistry on our team is unbelievable,” Novak insisted to the Weekly News following a convincing 70-29 non-conference home win over 1A Klahowya of Silverdale last Tuesday night, Jan 11. Indeed, the Lady Braves showcased all the elements of a championship caliber club in easily defeating their fifth larger school foe of the campaign. Four players, led by junior post Ellie Marble, finished in do...
The current COVID-19 surge has local officials modifying game plans to stem spread of the virus. The La Conner School District has adopted a two-week (Jan. 14-26) pause of spectator attendance at indoor district events, allowing only two family members per student participant or athlete to watch. The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, whose public health team confirmed 35 new cases of COVID-19 between Jan. 6-10, is stressing that its members limit social gatherings and always wear masks when indoors with persons outside their households....
Winter officially started Dec. 21 – except on the calendar used by Town of La Conner Public Works Director Brian Lease. Lease and his staff began winterizing in October. No one can fault their timing, either, given the rash of snowstorms and tidal flooding conditions they have had to deal with the past couple weeks. “We prepped everything in October, from filling sandbags to getting our equipment ready,” Lease told the Weekly News during a rare break Friday. It was three months ago, for...
Scott Stephan Wilme died peacefully in his home with his family close by on December 30, 2021 in La Conner, Washington after a long hard battle with cancer. He was 53 years old. Scott grew up predominantly in Kirkland, Washington and Ocean Shores, Washington. As a teenager in Ocean Shores, he enjoyed riding his motorcycle in the sand dunes and was a volunteer fireman. He graduated from Hoquiam High School then attended Washington State University. At WSU, Scott became a member of the Pi Kappa Al...
Though idle for two weeks beforehand, the unbeaten La Conner High School girls’ basketball team had no trouble shaking off the rust at Coupeville last Tuesday, Jan 4. La Conner returned to action showing machine-like precision in its half-court offense while also scoring repeatedly off its high-octane transition game enroute to a convincing 69-13 NW2B road triumph. With icy road conditions having nixed a much-anticipated Dec. 30 matchup with 4A Kamiak, La Conner was revved up for this tipoff. “This was our first game in two weeks and we pla...
It was a good news, bad news kind of night for Braves boy basketball at Coupeville last Tuesday. The good news is La Conner held unbeaten Coupeville, ranked No. 4 in state 2B boys’ polls, to nearly 20 points under their per game scoring average. The bad news is the Braves still found themselves on the short end of a 54-29 conference verdict Jan. 4, falling to 3-4 overall and 1-2 in NW2B play, La Conner played the Wolves on equal terms over the final three quarters but couldn’t overcome an early 27-2 Coupeville run fueled by three-point spe...
Stories of kids walking miles to get to and from school rain or shine are the stuff of which legends are made. But for Roy Pearmain it is a story that is both true and represents the first step in what would be his pursuit of careers from nearly all walks of life. Since graduating in 1960 as La Conner High School’s student body president, Pearmain has gone on to be a college graduate, public school teacher, aerospace scientist, writer, weather watcher and reporter, firefighter/EMT, civic l...