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It has long been said that dogs are man’s best friend. But now there is a new twist to that tale – rather, tail – right here in greater La Conner. Lori Nguyen of the La Conner Pub & Eatery staff recently brought home a baby crossbreed pig as a new pet and it has quickly become a friend to all – mostly to her eight-year-old son, Kao, but also to neighbors, co-workers, the family cats and even deer that meander into Nguyen’s side yard on Pioneer Parkway in Swinomish Village. Nguy...
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be no state basketball tournament this year. But the La Conner High girls’ basketball team, the defending state tourney runner-up, played – and won – four games in four days – similar to the Hardwood Classic format in Spokane – to tip off its modified spring season last week. And one of those matchups, a home clash with 1A King’s High School at Landy James Gym on Wednesday, very much resembled a state caliber game. La Conner fou...
La Conner’s Kali Adams wowed fans by rushing for more than 100 yards and two touchdowns in the Braves’ 41-0 shutout win at Darrington in the team’s season finale. The sophomore running back impressed state athletics officials as well. As a result, Adams was named the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) 2B football player of the week Thursday. Each week the WIAA, which governs school athletics and activities in the state, joins the Gesa Credit Union in recognizing stude...
Yes, there will be a La Conner parade and fireworks show July 4th. With Gov. Jay Inslee reopening Washington statewide June 30, Town Administrator Scott Thomas notified his staff Monday of those plans. La Conner Hook & Ladder is ready to “support and help anyway we can,” Chief Aaron Reinstra wrote in an email. That may be a commitment that their 1941 white firetruck will lead the parade. There will not be a concert or community picnic until next year, however. Maple Hall and the Civic Garden Club can be scheduled, as others already have. Sen...
The Pleasant Ridge Cemetery Commissioners invite the public to the outdoor Memorial Day service this year, following all COVID-19 safety protocols. The program is held at the Cemetery, 17666 Valentine Road, Mount Vernon. It will begin at 9 a.m. Monday, May 31. The Marine Corp League, #1043, Active and Retired, the Reverend Don Robinson, vocalist Judy Robinson and La Conner high school student, Mason Groesbeck will each contribute to the half hour celebration. Skagit Pioneer descendent Laurie Lane will share stories of her family and the potato...
La Conner students are daily taught the power of critical thinking. School officials are also embracing that lesson as they begin analyzing data collected from surveys whose input will help shape a draft district strategic plan addressing key academic and campus culture goals and objectives. La Conner school board members and administrators hosted a two-hour presentation Monday night by Roni Rumsey, director of professional learning at the Center for Educational Effectiveness. She shared insight into how data analysis can play a vital role in...
The La Conner High School Knowledge program is virtually – and truly – among the best in the country. La Conner’s “Chronically Iliad” team competed earlier this month against schools of all sizes in the inaugural virtual National Knowledge Bowl Tournament, placing fourth among entries from 1A enrollment campuses. Knowledge Bowl coaches Beth Clothier and Christi Malcomson said the La Conner team, which “competed up” as a 2B entry, underwent six rounds of oral and written questions...
For decades it has been a tradition for the La Conner High School Alumni Association, the oldest active organization of its kind in Washington state, to hold an annual banquet each spring to honor that year’s graduating seniors. For the second year in a row, COVID-19 will trump tradition – though not entirely in 2021. La Conner alums are being asked if they would attend a banquet and program in September, by which time more vaccinations will have been administered. The fall banquet proposal, along with scholarship donation and dues p...
In a short season, the La Conner High football team went a long way. All the way, in fact, to the top of league standings. Not too bad for a group some thought would be continuing a rebuild under new head coach Jeff Scoma. Instead, the Braves raised the roof and clinched the NW2B championship Friday night with their fourth straight win, a convincing 41-0 shutout victory as La Conner showed its mastery of the Wing-T attack Scoma brought with him from Bellevue. With the triumph, the Braves finished the ’21 spring campaign with a 4-1 mark. Five L...
By the numbers. The cliche is life is a numbers game. Start with 19. COVID-19 stands for coronavirus disease 2019. The year the virus appeared is part of its name. The favorite number for restaurants is 200. The hope has been that new infections would stay below 200 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in Skagit County in a two week period. That is one-half the magic combination to allow restaurants to continue to seat inside diners at 50% capacity. The twin metric to beat is five hospitalizations per week. Skagit County has not struck out...
Homecoming at La Conner schools will be earlier than usual this year. That is true, at least, for the district’s new assistant principal and athletics director. School Board members last week hired La Conner alum Christine Bruffy Tripp, currently the principal at Concrete High School, to return to her alma mater starting July 1. The board decision was unanimous, with member Lynette Bruffy Cram – Tripp’s sister – recusing herself from the vote. Tripp previously served an administrative internship at La Conner schools, middle and hig...
On April 26 our beloved Morrey Cort went on to a new adventure. Morrey loved adventures and was the most fun and enthusiastic nonagenarian you could ever meet. Morrey moved to La Conner in 2007. She lived in Harbor Villa for a number of years until she had to move to Josephine Caring Community in Stanwood in 2018. Morrey became a celebrity there as she was always the life of the party. They even made a promotional video with her as the star, driving around in her scooter. At one time Morrey volu...
The Soroptimist Honored Student for April, Annaliese Whitney, has varied talents and interests that she shares with family, friends and community members. Annaliese, a senior at La Conner High School, admitted that she is a bit of a procrastinator, but somehow she finds time for family, school, band, softball and volunteering! Her favorite classes in high school have been band, English and history. Annaliese has played the clarinet since 5th grade. She plays in the high school band and also the...
The La Conner High boys’ soccer team battled a stiff headwind at Whittaker Field last Tuesday. The Braves also dueled with a physical and veteran Mount Vernon Christian Hurricanes club that broke a scoreless tie with a pair of wind-aided second half goals, the latter of which came in the final minute of the contest. MVC recorded the tidy 2-0 victory on a beautiful sunlit but gusty afternoon. Coming off a season opening shutout win over Cedar Park Christian, La Conner was unable to take advantage...
The La Conner High football team was looking forward to avenging its 6-0 season opening overtime loss at Coupeville. Fortunately for the Braves, that opportunity came earlier than expected. And they made the most of it. The Braves blanked Coupeville 21-0 at home Saturday in a game that was moved up in the schedule mid-week due to Friday Harbor having suspended its athletics program because of increased COVID-19 test results in the San Juan Island School District. Friday Harbor was to have been La Conner’s foe last weekend. Coupeville was a...
The COVID-19 pandemic has scuttled post-season action, but the La Conner High volleyball team is playing like another state title is on the line. Lady Braves head coach Suzanne Marble, who has guided the program to five state crowns, would not have it any other way. The two-time defending state champions swept NW2B rivals Coupeville and Concrete in straight-set decisions last week. La Conner bested Coupeville 25-15, 25-7, 25-9 in a key road test last Tuesday against the former Class A Lady Wolves, who moved back to the NW2B ranks this year. It...
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...