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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...
The Fourth of July will not be the same here anymore. Nor will home basketball games at Landy James Gym. Mike Cladoosby, the avid, longtime Swinomish fisherman and tribal elder who launched the famed Jughead’s Fireworks Stand in the 1970s and whose unyielding support of La Conner High sports teams resulted in a seating section of the school’s gymnasium being designated in his honor, died last Friday surrounded by family members. He was 87. Cladoosby’s “extended” family, of course, is rooted on...
You can now eat out with your friends – or anyone else – in La Conner and across Washington. Monday, March 22 the entire state moved into Phase 3 reopening of Gov. Jay Inslee’s Healthy Washington: Roadmap to Recovery. Citing decreases in COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations and the increasing rates of people getting vaccinated against the coronavirus, Inslee announced this newly created Phase 3 on March 11. Progress in controlling the pandemic will again be evaluated on a county basis, ending the regional metrics system. La C...
La Conner is growing. In 2021 its housing stock will increase with developments on and above Maple Avenue. Ten homes will be built on the current ballfield. Mayor Ramon Hayes’ Maple View complex five blocks south adds four more. On Snapdragon Hill, C.J. Ebert is developing lots for another seven residences. These will all be market rate homes, selling for whatever price the developer and buyer agree to. These high priced homes will be good news for the town government, increasing the property tax base and adding stable dollars to its budget for...
Kel-Kahl-Tsoot was the hereditary chief of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. His great grandfather Kel-Kahl-Tsoot signed the treaty for the Swinomish tribe in 1855. After his passing the name was handed down to the late Henry Cladoosby, Mike’s uncle. After Henry’s passing in 1973 Kel-Kahl-Tsoot was handed down to Mike. Michael John Cladoosby, Sr. entered this world on August 16, 1933, born to Ernest Cladoosby, Sr. from Swinomish and Lena Shelton Cladoosby from Tulalip. He was the 6th chi...
Maya Masonholder has framed her involvements at school around sports. As a part of the state champion volleyball team, the varsity softball team and the varsity basketball teams, she lettered five times. The evolution of school sports during COVID-19 is a story in itself! She also volunteers to support other teams. Most recently she was the manager for the La Conner high school boys basketball team and filmed the boys and girls junior varsity teams. Little league baseball and little league...
The award-winning La Conner High Knowledge Bowl program is used to having all the answers. And, true to form, not even 2020’a universal campus lockdowns imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has kept team members from participating at a high level. By using technology and collaborating with other knowledge bowlers across Washington state, the team has found a way to practice and compete despite the virus crisis, which forced schools to start the academic year with remote learning formats. La Conner’s Chronically Iliad entry, com...
At a time when the national landscape is scarred with divisions wedged by alternative facts and cancel culture embraced by both left and right, time-honored values upon which participatory democracy was founded enjoy consensus support on the local level. Though political tribalism can send a polarized electorate to respective echo chambers for spin disguised as information, there remains a “we’re all in this together” mindset when it comes to recognizing critical aspects of citizenship upon which communities rely. This is especially true in th...