Investing in the community

By Liv Stecker

With more than 40 years experience in the screen printing business, Ron Rebelato is no stranger to the outfitting of a team. And what those decades of service have also taught Ron is the truth that any good business is built on the relationships with a good community. Launching a branch of Ronyreb Garment Company in Trail, British Columbia earlier this year, Ron immediately began investigating how he could build that relationship across the border with his neighbors in Northport. Enter Dave Hedrick, Northport local, coach and now a part of Ron’s team in the screen printing business.

Northport is situated more closely to Trail, B.C. than any large town in the US, making it a convenient trip for shopping, sports and recreation as well as entertainment and cultural experiences. For decades, students and adults alike from Northport have played on sports teams based in Trail and Rossland, while their Canadian neighbors enjoy the hospitality of some of Northport’s finest features, including the historic Kuk’s Tavern, The Mustang Grill and the recently re-opened Rivertown Grill. Ron is a frequent guest at Rivertown, and good friends with many Northport residents. It only made sense to expand his business to the small border town.

Offering competitive prices and great customer service wasn’t enough for Ron and Dave in their quest to build relationship with Northport and the surrounding area. They wanted to do more. Ron approached the athletic director of Northport High School, Erik Stark about donating hoodies to both the girls and boys high school basketball teams as a gesture of their support for the community and investment. Stark was as surprised as the more than 30 students who received the customized hoodies were.

“I can’t believe that he is doing this for our little school,” Stark voiced. It’s a big gift for a place who has fought hard to keep a solid athletic program alive over the years as Northport faces the same economic decline as many small rural towns. Having local people buy in on such a tangible level is a huge vote of confidence for the young athletes in the program. The hoodies were delivered to players in January, and many of the students haven’t stopped wearing them since. Check out Ronyreb Garment Company on Facebook or contact Dave at 509-675-5942 or dlhedrick2@gmail.com or Ron in Trail at 250-364-0058, or ronrebelato@yahoo.com for more information about the services they offer.

A Joyful Way: Love of the Irish

By Liv Stecker

When Deirdre Abeid launched the Haran School of Irish Dance outside of Kettle Falls in 1992, she had no idea the legacy that had begun. A first generation descendant of an Irish immigrant mother, Deirdre was handed down the spirit of her national heritage in the form of music and dancing. A prolific singer, musician, and step dancer, “Dooda”, as her family and close friends affectionately called her, brought her Irish cultural education with her to Stevens County when she moved here to raise her family in the late 1970s.  

In addition to leading the choir at her beloved church and participating in local community theater as an actor, dancer and choreographer, Deirdre and her husband Simon raised their three children, cultivated a small farm and served the community in countless ways. Always full of life and energy, Deirdre was tirelessly busy and involved in the lives of many people. In 1992, Hopi Schott was one of the first three students that began taking lessons in the upstairs of Simon’s shop. “I remember how effortless Dooda was in her dancing, and joyful in her ways of teaching, and how none of us could have guessed what we had  started that summer.” She recalls.

What began as a few local students in the early nineties snowballed into a busy and active dance studio after Deirdre earned her TCRG teaching certificate – Teasgicoir Choimisiuin Le Rinci Gaelacha – from the Dublin-based Irish Dance Commission and students began to compete regionally and nationally. Deirdre’s life was tragically cut short in 2004 after she was diagnosed with cancer during a trip to Ireland with a group of her students. But the legacy of her Irish heritage has been preserved as her daughters, Claire and Caitlin, carry on the torch of her dance studios in Kettle Falls and Spokane.

Caitlin runs the Haran dance school near Ninth and Perry in Spokane, producing hundreds of students that have learned, performed and competed all over the region and world. Abeid’s son, Mellad, formed a Celtic band in Spokane, known as An Dóchas (Gaelic for “The Hope”), who frequently play with the Haran Dancers in large stage productions.

Claire has remained in Kettle Falls, taking over the original dance studio after Deirdre’s passing, owning her mother’s perspective on the dance as a timeless enjoyment. In an interview with the Seattle Times in 1997, Deirdre was quoted in response to the sudden upswing of interest due to the popularity of Riverdance, “...for those of us who have been doing it long before, we'll still be here after it wanes. It's a joyful way to dance. And people who take it up find a love of it themselves."

From her teenage years, Claire taught classes of all levels, taking over the instruction completely during her mother’s illness, and continuously since, even while touring with professional dance troupes including Michael Londra’s (of Riverdance) Celtic Fire and the Ireland based Celtic Legends. Averaging 60 students at any given time, Claire’s community focus on keeping her mother’s vision alive has enabled countless local dancers to perform and compete on national and international stages.

Many world class competitors and professional performance level dancers have come out of the studio, including Brittany Roberson, who began dancing as a young girl with Deirdre and Claire. Brittany started teaching at the studio while Claire was pregnant with her first baby in the fall of 2014. Now the two instructors tag-team classes of all levels, from beginner to world champion level, including classes one day a week in Chewelah at the Aaron Huff Memorial Cultural Center. Brittany helps to cover the bases while Claire continues to work as a choreographer for Michael Londra. The Kettle Falls Haran School of Irish Dance is launching several new beginner level classes this spring as they prepare for a show in April and competition season begins. Now the mother of a toddler, Claire looks forward to incorporating her young son in the family tradition.

Deirdre’s passion for her Irish heritage and her love for people lives on in the joyful dance that her daughters give to the  community. Before her death, Deirdre wrote: "Try to live like Jesus ...see love in every face and try to give that love back." In the happy steps of hundreds of dancers, Deirdre still gives love back to countless people in Stevens County and beyond. If you are interested in finding out more about joining a class with the Haran Dancers, please contact Claire and/or Brittany by email or dancingharan@gmail.com dancingbritty@gmail.com or phone 509-690-7088. You can also find more information on their facebook page, Kettle Falls Haran School of Irish Dance.  

Be Mine: Why we celebrate St. Valentine’s Day

By Liv Stecker

Before you write off Valentine’s Day as another invention of American corporations in the quest for perpetual revenue from mass produced greeting cards and several thousand tons of seasonal candy, take a moment to consider the long, if not convoluted, history behind the holiday. Long before it was chocolates and diamonds and fancy dinner dates, Saint Valentine’s Day became a celebration of enduring love.

Valentine of Rome was a Christian saint in the 5th century who was martyred in 496 AD for his faith. He was buried on February 14th, and the anniversary of his death was observed by the Catholic Church after he was canonized. According to legend, Saint Valentine wore an amethyst ring embedded with the image of cupid. He officiated at the illegal Christian weddings of Roman Soldiers, who were forbidden to marry, as the Emperor Claudius II believed that married men did not make for good soldier material. It was said soldiers would recognize him by his cupid ring and request the performance of his secret nuptials. The amethyst later became the birthstone for the month of February, and is said to bring love. St. Valentine is said to have cut hearts out of parchment and given them to the soldiers that he ministered to, beginning the tradition of heart shaped cards.

Eventually Valentine was imprisoned for his Christian ministry, and while in jail, he is said to have healed his jailer’s daughter, Julia, from blindness. A letter sent from his jail cell to the girl was signed “from your Valentine”, perhaps the first Valentine ever sent. After his death, Julia planted an almond tree with pink blossoms near his grave. The almond tree is still symbolic of undying love and friendship.

The Catholic Church removed St. Valentine’s day from the General Roman Calendar in 1969, but the holiday was well rooted in tradition across the globe by that time. Speculation has tied the holiday to the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalia, a three day celebration of fertility in mid February, but there has been no traceable connection to this observance and the later resurgence of the romantic theme appointed to February 14th by poets and lovers who were far removed from Rome’s pagan roots.

The first romantic association with the church holiday of St. Valentine’s Day wasn’t until nearly a thousand years later, when Geoffrey Chaucer, the English poet, penned the verse: For this was on seynt Volantynys day, Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make. ["For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."] Later, scholars would argue that the Valentine he referred to was not Valentine of Rome, but the feast of St. Valentine of Genoa, who died nearly 100 years before Valentine of Rome, which was observed in early May, a time more likely for the mating of birds in Britain.

Whatever the reference really meant, Valentine’s Day was securely established as a celebration of love on February 14th by the beginning of the 15th century. Following Chaucer’s lead, French and English poets latched on to the theme and over the next 200 years, references to Valentine’s day, featuring birds and romantic love surfaced across Europe. The oldest surviving Valentine came from Charles, Duke of Orleans, referring to his wife as his  “very sweet Valentine” while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London in the 1400s: Je suis desja d'amour tanné, Ma tres doulce Valentinée… Even Shakespeare gave a nod to the holiday in Hamlet in the early 1600s.

Mass productions of romantic poetry, cards and love notes was well underway in England by the end of the 18th century, and in 1847, the first commercially produced Valentines were available in the United States. It wasn’t until the late 1900s that the traditional note giving escalated to chocolates and jewelry. This became a trend in the United States when the candy and diamond industries saw potential for growth. It is estimated that over 190 million Valentines were sent in the United States in 2015, not including homemade exchanges between school age children. The average amount spent on a Valentine’s day gift in the US last year was $131.

However you choose to observe (or not) the festival of love that is Valentine’s Day, the story of St. Valentine, perhaps embellished over the years, is a good excuse to let the ones we love know that we are thinking of them. It’s also a good chance to break out the scissors and glue stick and show our love with a little bit of creativity and personal attention. Maybe we don’t need diamonds and puppies to tell our Valentine’s how much they mean to us, but since the middle ages, we’ve been using poetry to get our point across. The cliche “Roses are Red” rhyme began in 1590, with Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene, but was adapted into a nursery rhyme in 1784 from Gammar Gurton’s Garland:

The rose is red, the violet's blue,

The honey's sweet, and so are you.

Thou are my love and I am thine;

I drew thee to my Valentine:

The lot was cast and then I drew,

And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

Meet Country Chevrolet: The Service Department

By Liv Stecker

Any machine is only as effective as the parts and pieces that power it and how well they work together. Problem solving, troubleshooting and easing the worries of customers, the Service Advisors at Country Chevrolet are excellent communicators and multitaskers. Functioning as the link between both new and repeat customers and the automotive technicians, Service Advisors facilitate effective two-way communication and dependable care for every vehicle owner. At Country Chevrolet, the service department takes pride in not only the care they provide their customers, but the teamwork that accomplishes more than the sum of the individual effort. This is synergy, and this is the service department.

Becky Bacon

She might not be a Colville native, but Becky Bacon is no stranger to the small town. Relocating to the Colville area for the first time in 1983 from her hometown in Nakusp, British Columbia, Becky followed her husband from Stevens County to Alaska and several stops in between the first few years of their marriage. In 1986 they landed in Colville to stay and shortly after, Becky got a job in the service department of what was then LaDuke and Fogle Motors. But that wasn’t where Becky’s experience in automotive repair began.

In addition to working for Phillips Field in Alaska, a repair center that offered service for light and heavy duty vehicle, Becky worked for Kelly’s Care Care in Colville when they first came to Colville. Always a tomboy, Becky says that she was in and around all types of vehicles her entire life, from ATVs and snowmobiles to boats. The “favorite pit girl” of her husband Wade, Becky loved being involved in the snowmobile and boat races that he participated in. With five children and eight grandchildren between the two of them, Becky says what she is most passionate about in life is family and sharing life with them.

After living in Alaska and Northern Canada, Becky says the best part about the Colville area is the four distinct seasons that it brings, rather than the “early winter, mid winter, late winter and summer” seasons she experienced in the far north. The changing seasons provide more opportunity for Becky and her family to camp on the lake and share off road adventures.

After 20 years as a Service Advisor at Country Chevrolet, Becky takes pride in the care that she offers to customers, some of whom she still serves after 20 years and several evolutions of the business. “It’s important to me to give them the right advice at the right time, whether it’s for repairs or when it’s time to buy a new car.” She says. “I absolutely love my customer base, and I sleep good at night knowing that I’ve done my best to take care of them.” And it isn’t just the customers. 20 years at the same business has made Becky consider her co workers as part of her extended family. “We have a lot of mutual trust and respect for one another,” she says, and after all, that’s what family is all about.

Eli Rice

Eli Rice was born in Colville, and although he’s moved away a time or two for different reasons, something kept pulling him back. After graduating CHS in 1993, Eli set out in Spokane to build a family. Raising three kids, Eli spent more than 10 years working for Discount Tire, and later the service department for Appleway Automotive Group. But when his first marriage ended he found his way back to Colville and a job with what was then Booth and LaDuke Motors. When business at the dealership  slowed down that winter, Eli was laid off, so he moved out of the state to work until the tragic loss of his son, Conner in 2011. Eli knew at that point that the most important thing in the world was being close to his family, and moved home to Colville where he worked for Boise Cascade and then the railroad before coming back to work at Country Chevrolet in the service department.

“When you really get right down to the nitty gritty,” he says, “everything you NEED in life is here. It’s home.” And for Eli, at the top of that list is people. “Family, which includes my closest friends, is the most important.” Eli married his wife Kellie in 2012, and between them they share 5 kids and one new grand baby. If you ask Eli what he enjoys in his spare time his answer is “anything that involves adrenaline.” Snowmobiles, 4 wheelers, and recently Rzr rides are at the top of his list.

His love for speed and machines makes him a good fit as a service advisor at Country Chevrolet, where again, Eli says it’s all about family. “We are like a family, we take care of each other, we have each other’s backs,” he says of his co-workers, and the best part of his job? “We take care of our customers - which means you - our friends.” As a service advisor, Eli is a liaison between the customer and the automotive technician. He sees it as his job to “translate the worries and needs of a customer to the tech,” and vise-versa, to let the customer know exactly what the technician is seeing under the hood.

Jason Ferguson

Another native of the area, Jason Ferguson was born and raised outside of Kettle Falls in the Greenwood Loop area. After graduating from KFHS in 2002, he worked for Columbia Cedar and Boise Cascade before he took a job with Major Drilling based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. With a wife and two young daughters back at home, drilling was a good way to get ahead of the bills, but it was a long way from home for a country boy. Working in Utah, Southern Idaho, Nevada and Arizona, Jason finally decided he had been gone for long enough and needed to come back home.

He took a job in the sales department at Country Chevrolet, where he says he “jumped in head first,” with no experience, but he liked the company. After a few months, the dealership saw him as a good fit for the service department and moved him into a position as a service advisor along with Eli and Becky. “I’ve always been a car person, I like working on them, and I like being able to communicate with the customers.” Jason is able to use his hands on experience to translate mechanical needs to customers.

An avid outdoorsman, Jason spends as much time in the woods, hunting, fishing and camping as possible. That’s why he’s spent most of his life in this area. “I’ve never really gone away, I love the small town atmosphere where everybody knows everybody.” And this neighborly feeling carries over into his work. “I really like all of the people I work with - I am doing the same job every day, but every day is a little bit different.” He says that the fast paced days at Country Chevrolet keep him going, and the community involvement of the business is important to him. “They help their employees and they help the community tremendously, and it’s nice to see a local company that gives back.” He says.

Stop by Country Chevrolet to find out about the great services offered and talk to Becky, Eli or Jason. Or you can call 509-684-8404.

One stop trail shop

By Liv Stecker

For Wes Porter, it’s all about convenience - for his customers, that is. An avid outdoor sportsman, Wes turned his passion for downhill speed into a family business. With nearly a decade of experience in bike and ski repair shops, Wes and his wife Ali took their skill to the road, literally, creating a mobile repair station that they can stage anywhere, from driveways to ski chalets. Stix and Spokes is unique in the service that they provide to outdoor athletes in Stevens, Ferry and Pend Oreille County.

Wes and Ali relocated to the Colville area four years ago from Boise, Idaho to live on a piece of property that has been in Ali’s family for more than 40 years. Carving a living out of the rural countryside in northern Stevens County can require creativity and dedication, two things that the team behind Stix and Spokes aren’t lacking. Wes is a one man equipment repair service, traveling with his 14 foot trailer of tools and equipment, he is ready to tackle long ignored maintenance issues and trouble shoot performance quirks and malfunctions.

Stix and Spokes also offers a few choice retail deals on bikes and skis, working will small designer companies who cater to personalized detail and high quality manufacturing. When his repair trailer isn't parked at social hotspots where outdoor athletes tend to congregate (Quartzite Brewing, anyone?), you can find Wes and his handy portable skill set up at 49 Degrees North for special events, or request him right to your front door for a tune up of your skis and cycles.

Rather than establish a fixed schedule of locations where they will provide service, Wes prefers to stay flexible and available for events and quick responses around the area. Keeping an open schedule means that he can meet you and your skis at work during your lunch break or make it to the night ski event at 49 Degrees North. His partnership with local businesses including Quartzite, 49 Degrees North and others gives him a couple of key pivot points in the community, where the convenience and skill of his services come in handy. “The more people that we help, the word spreads,” Wes says, and that’s where the success of Stix and Spokes comes from. Working hard to provide a full spectrum of services, Wes has expanded his expertise from bikes and downhill skis to cross country equipment and more. “If someone bought snow shoes and said a gromet had broken, I can fix that.” There isn't much that Wes isn't willing to tackle.

Stix and Spokes isn't intimidated by the miles that span our rural counties, as long as there is a need, he will travel, from Spokane to the Candadian Border. But Wes isn't working alone. His wife Ali is working behind the scenes, designing and managing the website and social networking that keeps Wes in communication with his clients over such a large geographic area.

Wes and Ali are looking forward to the growth of Stix and Spokes as the good word spreads. Currently, Wes sells Raleigh, Diamond Back and Red Lion BMX bikes and is exploring new lines of skis to provide to customers. Being a small business, Wes says he looks for small boutique brands that aren't after giant wholesale contracts. It's more about meeting each customer need, one athlete at a time.

To schedule a tune up for your skis, snowboard or bicycles, contact Wes at 509-690-2772 or check Stix and Spokes on Facebook or their website stixandspokes.com

10th Mountain Scout: Stephen Louis Paparich

By Liv Stecker

Louie Paparich graduated high school in Northport, Washington in 1942, a few months after the United States had joined the war effort in response to the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Immediately following graduation, Louie took a job on the southern end of Lake Pend Orielle for a contractor building submarines at Farragut Naval Training Station, the recently established and second largest submarine training center in the United States at the time. It was during his time in Idaho that Louie heard about well-paying jobs constructing the Alaska-Canada highway from Alaska territory to the lower 48 states. Setting out from Seattle on a barge, 18 year old Paparich made his way to Skagway Alaska and then to Teslin in the Yukon Territory.

In late 1942, construction of the Alcan Highway was considered part of the war effort, and young Louie met a military service member serving on an army road engineering crew who asked Louie if he had registered with the selective service. Born and raised in Northport, Stephen Louis Paparich had never heard of the selective service or the consequences of not registering. Realizing that he would have more flexibility if he enlisted rather than wait for the draft, Louie hopped on a sternwheeler ship from Whitehorse to Dawson City where he bought an 18 foot boat for $5 so he could travel quickly to Fairbanks to register for the draft. Somewhere along the way, Paparich adopted a dog that crossed his path, and made his way 255 miles down the Yukon river, stopping at villages along the way to get directions and supplies. 

During a stop at the confluence of the Nation River with the Yukon, Louie ran across an old miner named Tom Phillips who had lived in the area since 1889 and was gravely ill. His companion begged the teenage Louie to take the sick man to Fairbanks for medical help in his $5 boat, but Louie instead left some of his provisions with the men and went ahead to send a floatplane back for the sick prospector, always wondering if the old man had survived. The float plane eventually got to Tom Phillips but they were unsuccessful in getting him to Fairbanks that way. He was moved by riverboat but died shortly afterward. 

Paparich found an army recruiter in Fairbanks where he quickly signed up for the draft. Fully expecting to be immediately deployed, Louie looked forward to the warm beaches of the South Pacific, away from the cold Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The recruiter, however, saw Louie as a candidate for a different mission. After a few questions, Louie had disclosed his experience as a skier and horseman, building skis in the rural Northport area and learning to ski on the nearby hills and working as a ranch hand in the summer. The recruiter filed away all of Louie’s information but told him that his work on the highway was needed for the war effort and directed him back to Teslin to continue his work with the civilian construction crew. Louie spent a month’s worth of wages to book a flight on a Ford Tri-motor plane back to Teslin and his old job driving trucks. Louie loved Alaska and wrote to family at home that he hated the thought of ever leaving the North. 

Paparich worked on the Alcan highway until the spring of 1943, when the army finally sent him to first basic training at Camp Roberts in California and then Fort Hale in Colorado, where the newly formed 10th Mountain Division was training the Light Infantry and one of the last mounted cavalry units for mountain warfare in the frigid and harsh climate of the European war theater. The mountaineering troops drilled on skis, snowshoes and horseback, honing survival and combat skills up against the backdrop of the rugged Colorado mountains. After several months at high elevation, the unit was moved complete with 180 head of horses to Fort Swift in Texas where they were trained and acclimatized for low elevation and high temperatures for several months. Exposed to the extremes of weather and terrain conditions, the 10th Mountain was ready for anything. 

During his training in Texas, Louie Paparich was joined briefly by his high school sweetheart, Kay Lael, a young girl with a sweet southern drawl from North Carolina who had moved to Northport with her family a few years earlier and fallen head over heels for the farm boy down the road. They were married in the chapel at Fort Swift and then Kay went back to North Carolina to live with family and wait out the war while Louie prepared to ship off. 

Louie, like many in his unit, had never been to sea before the troop crossing that winter, and to avoid the crowded bunks of seasick soldiers he found a place to sleep in the beams of the ship high above the head, where the air was fresh and the bunks weren’t stacked like sardines in a can. He never got caught in his unauthorized berth, and so Louie didn’t mind the trip as much as some others. 

It was January of 1945 when the 10th Mountain Division entered combat in the North Apennine Mountains in Italy. They were tasked with taking the five mile ridge of Mount Belvedere from the controlling German troops, and the first obstacle they faced was a 1,500 foot vertical ascent up the western stronghold, known to the Americans as Riva Ridge. The German’s were confident that the sheer face couldn’t be scaled and had minimal patrols in place, but the 10th Mountain rigged rope ladders in the night and surprised German forces, breaking through the line and taking Mount Belvedere after three days of intense fighting. 

Serving in the 10th Mountain Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Louie raised his hand when they asked for scouting volunteers. Although he didn’t know what he was signing up for, Louie made an excellent scout as he spoke Italian and his years hunting in the woods of Northeastern Washington made him adept in the Italian forests, although Louie would never have touted his valuable skill set, being above all things a humble man. Rose Paparich-Kalamarides says that her dad told her that the life expectancy of scouts were measured in minutes, rather than years, as they crept in front of their own troops to gather intelligence and report back. On one scouting mission, Louie’s partner set his rifle against a tree and left it when they crept to their next position. Knowing that a misplaced firearm was grounds for dishonorable discharge, when the scouts got back into camp Louie squirreled a rifle out of the unit commander’s tent to replace his partner’s and avoid reprimand. Neither soldier ever heard a word about the missing rifle from the officer. Louie liked to retell this story because it reminded him that outside of the reality of combat, boys will still be boys, applying mischievous ingenuity to get out of a tight spot. 

Paparich and his division continued to route the Germans out of Northern Italy, culminating in the final battle for the 10th Mountain at the Po River, where German Troops faced off against the Americans who crossed the river at Lake Garda and cut off the last escape route for Hitler’s army. Louie says that some of the bravest soldiers he saw in battle were the engineers who were laying temporary bridges across the water under heavy mortar fire while the rest of the unit sheltered in foxholes on the opposite side of the river. Louie lay flat on the ground near a foxhole, imploring the guys in it to make room for him only moments before a mortar landed square in the trench and killed all of the men crowded there. Louie’s daughter Rose says that her father said a Rosary for the men in that foxhole every day for the rest of his life. 

It wasn’t until Louie was dying of cancer that he began to open up about his experiences in the war to his children. At the urging of his daughter Rose, he related many anecdotes before his passing in March of 2000 at the age of 75. In addition to the stories he related, he left behind letters that he scrawled to his family at home, in the barely legible handwriting of a right-hand compelled southpaw. As time went on, Louie was able to talk about the horrors that he had seen as well as the humanity that he witnessed during his time with the army. After the battle of Mt. Belvedere, the plethera of German prisoners of war dictated the need for the digging of more latrines. As Louie supervised the POW soldiers digging, he witnessed the terror of some Germans and he realized that they thought they were digging their own graves. Once, when searching a German POW for weapons he found a beautiful pocket watch that had belonged to the man’s grandfather. Louie graciously returned it to the German soldier, telling his daughter later that the prisoners that he saw were guys that looked just like him. 

The bloody but successful campaign at the Po River transpired two days before fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was executed in a small Italian village and then hung by his feet in a public square in Milan in a retaliatory move by local communist forces. As Louie Paparich and the 10th Mountain Division marched back to their ship through Milan, he endured the gruesome sight of the deposed dictator and his mistress, swinging from the beams of a service station. Louie, like many of the soldiers he served with, bore witness to atrocities committed by enemy and even some friendly troops as the dehumanizing effect of the war ate away at moral standards. Later in life Louie would admonish his children and grandchildren about the horrors of war and would be strongly opposed to the military action in Vietnam and later engagements, like so many of his comrades in arms. 

The troops left Italy in the summer of 1945, destined for the planned invasion of Japan which was circumvented by Japan’s surrender in August of that year. The ship changed course and returned home, where Louie collected his young wife Kay and settled back in Northport where their first three children were born before they used the money he saved from his highway construction work to buy a large farm just outside of town. They had three more children while living on the farm and Louie and Kay went on to become pillars in the small community. Louie was the head of American Legion Post #158 in Northport for 50 years. Stephen Louis Paparich received two bronze stars on his discharge in November of 1945 after just over two years of service. 

Heroes and Horses

By Liv Stecker


Pete Ansaldo came to the United States from Italy in 1900, where he carved out a hard living in the mines in Butte Montana for a couple of years until he had the money to bring his wife and two daughters to America. They joined him, and shortly after in 1903, Pete left the dark mines to build a homestead in the rolling hills outside of the bustling mining town of Northport. With one Hereford bull named Curly, the formerly nameless hill overlooking the Columbia River was dubbed Bull Hill, and Pete, Curly, and his family worked to build a profitable ranch. They were joined in 1921 by a family friend from the old Country, Minot Guglielmino, who married Pete’s daughter Kate after working in the Lead Point Mine outside of Northport for awhile. Minot and Pete raised cattle on the sweeping land along the river while Minot and Kate’s only son, Don grew up in the barn that still stands on Bull Hill today. Don later married Kassie and they raised six children at Bull Hill, Jeanne, Susan, Don, Pete, Tom and Joe.

In 1981, Pete Guglielmino graduated from Eastern Washington University and returned to the family homestead at Bull Hill. He started offering guided hunts to friends while he took up the family trade of cattle ranching. In 1995, along with his brother Don, Pete launched Bull Hill Guest Ranch, to accommodate the growing demand for guided hunts and dude-ranch vacations that he was encountering. With ten horses, two wranglers and one cook, the ranch was soon busy from spring through fall, as visitors from up and down the northwest corridor caught wind of what was happening up at Bull Hill.


The guest ranch grew and expanded from the old barn and a few tents to a fully equipped cookhouse, guest cabins, and new barns. Rambling over a total of 50 thousand acres, both owned and leased, the endless hills and woods drew guests back to the ranch again and again. Pete, his wife Patsy, their children and several other family members came along over the years to help develop Bull Hill into the gathering place that it has become. “It’s always a battle to get people here for the first time,” says Tucker Guglielmino, Pete’s oldest son and the marketing director for Bull Hill, “because most people haven’t heard of Kettle Falls or Northport. But if we get them here once, we have no trouble getting them to come back.” Bull Hill specializes in making guests feel like part of the big extended family that operates the ranch. “We want people to feel like this is their spot.” Tucker adds, where they are known by name and can bring their friends for the same attention to detail. The wranglers get to know each guest and fit them to the right horse, making each visit personalized and memorable.

Near the turn of the millennium, one of Pete’s friends from college mentioned that the Navy SEAL teams were doing site surveys for a new rural sniper training range. Pete threw Bull Hill into the list of options and the Navy sent a helicopter and survey team out to check it out. The SEALs liked what they saw, and when Bull Hill underbid the competition nationwide, they were on board. Since then, SEAL teams have trained in the woods at Bull Hill twice a year, in the spring and fall, developing training curriculum that utilizes the best and most rugged landscape that northern Stevens County has to offer.


This year, Navy SEALs who participated in the very first training at Bull Hill came back as instructors. Tucker says that the contract gets renewed because Bull Hill offers something that you can’t find elsewhere. The SEALs often perform their training at Bull Hill immediately before deployment in the fall, and coming into the cookhouse at the end of the day they mingle with the Guglielminos and feel like a part of the American Dream. “They see the family and remember a little bit what they’re fighting for.” Tucker says. The sprawling ranch and the small town vibe where everybody knows your name is what it’s all about.


In 2015, Bull Hill was visited by a former Army Ranger who was looking for a place to host civilian long range shooting competitions. The guest ranch fit the bill perfectly and Dan Litzenberger, together with Pete and Patsy’s son Tucker Guglielmino created Bull Hill Training Ranch, and hosted a competition shootout in August of 2016 that was in support of the Darby Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to the successful transition of Army Rangers to civilian life after service in the military. The shootout was a success, registration sold out and both professional and amateur shooters from all over the region and country, as well as corporate sponsors, came together for a weekend of fun and camaraderie to benefit an amazing cause.

Dan and Tucker are looking forward to hosting another competitive shoot at the ranch this spring, to benefit the foundation Freedom Has a Face, a non-profit committed to keeping the memory of fallen heroes alive in the support of their families and filling the gaps they left behind at home. These competitions as well as other events promise to be an ongoing benefit to both veterans and civilians alike as it provides a relaxing escape from the day to day for visitors and participants.

Pete and Patsy, along with their sons Tucker and Hunter continue to run Bull Hill with the help of Pete’s brother Joe, nephew Brent and a small army of local friends and family. Now armed with five full time wranglers, up to five cooks in the peak season, a full cleaning staff and office manager, the ranch books reservations years in advance for hunting season and families from the west side of the state looking for a rural get away that offers the complete experience. For more information about Bull Hill, check out their website BullHillGuestRanch.com or BullHillTrainingRanch.com.