BLYN — Kurt Grinnell, a Jamestown S’Klallam tribal council member and tribal aquaculture manager, has died.
The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office said he died in a single-vehicle wreck on Mount Pleasant Road at about 4:12 p.m. Tuesday.
Grinnell, 57, was pronounced dead at the scene, said Chief Deputy Brian King.
His car had tracked off the road, through a fence and hit a tree, King said.
Grinnell was traveling alone.
“We’re still looking into the cause,” King said when reached by cell phone Wednesday.
“Drugs and/or alcohol are not a factor.”
Tribal members are in mourning, according to Betty Oppenheimer, the tribe’s communication specialist, who said the tribe would comment and provide more information at a later date.
Grinnell was elected to the council in October 2004, according to his biography on the tribe’s website at jamestowntribe.org/tribal-council.
A longtime fisherman, he and his wife, Terri, owned Jamestown Seafood.
He had served on the Hunting and Fishing Committee for 33 years.
He was the policy liaison for the tribe’s Natural Resource Department and chaired the Natural Resource Committee.
In the 1980s, he attended fin-fish negotiation meetings with the Makah and Point Elliot Treaty tribes.
In the early ’90s, he served as the Indian Child Welfare case worker, chemical dependency counselor and social worker.
He served the tribe in the areas of education, housing and culture, the biography said.
