This is Northwest Public Broadcasting's Weekly News Now I'm Tracci Dial.

Thanks so much for joining us.

It's warming up quickly in the Northwest this spring, but a cold snap earlier this year is putting utilities on the spot.

Avista Utilities, which serves the Inland Northwest, tells us, back in mid-January, below freezing temperatures amped up demand and there wasn't much electricity supply.

Why that was, and what industry leaders are looking at in terms of solutions, is up on our website.

Now, what do sheep and a far west Washington county have in common?

Lauren Gallup reports from Clallam County out on Washington's northwesternmost tip on the Olympic Peninsula.

It is the last bellwether standing.

I'm going to do a little yelling, so... Come on, sheep.

So yeah, someone will kind of lead the way.

The bellwether.

Yell if you need to.

Its okay.

I'm at the Sawtooth Ranch in Joyce, Washington.

Joyce is a small town on Highway 112.

Billy Fortini and his husband, Devin Peterson, are taking their flock of sheep out to pasture.

One sheep, Delphine, is the first to get up.

She gets the rest of the gals moving.

Can you say what you just said?

One of them will act like the bellwether and be the leader, and the rest will kind of follow along.

Did you hear what Billy just said?

He called one of the sheep a bellwether.

Before coming here, I had only ever heard that word in political conversations, but it actually comes from sheep farming.

Sheep herders would hang a bell around the neck of a castrated male sheep to have him lead the flock.

Those guys are called wethers.

Put a bell on a wether and you get a bellwether.

The leader.

Clallam County, home to all those sheep and a little more than 77,000 people.

For the past 40 odd years, its voters have sided the same as the rest of the country in presidential elections, from Reagan to the first Bush, Clinton, younger Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden.

Every time this county favored them, just like the rest of the country.

Hear and see an inside look at this political predictor of the rest of the nation.

For now, that's on NWPB.org.

And stay tuned soon for a full video.

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I'm Tracci Dial with your Weekly News Now.

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