September 2009

Football

Kennedy 63, Evergreen 0

It used to be the big game in the Seamount League. Times have changed.

The Lancers and Wolverines battled for first place in recent years, but Evergreen has struggled this season – starting with a forfeit for a lack of players to start off the season.

Kennedy Catholic, meanwhile, is still on top in this year’s Seamount chase.

The Lancers wasted little time in getting on top of the scoreboard Saturday, Sept. 19.

Tony Valencia scored the first touchdown on an 11-yard run, with L.J. Jennings catching a pass from Joseph Moffat for a two-point conversion that made it 8-0 with 10:02 showing on the first quarter clock.

Vince McCluskey then caught a 17-yard touchdown pass from Jason Thompson and Christian Velte kicked the PAT to make it 15-0 at the 8:05 mark. It was the first of five-straight conversion kicks for Velte.

Darian Brooks scored the next Lancers touchdown on a 34-yard punt return and Valencia started the second quarter off with a 2-yard touchdown run.

Kevin Taylor then struck on a 20-yard run and Ian Nobmann on a 4-yard run.

Mount Rainier swam close to Highline in a girls swim meet before taking off and winning, 124-46, in action at the soon-to-maybe-be-defunct Mount Rainier Pool Thursday.

The boosters, the city of Des Moines, the Sea-Tac government, the private money that’s been invested and is tapped out shortly in 2010 it looks. Tapped out like dried up water for who? For the kids. For the adults.

For the public swimming. For the private lessons. For everything. Swimmers will just have to learn to swim in the lake on a sunny, summer afternoon in the near future. And hopefully swim, swim, swim, instead of sink.

Highline started off well against the Rams, winning the first event – the 200 medley relay -- with a 2:10.31 to 2:10.38 finish difference.

“We got out-touched,” said Molly Larson, a Rams captain.

By seven-hundredths of a second, if those numbers are to be added up to fraction form. Larson individually won the 100 backstroke (1:07.24) and the 200 freestyle (2:04.88) and Larson was a state participant on the first and second place relay teams of the Rams.

Foster took on Evergreen in girls soccer and it wasn’t close as the Bulldogs bit the Wolverines seven times in 90 minutes --with a final game score of 7-0 on the lovely Field Turf grass at Foster High School Thursday.

So the Bulldogs earned their first league win this Seamount League season to go 1-4-0 while the Wolverines dropped to 0-2.

“This was a good game for us,” said Foster girls coach Heather Deleza. “The season started a little rough. We played the toughest teams first on the schedule.”

And that’s putting it mildly, that is, “a little rough.”

The Bulldogs lost their first four games by a combined goals for/against of 34-0.

But this game was a welcome change of pace and certainly the score swung the completely opposite direction.

Starting off finding the net for the purple and white clad young ladies was freshman player Marily Hernandez, striking in a shot just four minutes in.

The other night, I was on my Facebook page. I pasted in a video clip to Michael Jackson, singing a beautiful rendition of "I'll Be There" when he was a child.

It made me feel better to watch him sing, to listen to the innocence of his beautiful boy soprano. I felt the need to reconnect with others who were blown away by news of his death.

One person quickly responded to my Facebook post, and it shouldn't have surprised me. It was my sister.

My sister and I grew up on the Jackson 5, the Partridge Family, and the Osmonds. Heck, all the kids loved those groups.

But the Jackson 5 were special. We both loved the Jackson 5's dancing, and I especially loved "I'll Be There." Years later, we rediscovered Michael with "Off the Wall", and then with "Thriller."

As a young adult, my sister was a true Jackson fan, living for his singing and dancing. One of my greatest memories of him was "We are the World", watching him and Quincy Jones and Lionel Ritchie and many others make a great difference to Africa.

I know, these are all sort of glorified memories. We all know he got progressively stranger the last decade or so. His skin got lighter. His makeup stranger.

The recent run of salmon allowed even little kids with bent pins or lures painted pink to catch a fish.

It is unprecedented in my memory. And all I could do was read about it and accept a share of the bounty from generous friends.

That is okay. I have had my share of catching fish from ocean to ocean and scores of rivers and lakes on grasshoppers, bent pins, buzz bombs and Doc Spratley flies.

I have no complaints but plan to persist in this pleasurable pursuit.

I have had many disappointments, but a few victories cause me to return to the riverbank.

I once hooked a 10-foot shark at Westport, and lots of steelhead from scores of Washington rivers. The shark let me bring him up to the boat, then decided to head for freedom and never stopped.

My first fish was a six-inch chub, which I caught on a worm, then nearly drowned when I fell backward into a water-filled hole in the punky floor of an abandoned boathouse.

I still had my fish on when my big brother pulled me out. It didn't cure me.

SUV crash kills three
Friends say 24-year-old Erika Savage, her brother Ryan Savage, 30, and her friend Matt Saunders, 31, died after their SUV hit two trees and a power pole before crashing into a building near the intersection of Eighth Avenue South and South 192nd Street.

Records indicate just hours before the crash, Erika Savage had been arrested under suspicion of driving under the influence.

A Des Moines police officer had arrested Erika Savage three hours earlier while she was driving in the vehicle that was involved in the crash, a Lincoln Navigator registered in her name.

Video from the patrol car shows Erika Savage inebriated to the point of struggling to stand up.

But police say she refused to take a breathalyzer test or give a blood sample to test her alcohol level, a driver's right in the state of Washington.

The department's policy is to hold a DUI suspect only if that person is involved in an accident or has an outstanding warrant.

Neither exception applied to Erika Savage.

An ambulance took Erika Savage to Highline Hospital, and the officer gave the car keys to her friend, Matt Saunders.

"Two Wheels North," a commemorative presentation by Book-It Repertory Theater will be performed in Burien on Oct. 10 at 2 p.m.

The Highline Historical Society and the Burien Little Theatre sponsor this presentation. Funding has been provided by 4Culture.

Admission to the theater at the Burien Community Center, 425 S.W. 144th St., is free. The production is family-friendly.

The play, a staged reading of a non-fiction event, features two fresh high school graduates that set out on their second-hand bicycles from Santa Rosa, California in August of 1909 to take on the challenge of cycling from their home to Seattle for the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition.

With less than six dollars between them, they pedal, push, and walk a thousand miles of primitive roads for 54 days.

The intrepid boys encounter nearly every imaginable natural, mechanical, and human challenge on their one-speed bikes. While adventure is their primary lure, there is a promised purse of $25 from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer waiting for them if they can only make it to Seattle before the final day of the AYP.

For more information, see info@burienlittletheatre.com.

Welcome to Malibu Beach 1962 style on the set of "Psycho Beach Party," the first play in Burien Little Theatre's 2009-2010 "escape" themed season.

The play, written by Charles Busch, is a 1987 spoof of those popular and campy 1960s beach party movies.

Busch's send-up blends "Gidget" with "The Three Faces of Eve" through the story of Chicklet, a perky Malibu teenager, who joins a group of beach bums to learn to surf.

Unfortunately, Chicklet has multiple personalities, including that of a sinister vamp out to conquer the world.

"Psycho"will run at BLT from Oct. 2 through Nov. 1. Tickets at the box office are $17 to $20, except on Seven Buck Sunday Oct. 4 when all tickets are just $7.

Significant savings are available by buying online at www.burienlittletheatre.com. Shows are Fridays and Saturday nights at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., except there will be no performance Oct. 16.

As a special bonus, BLT will provide FREE readings on four Saturdays during the run. A full performance schedule is available at www.burienlittletheatre.com/page2.html.

The performances will be staged at the Burien Community Center, 425 S.W. 144th Street.

Highline Community College's StartZone is marking its first-year anniversary with a celebration from 5-7 p.m. Oct. 8 in the Highline Student Union (Building 8).

Since opening in October 2008, the program has helped more than 120 women, people of color, immigrants and people with disabilities who want to start or expand their small businesses in Southwest King County.

In addition, StartZone members have started 15 new businesses, created dozens of new jobs and obtained nearly $90,000 in financing.

The celebration, which is free and open to the public, will feature speakers who have found success after receiving support from StartZone's trained business specialists.

Featured speaker Adugna Wubbie, of SeaTac, originally came to StartZone with the hope of building a successful business and helping his family back in his home country of Ethiopia.

He started Rose Super Clean Services, a commercial janitorial service, and is now earning about $3,000 a month in revenue. By the end of his first year in operation, he hopes to generate at least $10,000 a month in revenue.

It's time to run for car seat safety!

The first ever Burien Brät 5K Race and Family Relay event on Sunday, Oct. 4 promises to bring out the "wúrst" in everyone while racers young and mature find two excellent events on one place followed by revelry and community fun at the finish line.

Racers will gather in Olde Burien on Sunday afternoon, lace up their shoes and take off on a level 5K route around Burien.

Serious "Brät" Runners or Walkers looking for a 3+-mile route can participate in a traditional 5K with a start and finish line at the Tin Room.

Families or kids (aka Little Links) can opt into the fabulously fun 5K Brat-ton Relay race where teams can divide into legs of roughly 1.5, 1 and .5 miles each.

Super sausages can even run in an official Brät Suit available through on-line registration. At the finish line, racers will be greeted by a 15-member Oompa Band, a beer garden, bräts, hot dogs, a root beer garden just for the kids, smoothie and fruit samples and even a Water Weenie Race that you may have to see to believe.