June 2012

By Pam Fernald

The 4th Laws and Paws class graduated 5 more students and their canine charges May 31, 2012 at Chinook Middle School in the City of SeaTac. This unique and popular after-school program for school students was spearheaded by Officer Karen Davy who is the School Resource Officer at Chinook.

Laws and Paws is a six-week, after school, dog training program funded by the Greater King County Police Activities League in partnership with the City of SeaTac Police Department, the King County Sheriff’s Office, Chinook Middle School and Homeward Pet Adoption Center. (Homeward Pet Adoption Center is a no-kill, non-profit animal shelter located in Woodinville. http://www.homewardpet.org/)

Let me tell you about 9811 17th SW where this colorful mural is taking shape. I used to own that building. It was my home away from home as the White Center News office for nearly 25 years...

When we bought the paper it was on Roxbury in a building which now houses a restaurant and the offices for the Velling
Family Dentistry.

The old building started out as a Chinese restaurant on 16th S.W. and 98th S.W. and which caught fire when the owner was using gasoline to clean the hood on the oven.

Bud Atwood and Oren Artlip owned the Ranch Market across street on 16th S.W. and bought the burned out hulk and then traded it to me for advertising . I had the damaged hulk dragged down to 17th S.W. where it became the White Center News after a lot of remodeling.
The sign was refurbished and placed on top.

The building next door which now houses Malo Auto Rebuild was the original White Center Feed Store, moved from quarters on 16th S.W.
For awhile, we had customers coming in the front door of our newspaper office trying to buy oats and hay. We offered them an annual subscription instead.

On our north side, our neighbor on the top floor was Dr. Roy Velling.

The 1,600 meter events were the right distances for high Highline school district finishes in state track and field action held May 24-26 at Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma.

Highline High School won the girls Class 3A 1,600-meter relay and Jordan McPhee of Mount Rainier took the girls 4A 1,600-meter run.

Breanna Brookbank, Whitney Diggs, Colleen Pacholski and Tracey Stolz combined to win the 1,600 relay for the Pirates in a time of 3 minutes, 15.17 seconds and McPhee posted a time of 5:01.27 in winning the 1,600-meter run.

McPhee also came through with a solid second in the 3,200-meter run with a time of 10:33.70 for the Rams of Des Moines.

Yen Hoang took first in the 3,200-meter wheelchair race in 12:53.35 for Foster in the 2A boys portion of the meet and came in second in the 1,600 wheelchair race in 5:56.93. Bulldogs wheelchair teammate Olivia Williams was third for the Foster girls with a time of 2:15.64 in the mixed 400-meter wheelchair race.

Update 2 for June 7
After a power outage on Sunday, June 3, shut down the Barton Pump Station pumping equipment, causing a wastewater overflow into Puget Sound, King County is reporting beaches closed during the week are now open.

Here are the details from the county:

County officials can remove beach closure signs warning people to avoid contact with the water near the Fauntleroy ferry terminal following Sunday’s sewage overflow from the Barton Pump Station in West Seattle.

Public Health Seattle & King County approved the reopening of the beaches late Thursday afternoon. Warning signs were posted at the Cove Beach Park boat launch and the public beach access at the intersection of Fauntleroy Way S.W. and S.W. Brace Point Drive.

Annie Kolb-Nelson with the KC Wastewater Treatment Division said they reported an overflow of 46,000 gallons of wastewater to the Department of Ecology, "although we believe a significant portion of the overflow was contained in the outfall pipe (due to a high tide at the time)."

Update 1 on June 4

Barton Pump Station overflow on June 3 due to power outage

by Georgie Bright Kunkel

With the sound of gunfire echoing throughout Seattle of late it was a relief to be heading out of town for a day of pleasant exploration. Yes, to return to Whidbey Island after selling our family getaway there some years ago was a kind of reawakening. My special friend and I planned to visit Meerkerk Rhododendron Gardens but first we drove through Freeland near Holmes Harbor and leisurely continued on the cross island highway with trees lining the path before us. Even though the rhododendrons in my West Seattle yard were in their last stages of bloom, here there were still dozens of tree sized rhodies, shaded by larger evergreens, that were spreading out in an array of color—red, pinks, violets, gold----and all as if no humans had ever disturbed them.

By Kyra-lin Hom

In honor of the Seattle International Film Festival I thought I'd add a little film spice to my column. See one of my bachelor degrees is in screenwriting, otherwise known as writing for film and television, but I've also worked on my fair share of film sets as a production designer, costume designer, wardrobe coordinator and make up artist. Most of the time this isn't all at once. Others... Well, it's a well known fact that the film crew never sleeps until after picture wrap (that being the end of principle photography).

So how does an independent film get made? Truth, there are a lot of different ways. Sometimes you start with a script. Other times you start with a concept and an interested financial backer. Last summer I dedicated (more like sacrificed) several months of my life for a truly minimal budget independent feature film. Since I was on that project near every step of the way and just recently got to see the rough first act, this seems like a good example to use.

Let me tell you about 9811 17th SW where a colorful mural has been painted recently. I used to own that building. It was my home away from home as the White Center News office for nearly 25 years...

When we bought the paper it was on Roxbury in a building which now houses a restaurant and the offices for the Velling Family Dentistry.

The old building started out as a Chinese restaurant on 16th S.W. and 98th S.W. and which caught fire when the owner was using gasoline to clean the hood on the oven.

Bud Atwood and Oren Artlip owned the Ranch Market across street on 16th S.W. and bought the   burned  out  hulk and  then traded  it to me for advertising . I had the damaged hulk dragged down to 17th S.W. where it became the White Center News after a lot of remodeling.

The sign was refurbished and placed on top.

The building next door which now houses Malo Auto Rebuild was the original White Center Feed Store, moved from quarters on 16th S.W.  

For  awhile,  we had customers coming in the front door of our newspaper office trying  to buy oats and hay. We offered them an annual subscription instead.

KENNEWICK - It was a family tradition revisited at the Class 4A state tennis championships held at Kamiakin High School and the Tri-City Court Club.

Last season, Mitchell and Jamie Thorp of John F. Kennedy Catholic High School flew out of the blue of the western sky to land with a Class 3A state doubles championship that completed the circle of a Thorp family tradition that was established before the brothers were born.

That was their first high school championship, but the second overall for their family because their mother, Maryann, won a singles title as a Kent-Meridian Royal in 1979 (then as Maryann Raftis).

Super satisfaction and feeling were part of the dream because their mother was the Lancer head coach.

This season the young men were the center of attention on the tennis radar as their head coach mom, brother, JFK assistant coach Bryan (who played for Kennedy Catholic before playing four years of varsity tennis for the University of Portland), brother Connor (who played doubles with Mitchell at the 2009 state tournament), his father Jim and grandma Dar looked on.

SEATTLE - Michael and Cong Nguyen led a trio of Evergreen High School (White Center) players with an eighth place finish at the 2012 Class 2A state tennis tournament held at the Nordstrom Center on the campus of the University of Washington on May 25-26.

High drama and lengthy court time characterized the hard working pair's trail.

Evergreen's boys tandem started with a May 25 match up against Reed Welch and E.J. Troutman of Bellingham. The Red Raider duo punched to a first set 6-3 win, inspiring the Wolverines to adjust and ramp up the intensity and reverse the trend in a 6-3 second set victory.

With a berth in the next round of winners play at stake in the third set, both squads dug in their heels and refused to surrender as the set reached 6-6 and tie-breaker status. Much like the intensity shown before the tie-break, Evergreen and Bellingham forced each other to the brink of defeat. In the end, Welch and Troutman (who finished third) finally eked out a 7-5 tie-breaker win to force Nguyen and Nguyen into contentious loser-out matches in order to achieve state placing.

A friend turned enemy