Meet Fran Reid

This versatile home-grown McMicken Heights grade-school girl, Mount Rainier High and U of W grad has been teaching piano and voice to music lovers since she was 15 years old.

An ardent supporter of the popular musical performers, the Hi-Liners, she can lay claim to having taught many of them and you can depend on seeing her at show time in the Highline Performing Arts Center beaming with pride.

Self-taught, she and her dad played a lot of music on Saturdays and a treat was going to Farmers Music in Burien and buying sheet music.

She now has over 10,000 pieces in her library, though not all came from Farmers.

Daughter of Frank and Frances Schenk, she was a fine student, especially in history and music.

She sang in the choir and played piano for bandleader Bill Bender.

Later she became involved in music at Chinook Middle School under the direction of Wally Rants, Eileen Langley and Ken Copeland.

At Mt Rainier, she played in band and sang in the choir under her greatest mentors, Gerald Bayne and Norma Bowyer, her piano teacher.

Her mom started her out at age five, practicing every day for a year till she was allowed to sign up with professional instructor Helen Parmalee, Her high school music education prepared her for further education at the U of Washington. She kept taking private music lessons all through college and added voice lessons in her senior year.

A busy, busy gal, teaching daily, she also participates in music programs at Glendale Lutheran Church where she has been a member since 1983

Meet Michele Frazier

She is holding Peaches, a Yorker - mini Chihuahua.

Peaches, 2 years old, was given to her by a girlfriend the day she learned that her 17-year-old son Chris was killed.

Michele lives in Burien, but her son was living with his dad in Kitsap County.

On Oct. 20, 2002, Chris was attempting to parasail by being pulled while towed behind a truck driven by his Dad. When the sail fell from about 300 feet, the boy crashed at the bottom of a cliff.

"He died at Harborview after suffering massive head injuries," said Michele.

Chris attended Cedarhurst Elementary School.