Relay for Life as worthy a cause as ever
March 24, 2009
Church group helps Burma refugees
March 24, 2009
Six members from the Snoqualmie Valley Alliance Church recently flew to Thailand on a humanitarian mission to help the people of Burma.
The tropical jungle region awed the Snoqualmie Valley residents. The area had few roads, but a maze of trails and mountains as far as the eye could see.
“It’s extremely rugged terrain,” George Tronsrue III of Carnation said.
Tronsrue visited Burma with his son, David, as well as church members Mark Peaslee, Dan Dron, Scott Usselman and Pastor Monty Wright.
Local gets to play for Sounders
March 24, 2009
Snoqualmie Middle School’s own Dean Snavely played for Seattle’s new soccer team, the Seattle Sounders March 19, when they won 3-0 against the New York Red Bulls.
Granted, Snavely was not dribbling on the field, but playing the tuba. The middle school music director auditioned for the Seattle Sounder’s FC Sound Wave Band over Valentine’s Day weekend and joined as one of the group’s 53 musicians.
Volunteers needed to fix Little Si trail
March 24, 2009
The raw elements of Mother Nature and determined hikers slam Little Si every winter.
Snow falls on the mountain and hikers pack it down on their way to the top. The packed snow turns to ice, making the trail hazardous.
“People don’t want to hike on ice, so they hike next to the trail,” said Mike Stenger, trails program manager for Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust.
When people walk above the trail, they damage the vegetation and loosen the soil, causing it to erode and narrow the trail. People hiking on the trail’s downside collapse the edge and also cause erosion.
AP biology students tour the University of Washington
March 24, 2009
In a small room lined with copper, Dr. Eric Chudler asked Mount Si High School students how many nerve cells were in the human brain.
A million? A billion? How about a trillion?
“Nope,” he answered cheerfully to each guess.
“One hundred billion?” tried senior Gillian Kenagy.
Chudler awarded her with a stress-ball brain keychain, which she immediately secured to her sweatshirt zipper. A human brain has more nerve cells than most animals — an octopus has 300 million and a honeybee only has 950,000.
Japanese students say konnichiwa
March 24, 2009
Mount Si High School welcomed a group of Japanese exchange students with a few ceremonial — and cheerleading — dances and an exchange of gifts at an assembly last week.
Students from Naga High School in Wakayama, Japan looked more amused, if anything, as two Mount Si teachers battled each other in sumo suits at the end of the assembly.
“It was cute,” Chiyuri Oguri said through a translator after the show.
Calendar 3-26
March 24, 2009
Events
Wildcats swing away against Islanders
March 24, 2009
It was the most runs Mount Si had scored since 2007, but the Wildcats made it look like just another day at the park.
Aggressive at both the plate and on the base paths, Mount Si posted its first league win of the season with a 9-3 shellacking of Mercer Island March 23 on the road. The Wildcats had eight hits in the game and led by five runs before the Islanders got on the board.
Mount Si, which improved to 2-2 overall with the win, failed to score more than six runs in any one game last season — a stat the Wildcats can now quit talking about.
“It was good. We’d been preaching to the kids about taking a better approach and being aggressive out there,” head coach Chaz Carr said, “and they did a nice job of putting the ball in play.”
Mount Si’s Frank Tassara throws a pitch toward home plate during the Wildcats’ beating of Mercer Island March 23.
Mount Si players make All-State football team
March 24, 2009
Mount Si seniors Alex Hiebert and Sean Snead were each recently selected to the West All-State roster for the All-State football game, scheduled to be played June 27 at Everett Memorial Stadium.
Snead rumbled his way to a school-record 1,664 yards rushing this season, leading all of KingCo 3A/2A. He also scored a school-record five rushing touchdowns in a playoff qualifier win against Peninsula.
Playing tight end, Hiebert was Mount Si’s leading receiver. He also was one of the Wildcats’ better defenders at linebacker, leading the league with 82 total tackles during the regular season, including five tackles for loss.
North Bend approves contract for tower
March 23, 2009
North Bend is one step closer to building a climbing tower in Torguson Park. The City Council approved a contract last week with Rockwerx of Barre, Mass., to build the tower for $150,000.
City staff reviewed seven proposals for the climbing tower, before selecting a contractor. Rockwerx was selected because of lower prices on incidental items such as the handgrips used for scaling the tower, Public Works Director Ron Garrow told the council.
Construction on the tower is expected to start in April with a completion date by the end of June, just in time for the city’s centennial celebrations. The tower is the community’s legacy project to mark the city’s 100-year anniversary of incorporation.
The contract with Rockwerx calls for the company to design the tower to look like the granite-faced cliffs of Mount Si.
